In my 20s, I took part in an exercise where I had to identify my “grandiose dream.” And four decades later, it seems to be coming true. It took belief, boldness, focus and maybe some magic! My dream was to be “a good communicator of […]
Committing To Love
One evening more than three decades ago, my Dutch husband, Ron, left the Haarlem hospital where he was a Resident and headed to Rotterdam for a Paul Winter concert in Sint-Laurenskerk, a gothic basilica from the 15th century. He didn’t know it yet, but he […]
Life’s Three Acts
During my years as a single parent, there were times when we ate oatmeal for dinner because it was what we had. And there were times when I kept the school proofs because I couldn’t afford to buy the actual photos. And there was one […]
Who’s Training Our Expectations?
People comprise endless possibilities. And whatever we see in them reflects what’s active in us concerning them. So it helps to understand where we’re coming from, in our behavior toward people. Are we reacting from autopilot, based on expectations that they’ve trained us toward? Or […]
My Main Takeaway From Visiting Qumran
In my 20s, I lived on a kibbutz in Israel. I first considered leaving America and moving to Israel when I was working in a school for children with special needs in Atlanta, where I became close friends with a 65-year-old foster mother of several […]
Kids Need To Know That Life Is Supportive By Nature
The future will be determined by our children. So parenting effectively is a top priority. How can we ensure that we’re doing a good job? By being good to ourselves, by enjoying life, and by being positive, adventurous people. If we’re juggling jobs and life, […]
How To Get Our Partners To Care What We Want
One of my friends believes that her husband should have more photos of her on his social media site, and she feels bad about it. Her mistake is in thinking that those two things are connected, his action and her feeling, because attaching a feeling […]
How To Help The People We Love
The immediacy and relevancy of the vast amount of info coming at us now has made desk chair activists out of many of us. We feel a need to do something. So we often protest things by detailing what’s wrong, and what’s not working, and […]
Managing A Late-Life Autism Diagnosis
I feel as though I’ve been putting a jigsaw puzzle together all my life, and I just looked under the table and found a pile of missing pieces, and I can put them into the puzzle and finally see what the picture is. An autism […]
3 Steps For Training Win-Win Relationships
One of my friends is stuck in a years-long pattern with his wife. She talks over him while he’s talking, especially in front of their friends. He can’t stand it and protests by saying, “I won’t put up with this! You can’t treat me like […]
“If You’d Change, I’d Feel Better.”
On a trip to Spain a few years ago, Ron and I landed in Madrid and went straight to the car rental desk, where the employee who was helping us looked at Ron’s full name on his passport and laughed out loud. Then she got […]
20 Keys For Transforming A “Difficult” Relationship
“Difficult” relationships are about self-worth and self-love – ours, not theirs. We’ve set causes in motion, and we’re experiencing the results. So our problems aren’t originating outside of us. Our partners aren’t broken, and it’s not our job to fix them. Relating is similar to […]
Grace de Rond 