The media gives everyone a prescription for love.  For women the guy should be tall, dark, and handsome, well established, fit, somewhat fierce looking and wear the latest fashions.  For guys the woman should be beautiful, well made up, manicured, with a fabulous hairdo, and dressed to the nines.  
Sorry to say but we can all get taken in by this insanity.  Love is not about the external qualities or quantities of someone.  Love is about the heart and soul connection you make with the other person.  That is not something your rational (left side) brain should argue you out of.  If your heart imprints on someone, at some point you will need to find out if there is a reason for this.  Otherwise, even if you find the "all that" person in the eyes of society, you will be living a lie and your heart will let you know it.
Love is about enjoying the experience of the other person living and growing and changing before your eyes.  It is not about judgement.  It is not about control, dominance, or submission, or power.  It is about acceptance, encouragement, and as the French say:
"L'amour ce n'est pas se regarder l'un l'autre; C'est regarder ensemble dans la meme direction."
(Love is not looking at each other;  It is looking together in the same direction)  Love is about helping each other learn, grow, and achieve a mutual purpose for everyone's highest good.  It is the most powerful and positive force in the universe.
The rest is just media hype and like so many of the other advertised products - having the kind of partner that looks good on the outside but doesn't resonate with your inner being,  will leave you ultimately unfulfilled..

It is difficult to not fit in.  Our society is very conscious and self-correcting in that regard.  It looks like you have freedom.  But that is somewhat illusory - you do and yet you don't.  
As soon as you begin to walk your own path,   At first they will ignore you.  They will pretend you are just joking, or that nothing will come of your efforts.  
Then as you pursue your path, there will be those who will ask you to change back.  Then they will demand you change back.  If you don't, they will either abandon you, or actively oppose you.  That's when some will begin to ridicule you.  It is now your turn to ignore them.  Just continue on your journey.
The hardest thing is when it is close friends that start to ridicule you.  Perhaps they are fearful.  If you become successful, if you are following your path and I am not - what does that say about me? They might think.  Perhaps they are jealous.  Perhaps they are simply conditioned to believe it is better to be an armchair quarterback, a small fish, than to actively go after your dreams and make them really take shape.  It is not easy to keep walking then, but you must or lose your hope of becoming all you were meant to do and be.
In order to fulfill your destiny, you must be willing to risk it all, to step out of comfort and safety and go on, seeing only your vision and trusting that your journey will be unique and precious.
Happy journeying to all of you seekers!  Keep seeking - you will find what you are looking for!

There is much new evidence emerging from both science and medical research that emotions and health are quite tightly interrelated.  Perhaps there is a better way to explain this.  If you are internally directed you will have true bliss.  That is not to say you will never feel upset or pain, but you will be able to put these quickly into perspective, forgive yourself and others and not have trapped or blocked emotions, which will impede your energy.  We are energetic beings.  If we do not process (and as Bradley Nelson in The Emotion Code demonstrates, this does not have to be a lengthy process) our emotions as they happen, we risk "stuffing" them and suffering the physical consequences of things like loss, unforgiveness, anxiety, sorrow, and others.  Joy is the birthright of every human on the planet but many well-meaning people are telling others that there is "No pain, no gain".  While discipline may be needed to master a subject, this does not imply sadness, if that subject is your passion.  Will there be some trouble in your life?  Likely.  It is how you react that is paramount.  Do you see all things as an opportunity to grow and learn?  Or are you seeing  yourself as the hapless victim of circumstances?  The feeling of learning from a mistake or problem is empowering.  The feeling of being a victim is depressing.  Very different.  And the body will likely not be as physically capable with the feeling of depression weighing on it.
We should all be in vibrant health.  We have abundant food and resources to exercise.  Yet, listen carefully to what most Canadians talk about - the weather, the troubles they are having, and their health.  The latter is not usually viewed as positive.  
Something hurts or everything hurts, perhaps it is trouble with their teeth, their feet, their gut, their back, whatever it is, the "O poor me!" talk is rampant.  If you listen, you will hear it.  
When you don't go there, you can be left out of the conversation altogether.  Perhaps that might be better.  Talking about an illness, impending or not, certainly can't help.  However, if you believe that what you focus on expands, if you want health, you should not be concentrating on illness.
Something to think about. 
Check out www.GNM.ca  for info on German New Medicine.  It is a paradigm shift that is well supported with medical evidence.

It's such a stereotype - women and shopping.  If I hear another sociologist wax eloquent about hunters (men) and gatherers (women), I swear I will vomit.  That has nothing to do with the excesses we have in our society thank you!  We are not just surviving.  On the other hand... thriving would not exactly be the word for it either.  But I digress...
I went out shopping today.  Well, actually I went to help a friend out and drove to Grand Prairie, the land of a thousand stores and a veritable plethora of ways to spend your money.  I personally detest shopping.   I know, I know, I'm female and that goes against everything the society tried so hard to inculcate into me yet there it is.  I would rather play golf than shop.  (and the only thing I hate more than shopping is golf - the ultimate snore sport)   There is one quid pro quo to the shopping thing: if you get me in an art store or a really good bookstore, I will hand my wallet off to you, so that I do not have to remortgage my house afterward.
However, my friend wanted to go to a clothing store.  Ugh!  Be positive, right?  So, I wondered to myself, I wonder what it would be like to scoop up the best, most excellent bargains in this store and come away with a beautiful outfit (or 2) in the process?  So, marked down from $35 to $7 a beautiful skirt and from $25 to $8 an awesome summer shirt, which just happen to go fabulously together AND skinny jeans at $17 (okay, not really a bargain but I liked them) and a jacket - gorgeous and unique - from $35 to $8.  I am feeling much better about shopping now!  Of course I know the store STILL made money off me but I didn't lose as much on the deal.  I am smiling!
Happy hunting (or gathering) to y'all this weekend! 

Norman Rockwell was an American staple (like wheat before Monsanto) in the early twentieth century.  He showed daily life as it was back then.  Evolution must be a slow process since this particular vice is ever with us.  We can all fall into the pit from time to time but let's try this:  If you wouldn't first say it to their face, don't say it behind their backs!  No one can change anything they don't know about, or haven't been taken to task about if they haven't got the will or attention to face it.  No fair! Red flags down on the play with gossip!  
Next time you are tempted (and I am also from time to time) think... Am I prepared to say this to the person's face?  No?  Then don't say it.  Or even better - have I already taken this issue up with the person?  No?  Then don't say it.  Yes?  Well, then it's a reporting of the facts which may or may not be okay, depending on the circumstances.  Stop hiding out in the cheap seats, whispering y'all!  Step up and be counted and be accountable.  Gossip is cowardice.  What's worse is that it is all too often rejoicing in the misfortunes of others and that never brings anything good on the rejoicer by the way.  Just tell them the truth as you see it, what's wrong with that?  Maybe they agree or maybe not but at least the air is cleared and you stepped up.  

It's hot in the great white north!  38 degrees C!  And I am definitely not a fan.  If I were I would still live in the south. A lot of people slam cold weather but hey, you can always put on more clothes.  Once you are out of them and still sweating you are, well, baked.  
So what gives?  Is it Global Warming?  Considering the instability of the weather - heat, then rain and cold, then more heat - it seem's like Global Sine Wave is more likely what is going on.  
Perhaps the million dollar question is "Why?".  If you put ten scientists in a room, you would be more likely to get agreement about "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" than about this question.  I mean, not that after all we have done to the planet we don't deserve some extreme weather.  Let's face it - cutting down forests (which we know are absolutely vital to everyone's existence), so we can supply burgers for corporations to sell us, pumping out oil and gas at a record rate to fuel our consumption (we don't actually know whether the oil and gas actually serve to stabilize the planet - hey, did anyone think of that?), and frac-ing?  Really,on second thought, why is probably not the operative question here. 
 I read an article, perhaps on Institute of Heart Math (can't remember actually) that we used to live off of the interest that the earth produced.  Now we are no longer doing that.  Now we are destroying the earth's ability to sustain herself and us, of course.  Perhaps the question should be - Are we crazy?  Or do we just think it will only happen overseas?  Oh, wait, I guess the floods in Calgary disproves that.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-oil and gas.  I drive a car, albeit a hybrid, because I need to get to work.  But at what point do we stop and say "Enough!"  There is a better way than this."  There really isn't any solid plan to go forward - and we need one.
I know that old habits die hard and we have been on this increasingly destructive spiral for more than a couple of centuries, but I think it is time to re-think some of the things we currently take for granted and start seriously working on sustainability.  And hats off to those that are.  Germany is one of them.  
It is of course possible, that this unstable and extreme weather is part of a natural re-occurring cycle.  Living more sustainably would still be important.  A little balance in our own lives - is that being the change you want to see?  Anyone with me on moving ahead with this?