Valentine’s Day

To my Valentine, my husband, my partner in crime. I love you!

(I know this is a bit long for a blog post, but if you are married, or have been,  you just might enjoy the ride )

Valentine’s Day

I placed a hesitant hand on the smooth metal door handle of the Hallmark store and pulled it open to the sound of tinkling bells. Ruby hearts hanging from the door jamb brushed the top of my head as I stepped inside and headed for the Valentine section, an explosion of pinks and reds.  Crowded with last minute lovers like myself, we had to jockey for position as we searched for the perfect card.  Studying people’s expressions with secretive sideways glances, I longed to hear the running commentary inside their heads.

I have always been a last minute Valentine shopper because I dread it.  I can only bring myself to buy something simple that says “I love you’.  All of the other cards in the store are stupid.  With every card I read, I have to add one more sarcastic sentence in my mind.  Or at the very least, a clarifier. I can’t leave it alone.  It’s very stressful.

After a quarter of a century of marriage few of them ring true.  Can we all please admit that many of these sentiments are, at the very least, stretching the imagination? I have long considered designing a line of Valentine cards that are grouped according to the number of years you have been married.

I long for little ditties like this:

Loving each other has been a long, hard road, but I still think you are cute.

Or:

Can’t wait to celebrate our love at Donovan’s Steak house because we got a $150.00 coupon from your client.

Or:

Let’s stay up past 9:00 PM and make out for eight minutes straight.

Love is damn tricky.  An enigma.  So much has been written about it that I dare not add to the rubble.  But if I had to, if Cupid put a gun to my head, I wouldn’t waste time composing an essay as it would never capture the layers, the nuances. I would take a thousand noble words and nestle them in pairs with their less than noble opposites. Then I would shake them in my cupped hands like dice and toss the whole collection off of Juliet’s balcony and watch them scatter and bounce on the cobblestone streets of Verona until they landed in a mish-mash mural of the language of love. Maybe I would even take a photo of it and sell it to Hallmark for next year’s selection.

“Excuse me,” I said to a young woman with a sparkly diamond ring. She smelled of lavender and caressed a card like it held the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.  “Just reaching for this one.” I grabbed one depicting a romantic table set for two. It unearthed a memory.

My husband and I became engaged at Papa Pirozki’s in Atlanta on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.  Who chooses to propose to his bride in a Russian restaurant on December 7^th?  Looking back, I think he had a subconscious yearning to personalize the Cold War, to plant it as a seed in our relationship.  Though the rest of the world was evolving beyond such ideology, it was apparent that he was some sort of fan.

I hadn’t expected it to be a night unlike all other nights as we were rekindling a relationship that had been on a long hiatus. Neither of us expected the marriage proposal to play out the way it did.  But maybe that was a good thing.  Perhaps it’s the couples who do everything according to the Prince and Princess Handbook who don’t survive when the magic wears thin.  In retrospect, I think it was better to start this union with our gloves on, in a boxer’s stance. One needs to understand strategy and battle maneuvers. It is vital to appreciate humor and build camaraderie in the unexpected foxhole. These are the necessary skills that keep a marriage alive.  Flowers and chocolate are useless.

I remember sitting alone enjoying the candlelight and crystal that adorned our table for two as I held a thumb-sized glass of fruited vodka, icy and thick with raspberries. I loved the way the color matched my fingernails, the stark contrast of them against the white linens reminded me of the raspberry and cream popsicles I ate as a child. Feeling relaxed and elegant I took tiny sips as I gazed around, nodding to other couples nearby who were beginning to notice that my date had disappeared.  I wondered what was taking him so long as he had excused himself to go chat up the chef, whom he said was an acquaintance.

A black door to the kitchen swung open and Tim burst back into the room, all smiles.  At 6’8” he wasn’t known for quiet entrances.

“Ivan’s going to send out a few freebies.  Said he’d take care of us.” Tim plopped into his chair and smoothed his blonde hair into place.  He downed his fruity vodka like it was Kool-aide and motioned for the waiter to bring us another round of drinks.

“Great,” I said picturing all sorts of exotic Russian delights appearing on plates that were once served to the Romanovs.  “So how do you know this guy?”

“Met him at a radio event.  He’s from uhm,” Tim snapped his long fingers as he recalled the information, “Moscow.  Yea, that’s it.  Moscow.”

“What was the event?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“So what’s with all the questions?”

“It was only one question. Why are you getting agitated?”

“I’m not agitated.” He picked up the second fruity vodka and downed it. “Would you finish your first drink already?”

“Fine.”  I threw it back like a pro.  Then I picked up the second one and saluted him.  “Let’s just relax and enjoy this. We only have two days before I fly back. I missed you.”  He took a deep breath and exhaled through flared nostrils.  I put my hand over his drumming fingers.  Something was up. “Are you okay?” I asked.

A young waiter with Ricky Riccardo hair swooped over, handed us menus and then gave a run-down of the night’s specials.  We each chose an entrée and Tim asked for another round of drinks.

“Tim. Maybe we should slow down on the drinks.”

“No.”

“Fine.”  What was wrong with him ?  It seemed as if he had left his usual joking demeanor in the kitchen with Ivan. I threw back my second drink in one gulp and choked daintily into my napkin.  We could take a cab home.

“So how are things at the airline?” Tim asked as he took a piece of bread from a silver bowl.  Thrilled to have some normal conversation, I started into an elaborate story about a new dad who tried to change his baby’s diaper on a fold down, jump seat. As I got to the part where the dad laid the baby on her back while he held the jump seat down with his knee, Ricky Riccardo came back and placed a small salad in front of me.

“Zees is from Ivan,” he announced as he stood back from the table.

I nodded to him and smiled.  “Thank you.”

“No problem.”  He beamed as he retreated to the water station.

It was ugliest, driest looking salad I had ever seen so I pushed it to the side as I continued my story.  Tim stared at the salad and then back at me.  “That’s your salad,” he said.

“There’s no dressing. And what is this stuff?  It’s not even lettuce.  It’s cabbage or who knows what?”

“Have some salad.”  His voice held an edge.

“I don’t want the salad.”  I calmly stated, the words evenly spaced and heavy on my tongue.

“Eat the salad,” he whispered through clenched teeth. Beads of sweat were forming on his brow. I gave him my most powerful defiant stare.

“Eat – the – damned – salad.”

“Fine.” I pulled the salad over and started to pick at it with my fork suddenly feeling other people’s eyes upon me.  I looked around and noticed them, whispering in hushed tones.

“What is up with you?” I could barely conceal by growing rage. “I thought we were going to have fun.”  Blood was pumping through my veins, banging in my ears.  I took a bite of one of the bitter greens and held up my fork as I chewed it. “This is disgusting. I thought Ivan was your friend.”

Then I saw it.  A velvet box of midnight blue half hidden under shreds of carrot and radicchio.  Panic gripped me like a giant hand and squeezed tight. No, no, no.  I did not want this to happen here. This was not what I had choreographed in my ten-year-old heart as I picked at my chenille bedspread on sleepless nights.  I could see our waiter going from table to table alerting the others to our impending moment.

“Honey,”   Tim leaned on his elbows and bore into me with blinking eyes, “Stop blinking your eyes like that. Take the box out of the salad.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Open the box, Susan.”

“People are staring.”  I attempted another defiant stare but it was difficult to pull off with tears plopping onto the table.

“Open – the – damn – box.”

Though I don’t remember willing them to do so, my shaking fingers pushed away the vegetables and picked up the small velvet cube.  All eyes in the restaurant were on us.  I opened the box and a diamond solitaire caught the candlelight.  I looked up at Tim and stared as his lips moved without sound.  I glanced at the staring eyes to the left and then I glanced at the staring eyes to the right, distorted faces like funhouse mirrors.

“Well?” Tim asked with a face so vulnerable and earnest that I suddenly couldn’t imagine a life without him. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

The room ruptured into cheers as Tim handed me a third vodka and held up his.  And we burst into laughter, toasted each other and cheered along with them.

The whole experience did not play out the way either of us had imagined.  It was not the traditional down on one knee sort of proposal on the beach at sunset, nor was the ring magically unveiled on a covered silver dish as he had hoped.  It was clumsy, unexpected, and filled with nervous emotion on both sides. It was real and heartfelt and awkwardly expressed the way marriage often looks on a daily basis. In retrospect it was the perfect engagement.

“Must be a funny card,” Ms. I Smell Like Lavender commented as I giggled to myself.

“Just brought back some memories,” I sighed as I put the card back in its place, “But it’s not the one I’m going to buy.”

“I think I’m going to get this one,” she confided as she held up a photo of a sunrise on which was printed ‘Every sunrise means another day of loving you’.

I forced myself not to add a sardonic comment and ruin her choice.

She opened the card and pointed to a wall of poetry five inches long. “This poem says it all for me.”

“How many years?”

“One.  Well almost,” she said with a shy smile.  “You?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Wow.  So, what’s the secret?  What have you learned?”

I plucked a simple white card with a simple red heart and opened it for her to see. “This is the card I get for him every year.  Because after awhile, you learn that these are the only three words that matter.”

Wabi Sabi Love

Wabi Sabi

In 1987 my husband, Tim, and I won a trip for two to Japan. It was our first real adventure together, two young kids, just married, off to see the other side of the world. West meeting East on an unexpected first date.

We landed in Tokyo, bought two tickets for the Bullet Train and raced at top speed into the past, discovering an ancient culture that spoke deeply to the places within me that my Western soul had yet to discover.

Now, years later, when I lie awake on sleepless nights, I sometimes travel back there in my mind remembering the moments and characters that illuminated that adventure: an elderly man in a sedge hat, his back bent with the weight of time sweeping the already clean path to a temple in Kyoto; a cab driver with white gloves driving us up a steep hill to an address we pointed to in a travel book; the sand dunes piled high against the Sea of Japan; millions of peace prayers written on tiny origami cranes strung together in strips along the narrow streets of Hiroshima like giant paper Man o’ War floating to heaven.

One night, as Tim and I sat in a tiny bar in some tiny village, we struck up a conversation with a khaki clad man on the stool beside us. His English was impeccable and he turned out to be Jordan’s ambassador to Japan. I don’t remember his face but I remember the conversation. He spoke to us for hours, revealing the beauty and culture of the Japanese, comparing and contrasting Eastern and Western philosophy. It was a brilliant evening in a brilliant setting. One of those points in time that I look back upon and realize that it wasn’t chance. It was a moment of grace. A moment of revelation. A seed.

One of the philosophies of which he spoke was Wabi Sabi.  The name made us giggle, or perhaps that was the sake we drank from tiny cups, but I took in its wisdom and chewed on its power. Though more complicated than I can explain, Wabi Sabi is the art of finding beauty in imperfection. It is an aesthetic ideal that results in an inner serenity and acceptance. It can be life changing. How interesting that twenty years later I would be invited to share our love story in Arielle Ford’s newest book, Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect Relationships.

Arielle Ford, a pioneer and leading figure in the personal growth and contemporary spirituality movement and the bestselling author of The Soulmate Secret has written a powerful and hopeful book. She believes that with a simple Wabi Sabi shift in perception, couples can discover the beauty and perfection in themselves and their partners leading to a deeper, more loving and fulfilling relationship.

As Deepak Chopra deems “Wabi Sabi Love weds ancient wisdom and modern concerns to create the formula for a sustainable, loving relationship for years to come.”

Sometimes, a shift of the lens through which we view our relationships and our circumstances can alter our relationships in unimaginable ways.  My husband of twenty-six years and I can attest to that!  Don’t miss this path to deeper love~

Advent and the Nature of Hope

 

I love Advent. I love everything about this time of grace.  It is a thought-provoking, layered season when a family remembers that it is holy, or at the very least, wants to be.

The night of Christ’s birth holds every possible intrigue.  It is a storyteller’s delight. Year after year we tell and retell these themes of journeying, wonder, mystery and promise. We look into the bright eyes of our children, snuggled in new pajamas around the hearth, and whisper of cold mangers, wise shepherds, angels and silent midnights that hold only peace.

As an adult I have grown to treasure Advent’s grand reminder of  the nature of HOPE. That God does unimaginable work with unlikely beginnings and difficult situations. His elaborate plan of salvation began with the creation of a family in precarious circumstances. A frightened young, pregnant girl with an entire village looking at her askance, an older husband who is not so sure about the whole thing (certainly not used to having angels tell him what to do while he is busy dreaming), and a birthplace that was far from home and extraordinarily unsanitary.

I sometime imagine a chummy angel leaning over to Mary during one of her 3:00 AM feedings and whispering in her ear things like “…just a reminder that this IS the Son of God, don’t make any parenting mistakes as the salvation of the entire world is at stake (no pressure or anything). Oh, and the family business?  He won’t be taking that over.  Your baby will become the greatest revolutionary of all times so don’t be surprised when the empire turns against you after you are forced to watch your sweet boy die the death of a common criminal.”

The holiest of families didn’t have it easy. Not by a long shot. So why is it that we think we should?  Their hardships remind me that God does not live on Easy Street.  That is not where we will witness His great power.  Rather, He lives on Damn This Is Hard Avenue.  Difficulties push us from our safe havens to seek answers.  Pain calls us to wander down that unexplored, often scary, side of town knocking on doors we never would have chosen.  How surprised we are when we find Him in the unlikeliest of places.

He is tricky like that. A king disguised as a baby leads me to open myself to the thought that other miraculous contradictions await if we slow down to consider the nature of HOPE.  If we embrace the notion that God offers possibility when there is no evidence present. To see that sometimes beginnings are disguised as endings.

Advent reminds me to choose Hope as a way of life. To pull my family close and recognize our sanctity in good times and in bad times.  That God uses our joys to strengthen our love, and He uses our sorrows as teachable moments that draw us close to Him and to each other.

The life of a holy family is not always an easy one, but it is the Christmas Story, the one so many of us seek. May God bless us all as we tackle the challenges inherent to family life in this season and every season. As a mother with children off to college and life beyond, I look forward to December 24th, when, God willing, we will  sit as a family, perhaps visited by friends and sung to by angels, on a midnight that holds only peace.

The Commonwealth Club

Please enjoy this recent presentation at The Commonwealth Club of California.  Thank you to Laura Fraser for moderating~

Susan Pohlman at the Commonwealth Club of California

Be Inspired!

I was honored to be interviewed by the inspiring Erica Jefferson of  Be Inspired!   It is my pleasure to share this podcast.

Thank you, Erica~

 

Interview with Erica Jefferson

A Peaceful Heart and a Happy Home

What does the pursuit of happiness look like in your house? In our home, it used to mean the quest to actualize the picture perfect life; a lovely home, big careers, high achieving children. However, our search for the American Dream was quietly laid to rest once we figured out that the stress  that came along with that dream did nothing but drive a big, fat exhausted wedge between the four of us.  Our wildest dream is now about owning less and simplifying even more.

This month, take a step back and see how much of marital and family strain might be fueled by cultural norms that you may never have given yourself permission to question. The abundance available to us in our communities and our constant search for happiness and a sense of accomplishment outside of ourselves begins, at some point, to work against relationships. Begins, at some point, to erode the sense of intimacy that keeps families close.  A lifestyle anchored in achievement does not necessarily equate to happiness.

Years ago, my brother Joe, then employed in development for George Washington University, called me one day and invited me to be his guest at a dinner party at Arianna Huffington’s house in Los Angeles.  Not one to ever pass up an interesting party, I met him there and proceeded to endure a most humbling evening.  Sharing space with the likes of Gloria Allred and many big wigs of the Democratic party, I was clearly out of my league. When people around me made small talk and told uproarious jokes about issues and people I had never heard of, well, let’s just say I felt like a kindergartener at the eighth grade lunch table.

I always remember that evening, feeling like I was less.  Like I would never live in an elegant home like Mrs. Huffington’s or be the type of person that would understand jokes about the inner workings of Washington, D.C.  I left that night promising myself to work harder, read more news magazines, watch more serious TV and avail myself to more intellectual discussions. I promised myself to find a way to have more.  More, more, more…faster, faster, faster to make sure I didn’t feel less.

In October 2009,  I saw that Mrs. Huffington had chosen, as her first book club pick, In Praise of Slowness, by Carl Honore, a book about less, less, less…slower, slower, slower to make us feel more.  Life has its ironies.

I agree with Carl Honore. In his book he discusses the current trend toward deceleration saying that “The problem is that our hunger for speed, for cramming more and more into less time, has gone too far.”  That “the current recession is a stark reminder that an economy based on fast growth, fast consumption, and fast profits is not sustainable.”

The pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction.  Not only can our economy not withstand such a pace, neither can our families.  Divorce rates remain around 50%.  I wonder how that might change, how children’s lives might remain innocent and intact, if families were given cultural permission to slow down and own less.  The greatest indicator of success is a happy family, not a beautiful home as glossy magazines and TV shows might suggest.

Our experience of selling all and living abroad for a year to reconnect as a family supports Honore’s theory.  It was a sacred time of owning nothing but possessing everything. Simplification has helped us maintain a level of sanity and intimacy that supports rather than strains our family. Perhaps the American Dream, as we know it, has run its course. Perhaps it is time for a new one. A slower, less materialistic one.

Taking things out of your life will help you and your spouse find more time for each other. So much of what we choose to fill our days can be argued as good, but too much of a good thing is still too much.  If you are seeking real change in the quality of your marriage, you must find a way to create the emotional space to interact in meaningful ways.

I challenge you, this month, to think outside our cultural box and create your own recipe for happiness according to what works best for you and your spouse.  My wildest dream is a peaceful heart and happy home, the very same two things that I wish for you!

Marriage and Infertility

A few months ago, Dena Patton, the founder of Chat, Chew, and Chocolate, an international women’s organization, asked me if I would be interested in becoming one of the “Lifestyle Experts” for their website. Who wouldn’t be flattered by that?

The only catch was that she offered me the Weathering Marriage in Rough Times category. By accepting I would agree to write an article each month about how to navigate marital and long term relationships.  I mulled this over for a bit as I felt a little awkward.  Anyone who has read Halfway to Each Other knows that neither my husband nor I were especially good at it. We actually had to move to another country just to iron ourselves out and get our act together!  Though I learned much during our year abroad and am happy to share the things that helped us revive our marriage, I could never don the badge of  Expert. (Italian wine drinker and pasta eater expert? Maybe.)

Then it occurred to me that I don’t really believe in experts when it comes to marriage.  I have yet to meet one couple that dances through it kicking up their heels in unified delight.  Every couple is unique and no two personalities collide in exactly the same way.  Who am I to tell another couple how to change their steps?

Oh, I respect the many doctors and therapists out there who have studied human behavior in all of its intricacies, and who are able to educate us with regards to communication and conflict resolution skills and other avenues to happiness.  We need you more than ever.  But I also respect the great power of sharing life’s journeys with each other.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons I am so drawn to memoir. We all have hard earned wisdom to share.

Life stories amaze me.  The love, courage and ingenuity revealed in the face of hardship or inexplicable evil inspire me to be more loving and courageous in my own life.  The soul bearing grief or revelation of deep sadness or regret in a person’s tale often buries itself in my own soul reminding me to behave more empathetically and put myself second when others are hurting. Witnessing selflessness or simple, and not so simple, acts of forgiveness broadens my heart and dares me to act in the same manner toward those I love.

I am not trained as a therapist or counselor so I could not, in good faith, write an instruction manual for how to weather tough times in marriage, but I can create an arena that invites those who have successfully traveled difficult paths in their own relationships to share what they have lived and learned so that we may draw on these lessons when we are experiencing times of emotional drought.

Please join me at Chat, Chew, and Chocolate at the beginning of each month to sit around a virtual kitchen table with one of our peers as she/he tells the story of a time in his/her marriage that was particularly difficult and how they were able to work through it.  No pressure here to be perfect or an expert at anything, just a fellow traveler on this often complicated journey of marriage.

Feel free to comment via this blog as the CCC website is not equipped for commenting.

This month’s guest is Stephanie Baffone. Stephanie, or Aunt Steph as she is known to many who read her advice column in Delaware’s  The Community News,  is a licensed, board certified mental health therapist. I love her blog and am happy to have her back to share her very personal essay about dealing with infertility in marriage.

*******

 National Infertility Awareness Week is April 24-April 30 and Susan was gracious enough to extend an invitation to me to guest post on how couples affected by infertility can keep their marriages strong in the face of the emotional turmoil.  Thank you, Susan for the opportunity to share tips for couples on how to stare down the beast of infertility without allowing their marriages to become a victim of it. This post originally appeared in LifeGems4Marriage.com last year but it’s so valuable, it’s making another round this year.

How to Keep a Marriage Strong in the Face of Infertility

“You guys are both identical twins?! Wow! How many children do you guys have?” Expecting a staggering number, my husband’s and my response forlornly, has remained the same for 19 years.

“None.”

We anticipated categorically, our foray into parenthood would be a breeze. Not only are we both identical twins, we hail from Irish, Italian, Catholic prolific families.  My husband is one of ten and I am one of five, my mother having had two sets of twins.  Yet our pursuit to hear our own children call us “Mommy” and “Daddy” was more tornado like.  We didn’t see infertility coming and the emotional carnage it left in its wake was catastrophic.

To read the rest of Stephanie’s essay click HERE.

A Voice of Compassion

 

Karly Randolph Pitman

The power of the internet to open doors and connect souls continues to amaze me.  A few months ago, I exchanged blog comments with Karly Randolph Pitman.  Little did I know at the time that she would come to inspire me with her wisdom and willingness to share her journey with others.

Karly speaks openly about her struggles with food addiction and how that has impacted the relationships in her life. She is the creator of Growing Human(kind)ness, a therapeutic approach to heal food suffering, and is, also, the founder of First Ourselves, www.firstourselves.org, a community site for women healing from eating disorders.

I invited her to be my guest for a marriage column I put together for Chat, Chew, and Chocolate each month. Addictions of all sorts are common issues in marriage so I will be revisiting the topic from time to time with the hopes of encouraging readers to seek help if they find themselves in situations that are beyond their capabilities.

Here is what Karly had to share about food addiction. I know you will appreciate her as much as I do!

“For most of my life, I’ve been addicted. While my chosen addiction is food, something that’s more socially acceptable than other addictions, it can feel harder than drugs or alcohol to kick. I have to eat to live. Lucky me:  I get to sit in the hot seat with my compulsion, at least three times a day. My tendency to eat 3,000 calories of food in a sitting also diametrically opposes one of my other, more subtle addictions, looking perfectly together.

Both lead to a pit of shame, despair, and self loathing. Both keep me from living with a clear, open heart – both with myself and with my loved ones. This is particularly true with my husband.

You could argue that I really, really love food, but what I most love is safety. A guarantee that I won’t have to hurt, that I’ve found a magic inoculation against pain. I consistently brace myself against pain – with food, with control (of myself and others), with blame, with judgment, with anxiety itself.

When I’m caught in this space, I tend to pull away from the very things that help me heal – such as my husband’s love. I simply feel too vulnerable, trapped in the ugliness of my deepest hurt. And since I don’t find safety in my relationships, or with myself – I’m too full of self blame to rest in my own sanctuary – I seek safety in food.

Of course, this only keeps the addiction going. Fortunately, the converse is also true.  When we drop the blame, and rest in presence, either our own or another’s, we can stop the cycle.

As I see it, addiction is never about the food, alcohol, or drug. It’s not the behavior itself that feeds it, but the deep, unmet needs that fester underground. So healing an addiction often means a close examination of these needs and our relationships, as our relationships tend to “prick” us and bring those unmet needs up to the surface…”

To read the rest of the article click HERE!

You can reach Karly at www.karlyrandolphpitman.com

 

Path to a Peaceful Heart: Part 4

 

Where Peacefulness Resides

Simplicity is one of the keys to peaceful living. Clearing emotional and material clutter from your life opens the emotional and physical space needed to think and communicate effectively with loved ones.  It creates time in your day to pursue the activites that feed your soul or to simply rest.  It will change your life in dramatic and subtle ways.

I know that this is not some grand new revelation. Some of you are probably thinking “blah, blah, blah…heard it all before”. But please hear this next sentence, because this is the part that matters.

If you want to feel its power, you actually have to do it!

It is one thing to understand, intellectually, the concept of simplifying. It is altogether different to experience it on a visceral level.  When we moved overseas, we brought only clothing, photographs of loved ones and a few games.  That was it.  The apartment we rented was sparsely furnished.  Other than buying fresh flowers from time to time, we did nothing to decorate.  We had all we needed and nothing more.

The liberating effect of this simple living was intoxicating beyond words.  I didn’t expect it to affect me the way it did.  All of the following minutia that used to eat up my precious minutes were gone: cleaning, dusting, fixing, decorating, shoping, yardwork etc.  Life, for us, pushed outwards.  We spent our time exploring the world, trying new foods, meeting interesting people and laughing together.  We stopped taking care of things and began taking care of each other.

Perhaps we become restless as we reach mid-life because all of those material goods we have strived to own, begin to own us. There is a point where our abundance begins to work, silently and secretly,  against us and we don’t even notice until we are lonely and unhappy and have no idea why.

Simplifying can be a process that you begin today.  Try it a little at a time and introduce your soul to freedom in small ways.  Clean out your closets, kitchen drawers, cabinets to start.  Stop buying new things that you don’t really need. As your home becomes visibly more sparse, notice the emotional energy it frees within.

Then begin to simplify emotionally. Stop spending energy with toxic friends, take a long walk at sunset without your cell phone, listen to yourself, take a deep breath, be present in the moment, pray.  Less of the material equals more of the spiritual, and that, my friends, is where peacefulness resides.

Navigating Crisis in Marriage

Lee Woodruff

I had the pleasure of meeting Lee Woodruff in Phoenix a few months ago when she came to town to speak at the Arizona Author Series. A strong, inspirational woman, she shared pieces of her life, how she and her critically wounded husband, ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, navigated crisis in their marriage.

She left the audience with much to consider that night. Her example of patient love in tough times illuminated marriage as the fragile, often challenging institution that it is.  But also, as the one source of strength and true meaning that centers a family.

Most marriages have their bumps in the road.  During times of disillusionment, it is important to frame our thinking properly in order to make the best decisions for the long term. Read more about this in Goodhousekeeping.com or in her book Perfectly Imperfect.