Category Archives: Relationships and the Five Elements Philosophy

It is not news that the world needs love. But what is love, exactly?  It is a state of being that leads you to happiness.  Leading yourself to love doesn’t mean to disregard others in favor of yourself. Reveling in your own happiness does not mean that you find joy in others’ pain. Showing mercy […]

The phrase “star-crossed lovers” has been used often throughout the centuries. But the questions remain the same: Is it really in the stars? Or is it just in your head? Hippocrates, Chaucer, and Shakespeare all seemed to acknowledge the concept of a predestined, inescapable, unalterable fate between two lovers, like a knot firmly tied by […]

Sometimes we hear from our supportive friends that it is important to take back your power.  This may be power you have relinquished to relative or romantic partner. You probably didn’t even know you did it.  It is not uncommon.  This is not an exclusively female problem, even though it is very predominant among this […]

Dear Readers, Scenarios like this happen far too often: a gunman injures and murders multiple people just for being different from him. If the gunman survives, he’s often charged with a federal hate crime, defined by the FBI as a crime based on biases against something about the targeted victim, such as their race, religion, […]

My blog post today is an answer to an email sent by a reader. She wrote: Dear Toria, An interaction I had with my husband yesterday left me feeling especially upset. Both of us work stressful jobs; I’m a project manager, and he’s an accountant. We’re involved in our grown children’s lives, and we’re active […]

My blog post today is an answer to similar emails sent by several readers. They wrote: Dear Toria, I can’t my grandkids won’t be with me for Christmas. Why would their parents take them on a vacation now? Dear Toria, I want to skip my company’s holiday party. How can I get out of it? […]

Dear Toria, I feel bad about admitting this, but I argue with my brother about everything. We spent most of this past year fighting about whether we should sell our parents’ house or keep it for rental income. Our mother died a couple years ago, and we recently relocated our father to an assisted living […]

My blog post today is an answer to an email sent by a reader. She wrote: Dear Toria, I’ve had a difficult year in many ways. The idea of making Christmas happen in the way my family has come to expect is overwhelming. But the moment I choose to cut back on buying gifts or […]