When you clarify your roles in relationship and bring consciousness to the leadership in them, something sacred happens. All the energy dedicated to jockeying for power and position gets contained in conscious roles, and frees you up to really focus on loving and on things you love to do together.

In the fourth post in the Leadership in Relationship Series, Amber and her boyfriend use leadership principles to co-create a partnership that diminishes drama, minimizes the tendency to get emotionally wound up and take everything personally, and increase the flow of communication, connection and closeness.

Although it was a special Valentine’s Day dinner, in a very pricey restaurant, we could hear the conversation of the couple next to us all too well. They weren’t loud: We were quiet. Silent, in fact.

The heart itself is not always a trustworthy leader. It simply is. It likes what it likes. It loves things that are good for it, it loves things that are bad for it. It’s up to us to discriminate, to steer the ship that rides on heart’s waves. The second article in the Leadership in Relationship series.

Today the events of the Boston Marathon have finally caught up with me.
I’ve been avoiding it.
But I did manage to take a photo of the Freedom Tower, to remind us all of resurrection.

The first in a series about leadership in relationship, this backwards post is meant to provoke thought and reflection about how and why we fight. If you’re in a partnership, romantic or business, at some point in time you are going to disagree. Conflict is unavoidable. And some people, maybe even you, make a habit of it. Fighting in a loop de loop is a treacherous sport. Here’s how to perfect it:

If you feel that your current job (or lack there of) is not challenging you or utilizing the depth of your creativity or healing skills, you’ll start to dream of what you could be doing. Some of those dreams will be escapist — you recognize them because they include fantasies like giving your academy award speech or doing nothing on a deserted island. Without your children. Forever.

You’ve probably heard of “The Power of Now,” but if you are often rushing, emotionally overheated, or unsure of when your emotional responses fit the circumstances, The Power of “Not Now” is an essential practice for lovers and leaders who want to practice self-containment and effective communication.

Even if you work at home in your PJ’s at a job you love, being in any one mode for an extended period of time — be it work, parent or even play — has a diminishing effect. A Soul Fetch, described more fully below, is a way to transition out of the role you play during the day and get back to the fluid essential you, returning to yourself some of the energy you have been putting out there.

I once lived in an ashram where hours of time would be put into very detailed and laborious tasks, such as filing tens of thousands of letters, painting a meditation hall or peeling hundreds of pounds of apples. At some point well towards the end of an exhaustive assignment, the teacher would come by and [...]