WHEN THE PAIN OF RELATIONSHIPS DAMPENS VALENTINE’S DAY

When the Pain of Relationships Dampens Valentine’s Day

When your heart is broken, you plant seeds in the cracks and you pray for rain.” — Andrea Gibson Valentine’s Day is nigh upon us. It is a day of love, hugs, happiness, chocolates, roses, and romance…but for some, it is anything but that. Some of us are struggling with finding or maintaining a meaningful […]

porn affects ALL relationships

Porn: The Secret Intruder on Relationships

“When sex becomes easy to view, love becomes difficult to find.” ~Fight the New Drug There was once a Dutch biologist named Nikolaas Tinbergen who made a fascinating conclusion through a famous experiment. He created cardboard cutouts of butterflies that were attractive to their mates by color and movement. He decided to paint these cardboard […]

consent

Consent: What does it really mean?

“NO. Is a complete sentence.” ~ Anne Lamott I recently had a male client tell me that something had happened to him on a date and he had a hard time putting it into words. He was embarrassed to talk about it and said he felt yucky even just thinking about it. As he slowly […]

When You Need a Healthy Escape

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” — Abraham Lincoln General anesthesia is a combination of medications used to put an individual in a sleep-like state before a surgery or medical procedure to produce a pain-free state. Likewise, you and I have probably allowed ourselves to self-medicate with an activity that […]

adults and sexual abuse

Dear Adult Survivor of Sexual Abuse, I See & Hear You

“Don’t judge yourself by what others did to you.” ~ C. Kennedy, Ómorphi Did you know that every 73 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted? One in six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. Females 16-19 are four times more likely to be victims, and women […]