Barb met Paula several years ago as both are life coaches who specialize in working with lesbian women. Paula’s story is unique in that she followed her heart and successfully left corporate America to create a career she loves.

Paula will be sharing the process she’s created to help her business and personal clients, called Life Alchemy™.  She’ll share how she came to develop the process; what is unique about the way she helps women reinvent their lives and careers; the biggest barriers she sees women struggling with, especially lesbian women, when it comes to succeeding on one’s own terms professionally and more.

Be sure to set aside this hour now and give yourself some nurturing.  Particularly if you are bored, frustrated or hating your current job, you will want to tune in!  Men and women invited.

Click here to bookmark the podcast page now!

Sleep?  Sleep, you ask?  What’s sleep got to do with your stress levels or your partner’s insensitivity?

Well, it turns out that your sleep habits have A LOT to do with the quality of your daytime, i.e.: awake life!  There are no ifs, ands or buts on this one.  I remember the tale of the college students who almost went insane during a research experiment that deprived them of sleep.  Earlier research like this showed us how important quality and quantity of sleep is to one’s mental health.

Researchers are also discovering how important quality sleep is to our physical health.  I was talking with a nutritionist yesterday who reminded me (as I’ve heard before), that when we don’t sleep enough hours during certain times of the night, our bodies release stress hormones that help us GAIN weight.  That’s right - gain weight.  Yikes!  Not something most of us desire.

I read a study this week that found seven hours is the optimum number of hours of sleep a night we need for our body to restore itself properly.  And, surprise: guess what?  If you are sleeping more than eight hours of night, that’s not good either.

So, while we may focus on our partner’s communication problem, how about looking at how each of you are doing in the sleep department:

• Is one of you up at night worrying about how you aren’t getting along, or about stress at work?
• Is one of you snoring and keeping the other awake?

Perhaps your daytime sleepiness is making one or both of you just irritable or impatient enough to block your ability to talk through the normal stresses of the day.  Hmmm….interesting subject is it not:  getting your zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’s….

Post your concerns about sleep, insomnia, etc., right here on Coach Sappho’s Blog

I hope you’ll post your experiences and frustrations with sleep hygiene, right here on the blog. You see, our relationship with sleep has changed dramatically in the past 100 years or so, with the invention of electricity, the light bulb, shift work, etc.  Our bodies haven’t evolved to keep up.  For hundreds of thousands of years prior to now, humans followed the sun instead of artificial light.  They went to bed when it got dark and woke up when the sun came up.

In today’s world, it can be ever more challenging setting and maintaining good sleep habits.  After all, how many of us are guilty of staying up late to get one more thing done on the ever growing ‘to do’ list?  Or, how many of us are up late ‘playing’ online on a gaming site, instant messaging, watching a great movie, etc.?

I heard someone say recently that we are more ‘connected but less engaged’ than ever.  It’s true.  We are more driven to distraction than ever, especially due to all of the ‘techie toys’ available today.  I think this holds true for us and our relationships with ourselves as well.

For example: You may feel like you are more ‘connected’ than ever, to people, information, etc.  But, isn’t all of this connection too much at times?  I know I sometimes have to say ‘hey wait, I can’t take in any more!’

I recall Thomas Leonard, the late ‘father of modern life coaching’ who used to say that in today’s world our mental bandwidth will be exceeded.  Amen, Thomas, you were so, so, right.  The problem today is not getting the information you need, it’s what information, when, etc.  We do need ‘filters’.  Otherwise we become increasingly fatigued, frustrated and, UNABLE TO SLEEP!

Please join me on my next ‘GLBT Talk with Barb and Donna’ live podcast, next week on Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 4p ET, where I’ll be talking more about identifying sleep issues and ‘getting quality zzzz’s'/improving your sleep habits.  Bottom line:  the topic is NOT bland.  Getting proper sleep is sexy and healthy stuff!

Photo courtesy of BigStockPhoto.com

Lesbiandating.net just named Coach Sappho the #2 blog of the

41 Best LGBT Lifestyles and Dating Blogs

This is fun stuff.  Be sure to surf on over to lesbiandating.net and check it out!  We’re also considered a ‘must read’.

Thank you to the folks at lesbiandating.net for giving us this recognition.

The ‘Gray Divorce’ discussion got me thinking about the topic of gay divorce, and more specifically, lesbian breakups and lesbian divorce.  I remember a few years back reading an article in a professional magazine about the ‘disenfranchisement’ lesbians go through when their relationship ends.

According to dictionary.com disenfranchise is defined as:

To be deprived of a franchise, privilege or right

As a survivor of gay divorce myself, I can tell you it’s true.  First off, most lesbians aren’t able to legally marry.  This means society doesn’t recognize or acknowledge your committed relationship on a level equal to legal marriage.  So, if your relationship ends, so what?  Socially, this sets up some big time ‘pain’ for many lesbians.  Straight people take for granted the respect and sympathy they automatically receive when they are going through the stresses of divorce.

For example, I know plenty of lesbians grieving a painful breakup without the support of family because they’ve never even told their family they were IN a committed relationship.  Or, more likely, a lesbian’s family does know but doesn’t equally support their daughter like they would if she’d been married to (and divorced) a man.

Then there are the financial issues.  Straight folk take for granted the support of the legal system in it’s ability to help there be a ‘fair’ distribution of shared assets.  Unless you and your ex set up a system to ensure fairness, chances are you have no recourse.  Many times the less financially savvy or powerful partner in a couple loses out.  And, there are cases where the one who came into the relationship more financially sound is taken to the cleaners.

And, now that gay marriage is increasingly being voted into law across the country, there are new wrinkles to consider.  For example, if you were married in one state and try to divorce in a state that doesn’t recognize same sex marriage, then what?

These are all reasons why it’s wise for you to:

• Do all you can to be choosy about who you select as your life partner
• Make a true, mutual commitment to each other
• Nurture your committed relationship, so that it doesn’t end.

Stay tuned for future posts for my thoughts on these issues.  

Call to action (this is where you come in!): Have you ever gone through a breakup?  If so, what have been your experiences with them?  Are you going through a gay divorce?  I hope you’ll post right here on the blog and let us know.

I hope you won’t just read my blog.  I want you to INTERACT with it (and me).  Your life will improve as a result.

Woody offers monthly teleseminars on a range of financial topics and he’s licensed in many states to offer financial assistance.  Partnership Wealth Management’s complimentary July Webinar will be held on Tuesday, July 13, 2010 (12 noon – 1:00pm EST) and will focus on Women and Investing.  Please call Loury Davis at 410-732-2733 for more details and to reserve your space today!

You can also check out Woody’s website by clicking here.

———————————-

Okay, here’s Woody’s article…

Market Pullback – Not a Financial Crisis

By Woody Derricks, President, Partnership Wealth Management
410-732-2633

On Thursday, May 6, 2010, the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500, expanded its recent pullback with a vengeance as it dropped over 3% for the day after rallying from midday declines of almost 10%.   While fear was certainly the undertone for the day, the big declines and subsequent rally happened all within an hour.  Although the point damage was largely mitigated, uncertainty and concern remain entrenched in the market.

While the catalyst for the large decline was attributed to an apparent trading error that triggered a technical selloff, it was the uncertain environment regarding the fiscal crisis of several countries in Southern Europe that has created the negative backdrop for the market. Concern over the bailout of Greece has been widely reported, but the emerging anxiety of the market is the potential contagion of Greece’s fiscal deficit issues to other European countries and perhaps beyond.  The very real concern is if Europe will once again teeter back into the realm of recession, which could have negative impacts to the export portion of U.S. multi-national companies, certainly has the equity markets nervous.

While the fiscal crisis of Greece and other Southern European countries creates market uncertainty, it is important to remember that the events are the after-effects of the 2008 financial crisis and not the start of a new financial crisis.  Greece is not alone—it is one of many companies, families, individuals and now even countries that have been causalities of the recent recession.  Whether it was a job loss, a home foreclosure, rising debt, the need to cut back on spending or a national fiscal crisis as it is for Greece, there have been many negative consequences resulting from the most severe recession in almost 80 years.  That said, these negative events are the effects of the financial crisis we have just been through and not the cause of another new wave of credit concerns and another financial market collapse.

While fear is always an unwelcomed emotion, investing fear may create opportunity.  Since the recovery began back in early March 2009, the S&P 500 has risen approximately 70%, but not in a straight line.  In fact, along the ascent, there have been four pullbacks ranging from 5% to 10%, including this most recent market selloff.  I would argue that the selloff is not the result of increasing bad news, but rather the market became priced for perfection and perfection was unrealistic.  After huge market gains over the last year, expectations grew greater and greater.  The bar continued to be raised until the point where, regardless of how strong the economic backdrop was, expectations were greater than reality.  The result was a reset in expectations and a pullback in the market. Greece happened to be the catalyst, but the trigger could have been any report or event that did not meet the market’s expectations of near perfection.  The fact remains that pullbacks, like the one we are currently in the midst of, are healthy as they serve to reset expectations and re-engage nervous, profit-taking bulls back into a recovery.

When wondering how to react to times like these from an investment perspective, let’s not forget the fact that the market plunged on what appears to be a trading error and then corrected itself all within an hour.  This indicates a market demonstrating stability, not in a freefall.  This does not mean we will not get pullbacks and market hiccups like we are experiencing now, as these are both needed to establish a balance between buyers and sellers and to support future, healthy market advances.

Sometimes in periods of fear, investors and the market itself can lose the forest through the trees.  While the fiscal problem in Greece, the Goldman Sachs testimony discussions with Congress, and concerns arising from a global tightening of monetary policy have stolen much of the headlines as of late, a full view of the “forest” would show that the overall economy continues to improve.  One piece of evidence was released on May 7, 2010 in the April 2010 employment report.  The U.S. economy lost a total of 8.4 million jobs since the start of the recession highlighted by 22 consecutive months of job losses, but we have added jobs in 5 of the last 6 months to the tune of 528,000 new jobs.  In the end, the economic backdrop is on the mend.

The bottom line is that there is a big difference between a pullback and a financial crisis.  And there is an even bigger difference between how the market reacts to events that cause a crisis (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and the credit crisis of 2008) and those events that are the aftershocks of a severe recession, like the situation unfolding in Greece and Southern Europe.  There is also a difference between the two definitions of risk: danger and opportunity.  We would argue that the latter is far more likely than the former at these levels in the market and at this stage of the market recovery.

With a little patience, the commitment to a well thought out investment plan and a willingness to follow Warren Buffet’s sage advice to “be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy” could result in turning the tone of this market pullback from danger to opportunity.  The selloff we are experiencing, which is the fourth one since the market bottom of March 2009, serves as a reset of market expectations.  It could provide the next springboard for the market to rally to higher levels over the coming months before running into the growing headwinds of rising rates, contested mid-term elections, and tougher year-over-year earnings comparisons for companies later in the year. For now, the market is in the midst of a good, old-fashioned pullback and this is not the start of a financial crisis.  As such, we feel that the mending economic backdrop supports cautious opportunistic investing at these levels in the markets.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is a capitalization-weighted index of 500 stocks designed to measure performance of the broad domestic economy through changes in the aggregate market value of 500 stocks representing all major industries.

This research material has been prepared by LPL Financial. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which investment(s) may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly.

Securities offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC, 641618, 05/11

One of the many emails I returned to after my trip contained a very important article I really want you to read because it simply reminds all of us how UNEQUAL the tax laws are for gay and lesbian couples in the United States.

The article reminds us that only 65% of Americans in general have a will, and it often takes a crisis such as a death to spur us to act.  According to the article, entitled ‘Gay Couples Caught in Financial Limbo’, gay and lesbian couples must now spend thousands of dollars putting into place the protections legal marriage confers easily and straight married couples take for granted.

Even so, when a partner dies, gay partners can still be charged estate taxes on their partner’s estate and we can’t receive social security benefits (as well as many other benefits married heterosexual couples enjoy).

These FACTS should concern everyone.  Money is always a major area of concern and stress for couples, even in the best of circumstances.  Imposing these additional financial losses, penalties and burdens on gay and lesbian couples is another reason why achieving marriage equality is so important, not only for individual gay and lesbian couples, but for the health and vitality of our entire country in these trying economic times.

And, often when talking to couples going through a difficult time, I sense a loss of belief in their love. It happens, probably to most couples at some point.  I know that doesn’t make it any easier to bear.  And, you shouldn’t bear it alone, without support.

I’m here to remind you to ‘keep the faith’.  If you’re single, just know that with the right focus, you can find her.  And, if you’re in a relationship, problems can often be solved or, even if they can’t be solved, they can still be dealt with, and often, without destroying all that you share.

So, today, in the spirit of hope, I give you Shania Twain’s amazing video ‘From this Moment on’.   Just take a few minutes to soak in the message, feeling how it feels to be this connected to love…

GLBT Talk with Barb and Donna

Lara is an accomplished author and editor who has put together ‘To Love and To Cherish’, an amazing anthology chronicling lesbian love, relationships and marriage.  And, indicative of her commitment to the issue, she’s selling the anthology with all proceeds going to Marriage Equality USA.

During our interview, Lara shared the fun she had bringing together the authors in the book as well as the entire process of editing and publishing the project.

At the end of our 60 minute interview, Lara shared a reading from one of the fourteen stories in the collection.  The collection includes three volumes:

• Volume I: On Bended Knee
• Volume II: With This Ring
• Volume III: Lives and Wives

Please note that Lara and the authors created this anthology without taking an income.  A true labor of love!

What a great deal:  when you buy this series you are both:

• Getting an amazing book
• Giving back to a very, worthy cause

By the way, I’m buying my Kindle copy right now for the great price of only $3.75!!!

Be sure you let me know how you are enjoying the stories!

Barb

The gist of Tiger’s talk was apology after apology, much like the consequences many who cheat eventually face.

Recently, during The Larry King Show on CNN, Dr. Drew Pinsky, one of my favorite celebrity shrinks, and other experts, along with women who have been victimized by infidelity, weighed in on the subject.

Pinsky believes we are in a ‘period of re-evaluation’ as a society. He states we just came out of the 1960′s and 1970′s where it was okay to ‘do whatever you wanted, to make yourself happy’, even if it was destructive to yourself, your marriage, your spouse, your kids, etc.

Be sure to click here now to learn what the experts are saying. For example, one of my favorite experts, psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen, whose specialty is psychobiology, puts forth a theory that celebrities are always getting the pleasure center of their brain stimulated, like Tiger Woods.

The down side of all this pleasure, according to Amen, is that the pleasure center ‘wears out’ and requires more and more excitement to feel good. Perhaps these folks are more easily tempted to cheat to ‘up the ante’ or, ‘sensation-seek’.

Dr. Amen also reports that testosterone may be implicated in cheating as well. Meaning those men who received higher levels of testosterone in utero have longer 4th fingers than 2nd fingers and are more likely to cheat.

This finger hypothesis sounds eerily similar to the ‘who is lesbian’ study from a few years back that showed women with longer ring fingers than index fingers were more likely to be gay.

In fact, I even blogged about this topic awhile back.  Somehow it just doesn’t seem fair (or does it?):  a longer ring finger leads to extramarital affairs and/or lesbianism???  

Let’s just hope folks don’t start to equate being lesbian with cheating.  Ha!

Most importantly I like that Dr. Pinsky reiterated ‘genes are not destiny’. Yes, these chemical processes are real and, some of us may be more challenged than others to stay true to one person.  So, perhaps that just means some of us can’t covet our neighbors like some of us need to get up from the table and walk away from that second piece of cake for dessert!

Dr. Helen Fisher, also a researcher on the subject, seemed to agree with Pinsky by saying, in a recent interview with Rutger’s University paper,

“Adultery can be compared to other harmful acts like drug or alcohol abuse, which can be controlled…The bottom line is, through research and different studies, we get to learn more about the various human conditions, and like drugs and alcohol, adultery can fall into this category. We, as people, have the ability to say no and overcome these obstacles.”

Hmmm…..more to come on this topic for sure.

It might be just me, but I wondered if the fact Carol got ‘thrown under the bus’ first had anything to do with subtle homophobic feelings other female contestants on her team felt towards her?

I’m not saying those feelings are big, intentional or even conscious.  But, perhaps they were there, subtly affecting the perceptions of the heterosexual women on Carol’s team.  Either way it was a hard position for all the women.  Perhaps Carol really was the ‘weakest link’?

I know that one tense conflict we were shown during the contest was Holly asking Carol to get out front to bring in to identify and bring in bigger donors and Carol not listening.  And Carol stating that Holly ‘didn’t want to break a nail’ to work harder.  Meow, cat fight!

One thing I noticed is this: Cyndi Lauper stuck to her guns and wouldn’t talk anyone down, including Leifer. True, blue gay friendly that’s Cyndi.

Of course we all love Cyndi Lauper. As much as I love Cyndi, if anyone needs to take responsibility for her team’s loss isn’t it her? Or, if not Cyndi (after all she and Sharon Osbourne are probably ‘too big to fail’), why not some of the other ‘minor’ players? Why Carol?

After all, as far as I know, she’s the only lesbian on the team.  Was her performance really that much worse than most of the other teammates?  I wish I knew more of the statistics, like tip totals, like Donald Trump’s son does. 

It was painful watching the women have to talk against each other. At first, even though Donald prodded, no one would break with the ranks. I had to laugh when Donald said something to the effect of ‘I know you all love each other and all, but, come on’!

Truth be told, I missed the first half of the show, so perhaps I am being judgmental, playing the ‘gay card’ and taking this too personal. But, I just had to wonder:

Who would Donald have fired if the women continued
to stick to their guns and not single out Carol?

Hmmmm….what do you think?