You remember Billy, right? He stood at least six inches taller than you, could run faster than anyone else, and his sweet spot was under the bridge, after school, fists up and ready to duke it out.

He was a terror!

I remained off his radar for most of the school years and keep him charmed with talk of BMX bicycles and other subjects he fancied. Other kids with no gift for gab weren’t so lucky as I watched him brawl his way through middle school like a Marine in training.

They were bullies in grade school, high school into…

Mourn the passing, or celebrate the life that was lived.

The funeral is a solemn occasion to commemorate the loss of your loved one. With millions of funerals held every year, they aren’t always ideal, much less enjoyable.

Some people want to commemorate life with a little more festivity, and a celebration of life allows you to do this — versus a solemn memorial at a funeral home.

A celebration of life service often confuses many people since they don’t think the occasion of someone’s death warrants a “celebration.”

Here are eight tips for creating a memorial service guests will…

(Sensitive Subject Alert — don’t read if this is triggering)

While studying the subject of grief, I read this excerpt:

“There is ancestral grief for white people in the U.S. having to do with what many of our European ancestors did when they got here. They decimated an indigenous population through war and disease. They brought slavery to this continent. We have not reconciled with the indigenous people of this country or the people we brought here from Africa. That grief is still there in our collective psyche. We’ve barely touched it. Some other countries with similar histories are dealing…

Why is there a fascination with the human struggle and failure?

Stand in any checkout line and a dozen magazines bombard the celebrities with a public mishap of the affair, drinking binge or poorly posed swimsuit photo with greater attention than wearing couture on the red carpet, an attractive date in tow.

Even employers ask the dreaded question to the prospective interview candidate:

“What are your top 5 weaknesses?”

“Weaknesses?” I would ask.

“What about my strengths? Isn’t that why you would hire me?” my questioning continued.

All I ever wanted to do was succeed and thrive in every way…

I was SO stuck, all creativity stewing inside me with no way out. I felt like I was going to pop!

But I loved language and knew how to tell a great story, it just wouldn’t come out.

A writer friend suggested free writing, writing my thoughts down to free up my mental energy and steered me towards Julia Cameron’s legendary book The Artists Way.

She teaches a process called The Morning Pages comprising three pages of free flow writing per day, no editing, no managing, just write.

I gave it a try.

It was a huge breakthrough as the…

We litter social media with the quotes that have stood the test of time and triumphantly repeated as motivation to keep us going. The boldly spoken words of men such as JFK and Martin Luther King memorialized and ultimately cost them their lives.

But times have changed. With the convenience of elaborate computer stations, boasting dual monitors and lightning speed internet connections, we can run an empire of opinions, keeping the dance going by a never-ending stream of intelligent questions and third-level inquiry, all from the safety of home.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, well then the…

The dreaded pro-con list of relationships. Setting the bar and creating boundaries in what you will and won’t accept in a potential partner can daunt and also liberate.

I get it!

This is my raw and real feelings on setting up relationships that work, drawn from years of failures and surveying others… yes, this gets messy, so hold on tight!

If clarity is the mother of all beginnings and intention is the rocket fuel that carries us through, then establishing guidelines is the best we can do to keep a relationship on track when passion runs high and we pull…

I remember the rage in her eyes like it was yesterday. She was angry at something I did, or didn’t do, I could never tell.

I was only 10 years old, woke from my bed with covers being thrown, scrambling for retreat when the curvature of the belt hit my leg. It stung. It penetrated all of me; the sound reverberating through my head.

I swallowed my fear and mounted up against my mother, but it was too late, she struck my soul. …