One of the greatest gifts I receive while conducting work for STOP is discovering like-minded organizations and individuals. At the Not For Sale Academy in San Francisco I was surrounded by empowering energy from the incredible individuals around me. It was being in this energy that helped me to develop my goals for STOP. One of the hardest parts about putting together an organization, however, isn’t developing an idea or the website (though it’s proving harder than I thought); rather it is continuously reminding myself that there are allies out there fighting for the same or similar causes. However, it is hard to find these people and so I feel even more heartened when I discover them in strange places.

For example, imagine my surprise when, flipping through the latest issue of Glamour, I discovered an article spotlighting the founder of Girls’ Educational and Management Services (GEMS). Founded in 1999, GEMS strives to provide prevention, intervention and youth development services for the girls in New York who are forced into commercial sexual exploitation. According to GEMS’ webpage, 2200 children are at risk of being sexually exploited every year in NYC.

Along with our website development, STOP is striving to locate and contact these fellow organizations in order to join forces to effectively combat and end domestic trafficking of minors. For more information, please check out Shotime’s “Very Young Girls” on Netflix. More updates coming your way soon!

“I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on the earth is not a hardship but a pastime- if we live simply and wisely.” -Henry David Thoreau

Franklin D. Roosevelt is most famous for his statement “there is nothing to fear but fear itself.” He uttered these words in a scratchy radio broadcast to a terrified nation when, like now, all of the systems we had come to rely on were failing. Anxiety is the new norm in most homes today, as bad news seems to only get worse. The foundations of life have cracked for millions and our young government is taking decisive action to shore up the economic disaster, to stabilize people’s living situations and create work opportunities. It is the new, New Deal. Stimulus plans of this magnitude are incentives, designed to incite us to action. They will not work if we all sit back and expect them to cause a response of their own accord.

The need for a stimulus plan in our lives is not just national, it is personal. It is in our individual lives where we must begin to reinvent ways of consuming, learning and loving that are sustainable. In times of fear and anxiety, we must harness our human instinct of fight/flight to our advantage. The statistics of wellbeing and happiness in the context of thriving families carries even more weight during difficult societal crises.

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“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.” Unknown

Forgiveness is giving up the possibility of a better past. It is the path of redemption where life can move forward from the present moment, where the past fades with memory and we have the internal space to accept the daily imperfections of life with those we love as they are. It is a true forgetting, this forgiveness that frees the victim as deeply as the perpetrator. The relationship is new, starting fresh, without the burden of selective memory. This is not a path that we command; it is one that we serve.

Forgiveness does not come easily and for many it is an unknown emotional story. It requires patience and is rarely a hasty proposition. It cannot be forced but it is a way of thinking that has to be chosen. The most arduous and sometimes insurmountable part of forgiving is that one must fully feel the injury and acknowledge it before anything can be forgiven. This is why so many families never heal; the children don’t have the language and emotional maturity to express themselves. The parents, often suffering with their own unresolved childhood pains, have little insight into the damage they have done. As a parent myself now, I often and painfully bear witness to the enormity of the task and even with my best intentions I fall short. Some days there are too many unmet needs and not enough resources and it is impossible to not inflict some harm on the way to raising another human being.

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All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed,

and luckier…

They are alive and well somewhere,

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,

And if there ever was, it led forward to life,

And does not wait at the end to arrest it,

And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

-Walt Whitman

Summer days slow down time. The sun hangs high in the sky for hours and the midday heat stretches to dusk. Summer is as close to timeless as most of us get in our busy schedules and it is a relief to lose track of what time or even what day it is. We are just here, right now, warm.

This week, time stood still for many of us in our small community when the lazy afternoon heat invited tragedy. We knew this young man who jumped into a cold river and drowned. Many people knew him, he was a star high school athlete and shined with all the glare of our beloved Duck football heroes. In a moment, the unthinkable, the unimaginable destiny that awaits us all suddenly changed the world. Possibility extinguished.

The very next day, the impossible struck again, when a very dear friend, too young to think of the end, didn’t wake up. A lover of all that was bigger than life, he filled up a room by walking in, and laughed heartily at himself and all the wondrous and strange parts of being human. I can’t actually believe that he will never show up again at my door, exclaiming and strangely costumed. It seems impossible.

The unfathomable losses of life that crack your heart wide open and leave you looking at the world broken hearted are a gift. We get in those moments that all the petty and small disputes that can dominate our life and relationships are nothing. We are awake and realize we have another day to tell someone I am sorry or better still, I love you. With a broken heart we come to life wanting to figure out how to love it all, the lovable and the irritating, the easy and the difficult, the happy and the sad.

We never know the last day. So act like today is it. And say the “I love you’s” that have been waiting to fall from your mouth. Give in, give up all that matters least and take this time to do what we are put here to do- love everyone you can.

Some times you just have to fight about it. As human animals, conflict is not only a natural outcome of partnerships and family units, it is an essential part of building unity. Our differences may make life more interesting, but learning to deal with them effectively and with love is a challenge for which we are often not well prepared. Learning to speak authentically even if it creates conflict is a basic skill to sustaining relationships. Likewise, developing the insight to see through someone else’s eyes and have disagreements that build instead of undermine our relationships require both courage and a real commitment to stay.

Generally conflicts share similar roots- We fight for power, for freedom, for belonging and sometimes for fun. I was introduced to these categories through my conflict resolution work with elementary and middle school children. While the urge to explore power and deal with issues of exclusion were often fodder for conflicts, I was astonished at how many kids owned up to creating conflict because it was entertaining. Actually, most conflicts are a mix of more than one of these categories and often are difficult to discern, even for adults. In many long term adult relationships these issues morph into the big five classic control issues around money, family (in-law) relationships, sex, housework and childcare.

Gender issues also affect our reactions to conflict. The male flight or fight response can create biological changes in moments and given free reign can clash dramatically with the more classic female response to conflict of tend or befriend. While there is huge variation in personality styles and family history of dealing with conflict, it is easy to see how couples easily fall into the habit of avoiding conflict at all costs. Sadly, they don’t realize that the avoidance of the conflict only fuels internal resentment and cuts off any chance for authentic communicating. Making more and more room for conflict to live between you only makes less room for real connection.

“People hurt other people the most when they’re trying to kill their own pain, real or imagined.”- Frank J. Page

This quote summed up our early years of marriage, as our arguments were more often intended to hurt the other person than solve a difference. All the rules you have ever heard about fair fighting should be basic coursework in middle school. Going after the issue and not attacking the other because of your own pain is the mature response to conflict. The other kind only tears down what you spend months or years to build and almost certainly precludes coming to any agreement at all.

Perhaps the most exciting benefit from learning to have the courage to fight with your partner is that honest and fair fights actually fuel your ability to express the fiery passion that makes intimacy sizzle. If you can’t disagree safely about day to day matters, it is pretty unlikely that either partner will feel safe allowing their aggressive sexual energies to show. Passionate sex happens between two people who aren’t hiding anything.

It is a great gift in life to act, to give, to learn, to love without needing any recognition. Tonight was the awards ceremony at the local high school where like in all the high schools across the country, the same 15 kids were recognized over and over for achievements in sports, academics and volunteering. When you aren’t one of the 15, you can’t help feeling at least a little invisible. My daughter was recognized once for a scholarship she won, but passed over for some academic achievement for which she thought she would be named. I watched her spirit fall there next to me, and she held back the tears of disappointment. She wanted to be happy for the kids who won, but the weight of invisibility would not allow the joy.

It is another space in between a rock and a hard place. We want to be big enough to celebrate another person’s success, especially a friend or loved one, and yet can’t quite understand how our own achievements are not enough. Sadness and disappointment can taste bitter and the experience itself can get lost behind it all. Learning to separate the achievement and the recognition is a life’s work.

It is a task worth accomplishing because sustaining loving relationships provides endless opportunities to give of oneself with absolutely no recognition. The repetitious and mundane tasks of living, especially with growing children, rarely provide the feedback and recognition that the energy to keep it going deserve. Chop wood, carry water, pick up laundry and deliver it clean…meal after meal that is prepared, served, cleaned up… this is the stuff of life that must ultimately be an end in itself.

How is this accomplished… no easy answers here. But I recall some Buddhist teachings about filling up our own tanks. Here is where the inner world is larger and more important than the outer. When we hold enough of ourselves dearly and with the same esteem with which we love others, we can offer our efforts and our love freely. There is enough left over for us. When we move beyond recognition, something in us also goes there- we transcend our smaller selves and for moments at a time experience love. No strings attached.

Here is a fact about eagles that inspires me to believe in love. As eagles prepare to mate, they lock talons and free fall through the sky. It is a do or die proposition, as it is with us humans, or at least it feels that way as we project ourselves forward, heart wide open, hoping to be loved back.

I don’t know if there is a sign that the eagles give each other so they know the moment to let go and soar to a more secure place together, certainly the signs we give each other are anything if not ambiguous. This learning how to love and open our hearts requires years of training.

My third child, was just bitten by the bug as he closes his elementary school career. Oh the misery of liking a girl and not having a clue as to what to do. He is as morose as he feels powerless over feelings and reactions of his schoolmates to a mystery that will keep him perplexed for years. I try to get him to reach for thoughts can help him, but spiraling down into feelings of lacking self-worth is easy for all of us. It was literally just weeks ago, when he was still a happy go lucky kid.

Love is the problem and its own cure. We all employ some combination of guarding our heart and discovering a willingness to experience intimacy. For some of us, a defensive posture becomes a hard to break habit, for others, the intensity of our desire to love brings us face to face with a line of bad choices. It takes time and practice to find a balance that lets us keep caring.

“If you fall into intimacy without resistance, despite your alarm,either you will fall into love, which is exquisite, or love will fall into you, which is more exquisite still. Do it enough and you may just lose your fear of falling. You’ll get better at missing the ground, at keeping a crushed heart open so that love can find all the broken pieces…” Martha Beck

Check out the latest issue of Oprah magazine for an really interesting range of articles on love- or stay tuned and I will keep you posted.

It is the small things in life that teach us the most. Often it is the moments that we least recognize as remarkable that have the power to change our lives. Lately I am making a point of looking at the eyes, the facial expression of the people I am talking to. It is amazing how that changes what I hear. Maybe it even changes what they can say.

I am trying to remember my friend telling me how she is trying to stay focused on one thing at a time. Giving up the drive to multi-task and just give full attention to the details of that moment. I think this kind of quiet focus even changes emails. This is old wisdom, teachings that are presented over and over again in the hope that for this moment or that, we will be with ourselves long enough to really connect to someone else.

It is the most daily of practices, one that you just keep picking up after you realize that you didn’t hear a word of your daughter’s voice over the phone, or your husband’s request for time with you. Feeling bad about it only makes it worse. S o don’t feel bad, just pick another moment to try again. This is really what it is to love someone.

I have a quote on my wall that has been there for over twenty years. For better or worse it has kept me working at my relationship for all that time. Over the years I have come to see that it applies to my relationship to everyone that I love, or try to, as well as everything that I work to accomplish. Here is the quote:

Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.
A presupposition of a greater respect for truth;
An awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment.
Thus truth is a never dying process.

For me this means that I never really know the whole story and if I am willing to weather the difficult moments of my commitments and surrender to the not knowing, the questions and doubts will transform themselves.It takes patience and love to live into the answers of our deepest questions. Courage beyond measure to stay committed in the face of our worst fears. And yet for all we know we are exactly where we should be, with exactly the right person beside us.

I believe in love. I believe that love can prevail even in the worst of situations. I believe that the force of love can create a forgiveness and trust that can heal the deepest of conflicts. I believe that love is the light for which we all wait, hands outstretched, wanting to feel part of, wanting to create. This is the motivation we have when we begin relationships. Few of us believe these things at the end of relationships. Many completely opt out of relationships entirely because after several slides down the slippery slope of becoming involved, the love part seems to get smaller and smaller until there is no light between you and your partner at all.

At a recent international conference of relationship and sex therapists, I met many of the most well known therapists in the country. I had even read the books of several of them. When I asked one woman about her own marriage, she said “Some do, some teach.” I know for me it has always been true that “we teach best what we most need to learn.” One therapist who is known as much for his arrogance as his brilliance, commented that after 26 years of seeing couples, usually he just feels like saying to them- “Why did you even get together in the first place.” He looked me squarely in the eye and said, “Most relationships are a mistake that people are trying to find their way out of…” I thought I should tell him to find a different vocation, instead I said, “My, you are jaded.” and he said, “I earned it.”

So I think on this frequently and wonder if my premise is faulty. I am not naive. I know the statistics on relationships and I know more people who have left, and are leaving relationships than stay in them…But here’s the thing- the question is not whether to stay or leave a relationship. The question is, are you able to stay loving whether or not you stay or leave.

If leaving the relationship is the most loving thing to do and you do it with love- this is rare, but I have witnessed it. I have a dear friend who has for the last couple of years been separating from her 20 year marriage with more love than she gave to it during the last years in the marriage. Leaving was the most loving thing she could do, and the most difficult. It was also the most clarifying, healing thing she could do- giving herself the space to love.

Leaving a situation without loving is a loss for everyone. It also tends to attract similar and repeating situations. Sometimes people tell me about the end of their relationship, and although the story is a painful one, they are grateful and remain open to love for having experienced it in both its height and depth.

More often I hear the stories through a lens clouded with bitterness and anger. No one has any memory of love. Maybe those are the people that the therapist mentioned- the people who are looking for their way out of a mistake. But I don’t think so, I think they are people who are afraid to love, afraid to be hurt, afraid to trust.

When forgiveness is out of the question, blame and disdain live between them. The question of staying or leaving is almost moot. It doesn’t change the relationship. Some thirty years later, my parents are still in this very relationship with each other. The story becomes the truth. There is no room to believe in love when you are bedfellows with disdain, blame and mistrust. Neither of them have ever found a satisfying love relationship since.

Whether you stay or leave, work to find the love.