Note: This is the first of a two-part series. Click here for part two Dear Neil: I’m 54, and have had to face aloneness, fear and memories of childhood rape and emotional abuse. How do I become self-loving? Trying to Heal in Wellington, New Zealand Dear Trying: You don’t have control over how you grew up, […]
Love Requires Heart and Vulnerability
Dear Neil: I’m wondering why I cannot trust my heart. Ever since marrying my husband four years ago, I have known something was wrong. After a year of searching, I have finally figured out that I married him based on “cognitive” things that I thought would make a good marriage. The problem is that I’ve […]
Personal Power Doesn’t Require Anger
Dear Neil: Thanks for your recent column on anger. What’s been fascinating for me is to realize how ill-equipped I am to having any reaction other than anger or feeling like a doormat. Learning to rein in anger is freeing, but if people who have relied on anger for power don’t have any other readily […]
When You’re Smitten
When was the last time you felt smitten? People who are smitten live in a different world than everyone else. The normal world includes highs and lows, work, fun, joy, chores, bills, worries—in fact, all the pleasures, pains and responsibilities of real life. Not so when you’re smitten. These words come to mind in describing […]
Wooing
Ah, springtime. The time when nature wakes up again. Birds migrate back to the north. Plants burst out of the ground with a profusion of green everywhere. Flowers bloom. Fish spawn. Animals breed. All of nature comes alive. Including us. And the way many of us express that aliveness, stimulated by springtime, is through urges […]
Expressing Love and Appreciation to Your Valentine
When was the last time you told your Valentine how valued s/he was? How special? What you appreciate and how much you appreciate him or her? In honor of Valentine’s Day, here is an exercise if you’d like to correct that oversight—and infuse your relationship with renewed appreciation and gratitude. Select from the following list […]
Valentine Lessons in Being the Best You Can Be
Following is a list of Valentine suggestions for how to be the very best partner, spouse, lover and/or mate you can be. Don’t use lame excuses to avoid doing your very best in your intimate relationship, such as “I don’t have the time or the energy.” If your mate doesn’t rank up there with your […]
Traits of Happy Couples
Creating The Best Relationship You Can What can you do to create the best relationship possible? A close, intimate, happy, heartful, soulful, romantic, connected, affectionate and passionate relationship? I am talking about creating—not simply having—the best relationship possible, because while falling in love just happens, staying in love never happens by itself. We begin our […]
Outrageously Romantic Ideas to Keep Your Relationship Sizzling
What does sizzling romance consist of? Romance is about attempting to connect and stay connected to someone else. If you are a true romantic, you define yourself as a “lover” regardless of other roles; you’re in touch with your feelings; you pursue new and different experiences and you make your intimate relationship a top priority […]
Being Thankful for What Your Relationship Offers You
It’s Thanksgiving again. Time to take notice of things we are truly grateful for. But while it is easy to be grateful in the abstract—for sun and rain and good food—often the place where it is the most difficult to practice is in our most intimate relationships. So many of us are (rightfully) grateful to […]