Just as drinking lots of water is good for your physical health, there are similarly healthy exercises and activities that will significantly improve emotional health. Here are three suggestions. Even embracing one will lead to greater health:

1. Develop a private statement (20 words or fewer) of what you want out of life. While the initial statement will evolve over time, writing it will assist you to focus your efforts and ignore seductive attempts to sidetrack you from what you really want. It is not selfish to want. It is selfish to not want!
2. Clearly state who you are and what you want to the people closest to you. Defining yourself more and more clearly will not only make you more attractive (although this is not the motivating force) it will unlock your creative edge and give you an emotional lift.
3. Take full responsibility for your past, present, and future. Yes, you might have been dealt a tough hand – but your current response to your past is paramount in creating the health future you want. No one can build a healthy, attractive future while also harboring resentments about the past.

“My parents divorced when I was 12. I am 25 and in my first real relationship. She is a kind and loving woman who deserves the very best of everything and yet I find myself being critical of her for the smallest of things. We have not had a major argument yet and I am dreading it. Please offer me some thoughts to help us avoid problems that will be a result of my parents’ divorce.” (Edited)

Your quirks are yours – try to avoid blaming your parents or your girlfriend for your issues that can offer you enormous opportunities for maturity and growth. While your parents’ issues and your painful history will have some bearing on the manner in which you perceive relationships, there is a time limit on blaming parents. At 25, I’d suggest your time has run out! Proximity (growing nearness, deeper involvement, intimacy) often provokes unsettling feelings in one or both partners and so some conflict is inevitable – so speak about it! Tell your girlfriend what’s going on inside you. Let her “see” what you are experiencing rather than focus on what she is doing. Speak about things before you erupt.

“My husband and I have an amazing relationship but one thing irritates me. When we met he was in shape and very active. Over the years he has put on weight and lost his good body through lack of exercise and drinking beer. I’m a health freak and in good shape. I go to the gym every day and only eat healthy food. It annoys me that I’ve stayed the same physically since we met but he has changed physically. I have done everything in my power to encourage him. I get myself so worked up that we end up fighting. The issue can’t get resolved because he is too lazy to do something about it. I’ve told him honestly as we communicate very well. It’s driving me crazy. I often think that maybe the problem lies with me. Why must I look good and yet he can let himself go? Please help.”

While you continue to mind his business he will not lose weight. He has the weight, but you have his problem. People are (fortunately) sufficiently free to dig their graves with their teeth (Charles Finney) and drown themselves in beer – such is the majesty of human freedom. Of course I know it is not easy to stand back and watch someone whom you love walk toward slow self-destruction – but while you even lovingly “interfere” the gravity of what is being done will not hit home. “Hands off, mouth shut,” will be a good motto to attempt to embrace. I will believe you “communicate very well” when both of you get this!

“My husband takes me for granted. He does not feel the need to make an effort to make me feel special. I know he is not the romantic type. I don’t want flowers and expensive gifts. He says he does not know about all this romantic stuff. So I show him: I slip in a message in his lunch. When I go to the supermarket I sometimes buy him a chocolate and put it on his pillow. I send him love texts but he is not interested. I do know is that he is faithful. Am I being ungrateful and petty? Should I just be happy that he is not cheating and disregard that he does not care? I am so fed up. I don’t feel like trying anymore. He also says I am fighting for something I will never get.” (Edited)

Apparently your husband is quite satisfied with the way things are – while you, on the other hand, are not. Do something about your life, not his. The passive person remains in control so stop working so hard. The harder you work on him the less he will need to work at all.

Read everything you can find by Harriet Lerner. Begin with The Dance of Intimacy.

“When my husband wants to do or say something he just goes ahead. He does not think of the feelings of others, especially mine. If he has an appointment with someone or if someone has an appointment with him he does not make an effort to be ready on time. His attitude is others can wait because he is busy. It upsets me a lot. I tell him that is not how people should be treated and he treats me the same way. He will not talk to me for days and treat me as if I am wrong. He will never ever say sorry and will remain like that until I go to him and apologize. But I can’t do this anymore.” (Shortened)

Since your husband’s behavior is clearly beyond your control, the only person left to do some changing is you. Take yourself (not him) by surprise. You cannot civilize your husband, so stop trying. You can refuse to cooperate with his selfish antics. So begin. Do whatever it takes for you to reach your full potential.

I am amazed at the volume of letters I get from women who persist in the belief that their happiness is contingent upon the cooperation of their husbands.

I am 22-years-old. I have been in a relationship for four years. I do not trust my boyfriend. He lies and he’s very sneaky. When he knows something is his fault he tries to do and say everything there is to cover up and make it seem like it’s my fault. I’m just so tired of him. I’m ready to leave but he always pleads that I don’t. I’m just tired and too young to be going through what I do. Someone help me on advice what to do. Thank you. (Minimal edits)

You don’t need advice, just read your own words: I’m just tired and too young to be going through what I do. Having identified this, I’d suggest you give yourself permission to pursue a future without Mr. Sneaky. Use the “quick and clean” approach. Tell him face-to-face that you are making a decision to date widely. If he insists on an explanation tell him you are tired. Tell him you are too young to face the complexities of a relationship with a high-maintenance, sneaky man who blames others for his issues. At 22, at 62, and beyond, our closest relationships are to replenish us, not exhaust us.

When we were finally seated for a delayed, middle-of-the-night departure from O’Hare, the flight attendant, while conducting her seat-belt check, informed Nate (7) that although there was no in-flight meal service she’d bring him apple juice once we were off the ground. She said she was sorry he was hungry.

Someone heard the dialogue and a large, dark Hersey’s chocolate appeared from across the aisle one row back. Then a sliced turkey sandwich was nudged between the seats from a passenger behind me. I know this could happen anywhere but this serendipitous moment of community affirmed my abiding love for America.

Much earlier, while coming through airport security in Phoenix, I saw things go Nate’s way in a most unexpected manner. You might have realized he has a way…

He’d removed his belt and shoes and had placed his wheeler bag through the X-ray machine when he spied a stash of TSA officers’ candy on a desk off to the side. Before dressing he’d ushered the officer (the one who had just patted him down) to the candy.

When I next saw Nate, after my own run through security, he and the officer were carefully fishing out the exact pieces Nate wanted.

Gosh. I love America. Chocolate, sandwiches, and apple juice, I understand. There are generous people everywhere. But try and getting candy from an airport security officer in Romania, or anywhere else we’ve traveled. I don’t think so.

Children who seldom (or never) see one (or both) of their parents
Children who are victims of violence or have to witness it
Families who are victims of the excessive use of alcohol
Men and women who are “content” living partial (unfulfilled, discontented) lives
Individuals and groups harboring prejudice
Churches and places of worship selling feelings of obligation and guilt
Businesses that exploit customers and employees
Men and women who refuse to forgive
The chronically (and minimally) anxious among us
Betrayed spouses and those caught in a web of betrayal
Men and women who are indifferent to their own aged parents
Men and women who accumulate wealth and power on the backs of those who have little of both

My last Christmas with my father was in August 1994. We were in a car. He began to sing, without the tattered red robe and cotton wool beard, “Christmas comes but once a year…” We twisted down towards Bluff Road and the car became a holy place. I heard him sing again of “the little laddie who didn’t have a daddy” who went home to play with “last year’s broken toys.” This time, he sang it more sweetly and more reverently than I had ever heard.

I cannot shake myself of the serenity in the car and the gentleness in his voice or the sight of his sharp blue eyes against the tanned face, white hair resting on the collar of his habitually-worn blue cardigan. He was smaller than I had ever noticed, hunched, or curled into the corner of the car seat, as if trying to occupy less and less room.

He sang innocently to me, and I believed to every child, with a faulty frail voice embodying hope born of humility. And it was a beautiful and holy moment—one for which an adult son might long.

Three weeks later he was dead.