There is a prevailing notion that one must first surpass the threshold of survival before they can aspire to thrive. That we must first get our affairs in order, secure a firm foundation of emotional and physical health, attain a required level of security in in one’s abilities and confidence in one’s aspirations; and only…
Through my adventures and misadventures with romantic relationships, intimate friendships, polyamory, and bisexuality – I, along with a distributed squad of instructive authors I wish I were friends with, have developed, and continue to develop, my own guidebook of sorts on how to love people honestly and ethically. Until now it has been a mental…
I don’t think that the above adage, attributed to The Amazing Spiderman, is a useful one. Telling people of power that they are obligated to be proactive with that power is unlikely to win them over. Nobody likes to be told what to do or what they should be doing. People with power, be it…
Why, for those of us first worlders who, ostensibly all least, have all of our needs met, does life seem so hard sometimes? If we look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (illustrated below), money can only really buy us the base – ‘physiological needs’. One out of eight down. ‘Safety’ encompasses health, personal security, emotional…
all you need for love To love someone, in my continuously evolving view, is a) to want to understand them, b) to want to facilitate them to meet their needs and c) to want to play with them. Let’s break that down: understanding Firstly, we acknowledge that you cannot fully understand this turbulent, chaotic ocean…
On their blog, adrienne maree brown (amb) writes of the importance of articulating what we want and do not want in our interactions with other humans: When you feel something come up that you want to say but you’re scared to say, you’re on the precipice between the lie of omission and the bravery of…
First, I was infatuated with the anticipation, the novelty, the courtship you offered, and the best self you put forward, as we all do in the early stages of a relationship. Then, we no longer shared a casual connection, but we didn’t know what had taken its place. I felt the low hum of a…
The poet Philip Larkin was a cynic at the best of times, particularly around the role of parents. He is known to have said that his parents’ relationship taught him two things: a) that people should not live together and b) that children should be taken from their parents at an early age. In his…
I hypothesize that underlying every “how to” themed article is a dark secret (other than than those that I write, I know it to be the case for me). We don’t write these articles because we have definitively perfected the art of XYZ, we write these articles because we are still in the throes of…
Showing up consistently to do what is necessary to not engage in your most damaging behaviours. This is what recovery looks like. I want to address two stereotypes about recovery in this post: Bulls**t. Most of the work required for long-term recovery for most people does not happen in the container of an in-patient clinic.…