College is the true time many people emancipate (somewhat) from their parents. It is the first time many students live away from home and have the freedom of choice, without the watchful eye of a parental figure. It’s an important time, it’s a vulnerable time. As important as it is to find your focus of study, it’s also an important time to explore the dynamics of relationships with the boundaries you set for yourself.

In recent polls on "love and the college experience," 94% of coeds indicate that they found love at some point during their 4/5 year experience. Is this love or is this a level of vulnerability that you have when you are able to explore your sexuality and "play house" with someone with the freedom of your own space?

The culture we live in creates "pictures" for us based on what is expected in the course of our growing up. The picture goes something like this... You go to college, get a degree, graduate, get a good job (or any job in today’s economy), get married, buy a house and have kids. Phew...what a script?

How does that picture impact relationships in college? If you are in a relationship in college, and you are following the script, then this better be love, because this person is then the natural person to marry when you graduate.

Graduation arrives and you are involved, practically living together, and the pressure and fear that if you don’t make a commitment here, you are on your own for a long long time.

The picture may be greater than the truth! The truth may be that this relationship is a wonderful learning experience but not necessarily the perfectly compatible partner in the real world.

College is for exploration and development and maturity. It isn’t necessarily a place to find your mate. But tell that to the script we are taught to follow.

We have a 55% divorce rate in this country, and many of those people met and dated while in college. What goes wrong for these people?  They grow up! And they live in the real world and the relationship that once thrived in the college experience may not be the compatible one they need in the true adult experience.

So if you are out there playing house and feeling in-love while taking classes and going to parties, remember these few things...

1. You have never lived away from home before and this, freedom isn’t entirely free. It can be an illusion of the freedom you have in the real world.
2. Your feelings for this person and your compatability with this person in the real world may not be in synch.
3. There is no picture to follow, no script you must act out.
4. Your life is about growth and development and we all grow differently and develop at our own pace.
5. If you can’t live without this person, then live with this person in the real world and experience your compatibility. You might prevent making your truth just another picture.

Vacations have historically been a "time out" we take from the stress and routine of our everyday work life. With more and more stress related to the expense of vacations, travel hassle, family expectations, we often find that our "vacation" ends up not feeling like a vacation at all. People need to be realistic and truthful about their vacation needs. Our expectations and purpose for our vacation as it relates to our daily life should direct us to the type of vacation we plan. If you are stressed at work and you book a summer vacation with little or no down time or a great deal of air travel from destination to destination, you may be setting yourself up for NOT getting the rest and decompression you need from your daily work schedule. Or if you are expecting your children to behave a certain way, put down their electronics or value what you value on the vacation, you may be setting yourself up for a stressful struggle with your kids throughout your "restful" time.

When planning your vacation, it’s important to understand and plan for your true intention. Here are some tips to follow to make sure your vacation is truly that...a vacation from your daily grind.

1. Have a clear understanding about the work experience you are finishing and its toll on you.
2. Have a clear understanding about the work experience you will be going back to after your vacation.
3. Plan a vacation that truthfully creates the effect you need based on 1 & 2. If work has been easy lately, this might be a good time for that sightseeing, "on the go" trip you've been wanting to do. If work has been stressful and way busy, you might want to find a destination that is easy to get to with plenty of things for everyone to do while having the option to do absolutely nothing.
4. Have a day or two after you finish work, but before you embark on your vacation to be at home, decompress and gear up for your vacation.
5. The same holds true for the end of your vacation. Arrive home a day or two before you have to go to back to work to gear up  and get your mindset ready to embrace your work life again.

No matter what...safe travels!

The NFL pre-season is under way and training camps have opened all over the league. The sports media is keeping us up to date on the millions ($) of reasons we love and hate professional sports. But, right now, as we speak, there are athletes competing for spots on the roster of an NFL team, attempting to realize a lifelong dream. This is nothing new to these athletes, or any true athlete on this planet. Competition is at the heart of all the preparation, and all that has gone on prior to this particular opportunity. High School try-outs, select team try-outs, recruitment to college try-outs have all led to this moment, this try-out! What these athletes know about themselves, what they know about what it takes to perform at their best is on the line.

Here is what these and all athletes need to know:

1. Be true to yourself
2. Be disciplined in your approach
3. Stay within yourself and do not worry about the actions or performance of other people.
4. Let all the muscle and emotional memory of years of preparation, practice, and performance be your strength and confidence.
5. You compete against yourself to perform at your best. Never compete against anyone else on the field or they will beat you!

There is much talk going on about Al Gores apparent affinity with Massage Parlors. Recently, I was posed the question about whether married men who frequent Massage Parlors are "lacking love and affection at home?" It’s a complicated answer to a complicated question. Lately, everything a celebrity does that is "bad" is considered some kind of addiction requiring some form of rehab. Is Al Gore addicted to Massage Parlors or was he not getting enough sex at home? Where in our quest for these answers is the discussion about betrayal of your spouse, abandoning your values, your morals, your commitment to your marriage? The relevant discussion is...What happens in a relationship, a marriage in particular, that people feel the need to justify their betrayal as compensating behavior? Let’s have interviews on that topic so people can learn something helpful. What is it about our society that we don’t try to fix what’s broken before we look elsewhere to fill the void? It’s time we stop focusing on the person doing the betrayal as a victim of something greater than the betrayal itself. Its time, as a society, that we fess up to what’s in front of us, in our relationships, and fix them or change them. If we cannot fix them, then we change them, and at that point if we want to date a former stripper with tattoos all over their body (like Jesse James) or frequent your favorite "Happy Endings" Massage Parlor, like the former VP, the only person you are affecting is yourself.

Living in a blended family is increasing at an astonishing rate in our country. One out of every three Americans is either a stepfather, stepmother, stepsibling, or stepchild. According to US government statistics 23% of families residing with a legally married couple are "blended families."

The process of successful blending two family cultures, histories and patterns into one, can be very complicated. Married couples often try to create an illusion or "picture" that this is an original family - that each child, regardless of their family of origin, need to embrace this new entity as their family and treat stepsiblings as siblings and stepparents as parents from the first day of their marriage. Great picture but not necessarily the truth.

Parents of blended families need to remember that their children didn’t necessarily have a say in this decisions.  Families should…

1. Honor and respect where their children are emotionally and developmentally.
2. Establish and communicate the new family culture with roles, rules, values, and rituals.
3. Live calmly and peacefully in the new family culture themselves.
4. Let the child come to the "New World Order" naturally rather than pushing the child into relationships they may not be ready to embrace.

When you model a healthy loving relationship between the couple (something they may not have witnessed between their original parents), living the New World Order happily, trust your child and they will eventually figure out who they are and what they can give to the new family culture.

Now that’s blending!

Do you find yourself in relationships that feel "toxic"? Does the relationship you are in cause more stress than joy in your life? Whether it’s a romantic relationship, a friend or a coworker, if a person is toxic in your life, it is not good for you. Many of us find ourselves stuck in relationships that we don’t know how to break off. First we have to assess several things...

1. Is this relationship reciprocal...do I get as much as I give?
2. Am I more stressed by being involved than joyful or happy that this person is in my life?
3. Would my life be healthier if this person is no longer in my life?

If you are asking these questions, there is already some doubt that this is too "toxic" to be involved in. At that point it’s important to...

1. Directly approach the topic of a need for change in the patterns that are toxic with that person. (If the relationship really matters to you, you may want to give them an opportunity to make the necessary changes, if possible.)
2. Assuming nothing changes, you need to confront them with your need to say goodbye to them.
3. Do not get sucked into lengthy conversations about the details of what they did wrong.
4. Focus on the "process" and feelings of your experience in that relationship rather then the “content” of their behavior or yours.
5. Stay focused on your intention to "break off" the relationship and keep it short and simple.
6. Set rules for future communication and boundaries for the times you may run into one another.

We all deserve to be treated well and must keep high standards for how we are treated. A healthy reciprocal relationship that enhances each person is one you will never have to say goodbye to.