Journaling Through Relationships


Journaling Through Relationships: What Have You Learned? 2

“You don’t need to change the world; you need to change yourself.” ― Don Miguel Ruiz IF YOU’VE BEEN FOLLOWING THIS SERIES and journaling about the relationships in your life, you began with writing about the most fundamental of all relationships — your parents. You then branched out to write about your […]


Journaling Through Relationships: Death and Grieving 2

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” ― Mitch Albom ALL RELATIONSHIP ENDINGS are painful, and perhaps none more so than the loss of a loved one by death. In her Psychology Today article, Dr. Lani Leary writes, “A relationship is an association, a connection, a link, and a tie between loved ones. […]


Journaling Through Relationships: Endings 5

“There’s a trick to the ‘graceful exit.’ It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense […]


Journaling Through Relationships: At Work 4

WHAT IS THE NATURE and quality of your relationships with managers, colleagues, and clients? Do you have friendships with the people you work with? Do you get together with them outside the office, or are your work and personal lives kept separate? These are a few of the questions we’ll […]


Journaling Through Relationships: Social Media Friends 2

Human relationships used to be easy: you had friends, boy- or girlfriends, parents, children, and landlords. Now, thanks to social media, it’s all gone sideways. — Susan Orlean HOW MUCH TIME each day do you spend on social media interacting with “friends”? Do you have hundreds of these friends, or […]


Journaling Through Relationships: Your Circle of Friends

“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.” ― Helen Keller ADULT FRIENDSHIPS are qualitatively and quantitatively different from those of our youth — even when those friendships are holdovers from that earlier time. And they are as important as ever. Friendship helps protect us […]


Journaling Through Relationships: Grandchildren 2

I WAS THERE when my first grandchild was born. My daughter-in-law had chosen to have her baby at home with a midwife. I’d also had mine with a midwife’s assistance, and I was delighted to be invited to lend a helping hand. After a long labor, my granddaughter finally emerged […]


Journaling Through Relationships – About Children 2

“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray THE WORLD HAS MUCH TO SAY ABOUT CHILDREN AND PARENTING. I can’t even speculate how many thousands of books have been written on the topics of child development, […]


Journaling Through Relationships: Marriage and Life Partners 6

A LONG-TERM, HEALTHY, AND LOVING RELATIONSHIP can bring a great deal of satisfaction and happiness to our lives. And research suggests that people (particularly men) who are in long-term partnerships (married or cohabiting) actually live longer than singles. This may be because we tend to take better care of ourselves […]


Journaling Through Relationships: Sex and Sexuality

NO EXPLORATION OF RELATIONSHIPS WOULD BE COMPLETE without an honest inquiry into our attitudes and beliefs about sex and sexuality, as well as how we express that aspect of our beings in our romantic relationships. Everyone has sex. That’s part of being human. Yet it remains a relatively taboo, “delicate” […]


Journaling Through Relationships: About Dating 2

WHEN IT COMES TO RELATIONSHIPS, what is dating? Does dating even fall under the term “relationship”? What if you’re not serious about the person and only dating casually? What’s the difference? If you perform a search on the internet about dating and relationships, most articles contend that you’re not in […]


Journaling Relationships: Time to Pause and Reflect 3

IF YOU HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING this Journaling Through Relationships series, you have been writing about relationships with members of your family of origin, your relationship with self, and friendships from childhood through adulthood. Following our timeline of growth, as we continue this series we will use journaling prompts to explore […]