Barbara Brooks created Flamingo Strategies LLC to help clients stand up and stand out, through telling and sharing their stories of impact and purpose.
Hacking Away at Happiness is her blog.
All in Romance
As I spend less time alone, I’m noticing the practical compromises one has to make in order to truly share physical life with another human.
Two years ago, I bumbled my way into a relationship that actually works. I haven’t wanted to jinx it by putting too many certain-sounding words on the page. But now it’s time to try.
In order to make room in our lives for what’s next, we need to understand what’s holding us back. We need to understand our WHY NOT.
So here we are at Thanksgiving. Appreciating our plenty. Acknowledging the people we love. But it’s also okay to feel a bit afraid.
So here I am again. Thinking things through and putting words on the page. Maybe love is not a project. And I’ve been going about this all wrong.
Serial daters aren’t so bad. Here’s a spoon in cheek guide to recognizing the real culprits. They’re the cereal daters. Perhaps you know a few.
Inquiring minds wanted to know: What is true love for yourself? How do you know you have it? What does it look like when you get there? So here’s Part 2.
What if we’ll never find the peace we seek with another until we first understand and love the barely comprehensible human who already lives in our heart?
I bumbled around looking for a match, but frustration set in. The heads were too boxy. The legs too short. Some pups were born too early. Others already were taken.
If staying over our skis is a metaphor for living in the present, how can we both stay over our skis and let something unknown and risky pull us along?
Going on so many dates may seem like torture. But it also creates compassion. For myself, and for the other guy.
Madame Bovary ate arsenic and died in agony. Anna Karenina threw herself under a train. I may feel like hell right now, but I’m not giving up on love.
As I dipped from pond-to-pond, or floated on my back, I forgot all about the male gaze. And the female gaze. Instead, I gazed inward.
Counterintuitive head scratchers thrill me to no end. Why? Surprise activates curiosity, excitement, and wonder. It intensifies our emotions by about 400 percent.
With more than a million people dead worldwide since February, the line between persisting and pestering is no longer the point.
As roommates, we do our subsistence tasks quietly—without eclipsing what makes a life true. Right speech. Right action. Having fun. Being real.
Why not practice each day at being a little more imperfect. We could leave the bed unmade and admit we’re just fumbling in the dark.
LIVE at The Moth Story Slam: I proposed. I paid for the ring. I flushed my birth-control pills and moved into his apartment. What could go wrong?
Visual cues—combined with our overdeveloped sense of certainty—may cause us to miss what’s most important.
"Whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works.”
