I’ve searched for love, all of my life.

I guess we all have to some degree.

Early on I didn’t feel worthy of love. I was not a planned child. While I felt cared for and in a sense wanted by my parents, I felt like an intruder in our small family. My brother seemed to be the center of attention. I took that to mean they loved him more than they loved me — that I was not worthy of that kind of love.

As a teen, I was accepting of the attention from any boy who would give…

“You will be successful,” Nicolas’ text message read.

I did not respond immediately. Receiving a message of encouragement like this one just four months earlier would have buoyed my spirits. It would have made me believe, at least for that instant, that what I was going for was perhaps possible for me. Someone else believed in me and in my abilities. Over the years, I have put a lot of weight on what others have believed about me (both good and bad), yet this time this message felt empty. It did not raise my hopes or belief in myself. …

Is a success a success if you don’t have someone with whom to share it? It absolutely is!

Yet I still seek my soul mate with whom to share life’s highs and lows. As I accomplish more and more in my life, it can feel lonely to achieve. The nonexistent support during my effort and lack of recognition once I’ve completed a challenge successfully haunts me.

After my recent breakup with my boyfriend, I had a presentation to give. I’d been excited about being asked and felt confident in myself to do an excellent job. And I did. But right…

When I told my friend Bea that I had moved from Perpignan to Céret after only a year there, she remarked with surprise, “Oh really, do you think you’ll stay there long?”

I could sense confusion and a bit of judgment in her tone. After all I’d just picked up and moved from Richmond, Virginia in the United States to Perpignan in the South of France only a year earlier, and now I was on the move again.

Certainly, it was another change, but I had gained clarity about where in France I would be even happier. And I had…

“The Fountain of Youth is Closer than You Think.” That is the title of a chapter I wrote for the ABCs of Awesome Living, a book project in which I took part. And the fact that the publisher will release it in the next few days is no coincidence. Recent events have convinced me of it!

I’ve been following the same route for my morning walk for over a year now, but I took a slight detour down a street with no outlet on Sunday. Usually, when I see a road with a dead-end sign, I avoid going down it…

I recently gave a presentation to a group of college alumnae. A college representative had asked me to speak on November 21, and I’d been honored.

Though I’d had five weeks to prepare, I waited until the last minute (or what seems like the last minute to my old self) to start to prepare. On November 15, I got serious, figured out the structure of my presentation, and began writing my speech. By 17th, I was content with what I’d created and I had the 15-minute introduction memorized. By November 20, a full day before my talk, I felt fully…

Every society (and family) has a set of rules that help guide it, which helps keep order and the status quo. We are born into our culture without choice, and our brains are imprinted with the cultural norms (rules and regulations) without our choice either, when we are young.

I was born into a family with the guiding principle of “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Meaning you do everything to keep what you have and maintain the status quo. This was meant to protect us by playing it safe. You don’t quit a job…

We don’t reach our goals because sometimes the goals we set are not important to us. We think we want to do something for some external factor, but the reasons don’t tap into our core values. I spoke of this in last week’s message.

But in my article entitled Is a Lack of Motivation Derailing your Dreams? I shared with you how to avoid or navigate this pitfall when it comes to having the success you want in life by leveraging How #2 to have Copious Success: Set a Meaningful Goal.

And sometimes, the reason we don’t reach our…