“Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.”  ~Lazarus Long

Holidays are challenging times for many people. Rather than a storehouse of loving memories, for many of us holidays serve as annual reminders of the dysfunction and pain that characterized family life. As unique as the stories are between families, the feelings of loneliness, disappointment and worthlessness associated with a history of failed holidays is universal. I have spent much of my adult life breaking the ties to my past by building rituals around the holidays for my own family. Yet, I am still caught off guard, each time the holidays come around by the persistent small voice in me that continues to miss out on the fantasy of warm extended family gatherings and feeling twinges of envy for my friends whose families come together year after year.

Perhaps it is because of the bittersweet nature of my childhood holiday memories, but I have long been intrigued by the endings in life. Although my fascination with endings was probably initially sparked by fear and insecurity, I have come to value my need to ritualize endings as a gift, one that serves to continuously remind me to be grateful even in the face of difficult relationships. The truth about life for all of us is that things are continuously coming together and falling apart. When you pay attention, every day offers opportunities to acknowledge the endings that capture this flow of connecting and letting go. They are the turning points in life that are easy to miss, but have the power to create and carry heartfelt meaning in our days.

Read More of “Small Rituals…”

Imported from external blog

“Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.” -Kahlil Gibran

Gratitude is a visceral response. It is a creative burst of energy that springs from us, with a single purpose, to do good in the world. Gratitude cracks the heart wide open and fills us up. We are loved, we are able to love. Carry this feeling into your bedroom the next time it is flowing with your partner and be prepared for the most gratifying sex of your life.

Start with your own body. The cascade of chemical reactions that occur with perfect synchronicity to open you to the remarkable and transformative experience of orgasm is just short of miraculous. Consider the moments when everything feels good in the body. Well fed, rested, exercised and feeling strong. Experiencing the clarity of these moments, at peace in a human body is ecstatic. Sharing this body moment with someone you love is an epiphany.

Consider your partnership. Through thick and thin, knowing that someone is truly at your back provides the foundation to forge on. Imperfect communication is the drive that keeps you working to connect, that keeps you both devoted to being understood. Safe in their thoughts, the relationship is a nest, a haven for discovery of who you are and what you want. To be loved for yourself, in spite of yourself, without doubt. Praise and gratitude for partnerships that help us learn how to love.

Read More of An Act of Gratitude…

Imported from external blog

“Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment… only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say it is I you have been looking for and then goes with you everywhere, like a shadow or a friend.” -Naomi Shihab Nye

The Future feels like it is dissolving around me lately: dreams dissipating, relationships abruptly ending, and young people overcome by their possibilities, or lack of them, are taking their own lives. This is what my days have been full of. One has only to pick up his or her local paper to bear witness to the loss and struggle that characterizes the lives of so many. We are collectively awash in things lost and running as fast as we can to re-imagine a future, any future.

Loss and the stages of grief that accompany it are universal. Little by little, beneath the anger, denial and depression, our sorrow carves the unbelievable into our psyche, making the grooves in our brain expand to accommodate what our hearts cannot hold. This is the truth of deep sorrow; it changes us bodily if we allow it. Refusing is no good; although it is unfortunate no prizes are ever awarded for the mighty efforts made to resist our own pain. The resistance becomes its own storyline, which the Tibetans call “shenpa.” This is the places where loss hooks us, and rather than actually experience the depth of our sorrow and pain, we devolve.

Read More of “Kindness Raises Its Head…”

Imported from external blog

Good Clean Love has a little surprise for you all. Starting this month, we will feature a Sustainable Love Movie of the Month every month.

As I started my initial research, I’ve found that Sustainable Love movies aren’t easy to spot. Often hidden in other genres, movies that feature sustainable love are often pushed aside in favor of steamy Hollywood favorites. But what does it mean for a movie to be a Sustainable Love Movie? Our answer is when a movie portrays sustainable love, the relationships featured are more similar to the ones we know and practice- people stay even when it’s hard, they fight and make up, they hold the good and the bad side by side. So when you’re wondering what to watch, come here on the 15th of every month and celebrate sustainable love.

The first time I saw November’s “A Beautiful Mind,” I saw it as a fictional adaption of the true story of John Nash, the brilliant mathematician who had to overcome a vicious fight against schizophrenia in the 1950s. I watched it a couple weeks ago, however, and saw it through another lens- the one of sustainable love and the one that inspired Good Clean Love’s Sustainable Love Movie of the Month.

The movie follows not only John Nash and his battle with his personal schizophrenia-induced demons, but also the very tender relationship between him and the woman who would later become his wife. Alicia Nash, who was originally a student of his, sees through his strangeness and asks him to dinner, an invitation to which John hesitantly accepts. As their courtship continues, the viewer can see their bond growing stronger, all the way until John proposes to her.

It isn’t until after they’re married that Alicia becomes privy to John’s mental illness. She stays with him as his visions begin to not only affect him, but also begin to affect her and their infant son. Upon witnessing the worst of his illness, she says to a mutual friend, “I keep trying to find the man I fell in love with.” Toward the end of the movie, the couple is faced with a tough decision, but ultimately overcome their hardships together.

Watch it and tell us what you thought. Do you think “A Beautiful Mind” is a Sustainable Love movie? Do you have any favorites you’d like to see make the list? Let us know!

Imported from external blog

“Adversity causes some men to break, and others to break records.”- William Ward

Heartbreaking is a word often associated with soccer matches that come down to shoot-outs after long extended play has not been able to decipher a winner. Five players against the goalie; whoever scores more goals wins. It is a terrible win, hardly reflective of the fact that it is merely luck that decides the winner. The moment of the kick after the whistle blows is seconds long, but similar to car crashes where time slows to a halt the “in” breath lasts a while. Reaction time between players is clocked in milliseconds, like how Olympic swimmers win races; time as long as a fingernail.

I have seen my share of shoot-outs, but never once have I seen a call against the goalie on a stop.  Recently, when our goalie did the impossible and made the stop, the referee made a bad call.  It was a legal call, although I had never heard of it- the ref reversed the amazing save and gave the kicker another shot. Slicing time so thin, no one in the audience even knew what was happening or why. Then, in another moment, the match was gone. The goalie, my friend, lay with his face in the turf.

Read More of A Bad Call…

Imported from external blog

“Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.” -William Ellery Channing

I have been studying positivity for over six months now. There are many days when I have tried to make myself think or feel positively and was completely unable to get out of my fear or pain that held me. What I have learned from those moments, especially in my relationships is that when I aspire to simply being open to what is actually happening, positivity can and often does slip in the back door. I have always liked the idea of aspiration.  I like the feel of it as it rolls off my tongue and I have always held the meaning dearly of a heartfelt reaching towards something high or great.

Yet aspiration also means breathing, or specifically taking in air.  Our ability to breathe deep happens when we feel open and relaxed. As much as breathing is autonomic, it is one of the rare body functions that can be seriously enhanced through attention.  It is not surprising that breathing is the foundation of most mindful meditation techniques.  If you are truly watching how you breathe, your mind cannot run circles around you. Being fully present to the act of taking in and letting out air is one of the most fundamental ways to open to the world.  In a very real and concrete way our aspirations both in breath and dreams create the world.

Read More of Positive Aspirations…

Imported from external blog

Recently, social media has overtaken the way we have friendships, the way we do business, and… talk about sex? New statistics from a new study by Retrevo found that 36% of social media (specifically Twitter) users are tweeting after sex. Social media has replaced the post-coital cigarette according to sites such as Ars Technia. But how healthy is that, really, at least for relationships that are becoming ever more public?

According to the study, men are twice as likely to tweet, Facebook or text after having sex. The study also cited the phone one uses also dictates this kind of behavior. For example, iPhone users are three times more likely than Blackberry users to use social media post-sex. Another article from The Huffington Post confirmed this survey and also suggested a website called IJustMadeLove.com, a site where users can post when, where, and how they just had sex. If that isn’t revolutionizing sex then I don’t know else could.

Although social media is helping us stay in touch and network in ways that, ten years ago, we could never have dreamed of, it may become a crutch to relationships if this trend continues. It may feel cool to brag about your latest conquest, but the fact of the matter is, do fellow followers or Facebook friends really want to hear about it? Let’s keep the relationships and the sex between the sheets. As far as Facebook and Twitter go? Keep it PG.

Imported from external blog

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” –Buddha

Life can throw a punch. Things happen. Relationships with people we love can challenge our ability to love. How we think about what is difficult in our lives makes them what they are. Negative emotions are a slippery slope for many of us. An offhanded comment in a small dispute can snowball into internal warfare and the destruction of hard-earned intimacy without even seeing it coming. “How could she call me insensitive? …  All I do is think of her needs… How am I going to keep this going if every time I turn around she…. I should never have gotten married…”  The initial remark is long out of view in moments and the internal dialogue has slipped out of control. Scientists came up with the term negative bias to describe this phenomenon where bad feelings create and naturally link to more bad thoughts, entrapping the mind in a quick downward spiral.

We ruminate. Our attempts to work through difficult situations in our mind can and often do turn into obsessive dwelling on questions that don’t have answers, that link easily and quickly to negative ideas that you didn’t even consciously conjure up. Minds work this way, they link things together based on the tone of where you start.  Feel a little sad, ruminate a bit and you will be depressed.  Anxiety with a dose of rumination and you get a panic attack.  How common are the angry exchanges in the world linked to ruminated frustrations? Sexual issues with a dose of rumination can extinguish the passion between people for weeks at a time. Experiencing negative emotions are a normal and grounding part of living on earth, building a script out of them is how we suffer them.

Read More of Gratuitous Negativity…

Imported from external blog

Imported from external blog

Imported from external blog