How to Wait Until You Meet THE ONE

So, all your friends are married and you're thinking, OMG, they are so lucky! 

You’re lucky, too because you still have time to play. Yet, it could be that you don't want to play. Maybe, you’re older; you’re thinking it’s never going to happen for me.  All the good men are gone. 

Bullocks! That’s not true at all. You just haven’t found any good men OR you keep choosing the same wrong men.

If your goal is to find the right one or ones (plural, for those that aren’t into monogamy), what are you doing about it?  

Belief affects what you think is possible. 

If you're regularly complaining that all the good men are gay, married, or emotionally unavailable, then that's what you're going to get.

It’s about attitude.   You can start with 'Hey, I am chill, I am chill because I got this. I am good just like I am. I look good. I smell good. Mmm, I even taste good.

Take this as an opportunity to get married to YOURSELF.

Make yourself THE ONE.

Take a sabbatical from job of finding THE ONE.  Gee, you might even find THE ONE when you stop looking for THE ONE.

Here is a template.  (This works best if you actually DO it versus using it as a mental exercise.)

• When are you going to have the ceremony?
• Where will it be held?
• Who will be there?  (It might be too weird to invite people to a Me-to-Me wedding, but you can have an after party. No one needs to know why you are having it.)
• What kind of ring are you going to wear?
• What are the vows going to be?
• What do you want to celebrate about you?

The most important question is...
What are your goals for your relationship and how will you achieve them?

This idea might seem bizarre, but so was the airplane, telephone, the Internet and the iPod.

If it works for you, who cares?  

See Tracy McMillian’s TEDx talk, “The Person You Really Need To Marry.”

Are You a Good Mother Even If Your Child Isn’t Successful?

Previously posted on BlogHer.com

Women worry if they work and worry if they don’t.  At the end of the day, you want to be able to say you are a good mom. It’s easy to say if your child is successful, but what if they aren’t. 

Good mothering doesn’t guarantee success.  There are proven parenting methods, but it's still an art form.  You’re a sculptor.  Your child is the medium, but you aren’t the only one chipping away at the marble.  

Your responsibility is to do your best with what you know and who you are.

It's true that when your child is ready to go out into the world, their success or lack thereof will be attributed to how they were raised. 

Hopefully, your child will be successful.  Yet, it's important to separate their success from your assessment of your efforts.  

The good mom has given her time, love and resources.  The good mom has provided guidance, comfort, space for independence, and a hearty kick in the pants.  The good mom will love their kid even if they aren’t successful.

No matter what, it's still your day.  Happy Mother’s Day!

The Hazards of Being Nice

People pleasing will either kill you or make you wish you were dead.  It creeps up on you quick because we are taught early to be kind and helpful to our fellow man.  Parents taught us to share our toys with other children  for the obvious reasons.  

My upbringing was no different, but somewhere along the way I crossed the line, confusing kindness with codependency.  Codependency is a coping mechanism for the “I am not enough” syndrome.  Do you know anyone goes out of their way to do stuff for people even when those same people are perfectly capable of doing stuff for themselves?

Can Love and Desire Live in the Same Room?

Mating in Captivity is a hot, hot book!  I had to fan myself a couple of times while reading it.  Not because there were any explicit sex scenes but because her ideas were so fresh and daring.  It gave me chills, I tell you!

I stumbled onto Esther Perel during a YouTube TED Talk binge.  After listening to her lecture for California Southern University,  I had to know more.  Thank God for libraries!

It is almost a given that sexual desire will decrease the longer a couple is together, even in warm and loving relationships. Research attributes this the effect of repeated exposure.  What if it weren’t that simple?  What if there were another dynamic at play? What if love and passion were, for some couples, inversely proportional?