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Oh, Spring—Thou hast thy pleasures,
plentiful and sweet,
but I work two jobs to cover my bills
and search for delight in
you and arduous toil.

A sincere Salute to Spring wouldn’t be complete without a poem to pay homage to work. Viable work gives our lives meaning, helps build our self-esteem and sense of accomplishment, provides bonus relationships that are often friendly and satisfying, and offers many of us a creative outlet for self-expression and flow.

That’s a pretty incredible list of life-affirming significance! The rewards of work offer sustenance and more and simply cannot be taken for granted. It’s too easy and a little superficial to live for Friday and dread Mondays (or whatever days your regular off-times start and stop). C’mon, Surprise your friends and delight your parents and mentors! It’s unimaginative to complain about your job. As Spring turns into Summer, begin to think and act differently about work in positive ways and watch what happens to your body, mind and spirit—and your bottom line.

Admit it: satisfying work gives you the chance to build character. Since you are integrally connected to the toil you expend and the results you deliver at work, you have a chance through it to cultivate the qualities that define you and the values that sustain you. Those are powerful tools to growing a life lived in a state of flourishing.

Satisfying work builds self-esteem and adds a core function in our capacity to flourish: the function of accomplishment that helps define human well-being. Purposeful work, like no other endeavor, offers us the direct and indirect benefits of accomplishment—contributing directly to our material success and indirectly to a sense of self-worth and a feeling of real achievement.

Collaborative work connects us to other people, and connecting is another core aspect of flourishing. We need each other in elemental ways to feel accepted and supported (and supportive), and work relationships often give us chances to connect to people with whom we bond as friends. Most people thrive when they can count on interdependence with others, and those feelings often translate into professional success with other people at work.

Lastly, satisfying work is the most stimulating environment many people have for creative enterprise. In the U.S. after World War II, we’ve enjoyed a steady evolution of jobs and careers that more men and women can pursue for financial security and creative expression. Growing the American Middle Class meant that many people could earn a living wage and discover opportunities at work to ideate, design, create and develop—choices that simply aren’t possible if your work just allows you to subsist. Artists, engineers and entrepreneurs of all kinds enjoy creating at work, and our economy and culture benefit from their happiness and fulfillment.

You expected something very different from this blog at first, didn’t you? Oh, well—I like to goose things up. It seems perfectly reasonable to write a poem to Springtime; what’s wrong with writing a poem about the joy of work? Work is for lovers, too—lovers of accomplishment, connecting with others and feeling purposeful.

I challenge you to find ways, if you don’t already, to celebrate your work and work ethic, your career and accomplishments, and to be grateful for the joy and satisfaction they bring.

So, Here’s to You, Satisfying Work! You give so much to Life.

All the Best Always,

Dr Mell

Spring Celebration 2012 continues, but not in your office, studio or pod. It’s Travel Time! Now, I already hear you backing out: you say you can’t afford the time off or can’t afford the expense. The truth is that you can’t afford NOT to break out of your tired routine for some rest and reflection. Give yourself the long-deserved break you’ve been needing, and activate the principles of positivity for fun and profit. Springtime is the perfect time for a Positivity Vacation.

Seriously: what if you blew your travel money before Easter? You can still break your routines over a long weekend and feel like you’ve taken a vacation. Springtime is time to focus your attention on something new—time to travel out of your comfort zone and shift your focus from the same ol’ routine. Since all you can control is where you focus your attention, focus it on something you don’t experience every day. You may only afford a long weekend, but your body and brain will thank you for the break.  The RIGHT changes in your daily patterns can help you change your perspective for the better.

Here’s why: muscle has memory, so your body and brain function from the repetitive choices you make every moment of every day. Your body is accustomed to the subtle cues that signal “I’m moving at my morning pace so that I’m at work on time” or “I’m pushing the accelerator ‘cause that meeting starts in 20 minutes.” Those signals tell your muscles from your nose to your knees to tense and your head to thrust forward over your body in Aggressive Human Pose.

Ever heard the expression “You have to be on your toes”? Your body responds to appointments and deadlines from head to toe, and Spring Break pushes the Relax Button and lets your body and brain re-set. Science tells us that healthy routines help people live longer and maintain an optimal quality of life—regular bedtimes and waking times, regular meal times for steady nourishment—and your body functions better because of healthy muscle memory. Use your Spring Break to change the negative habits that don’t add to your health and happiness.

Here’s how: You don’t really need a list of negative habits and better choices. Turn off the TV and cell phone and iPod and think about what you eat. Do you opt for fast or processed food when a fresh salad, fruit and granola makes you feel and look healthier? Change your negative eating habits beginning now and use your down time to shop healthier and prepare wholesome food. Or turn off everything that beeps and buzzes and think about how you move. Do you tweet and post and play e-games when a brisk, 20-minute walk every day makes you feel and look healthier? Change your Couch Potato ways beginning now, and use your “Spring Break” to get up and move!

Some people feel pinched these days because the economy’s building back slowly. Some people feel pinched because they blew their whole vacation budget for the year on a week in Cabo in March. Whatever your pinch, take the weekend off and enjoy a different sort of Spring Break. Use this vacation or stay-cation time to set sail for a new horizon and shake up your tired patterns. Your body, brain and booty will thank you.

Your Friendly Change Coach,

Dr Mell

Use this season to adjust your perspective and inject some variety into your life. Springtime is the perfect time to re-think your thinking and “see” things differently.

Start by considering the phrase “garden variety” from the title. If you’re itching to adjust your perspective—to switch up your tired routines, to change your focus on your stalled career, to take a new view on your health habits—you might really get a rush out of choosing a “Garden Variety” approach. Does that sound backwards somehow? It shouldn’t. If you think of it, choosing a variety from a garden means picking edibles and flowers from a wide array of choices. So, in reality, “garden variety” is a wide assortment, not the same, tired picks.

Spend this spring switching things up a bit. Ready for a new view toward something that’s become ordinary? Choose from a variety of options: little changes make your brain work differently and better, put some spice back into your robotic reflexes, and help you create new habits that have the potential to serve you better than the old ones.

One pick from your garden’s variety is absolutely free: change your routine this spring by getting in bed 30 minutes earlier every night. This is a subtle change that will have a surprisingly rich pay-off. Millions of people are sleep-deprived, and you may very well be one of them. Adjust your evening routine this spring for two weeks; that will be time for your body and psyche to notice a shift. Stop goofing in front of the TV or computer or texting on your phone, wasting time with blinking, buzzing gizmos that delay your restful sleep at night. Go to bed an extra half hour earlier every night for two weeks, and see if each spring day finds you feeling more rested and calm.

Or try this: switch up your “garden variety” drive home from work. If you drive home and it’s safe to do so, change your typical commute and notice how the scenery and your responses to it shift. The new patterns tune your brain to a more heightened state of awareness and alert. You pay more attention to your physical surroundings for these shifts, and that’s challenging to the worn ruts in your thinking patterns. Shake It Up! If you ride the train to work, change your usual trek through the grocery store, starting from a completely different aisle and working toward your former “start.” Pay attention to new choices from displays that look fresh to your eyes and kick-start your usual diet. What’s the expression? Variety is the life of spice? The added bonuses from this switch are the early spring fruits and veggies that make “garden variety” even more tantalizing.

Find simple ways to add a little variety into your routines, especially the ones that can be sapping your energy or imagination needlessly. Change your view of the world, and change yourself for the better. Stimulate your brain with the jolt of some razzamatazz, and the whole world becomes your enchanted garden.

Mix It Up—With Love,

Dr Mell

Maximize your springtime as a sensuous experience. Launch yourself completely and playfully into this fantastic season. You’ll simply feel great, make yourself smile from the inside out and hone your “savoring” skills. Spring is the perfect time for you to immerse yourself in a natural, sensory experience.

Make your life richer and more pleasurable by exploring spring with all five senses—or more accurately, all seven.

Be Watchful. Spring has sprung early this year—after a mild winter across the U.S. There’s a beautiful, lush layer of light-green growth that has fluffed the tree branches and shrubbery, and tender, leafy shoots and colorful early blooms are everywhere. The spring season in all of its glory is a sight to behold. The color, texture and movement of this visual splendor create opulence and intensity. Be present—go outside or sit beside an open window—and take in the vivid greens and yellows and pinks and purples. Watch the wind blow the tender leaves and watch the branches sway back and forth. See the raindrops slowly form puddles in shallow places on the lawn or stone path or sidewalk. Experience springtime with your eyes.

Listen Closely. Layer your sensory experience by becoming more aware of the auditory splendor around you. When you watched the wind, did you hear the leaves rustle or the whoosh of the harsher wind that blew in the spring storm? The tweeting and twirping of songbirds is a predictable image that poets use to evoke spring, but listen more sharply: do you hear the raindrops outside your window or on your rooftop? Do you hear the laughter of children playing outside, coaxed out of their houses by the warmer weather? Unless you live in a tropical place, you’d forgotten the whining drone of leaf blowers and weed-eaters until a new spring called out landscapers like a small army summoned for active duty. Listen: your neighbor is singing while she plants her container garden with tomatoes, peppers and kitchen herbs. The unique sounds of spring are infinite.

Be Mindful…by getting In Touch this spring. Turn some soil in generous mounds with your hands—even if your gardening is from a bag of potting soil. Join the Landscaping Army and pick up twigs and broken branches under a grove of trees and feel their rough bark or jagged edges. Run your fingers tenderly along the edges of a flower petal. Feel the rush of water through the garden hose—the primal energy of nourishing your grass or garden with fresh water. Consider this, too: the reaching and bending you do during your spring chores outdoors adds another level of sensory experience called kinesthetic experience. If the winter restricted your outdoor fun to brisk walks, the springtime offers your body—arms, shoulders, back and hips—the chance to lift, crouch and bend as you clean up outside or arrange your outdoor furniture for another year of having fun and making memories with family and friends on your deck, terrace or poolside.

Catch a Whiff of springtime. When I imagine the scents of spring, I conjure up the scent of confederate jasmine, of freshly mown grass mixed with wild onions, of smoldering hot charcoal briquettes. Spring rains saturate the whole landscape with a distinctive smell of earthen moisture, and the soil beneath your feet gives more easily under your weight as you walk in a pasture, garden or park. Breathe deeply and slowly as you relax in the spring air and notice the difference between the heavy weight of humid air and the light crispness of the air on a cooler spring day. You’re feeling even more alive than before; enjoy it.

Taste the Lusciousness of spring fruits and crisp vegetables. Spring introduces fresh, crisp, tender tastes to our palates and conjures up such delicious sensory memory, too. Notice the moist nectar of spring berries as you swallow each juicy morsel and feel the sensory sensation of organic experience: the awareness of your body’s internal function. You feed your body delicious tastes as your mouth, tongue and tummy register sensory delight and the satisfaction of gustatory pleasure. Your plate is a colorful and delicious array of new tastes, bursting from a dormant winter when your meals were created from a different sort of comfort food. Berries, spring lettuces, tender root vegetables—your spring smorgasbord is fresh and fantastic. Indulge in the tastes of springtime.

Be a pleasure-seeker this season. Experience springtime with a fresh perspective and a new awareness. Captivate yourself by its sensory beauty and splendor. As Joseph Campbell once said, “People aren’t really seeking the meaning of life. We seek the experience of being truly alive.” Seek that experience in the pleasure of this season then. Immerse yourself sensuously in springtime and feel

Truly Alive,

Dr Mell

Let’s give a nod to connecting in this “Springtime for Lovers” and explore how positive relationships make us happier. What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love.

Connecting to others is significant to a flourishing life. Period. Measurable science confirms this truth. Positive relationships are the R in Seligman’s PERMA formula for well-being (PERMA Online), and the ability to Connect scores among the top five factors in the landmark study on well-being conducted for the Foresight Programme (BIS/UK). “No person is an island…” tells us we’re all connected, so why not find more happiness here?

Cultivating new relationships or improving the ones you have presents ways to show how you can capitalize on your Signature Strengths to make your life richer. Glance at your Survey Results (VIA Strengths Survey) and look specifically for your strengths in two categories: Strengths of Humanity and Strengths of Justice. The two key phrases here are “between people” and “among people.”

Strengths of Humanity—the qualities that fortify relationships between people—are love, kindness and social intelligence. If you’ve identified these strengths from your VIA Results, notice where they fall among your top 24. You might work with your life coach to boost kindness to improve your work relationships by discussing the misperceptions with her that people have that only weak, ineffectual people show kindness at work. Study results and experience tell us that the strongest, most socially adept leaders at work model kindness as a way to communicate empathy for others and to build a more positive culture “among people.” Is this misperception a stumbling block for you?

The ability to build a positive culture among people is the bridge to Strengths of Justice. Citizenship, fairness and leadership are the three qualities that define these Signature Strengths. Creating a greater sense of fairness can improve your family dynamic, for instance. Consider ways you can address moral dilemmas your family faces. Moral dilemmas are opportunities to discuss short- and long-term consequences with your life coach, examining the choices that people make and the impact those choices potentially have. What is fair? What attitude and actions can you model that will foster justice and a sense of fairness among your family and make you feel happier?
Building positive relationships doesn’t have to be wildly complicated and can certainly be sources of comfort and joy. Once you’ve identified your Signature Strengths, you have the tools in-hand to begin new relationships and improve the ones you already count on. Think of how much better our lives and our world will be when we become expert at establishing trust, finding balance and sustaining mutual respect and understanding! We will create richer, happier relationships we have and hold and make a better world.

With All of My Love,

Dr Mell
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Foresight Programme. The Division of Business, Innovation and Skill. http://www.bis.gov.uk/foresight

Seligman, Martin E P. The Center for Positive Psychology. The University of Pennsylvania. www.authentichappiness.org.

VIA Character Survey at http://www.authentichappiness.org

Picture two male figures in the cartoon’s examining room: the doctor in his lab coat is recording answers on a clipboard as he poses questions to his lumpy patient with a big, flabby belly, sitting on the exam table in his skivvies: “Okay, Any history of physical activity in your family?”

Ooo…Ouch!  Clearly, NO history of any physical activity in that family. It’s funny, but how would you answer honestly? Are you more like the fleshy patient or his smug, smarty-pants doctor?

For the love of springtime and sunnier days and feeling happier, simply move. You don’t need to do anything more than start adding some extra steps to your daily routine to start looking more svelte in your examining gown.

Careful that you’re not buried in the avalanche of advice about exercise and well-being. From New Year’s Eve through swimsuit season every year, there’s a steady drumbeat from advertising and infomercials and magazine promos for the latest diet ingest-ibles, slimming gadgets with catchy names like XYZ3000 and bloody SYSTEMS for crunching your abs and carving your thighs and convincing you that you need to drop a big bucket of money and your job and all of your significant relationships and devote yourself to getting into “The Best Shape of Your Life.”

Move out of the way of that avalanche, Love: Simply Move. Just by adding a few extra steps to the ones you walk each day, you can begin to feel better. Honestly, it’s just that simple and inexpensive. Most reasonable people with good health and wellness advice will tell you to start just like that. Just add a few extra steps to your daily stepping. Here’s proof this easy start is a recipe for feeling better and living longer: it comes from research documented in a terrific book my daughter gave me titled Fifty Secrets of the World’s Longest Living People (Beare, 2006).

The book presents results from significant longevity studies that reveal the habits of people in five places around the world “where people often reach their 100^th birthday and the number of centenarians per 100,000 people is as much as three times higher than in the United States” (xix). These places aren’t wealthy enclaves where the super-rich wear fancy workout clothes and have other people do their sweating and starving for them. The healthiest people in the world walk almost everywhere they go! They live and work outdoors most of their lives, spending time growing crops or fishing in fresh air and sunshine. They are also fond of sports and leisure activity and enjoy martial arts or a night of dancing to folk music after a light supper and glass of red wine. As the author says, “You will be hard-pressed to find exceptionally long-lived people who don’t take plenty of regular exercise” (192).

The key for us is to start simply by adding some extra steps and pursuing the self-satisfied feeling of accomplishment we get from them by searching for more and more ways to skip the elevator and take the stairs or park in the farthest space away from the storefront and push the shopping cart over the extra distance. Little by little, you’ll start feeling better and taking more pride in looking and staying fit.

Put some SPRING in your step, Love! Simply move.

Much Love,

Dr Mell

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Baure, S (2006). Fifty secrets of the world’s longest living people. New York: MJF Books.

In my Springtime for Lovers, when the spring season makes the whole world feel alive and crisp and fresh, let’s choose delicious food and cook and eat with awareness and experience a new way of tasting and truly savoring what we eat while we experience the joy of food. Accept the challenge to explore and savor the smells, textures and flavors of food. Start now—or begin again. Let’s take nourishment for the love of luscious.

Beyond eating as a matter of sustenance, we can enjoy eating as a rare and wonderful pleasure of life. Eating is not an ordinary task—another chore that we approach with resignation, disgust, or dread. Many of us relish in the whole process of eating: thoughtfully preparing menus, considering the seasonal harvest and new or traditional recipes; selecting the freshest, most nutritionally rich ingredients; preparing food with playful passion and the best tools we can afford; and serving ourselves and others with loving hearts and hands. In this way, the celebration of food and eating is living in a poem—living in a state of grace.

Food is more than fuel and a way to stave off hunger. Decide right now to spend this springtime with a fresh approach to food. For your inspiration, consider Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life. The book’s authors—Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist philosopher and Chueng, a Holistic Nutritionist—pair the practice of mindfulness with the latest nutritional information for healthy eating—that is, of being fully aware of what is going on within us and all around us to draw attention to what and how we eat. A food writer for Booklist offers the following about Savor:

They explore the physical, psychological, cultural, and environmental barriers that may prevent us from controlling our weight, and readers are encouraged to savor food in order to fully nourish both the body and the mind. Savor includes guided meditations on everything from eating an apple to coping with stressful situations and offers advice on selecting and preparing food, staying active and avoiding self-criticism. Complete with a discussion of why healthy eating is also good for the environment, this is a uniquely insightful and positive program for wellness: a book of tested wisdom, practical action and intellectual, emotional, and spiritual nutriments. –D Seaman, Booklist

Yum: what a wonderful way to spend springtime! For the Love of Luscious, add Savor to your reading list and savoring to this Springtime for Lovers, and while you’re perusing your gardening guides and seed catalogs and Rites of Spring menu planner, fall happily, heartily and helplessly in love with the sensual experience of good eating.

Bon Appetit, My Sweet!

Dr Mell

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Nhat Hanh, T & Chueng, L (2011). Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life. New York: HarperOne.

Dr Mell_Love the One You’re With

The Dr Mell Spring 2012 Celebration of Love salutes your first and purest love: You! “Love the One You’re With” is your cue to esteem yourself—lavishly and continuously—giving your most tender, patient and adoring attention to your Self. Loving the One You’re Always With means caring for yourself first and foremost, honoring your unique and wonderful qualities and cultivating the hopes and dreams you hold most dear. In positive psychology terms, the best way to love yourself, connect lovingly with others and richly cultivate your best life is to identify and foster your signature strengths.

One of the most compelling testimonies that illustrates this power is one told by Aren Cohen, a psychologist who put the power of positive psychology to work for her in graduate school. After many readings and lectures establishing that statistically married people in stable relationships tend to be healthier and live longer than their single counterparts, Aren decided to put research into action, steep herself in loving kindness and find the man of her dreams.

How did I change my life to make it ‘exactly the right moment’? First of all, thanks to what I had learned…I was becoming a happier person, more attuned to my own spirituality and to reasons to celebrate gratitude. I kept a gratitude journal, and I started using goal-setting for the future and visualizing what I wanted. I wrote my list, starting with phrases ranging from ‘I will find a man who is…’ to ‘My guy will be….’ I used visualization techniques, including meditation and collaging. My collage had words and images outlining how I wanted my life to be. Finally, I chose my favorite love song, the James Taylor version of ‘How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),’ and every night before bed for the three months before I met my husband, I listened to it religiously, as if to serenade love into my life. The words ‘How Sweet It Is’ were also on my collage, right above the words ‘Bridal Suite.’ (qtd. in Seligman, 2011)

Aren’s collection of strategies and action plan were successful, you see: her husband, Andre’, appeared in her life at exactly the right moment. Once you’ve identified your signature strengths, you and your Life Coach will follow the formula that was so successful for Aren. While you may work on professional and financial goals as well, you’ll likely want to create some goals and activities that help you build more positivity with your significant other and/or your friends, family and acquaintances.

If you’re familiar with the “Laws of Attraction” or have read The Secret and its appeal to readers to “See, Believe, Receive,” you notice some parallels with Aren’s impulse to find love and to implement practical strategies to achieve it. In very elemental terms, positive psychology makes no secret of your power to craft your happiness and truly flourish. Aren harnessed the power of the cluster of signature strengths of Humanity and Love: “kindness and generosity and loving and allowing oneself to be loved” (2011). So, what’s the first step for you, Love? Here’s the link: Engagement Questionnaires: VIA Survey of Character Strengths.

Naturally, I hope you invite me to join you in shaping your vision and using your strengths to find love, meaning and accomplishment, but whatever path you choose, I assure you that you’re worth it. Find your passion and follow your heart. Seize the love you want from your best life.

With Loving Kindness,

Dr Mell

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Seligman, M.E.P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. New York: Free Press.

The Positive Psychology Center at The University of Pennsylvania. Dir. Martin E.P. Seligman. http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx

Happy Springtime!

It’s springtime: time for love, no matter your age, stage or situation!

In spring, when tender, green shoots and tiny flower buds appear with a promise of re-birth and renewal, the whole world sings of love. Seize the moment and give the world a big bear hug! There’s serious evidence that shows your generous impulse will make you feel better and live longer.

Do you need concrete science for proof? How about scientific evidence from measurable data reported in an expansive, 50-year study? Consider the work of Case Western Reserve University’s Institute for Research on Unlimited Love (Institute Official Site). Researchers documented and reported on a decades-long study that shows that high school students who were considered giving had better physical and mental health in later life. According to Dr. Steven Post, president of the Institute, “Charity in high school leads to better physical and mental health in late adulthood. We’ve known about the impact on mental health, but the data on physical health is relatively new and could only have been produced from long-term studies.”

Have some fun with this! Let me suggest a good read and a quick and interesting quiz for you to take on love and longevity; they’re from the same source, Why Good Things Happen to Good People by Dr. Post and Jill Neimark (2007). The authors provide a summary of the new scientific data on the life-enhancing benefits of caring, compassion and kindness. When we love our neighbors as ourselves and give generously of our time, toil and talents, “everything from life satisfaction to self-realization to physical health is improved” (2007). We live longer, are less likely to be depressed or anxious, express a sense of general well-being and actually are more likely to experience good fortune.

Take the online quiz, adapted from The Love and Longevity Scale, to rate yourself on ten different giving behaviors. You can use it as a benchmark to determine whether you need to weave more generous behavior into your life and become a happier, healthier person or whether you’re always in “The Spring of Life,” a Lover of Humankind. Here’s the link: Love and Longevity Quiz

Spring has sprung, My Friend: Seize the Day! You’ll feel better and live longer.

Happily Yours,

Dr Mell

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Post, S & Neimark, J (2007). Why good things happen to good people: The exciting new research that proves the link between doing good and living a longer, healthier, happier life. New York: Broadway Books/Random House.

One of the most response-provoking blogs I’ve published lately was one titled “Attachment is a Monkey Trap,” about Letting Go. First, thank you for taking the time to read it and respond if you did, and secondly, I can summarize it here if you’d like to read it later: “Loving without caring is challenging but important to our well-being and satisfaction with life.” Particularly for Silver Sages (Who are Silver Sages?), my target audience of 50-Somethings and Older, we are uniquely prepared to reap the benefits of Loving without Caring.

Loving without Caring? How are we better prepared to do that at 50+ when we’ve likely acquired more relationships over time than we had when we were younger? Our effort is what counts, not the number of relationships we’ve acquired. We can do it is my point, and when we do, we are happier.

Loving without Caring means extending your tender concern to someone without allowing his/her autonomy to be misidentified with yours. One of the simplest and most profound truths I’ve shared with others is from Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, that is: “Don’t take anything personally.” (The small book is a terrific, easy read and so resonant.) You can love without caring by not allowing your personal identity, values or choices to get confused with others’—by loving people and wishing them well and not mistaking your love for the ability to influence or, worse yet, to control what they feel, say or do or what happens to them. Love them without caring: detach from mistaken notions about control and from trying to change people or the consequences they face.

Would you prefer an alternate phrase, like Loving without Carrying? The same principles hold true. As we mature and grow in experience and wisdom, we become more and more capable of loving others without feeling an undue responsibility for their choices or their destinies. This is where Gray Matter matters most. When we’re older, we can love without carrying more readily—even though we continue to form more and more relationships as we age. We have the Gray Matter to understand that people change themselves and that we lack control in making others comply with our direction or live by our standards.

Consider this: by the time I was 50, my children had completed their formal education and were living on their own, and my parents were well into their golden years. Most of my acquaintances, friends, and clients celebrate that birthday in similar life circumstances. The natural course of life is to prepare ourselves to let go, and in leaning into that natural impulse, we are more aware of the fleeting nature of relationships—with or without blood bonds—and we use awareness to truly savor the feelings we experience in loving or friendly attachments and value the time we spend with others.

Our wealth of experiences and greater depths of self-awareness and wisdom allow us to become loving and serene—connecting with others enthusiastically and in some cases spiritually but never mistaking our love for more than what it is.

With Love and Light,

Dr Mell