Huffington Post - mistakes women make

I was flicking through the web, as you do, and I came across this gem of a blog all about the mistakes women make It's a great article and offers some reminders about the things women can do from time to time. I've added it here because I thought it was worth sharing. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Buddhism and Sex

I went to a family day out at the SGI Buddhist centre in Taplow today, the sun shone brilliantly and I sat among good friends and fellow Buddhists having our picnics and discussed all manner of things. We have regular meetings to plan, review progress and provide others with updates and inspiration. One of our monthly gatherings is in the form of a discussion meeting. A topic is suggested at a prior planning meeting and as long as everyone is in agreement, the following meeting will be about that topic. Today I was told that the next topic will be "Sex". I have spent a great many years researching and experiencing this topic in various ways and am curious to understand what the Buddhist perspective is. I will keep you posted on this! If anyone has any thoughts or views, I'd be glad to receive them as this is one that I think many people will want to talk about.

If you would like to find out more about Buddhism in Britain then take a look at this website http://www.sgi-uk.org/

I look forward to hearing from you, with love and best wishes for you as you travel on your journey.

What is Love?

I have just visited a blog and the question asked was "What is Love?" I answered the question, which I will summarise here: Love is an emotion as well as an action and we have the choice whether or not to be open to give and receive love. How much we are able to do this will impact on how much we enjoy our life. It made me wonder if anyone else gives this question much thought, so I rushed over to jot down some thoughts.

I have spent many years experiencing and researching love in all its many guises, and now have set up a company that delivers workshops to help people to learn about love and relationship skills. I believe that love is something that can't be measured and many don't understand.

The evolution of the human being has gone from being incredibly inhumane to a society that is incredibly outraged when hearing injustices against children, and rightly so. This transformation is succinctly documented in Robin Grille's book "Parenting for a Peaceful World" The beginning chapters I found rather gruesome, however, I felt compelled to continue reading and glad that I did. Grille uncovers a world that has been changing over time towards an increasingly conscientious approach to child rearing which is becoming more nurturing. There are more "positive parenting" programmes available now than there have ever been, more and more parents are signing up to these programmes and I am glad to be involved in this development.

As a parent myself, I have spent a great deal of time trawling book shops and having conversations with friends to find out the best parenting practices, I felt I wanted to be the best parent I could and yet I felt I didn't have a clue as to how to go about it. The information wasn't readily available as the magazines I could purchase were mostly focused on the early years, and once your child had reached a certain age, the information was no longer forthcoming.

I decided I would throw myself into studying about child development and child psycholgy so I decided to become a nursery nurse. The two year training gave me various insights into the brain, physical, emotional and mental development of young children. This whetted my appetite to learn more. I spent the next few years volunteering in my son's primary school to experience working with young children who needed social skills support and to be given the opportunity to learn how to share and communicate, skills which are still unfortunately lacking in many, although I have great faith in humankind and am sure this is on the upturn!

I spent several years working with children with additional needs and learnt a great deal about children whilst also learning a great deal about myself. Those young people provided me with many opportunities to reflect and grow. I then decided to study Education at university as I really wanted to develop my knowledge and understanding of how the education system had developed since its introduction.

I have been involved in Education for many years now and am beginning to hear and see patterns emergin. There is a great deal of discussion about how schools impact on young people and I wonder often are they the best environments for the nurturing of young peoples' emotional development?

So getting back to my original question, which was taken from the blog I visited at www.partnersinloveandcrime.com/blog What is Love? If this was a subject that was taken seriously enough, valued and honoured enough to be given space at school to discuss and reflect, perhaps I wouldn't need to be asking this question now! I would dearly love to hear your comments about this particular blog.

My journey to creating Love 2 Learn 2 Love

...I had previously spent a great deal of time mulling over where I was going wrong each time I thought about my relationships that had come to a crashing end. The emotional toil and uncertainty caused by not knowing where I was going wrong, nor how I could resolve the issues that were brought up each time a relationship ended propelled me into the biggest emotional and physical slump I've ever experienced in my life. I considered that I was being sent situations that had some deep and meaningful lesson within them. I couldn't make it out though, how come this kept happening? I decided to concentrate on learning the necessary skills for developing a healthy, happy, loving, committed and long term relationship.


I went online and started to look for relationship education, coaching, mentoring courses and workshops and realised each time that everything I found came from America. There was nothing available in England that I felt resonated with me on a deep enough level to warrant me handing over my hard earned money. I found and read many books that spoke of a greater level of intimacy and love and the authors all heralded from the U.S. I began to realise that if I was going to find the level of support that I required, I would need to head off to America and as I hadn't ever been there before, I felt a little anxious.

During one of my online searches I came across the title of a book "Love is Not a Game but You Should Know the Odds", the title grabbed me and I read some of it on Amazon. The author's name is Randy Hurlburt, I decided to search further and discovered that he is a relationship coach and he offered a free initial consultation via either email or telephone. I signed up immediately because the content of his book had touched me significantly enough for me to want to find out more. I contacted Randy and also ordered the book, I felt it was important to really understand his message if I was going to be on the receiving end of his help.

Over the next couple of years, I spoke to Randy on and off via email and phone, I began to develop a trust in what he was saying and how he supported me in my efforts to recover from a painful break up. During one of the conversations, he told me that he was going to be delivering a series of teleseminars that I could sign up for and that would help me connect with others who were also searching for answers regarding love and relationships. I agreed and even though the seminars took place during the middle of the night due to the time difference between here and America, I made every effort to attend each one over the period of weeks to follow.

I learned a great deal from the workshops and commented one night that this information really needed to be shared in schools. Randy agreed and said he had a friend who was developing her own relationship education programme in Florida www.driversedforlove.com He put us both in touch with each other and we hit it off straight away. Isabell and I emailed each other a few times and in one of her emails she mentioned that there was a conference taking place in San Francisco that she thought I might be interested in. The 12th Smart Marriages Conference www.smartmarriages.com became my focus over the next few months and I scrambled together the air fare, conference fee and spending money to be able to attend.

While I was there, I met many people involved in marriage and relationship therapy in many forms. I met husbands and wives who had set up their own consultancies to share with others the skills they had learnt that helped them to develop their healthy and successful marriages. I took part in several training programmes that I could deliver when I returned to England, as I had decided that what I was really passionate about is what I should be doing as a living.

Sincre my return to England I have set up the company and taken part in further training to ensure I have the necessary skills to deliver to groups. I have recently become a Family Links Parenting Programme facilitator. www.familylinks.org This training has been invaluable and I now feel confident that with my skills, passion and committment, Love 2 Learn 2 Love will continue to grow and increase the chances of those who take part in the workshops to have a profoundly positive impact on their lives.

I strongly believe that everyone deserves to love and be loved. My mission in this lifetime is to learn about love and to share the wisdom I have gained with the world. I look forward to sharing my workshops with you and wish you every success in your life in particular your love life.

manifesting true love

I once thought it would be impossible to manifest the love of my life. Guess what? I found myself in relationships that weren't ideal.


I took a long hard look at myself and focused on what I really felt about Me. This was painful, yet it was the beginning of a relationship I least expected. I spent my time going out on my own to the cinema, to festivals, walks in the park. I basically spent time with myself doing the things I thought I would want to do with a loving partner.


Once I started this, I realised more and more that I began to like my own company. I grew on Me! It became clear to Me! A lightbulb went off in my head! Before I could even begin to have a quality relationship with anyone else, I first had to enjoy my own company and not only that, to feel love for myself. Now this may not be news to you, dear reader, for Me at the time, it was like someone had finally turned on the light. I had been sitting in a darkened room and there wasn't even a switch!




I took some time out from the idea that I wanted to be with someone and became dedicated to learning how to really love Me. I focused all my attention on having happy experiences and encounters with Me. I spent time doing things with Me and generally having a good time. Incredible the events that I started to notice. I had a blast. The Universe started to talk to Me, well actually it had always been talking, I hadn't been listening! I started to notice the colour of the sky, the sound of the birds singing and the changing of the seasons.



I'll save the next chapter for another blog, as I have decided I want to go and spend some more time with Me. I'll speak again soon, with love and a deep respect to all who are seeking love, let that begin with loving yourself. Love You first!

I would dearly love to hear from you so if you would like to share your experiences of finding true love, or would like to comment on any other aspect of the search for true love, then please feel free to post your comments here. I welcome all comments, however, if there are comments posted that are unsuitable I reserve the right to edit or remove them. I trust that you will value this and will want to post a quality comment. Thank you in advance, I look forward to hearing from you.