Or is it?

Shelby reached across the table and grabbed her cigarettes. Another Saturday night alone with her Tivo, her cat and her Salems. All she could think about was how much it sucked being alone….again. “I am so tired of doing everything alone,” she muttered. The microwave chimed in announcing her Lean Cuisine entree was ready.

She padded across the kitchen in her old slippers to retrieve her dinner. “I am such a sad sack…why can’t I snap out of it?” Tired of her routine, she tossed the frozen dinner into the trash, changed into her jeans and flip flops and headed out of the house. Not exactly sure where she was going, Shelby walked toward the park. The minute she got outside, she felt better. It was a beautiful summer evening and the air was still warm from the day’s heat.

She took a deep breath…old advice from her former yoga teacher, and felt her mood start to change. “If you want change in your life….you have to change something about your life.” The words from the self help book ticked her off when she read it, but they felt different right now. “Why did I quit that yoga class anyway?” she thought. “I loved it.”

Sitting down on a bench she absentmindedly traced hearts in the sand at her feet. “I wonder if there is a Saturday night yoga class with a hot instructor for me to look at.” she laughed. “Now that is a change I could get in to!”

What could a yoga class have to do with making the love search easier? Everything!!

If you are serious about finding love, you have to take a good look in the mirror. If you don’t like spending Saturday nights with yourself..how do you expect anyone else to? It is easy to fall into the Victim Trap…you know what I mean, don’t you? HE cheated on you. SHE gossips about you. THEY don’t invite you to be part of the group. There is absolutely NOTHING of value to you in sentences that start with SHE, HE and THEY.

Your power lies with statements that start with I. Your LOVE VIBRATION is turned on by the words I AM. Try these on for size:

I AM a great person with lots to offer.

I AM loving, loyal and full of life.

I AM alone right now but that is only temporary.

I AM talented and funny.

I AM looking for new friends and contacts.

I AM open and available to all the good the Universe has for me.

I AM constantly evolving toward my highest and best.

I AM enjoying life more every day.

I AM allowing the natural unfolding of life to delight me.

Go ahead, make a few I AM statements of your own. Remember that your LOVE VIBE depends on it!

How About You? Are You Ready For True Love? http://TakeTheSoulMateQuiz.com and find out.

Do We Really Need Free Relationship Advice?

Jon and Kate – seems like everyone on the planet is following the drama, whether or not we watch it on TV. With so many opinions, I’m sure the infamous couple have received more than their fair share of free relationship advice.

• Was this relationship doomed from the start?
• Are they now seeking divorce because they exposed their relationship on TV and were ill-prepared to deal with the notoriety?
• Or is this simply some twisted marketing ploy to beat more cash from this dead-horse of a relationship?

If you saw Jon and Kate today, what kind of guidance would you give them?

Now before you get all cranked up, first think about all the tips you’ve received in the past and remember how you felt about it. Hhhmmm…

The True Value of Free Relationship Advice

I was 18 years old and feeling the pangs of love ripping through my stomach and chest. The free relationship advice, delivered expeditiously by my mom was, “What do you want with a girl friend anyway? You have school and work to focus on?”

Ten years later, this same woman – my mom – had the nerve to ask me when I was going to get married! The only problem was, I didn’t have the personal self-confidence nor the social skills to even get a date. Again, I got an earful of free relationship advice.

However, by age thirty I had finally found someone who agreed to tie the knot with me. All was well for the first three years.

Suddenly, life changed dramatically as my wife at the time was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. She heard voices, saw images and talked to them all the time. For the next 19 years I acted as caretaker, carting my wife to various doctors and experimental treatments, mostly with ineffectual results.

During those years, what do you think was the predominant free relationship advice I received? “Why do you stay with her? She’s not getting any better. She’s only going to bring you down.”

After 22 years, we finally did get a divorce. My former wife chose not to comply with her meds and treatment. Who can blame her – nothing worked anyway. However, I knew I couldn’t live with someone who refused to even try to help herself.

Should I have listened to all the free relationship advice and terminated our marriage sooner? I think not, because then the timing would have been all messed up for Maggie and I getting together. You see, Maggie was dealing with her own divorce and abuse issues from a later common-law relationship.

In the end, everything eventually worked out for the best… as it always does.

With or Without Your Free Relationship Advice

Having each been through difficult divorces ourselves, Maggie and I would hesitate to offer Jon and Kate any free relationship advice because we really don’t know what would be best for them. From the looks of it, apparently Jon and Kate don’t know that either.

And isn’t that the way it usually goes? We fight our way through life’s experiences only to discover some time later that this “problem” was exactly what we needed at the time to reach a better place.

Nowadays my mom’s free relationship advice seems to make more sense to me as she says, “Live one day at a time, knowing that everything always works out for the best.”

The value of free relationship advice like that?

Priceless!

The world can seem like a crazy place sometimes…
OK, a LOT of the time!
However, no matter what is going on in your life, magic happens when you learn how to choose better feelings now! You’re Gonna Love That Feeling
All the best from Toronto
Russ Hamel

Whether we admit it or not, most of us are voyeurs when it comes to other people’s relationships. We watch from a distance and shake our heads, wondering things like “what are they thinking” and “how can they do something so stupid”? How many times have you:

• seen someone you care about be completely let down and hung out to dry by someone they thought they could depend upon?
• seen families torn apart by disagreements over money?
• pretended to like the significant other of a friend or family member even though you can barely stand to be in the same room with them?
• disliked the significant other of a friend or family member, and felt certain that they were taking advantage of, being unkind to, or generally not treating your friend or family member well, yet you just kept your mouth shut to preserve the peace?

I’m willing to bet that these various scenarios are familiar to most of us.

No matter how many times we see these things happen to others, it never occurs to us that some day we might be the victim of such treatment ourselves. We are even less willing to consider the possibility that one of the people we trust most in the world or their family or friends would be the ones inflicting such pain. To be even more specific, the last person we would ever believe would deliberately hurt us is our significant other. After living together for awhile, we know we can count on our partner to be there when we need them and that things will just keep getting better. Everyone seems very supportive of the relationship. Life is good!

Unfortunately, statistics say that about 70% of cohabitating couples break up within five years of moving in together and chances are that not all partings are amicable. Even with these statistics, most couples who live together without being married fail to put into place even the most basic safeguards that would not only make it easier to deal with unplanned events, but can protect the relationship as well as the individual partners. For example:

• If you are living with someone in a home or apartment and you aren’t on the lease, aren’t a co-owner, and not in their will, you may be in trouble. Did you know that if your significant other were to die suddenly that you will be at the mercy of their heirs? You will find out the hard way if their family didn’t actually like you and just kept their mouths shut to preserve the peace. They could lock you out of the home or apartment you shared, refuse to repay you for any improvements you helped to make to the premises, and even refuse to allow you to remove any furniture, electronics, art work, china, crystal, books, etc. unless you can prove ownership.
• If you and your significant other have a fight to end all fights and you aren’t on the lease or are an owner in the home you lived in together, you could come home and find the locks changed and be allowed to remove only those items that you can prove are actually yours. Any monies you put into improving the home could be gone as well.
• If you lose some or all of your possessions to a fire, hurricane, tornado, theft or other events, do you have a “your, mine and ours” inventory of possessions to document who owns what for insurance purposes?
• If you and your partner acquire a pet while you’re together and you break up, who takes over its care? If you don’t put it in writing, could your much-loved pet be used as a weapon should something go wrong in the relationship?

These are just a few of the things you and your partner should not only discuss, but should put into writing to avoid some of the pitfalls listed above. Too many of us disconnect our brain when we fall in love and refuse to even consider the possibility that one or both partners may someday fall out of love with each other.

More importantly, no one wants to contemplate that the person we think of as being our soul mate could become malicious, vindictive, or spiteful if the love were to disappear. However, the truth of the matter is that there are more hostile break-ups than amicable ones. The person being left is seldom motivated to be on their best behavior when their heart is broken.

Knowing the realities of the human heart and the likelihood that all reason will fly out the door when it is broken, it is beyond foolhardy to cohabitate with your significant other without discussing the many issues that can arise while living together. It is irresponsible not to put some written safeguards into place that would protect both of you were the unexpected to happen. No one who really cares about you will refuse to put into place the protections that will be important to you both when life doesn’t turn out as planned. If anyone asks you to move in with them but refuses to plan for the unexpected events in life, run as fast as you can in the other direction.

Deb Dillon
Protect Yourself When You Live with a Significant Other

To learn about my software for legal agreements and authorizations, log on to my web site at Living Smart Guides. You will find all the information you need and it is easy and affordable. Remember, it’s never too early (but it can be too late) to protect you and the ones that you love.

Many people say that rebound relationships are always a bad idea and are doomed to fail, possibly leaving you with heartbreak. I do not think that is true, many couples have met someone shortly after a breakup with someone else and have lived happily ever after.

Certainly there is reason for caution with rebound relationships, after all, what if the other persons ex tries to get back together with the person you are now with? If there are feelings still there then you could end up being the odd person out.

I think you want to evaluate the potential for each relationship regardless of whether you or your potential new lover are on the rebound. Does this person have the attributes that you are looking for in a soul mate?

If that person has just become single after a breakup you may want to take it a little bit slower than usual just to make sure you are not pushing him or her into something they are not ready for. Be on the watch for indications they are not over the other person but do not just look for excuses to accuse them of something.

If you are the person who has recently broken up with someone else then you want to make sure you are over the old relationship and not interested in getting back together before making any kind of commitments to someone new.

Not only is that fair to your new love interest, but it is being fair to yourself as well. Have you put away pictures and other mementos of your last flame? If you are not ready to put those away, then maybe it is not over. Also, someone new does not want to be compared to your last love interest, but to be treated as their own unique person.

Some of this can be particularly difficult if your old lover and any new love interest travel in the same circles. Be sure of your motivation for getting involved with someone new and that it is not just to make someone else jealous. If the situation is reversed, make sure you are not just being used to make their ex jealous and that they really want to get their ex back.

Bottom line is to make sure that both of you are honest about the new relationship and that no one is playing games. That certainly will result in a disaster, hurt feelings and possibly a severe case of a broken heart. Everyone should want to avoid that.

There is no reason that rebound relationships cannot work just because one or both of you has recently become single. Treat each other and the possibility of a new relationship with the same care and respect that you would any other time.

Put the past behind and move forward being careful not to be bringing up old boyfriends or girlfriends in the same way you always should. That does not mean that if one of you wants to open up and talk about a situation that you cannot, just make sure the motives are right and that no one is stuck in a past relationship.

Do you want to improve the chances of a rebound relationships success? Find out how you can avoid the heartbreak of another breakup close on the heels of a previous one.

Learn how to make this new coupling the stuff dreams are made of. Come over to our website at http://www.RelationshipAdviceHelp.com.

Sexual Chemistry – is it something that just happens? Can the chemistry be created if its not there? The quick answer is No, unfortunately if its not there to start with you cant just magically create it, if however there’s a small spark their are plenty of things you can do to fan the flames of sexual chemistry.

Firstly understand what Sexual chemistry is!

Recent studies show that Sexual Chemistry is far more to do with evolution than people realize.

Evolution is all about the survival of the species, we are unconsciously taking in a realm of scents that tell us when a woman is fertile and when a mans testosterone levels are high – its all about these primitive needs.

Develop a rapport!

To be able to build on any sexual chemistry you may be feeling you need to have a good connection with each other. If your relationship is new you may just be starting to build that rapport.

Be sure you pick your topic’s of conversation wisely. Make sure you choose something low stress and enjoyable.You may discover that you both enjoy talking about fixing poverty in the world, however that topic will not cause your partner to associate pleasure and fun to you.

Have fun and show your sense of humor.

Laughter helps to put you at ease with each other. You don’t have to be a comedian. Just make sure you keep it clean and neutral so you don’t offend your date when you’re trying to entertain them.Use Adrenaline to your advantage!Some interesting studies show that if you have surges of adrenaline it is often mistaken or ad’s to the sexual chemistry.So be sure to use this to your advantage when you are planning your date’s

Show who you really are!

You can’t have great sexual chemistry in a relationship with someone who doesn’t know the real you. Hey it might be great for the first few months – great chemistry is something that will keep most people together for some time, however to have a fulfilling relationship you must get to know each other on a deeper level.

So instead of keeping your opinions to yourself in hopes of your partner not seeing things they may not like about you make a point of it to share your thoughts and feelings about important issues. There’s not much point in being 6 months in to a relationship purely working on sexual chemistry and then finding out that’s all the relationships about!

Sexual Chemistry in relationships may be mysterious and difficult to manage, but that doesn’t mean you can’t manipulate it a little and improve on the basics of it.

Make sure you start with a good rapport, throw in a little humor and excitement and you’ll be off to a great start. For more information on Sexual Chemistry see here

A wedding is a one-day event, but a marriage is a lifetime commitment; and, it affects everyone in your extended families.

I firmly believe marriage is the most rewarding relationship and the most difficult relationship you will face in your life. Our education system has classes required for many things to prepare us for life after graduation. I have to ask why is there no pre-requisite for marriage. It has always baffled me why couples don’t partake in a private ongoing programs to learn more about one another before they say “I Do” There are three promises that are critical for a marriage to succeed.

3 critical promises for marital success is

1) Promise of Care: promise to meet your partners’ most important emotional needs.

2) Promise of Time: promise to give your partner your undivided attention, at least 15 hours each week

3) Promise of Protection: you promise to avoid being the cause of your partners’ unhappiness.

These simple statements are loaded with the promise of success. By initially agreeing to these expectations, the stage is set for a loving and fulfilling relationship.

If agreements are established as goals, the couple will be on a path for a marriage with rewards, such as:

Maintaining autonomy

Spirituality

Money

Family/Childcare

Sex

Professions

Living Location

Values

Morals

Hobbies/Fun time

Clarity Problems

It is important that you make a strong commitment to each other to:

Always be honest and straight forward with one another.

Ability to ask for what you want without feeling shame or guilt,

Able to be honest and straight forward,

Ask clarifying questions, make strong requests,

Always provide each other unconditional love

The purpose of your interaction is to hold your focus and stay connected to one another. There should be a very strong bond agreement that gets stronger as the course goes on, but most of all, expect miracles to happen! Expect that you’re getting much more than you asked for! Prepare yourself for getting what you want … because that’s what’ll happen when you apply these principles and methods to your relationship. It’s a beautiful thing! Congratulations on taking a huge step to propel your relationship to an astounding success.

“How to Practice Guilt Free Self Care in Times of Stress”; to download Janie’s report visit http://janiebehr.wordpress.com

Janie Behr is a qualified life coach specializing in helping people find their purpose, achieve their goals, and explore all the possibilities that life has to offer. She is available for private individual coaching, group coaching and public speaking engagements. She runs frequent teleseminars dedicated to helping people find and live their most positive lives! For more information please visit http://www.jblifecoach.com

I’ve heard several people recently talking about finding “the one”. What is “the one” that they are referring to? I would say that people mean that it is the person who they feel confident about spending the rest of their life with. I think most people are searching for this kind of person, regardless of what they may tell other people. So let’s say you’ve found someone special in your life, how do you know that they are “The One”? Here’s a top ten list to help guide you:

10. The sex is incredible- you have never experienced such intense or frequent orgasms or had the desire for sex in such different positions or locations, you get the point. Fact is, sex is as much mental as physical, so if you’re deeply connected to your partner, the sex will be good.

9. You can talk for hours without being bored- lifelong compatibility is about having a lot of common interests and having good communication.

8. You can be silent for hours without being bored- even better than good conversation is good silence. It shows that you are truly comfortable together.

7. You lose all sense of logic and reason- you crave to be together all the time or you start thinking about marriage and/or children way before it is socially acceptable. You just feel like you want to dive head first into the relationship and be with your partner always.

6. You can confidently say you have never felt this way before- self explanatory, if other loves paled in comparison to this one, you might have just found true love.

5. You have similar life goals- you both want to start a family or start a business together or go sailing around the world, or whatever. Love alone isn’t enough- you need to have common life goals.

4. When you look into the future, you can see them in your plans- you find yourself thinking about having a family or being older or moving to another city or starting a new job, and your lover is always there, prominent in your future thoughts.

3. You have the desire to satisfy their needs over and above your own- you are interested in them as people, interested in their dreams and passions, their fears and worries. You want to be there for them and you hold their happiness above your own. For more info on this, look at my “What is Love?” article.

2. You want to share of yourself as much as possible- you can’t wait to introduce them to your friends and family, show them old pictures, and take them to your favorite places.

1. You love and appreciate them for their weaknesses as much as for their strengths- we all have strengths and weaknesses. However, you don’t feel critical of your partner for any of their weaknesses, in fact you appreciate their differences as being unique characteristics which make them the individuals they are.

Take a look at this checklist. If you find yourself checking off at least 7 or more of these items, you may just have found yourself “The One”!

http://relationshiplaboratory.com/ten-ways-you-know-you-have-found-the-one/

For more helpful relationship advice and tips, please visit http://relationshiplaboratory.com

My girlfriend Marsha is probably one of the most beautiful girls I know and yet, at thirty-five years old, she is still talking about not wanting to be liked for her looks. She has no problem being judged for her brains and hard work; those are fair game, but not her physical beauty. She spends a great deal of time wrestling with her demons and accepting her dysfunctional past, but has been unable to accept and take pleasure from the way she looks, as if there were something wrong with being beautiful. She talks about taking responsibility for her life, but she hasn’t quite figured out that her beauty is on equal footing with all the other stuff she has been given.

My friend Paul seems to innately understand this dilemma. Once when he brought in dinner and I asked what I could do, he replied, “Sit there and look beautiful.” “No, really,” I said. “What can I do?” “Be useful,” he said. “Just sit there and look good, that’s enough.” Every time I went to get up, he made me sit down. After a while, I began to relax. It felt good not to do anything to be appreciated. I remember the feeling that began to encompass me. It was different, something I was not used to. All the ways I gave myself value-I cook, I prepare food, I take care of someone else, I have style in the kitchen-had been taken away. But instead of feeling diminished, I felt cherished. All my grown-up posturing had stopped, and I was like a pretty little girl that was loved by all the boys. There was nothing conditional going on. The feeling was pure and solid-I was confident. I knew who I was and that was enough.

We are so accustomed to trading good feelings and entering into silent agendas with one another that when we just sit quietly in a chair with nothing demanded of us we think we have no value. Most of our life has been spent trying to figure out what we need to do in order to get this and obtain that. We have never gotten the message that it is okay simply to just be.

Once we realize this, we are on to something. Looking at our life from this vantage point serves us well. Suddenly, the whole panorama of who we are is there for the taking. We use it all-recognizing the parts that ease our way, accepting the rest, and rejoicing in them all. Our life is not any better or worse than anyone else’s is. It is simple ours. Knowing this truth gives us reverence and allows us to celebrate our humanness.

The universe is abundant and generous. We never need to apologize for wanting anything, and we do not have to prove that we deserve it. Simply by being on this Earth, we are worthy of all life’s bounty.

Chapter 25 from Reality Works Copyright © 2002 Chandra Alexander

Chandra Alexander, MSW, has been living and teaching authenticity for the last thirty years. Selected by The Oprah Magazine as the Life Coach to deliver twelve coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their Toyota Moving Forward contest, she also spent five years on NBC/TV/Daytime giving a weekly “Reality Check.” Her blog, http://ChandraUnplugged.com is a real find for any true seeker on the path to authenticity. Along with a private practice in Tampa, FL, she coaches clients all over the world in the areas of relationships, work and consciousness. To learn more about her books and CDs, visit her website at http://Coachgirl.com

When T.S. Eliot spoke of ending up where you began and seeing that place as if for the first time, he was talking about the characteristics of stuff and the poignancy of the self-discovery process. It was his way of saying that this work is never finished, but something we revisit again, and again and again, each time coming to a new understanding, a fresh realization.

The word “stuff” describes our particular bag of humanness, the hand we have been dealt. This is neither good nor bad-it is what it is, and can never be compared to anyone else’s satchel of goodies. We cannot barter our liabilities. We need to accept them the same way we have embraced the parts we love.

All of us have demons we wrestle with when we go to sleep at night. These unresolved issues create a distorted lens through which we see the world. Over and over we get the opportunity to heal the dysfunctional areas and make ourselves whole. If we think we go through this once and it is resolved, we are sorely mistaken.

Every time we assume that this is the end, the universe sends us another test on a more subtle level. And each time we go back and are willing to touch the vulnerability, we refine the process and get closer to the core.

At first we are overwhelmed with the enormity of the project. Our inner labor demands that we pay constant attention. We are not used to being focused, and it takes all our energy to concentrate on the work at hand. We give ourselves the microscope treatment-every word and thought is analyzed, every gesture secondguessed. At the end of the day, we are exhausted from being so vigilant.

But because we hold our resolve, we are rewarded-the intensity lessens, but the awareness remains. Rather than being painfully tied to these feelings, we deal with them as they surface, much as a skilled batter hits whatever ball is pitched. We do not judge, we just swing, knowing we can hit them all.

This is the grand game. By finally coming full circle, we experience our human condition from a completely different vantage point. It is no longer fraught with tales of woe. By simply letting it be, our humanity has become our quirky backdrop, our unique playing field.

And at day’s end, it’s all just stuff, no one’s is any better or worse than anyone else’s.

Chapter 51 from Reality Works – Let It Happen Copyright © 2002 Chandra Alexander

Chandra Alexander, MSW, has been living and teaching authenticity for the last thirty years. Selected by The Oprah Magazine as the Life Coach to deliver twelve coaching sessions to the grand prize winner of their Toyota Moving Forward contest, she also spent five years on NBC/TV/Daytime giving a weekly “Reality Check.” Her blog, http://www.ChandraUnplugged.com is a real find for any true seeker on the path to authenticity. Along with a private practice in Tampa, FL, she coaches clients all over the world in the areas of relationships, work and consciousness. To learn more about her books and CDs, visit her website at http://www.Coachgirl.com

You are dating a wonderful man, but how can you know for sure that this is Mr Right?
Are you tired of wasting your time?
Want to know if he is good husband material?
Will he commit to you?
How can you spot unhealthy personality traits?
Will he treat you right?
How can you know if he will be a good parent?
Is he the one?
Is he Mr Right?

The odds for finding your Mr. Right on the first date you go on are very close to zero. You will have to wade you way through quite a few frogs before finding your prince.

You need to be prepared, ask the right questions and know what to watch out for, so that you can make an informed decision before your heart becomes too involved and you can’t think straight anymore.

When collecting information on him, be subtle, weave your questions into your everyday conversations. Don’t back him into a corner and then expect honest answers from him! Before falling head over heals in love with him, take a good, hard look at him and his life.

To figure out if he is Mr Right, you need to find answers to the following questions. Be sure to gather enough information to honestly answer these questions:

Will he commit to me?
If you are in a stage of your life where you want a meaningful connection and a real commitment flowing from that connection, you need to be able to recognize a partner that is ready for commitment as well. You want information that tells you about:

His living situation,
His previous relationships,
His friendships,
and what inspires him.

Will he be a good parent?
If you dream for your future together includes having children or if you already have children of your own, you will want to known if you are dating a person who are capable of being a good parent. Focus on:
His perceptions on children,
His own parenting history.

Will he treat me well?
In order for you to figure out if he is going to treat you well, respect you, love you, help you grow, support you, be there for you … ask yourself some of the following questions:

How does he treat you?
How does he treat the other women in his life?
Did his parents have a good relationship?

Does he have personality flaws?
We all know there are bad people out there: people who lie, cheat, steal or abuse. When dating you need to be able to recognize them and protect yourself from them.

Does he have a need to get even when wronged?
Does he drink and/or smoke too much? Use drugs?
Is he responsible on all levels of his life?
How does he deal with frustration and anger?

For more in depth information on finding Mr Right go to: Is he Mr Right?

Andriette is the owner of Simplified-dating.com Go there to follow her step by step guide to simplify dating, so that you can focus on the most important issue: finding the perfect partner for you. Learn more about: creating a love wish list, figure out if he is Mr Right, find great date ideas, learn how to be romantic, romantic text messages, romantic poetry, write a love letter, and lots more.