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The ONLY enemy is fear.

We can defend it, make excuses for it, and try to justify it … and stay stuck. Or we can invalidate it.

Love wins! … More

We’re bound to wonder why somebody else — you know, the loose cannon down the street — can’t seem to commit (or break away, as the case may be) once and for all. But we don’t have to look that far to find an emotional roller coaster. Chances are there’s somebody under your own roof you adore one minute and want to blast to the moon the next.

We lack the blasting power to overpopulate the moon, but domestic violence is a serious social problem in America, with conservative estimates citing about a million incidents a year. And, yes, sometimes all is forgiven before charges are ever filed.

Our emotions can be irrational and still override our intellects.

“Emotion is stronger than thought, preceding it both in evolution and in the wiring of our brain, so an emotion — frustration, rage, sadness, sexual desire, fatigue — can take on a reality independent of external circumstance,” says Henry S. Lodge, M.D., in “Younger Next Year for Women” (also true for men, but I read the women’s version of the book).

It’s no wonder we find ourselves reacting disproportionately when we get caught up in our emotions. While intellectually we know what makes sense — and manage to act on that at least occasionally — our emotions often kick in, particularly in affairs of the heart.… More

My mom says that when I was a baby, they could pick me up, and I was fine and happy. They could put me down, and I was still fine and happy. No crying. For decades, I thought what a perfectly delightful baby — so pleasant, no matter what. I wonder now, though, if I was ever really fine and happy. Maybe I just intuited that everybody around me was sufficiently taxed, and that I had better be fine and happy!

To this day, I don’t like to ask for anything somebody isn’t prepared to offer me freely. I want to be unimposing and carry my own weight. When that’s not enough to win acceptance, I suppose I resort to being helpful or pretty or smart or giving, or all of the above. And, yes, I think it all started when I was too young to reason, but old enough to be very sensitive to rejection.

So, I wasn’t surprised to read the findings of the well-published study “A Strange Situation,” “One-year-olds had learned at their tender age to bottle up their feelings.” A child can look fine and not be crying, yet still be distressed. The obvious problem is that when there is no distress signal, the damsel in distress is unlikely to be saved!… More

Internal conflict is THE source of stress. And we accumulate it, much the way we accumulate fat.

Beware the dissonance: I want a vacation, but I can’t afford one. I want to exercise, but I don’t have time. Choose to reconcile your behavior with your true desires.

If you can get rid of the stress, you just might get rid of the fat, as well as the aches and pains.

There is no stress in love, because there is no fear in love. … More