About

Jan Denise, author, speaker, relationships & self-worth consultant

Jan Denise

JAN DENISE is the author of Innately Good: Dispelling the Myth that You’re Not (Health Communications). She is also known for her previous book, Naked Relationships: Sharing Your Authentic Self to Find the Partner of Your Dreams (Hampton Roads), which examined the science of human relationships.

Denise penned the popular syndicated newspaper column “Naked Relationships” for 10 years, which was distributed throughout the US and Canada by Creators Syndicate. In it, she tackled topics ranging from sex, dating, and love, to self-esteem and personal empowerment, to emotional eating and body image. The underlying message each week was that all of your relationships reflect your relationship with self. She teaches people to know, love, and align with their authentic self. She has also written regular monthly columns for a seniors’ publication and a lifestyle magazine.

Denise is a sought-after public speaker who has conducted relationship workshops, and taught professional and personal empowerment seminars across the country for business, charity, and wellness groups. She teaches workshops in such venues as New York’s Omega Institute and Unity churches nationwide. She also consults with individuals and couples in her private practice. She has served on panels and boards, been awed by fans at book-signings, and drawn international retreaters.

A media veteran, Denise has been interviewed frequently on radio, including NPR, and television, and has been quoted and featured widely in newspapers and magazines across the US. She delivers scholarly substance with good humor from a heart that’s been there.

Denise lives the reality of her own teachings with her husband in Anthony, Florida. Prior to marrying in 2006, she served as a human resources administrator, a sales manager for a communications corporation, a business owner, and a single writer living on the beach. She thought she could be happy without a partner. She was! But she finds that to practice familiar lessons in a committed relationship is to get them on a deeper level and know deeper joy. It is the fairytale she always believed in, only better. She is now ready, with the whole-hearted support of her husband, to do what everything to date has prepared her for.

You can email Jan at JanDenise@JanDenise.com.

Her’s no stranger …

While his mom and dad saw the eye doctor, he colored pictures and helped Tweety Bird through a maze. And when he found a tic-tac-toe page, he asked me, “Do you want to play tic-tac-toe with me?”

“Her’s not a stranger, her’s a nice lady,” he told his parents.

That was my high praise for the day! It is my high praise — and yours, too, I suspect — for any day. It is also our ticket to peace and prosperity, as individuals and as a society.

“Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth,” Jesus told the crowd on a mountainside.

It’s easy to be meek with a young child because we don’t feel threatened; we have nothing to prove and no ulterior motive. We needn’t reserve meekness for children, though; demonstrating it earns respect from those who are most discerning and untainted.

“Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth,” said Aesop.

Yet outside show is often exactly what we present to grown ups — not because we don’t have inner worth, but because we don’t trust it (or them) enough to let it stand on its own.

But today’s crisis has us looking for something we can trust; and it’s also making it clear what we cannot trust.… More

Give each other a clean slate …

Trying to decide between a beach getaway and a stocking full of coal for your sweetheart? Why not give them a clean slate, instead? Wipe away the black marks and start fresh, aiming — once again — for perfect love. Only this time, do it with perfect love in clear view. Know what you’re going for, and you have a better shot at it.

According to Robert J. Sternberg, a psychologist and psychometrician, perfect love is a high level of intimacy, passion, and commitment.

Intimacy: Psychological knowledge shared, and connection based on that knowledge
Passion: Erotic attraction
Commitment: The decision that a person loves another person and the commitment to maintain that love

It’s difficult to have a high level of even one of the three if focusing on how you’ve been wronged or shortchanged; and each one works to strengthen or weaken the other two. Wiping the slate clean, on the other hand, allows you to immediately enjoy what ever level you already have and develop more of it.

I realize that a clean slate isn’t exactly something you can order online, but Christmas isn’t about what you can have somebody else deliver. Christmas is about giving of what you have, so give yourself a clean slate, too.… More