(By the way, I just came across Bridget McManus great commercial about prop 8, if you haven’t seen it defiantly check it out, http://www.myspace.com/bridgetmcmanus.)

This blog is dedicated to my cousin who got married this weekend, and to my wonderful boyfriend who just took me on a lovely adventure for our 1 year anniversary.

I continue to hear from people I know all over the world that it has been a hard year. With finances, with relationships and seemingly all across the board for some. For me, this year, (I know, we are barley half way through it), but for me, this year has tested my reserve, my drive, my passion for what I know I am supposed to be doing with my life, but at the end of the day I continue to make myself come back to love and gratitude for all of it. (I say “make myself” because sometimes that is a struggle, I know sometimes we want to stay out there in the self pity and the grief, and it becomes an actual chore to “make myself” come back. It is a conscious choice to come from a place of love and gratitude and sometimes that choice is easy and sometimes its not).

I wanted to dedicate this to two people I hold very dear to me because it is the people who are most dear to you that seem to bare the brunt of your stress when you are in the heat of it. So to them to them I give thanks and to you my readers I would like to offer a silly helpful tip that has helped me and my loved ones in this rough time when we should not be taking love for granted.

The statement All you need is love…. turn that around, all they need is love. I have found when I am in the muckiest of mucks if I can turn the focus off me and the needs of mine that I am not meeting or that my lover, my friend, my brother, my parent, whoever it may be is not meeting, if I can turn that focus off me and over to them suddenly my feelings in that moment will change. For me there is a tiny little thought in the back of my head that says when someone does not meet my needs it means they don’t love me, which makes me go into one of a few emotions, defensive, aggressive, attacking… that doesn’t help anyone, especially myself. I have found that if I take my attention off the fact that I am not getting love and put my attention on them the same is holding true for them. They are not feeling love, and there is not a worse feeling (at least to me) as the feeling of having love taken away.

The silliest, and easiest way I have found to break out of this (it coincidentally seems to be the one that works best) is this: Do something completely out of character, something totally different from the behavior pattern you were just in a second ago in the heat of the heave conversation or the messy argument. Suddenly shout out. Jump up and down. I have walked into another room, hid, and when the person followed me in jumped out at them screaming “AAHHHH!!” Or, if I am constrained to a car suddenly jumped and yelled “BOO!” The person will jump, probably scream, start laughing, (may start crying, but laughing at the same time) but together you will have achieved in changing each others emotional states. I don’t just use this when I am in the heat of things with someone. If someone dear to you comes to you in sadness and they are stacking one bad thing on top of another and you don’t know how to cheer them up, give it a try, it has worked wonders for me.

If anyone has tricks they use with the ones they care about on how to get themselves or their partners out of the muck and into giggles and smiles please share them. All we need is love. And if you have a trick that works that might save a friendship or a relationship please share it. Life is hard enough, don’t focus on yourself, go back to those you care about and show them you love them, show them you care.

Much love and gratitude to all of you,

I am still plugging away at the new website. Thank you so much to those of you who have contributed time and resources to making this happen. And thank you to my two J’s for your love and patients.

Erin