"Our culture has bred consumers and addicts. We eat too much, buy too much, and want too much. We set ourselves on the fruitless mission of filling the gaping hole within us with material things. Blindly, we consume more and more, believing we are hungry for more food, status, or money, yet really we are hungry for connection." - Vironika Tugaleva

We live in a culture of "more." We encounter examples of this every day. When we go to the grocery store, we have ten different kinds of mayonnaise to choose from. We can binge watch hundreds of shows on Netflix and record multiple shows at the same time on our TVs. Our phones do everything for us and long gone are the days of being limited to only a certain number of texts or minutes to talk on the phone per month. Portion sizes and screens at movie theaters are bigger. We think having more choices is a good thing but in many ways it's not. 

When I was shown this q ...

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When most people think about how they would like to describe their relationship, the word "routine" is often the last word they want to use. We often think of routines as boring and assume that if our relationship feels like a routine, it's a sign of trouble. Many people would prefer for their relationship to feel exciting, new and fresh instead. But I'm here to argue for the value of a routine. I'm a firm believer that if you have routines in your relationship it can actually lead to your relationship feeling less mundane and more alive. 

Routines serve many purposes in our life. For as much criticism as they can garner, we literally cannot and do not function well without them. As much as most of us don't like working a 9-5 job, imagine how it would feel if you never knew when you were expected to start work until the last minute and didn't know when your shift would end. Sure, it can feel like a grind, but routines are in place so tha ...

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I have a friend who tells me that I am the person she calls when she is on the verge of giving up on a relationship. She's ready to throw in the towel, she's had enough, she wants to find the door and leave. And then she calls me and I have most of the time told her to stay and keep fighting for the relationship and most of the time she does stay and winds up thanking me for it later. 

Making the decision of whether to stay or leave a relationship is one of the hardest decisions a person can make especially when you've invested a lot of time and energy into the person you're with. Not only is it emotionally painful to say goodbye to a relationship but it's made all the more difficult if you share children, pets, a home, and financial resources together. It is not a decision to take lightly. To be honest, I could probably write 5 blogs on this topic but I'm going to at the very least try to give you some clarity about whic ...

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