089 SelfWork: How To Let Go and Fill Your Empty Nest
The empty nest. It’s what some parents dread while others are counting down the days. This podcast is definitely for that first group and might give some good ideas to those that are...
Are We Losing Our Manners? How To Confront Social Anxiety
My husband and I threw a Super Bowl party many years ago. We ought to have known better. Most of our friends weren’t football geeks, like us. We’d invited about 30 people, and set up an...
Celebrating Life. A Post About Grief And Gratitude
This is a special weekend for me. I’m headed to my hometown to be with my brothers and their wives. It’s the day, a decade ago, when my mother died, and then my father a week later....
Marriage Is Not For Chickens
wo years ago, I sat down to write a post about marriage.
When it appeared on The Huffington Post, over 200,000 people agreed with what I had to say.
In honor of my now 26th anniversary, celebrated quietly but with great joy recently, here are those thoughts — slightly revised. A lot can change in two years. So it’s nice to realize, I still believe these things.

FiftyPlusFabulous. How To Make Your 50’s Your Best Decade Ever
So far, every decade of life has had its own unique flavor.
My 20’s. I needed to finish growing up, something that took me a bit longer than I had anticipated.
The 30’s? I was fixing the mess I had made in my 20’s.
In my 40’s, my mantra became, “If not now, when?”
I felt like I finally had it together, and was approaching the world like Evelyn in “Fried Green Tomatoes,” shouting “Towanda!”

How Has Writing 200 Posts Changed Me?
I can’t quite believe it.
This is my 200th post.
I’ve come to love sitting down in front of a blank screen, the little cursor blinking an early morning hello at me, and trying to convey either something that I have talked with patients about during my week, or an idea that might be helpful to someone who’s dealing with mental issues. Or just life.

15 Things I Learned In My Fifties
They say hindsight is 20/20.
I am gaining perspective on the decade I exited a year or so ago. In some ways it was my least favorite. In some, one of my more dear. If you can have favorites for that kind of thing.
So what did I learn?

Finding The Courage To Confront The Apathy Of Aging: Five Ideas
Many articles that focus on living well in midlife preach the importance of keeping the umph in your step.
They feature people who have changed careers from stock broker to sculptor at 50, walked the Appalachian trail at 60, or learned how to sky-dive at 70. (Not exactly middle age anymore, but you get the drift.)

Sometimes You Need A Hand. The Gift Of Empathy.
We traveled this year for the holiday.
Not to see family, but to be family. It was inspired by friends of ours that were doing the same thing, and the fact that this will likely be the last time our son has several weeks off at the holiday, at least for the near future.

Do You Fear An Emptier Empty Nest?
When I introduce myself now, I tell folks I write. At least it brings up other comments than when I tell them I’m a psychologist. That usually elicits the joke, “Ahh, are you going to...