Will you walk with me on mondays?

If you believe that there are no free lunch, just let life teach you this: the best things in the world are free. Among those things, I woukd like to focus in one: walking on mondays.

How can such a trivial activity become one the best things that life could offer me. I forgot to tell you that is not walking by itself what inspires me, but the emotional meaning behind it.

Fifteen years ago,  one of my best friends decide to go back to her country. Years passed by and I lost communication with her. I didn't even know whether she was dead or alive. I had no clue what her life was like. The memories of our frienship vanished with time or maybe they were stored deep in my heart. One day I made a business travel to California and during a conversation with someone, suddenly those memories reappeared, urging me to look for her. Hopefully, she would still living in that state.

To my fortune, we now have one of the best tools to look for people: the internet ( I am not going to promote facebook, though many people have find each other by this mean). So, I googled her and finally found her. The first time we talked, it seemed as if the last time we had spoken was the day before. We spend a couple of days meeting after work, talking for long hours, catching up with our lives and reviving old memories. In our last dinner, happiness turned into sadness. "Will I see you again or will we have to wait fifteen years for our next encounter?" I asked her. We knew that our frienship was unique and nor time, neither distance would be able to keep us apart again (I hope you are reading this because I am counting on you to make this work).  

To overcome the sadness of saying goodbye, we made a commitment: every monday we would try to connect to each other in spirit while excercising at a specific hour and we would imagine that the other was at our side. I like to walk around my neighborhood during the evening and she likes to do Yoga on Mondays . "Will you walk with me on mondays during the time of your yoga sessions?"

"Don't be sad"-  she wrote to me by mail later that day- "We will be together again when we exercise on Monday".

Sent from my iPad

A simpler life, a more satisfying love

Are our goals compatible with our relationships? Our ideas of success sometimes goes against our happiness and ends by destroying what we treasure the most: the ones we love. 

Peter wanted to become a wealthy man to provide to his wife and kids whatever they would need. He was a hard-working man and worked more than twelves hours a day to built his career. Soon the promotions start coming and with them more responsibilities  and more work.  He was even unable to take the vacations he deserved, but for him the sacrifice was worth-while because his family was able to buy whatever they wanted. In a few years, he had become a well respected and successful executive. What nobody was aware of is that his wife was seeing someone else.  She felt so neglected that she found company in other man. One day she left and filed for the divorce. Peters' heart was broken because his family fell apart. 

It seems that Peters's goal to protect and provide to his family was not coherent with his strategy to focus in his career to become a high level executive with a high salary. More money didn't bring more happiness to his life, but I am no saying that poverty would either. A simpler life could let him have more time with his family. Love flourishes when you take care of it, not through materials things, but through affection, respect and dedication. It is not so easy to find a job nowadays, but it is more difficult to find someone to share your life with.

Are you able to build trust?

Madly in love,  Rebeca and Julia decided to live together after a few weeks of being dating. Both were young but Rebeca was ten years older than Julia. She had also had more experience in her love life. Before Julia, she had two other relationships which ended after Rebeca met someone new and cheated on her partner. There she was, beginning a new relationship, thinking that this time would be different. As for Julia, she was just coming out of the closet and Rebeca was her first relationship with another woman.

Seven years later, Rebeca began to go out secretly with another woman. One day she left Julia for this new love. Julia was devastated. Although she found support in her friends and family, she would always be wounded by this traumatic experience. One of her main challenges would to be able to trust again another partner. Until the day she would open to love again without the phantom of infidelity.

Rebeca kept on repeating the same story over and over again. Unable to become a trustable partner,  she built a reputation of being unfaithful. Sooner, nobody wanted to take the risk to initiate a relationship with her. As my best friend said, an intelligent person learns from her own experience but a savvy one learns from others' experience.

To tell or not to tell: the challenges of infidelity to family and friendship

Laura and Kathy both worked in the same place. Beside being Co-workers, Laura was Kathy's brother girlfriend and was about to marry him. So, they became close friends and seemed to get along very well. One day, a scandal happened in their work place: Laura was discovered having an affair with one of her male colleagues by the senior management. Kathy was devastated and felt betrayed by Laura. Kathy told Laura: "are you going to tell my brother about your affair or should I?" Laura was between a rock and a hard place, so she had to confess  to her boyfriend about her affair. They broke-up.

Months later, Laura and Kathy's brother reconciled and tried to save their relationships, but  in order to do so both decided to distance themselves from Kathy. At the end, Kathy was the scapegoat for the whole story. As Unjust as it seems, it was easier for the couple to put the blame of their separation on Kathy rather than taking a thorough exam of their relationships. What the future would bring to this couple? What would be the basis for their relationships?

Kathy had to face a dilemma between being the accomplice of her future sister in law by keeping the secret of the affair or being loyal to her brother by unveiling the infidelity.  Kathy decided to stand up for her brother and to be coherent with her values. What would have you done in her place? There is no a black and white situation, but different tones of gray.

Love and War: two brothers, one woman

Adam was two years older than Tom. The two brothers grew together but had different personalities. Adam was easygoing and relaxed. He was very popular at school and had a girlfriend that was madly in love with him. Her name was Caroline. As for Tom, he was shy, very responsible and not as handsome as his brother. Dating was not one of his strenghts. He felt he was not lucky in matters of the heart.

One day Adam invited Caroline to meet his familiy. When Tom first saw her, she inmediately fell in love with her, but kept it secret. He never tried to make any advances on her. The mother of Adam and Tom knew very well what was going in the heart of her sons. He suffered seeing Tom in pain because of his secret love and at the same time was happy for adam's relationship with Caroline.  "How strange is Life" she thought as she analyzed this situation. How was it possible that same reason that made so happy one of her son was the cause of the unhappiness of the other.

Years passed and Caroline got married. 'With whom?" you might be asking. Tell me what would be the correct way of ending this story. I really don't know. It is up to you. What I am more certain about is that love and war seem to be in opposite sides, but  have one thing in common: both of them leave winners and losers.

Broken promises: will we be together forever or not?

We all wish to be with our partner for the rest of our life. We don't start a relationship thinking that one day you or your partner will leave. This sense of insecurity is present consciously or unconsciously in some cases and in others it vanishes as we take our partner for granted. But at the end of the day, we do not where life is going to take us: will we be together forever or not?

Adele met Mike when she was in her thirties. They seemed inseparable. They shared passions, projects, travels and goals. Not everything was perfect, they had their differences but not anything that could drift them apart. They spent almost thirty years together, until the day they separated because Mike had another relationship with a young woman. Adele didn't see it coming. By then, she was sixty years old, entering in a period of her life where she felt vulnerable and need emotional  support since she had to accept that she was old. Once she told me sadly. "I thought Mike and I will grow old together. It doesn't make any sense to me to be separated from him at this point of my life when I need him the most". 

With time, Adele continued with her life surrounded by her friends and family. Fortunately, she was not alone. She didn't stop missing Mike though. I wonder if Mike misses her too. I wish this story will end with Adele finding love again in the arms of someone loving, loyal and committed. I don't believe Mike is a bad person. Life is complex and it is understandable that we try to seek our own happiness, but sometimes the costs are high and they are paid by the people around us. I would say to Mike : the most important thing is not having regrets at the end of our life because of the things that we did or didn't do.  As for Adele, I would share with her the old adage: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger".

Let go of the past, take the risk of living in the present

Jane was a girl when her father decided to leave her mother. He fell in love with his assistant and was unfaithful to his wife. He decided to end his marriage to start a new life with his lover. Jane saw her mother suffering for this breakup for a long time. Jane promised herself that this situation was not going to happen to her.

When Jane became an adult, she established a relationship with a guy that loved her deeply. The guy wanted to marry her but she wasn't ready to commit because she remembered the situation she lived with her parents. Many times her boyfriend proposed to her, but the answer was always the same. The boyfriend gave up the idea of marrying her but this time he wanted to have a child with her. Of course the idea was not accepted by Jane. They lived together for ten years until the day the boyfriend realized that he was going nowhere with Jane and that this wasn't the kind of relationship he wanted to have.  So, he left Jane and afterwards started a new relationship, got married and had a girl with her new partner.

For Jane, the separation with her boyfriend was extremely painful. Loosing him made her analyze her life and realize that she hadn't been able to commit because she was stuck in the past, trapped in the memories of relationship of her parents. The cost of not letting go of the past was the loss of her love. To overcome this loss took her several years, but she was in the process of recovering from her childhood trauma.

Being stuck in the past didn't allow Jane to enjoy and to be fully present in her relationship. You cannot be in two places at the same time. You have to choose between being in the past or in the present,  or between let your fear determine you life or take the risk of deciding for yourself.