Every relationship in your life is a sacred contract, and whether you’re aware of it or not, you’ve made agreements with the people in your life, the ones who will be your greatest teachers.  We often make these contracts without being mindful of what we’re agreeing to. For example, in my sacred contract with my husband, we made an unspoken deal. I had just gotten out of an abusive marriage, and what I needed from him was safety and the certainty that he’d never hurt me the way I had been hurt before. My hubby, on the other hand, had spent much of his life trying to please people he loves with achievements (the man has many graduate degrees and was about to get another one when I first met him.) I agreed to love him without expecting him to achieve anything. He agreed to keep me safe.

A couple of weeks ago in Paris my husband and I saw a swoon-inducing Marc Chagall exhibition at the Musee du Luxembourg. On the wall in one of the rooms there was a stunning quote of his that read something to the affect that nothing makes much sense in our lives unless everything we do, feel, and think in body, mind, and spirit is impregnated with love.

What’s wrong with women’s empowerment? Nothing and everything.

At its best, women’s empowerment programs are an organizational (or social) recognition that cultural barriers diminish women’s chances to succeed and make an attempt to counteract those forces to give women a better chance. Why? Not just because it’s the right thing to do from a social justice point of view, but because – as Warren Buffet writes in this month’s Fortune Magazine – companies who do this instigate The Women Effect and gain the productivity and performance improvements that come along with leveraging 100% of your best and brightest instead of a lot less than that.

~ Thoughts are not facts, even the ones that tell you they are.

One of my clients e-mailed me this week in quite a state. She was overwhelmed with what she needed to do, wasn’t sleeping and just flat out couldn’t find the juice to get herself going. She’d just spent 2 months away from home caring for her elderly mother-in-law and helping her husband’s family make decisions about what’s next for Mom.