Author Marti Ruti, Ph.D. is inviting women to rethink our notions of love. She thinks we have all been over-educated in the art of strategy to get a guy and that it is not helping women, men or relationships.

Her new book, The Case for Falling in Love: Why We Can’t Master the Madness of Love—and Why That’s the Best Part (Sourcebooks Casablanca, February 2011), is based on a popular course taught at Harvard. And it is billed as a must read for anyone who is tired of hearing that men and women come from different planets and that men and women live in separate emotional universes.

The Case for Falling in Love is aimed at women who are tired of hearing that they need to learn to read “the male psyche” in order to have successful relationships. Dr. Ruti rails against that gender-specific advice of many self-help guides and dismantles the tired notions that men and women are “wired” differently, and the concept that men therefore need to be “tricked” into love and marriage.

Through pop culture examples, Dr. Ruti shows that television shows—even, Gossip Girl—and movies offer us much better models for gender and romantic behavior than most self-help guides.

For anyone frustrated by the idea that they just need to learn the right strategies to find love, the author offers 12 anti-rules of love:

1. Stop trying so hard

2. Stop being so cautious

3. Stop analyzing your every move

4. Stop expecting your guy to act like a caveman

5. Stop apologizing for being strong

6. Stop being afraid to have needs and vulnerabilities

7. Stop running after guys that don’t want you

8. Stop looking for a guy without issues

9. Stop manipulating the guy you love

10. Stop regretting very false step you ever took

11. Stop thinking of loss as a pure loss

12. Stop trying so hard (she says this is the most important!)

The author reminds women that, "Even when love fails, it’s not because you are doing something “wrong” with men, but because love is, by definition, fickle and volatile."

Posted February 5, 2011 2:13 PM by Editor | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

By Cornelia Powell

Use your time in the bridal spotlight to find your quiet center and ground yourself. Pay attention to your breathing...focus inward...deepen and slow your breaths. Enjoy the simple pleasures of following the refreshing flow of your breath.

Have a gentle, meditative stretching routine of some sort during this busy time that helps relax your body and support your inner peacefulness. From that more settled, aware place, your mind gets quieter; your emotions won’t be so apt to bubble over; you become less reactive, more responsive, more creative, more conscious, more available for love.

Who could ask for more?

Cornelia Powell is publisher of Weddings of Grace and author of the best-selling book, The Bride's Ritual Guide: Look Inside to Find Yourself. She takes the old bridal rhyme, “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence for her shoe,” and turns it into a magical reverie for the modern bride. She shares ways to bring more ease, pleasure and reassurance into a woman's life not only as a bride, but through all her rites-of-passage.

Posted July 11, 2010 2:40 PM by Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This

In Wedding Goddess: A Divine Guide to Transforming Wedding Stress into Wedding Bliss (Perigee Books, May 2005), author Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway shows brides how to avoid taking the stress express to the altar and explores the wedding experience with a unique eye toward restoring the sacred.

She offers wise and easy to follow advice on how to deal with family, friends, vendors and the man you will marry; and she coaches brides on how to get through each part of the experience with preparation, poise and a good sense of humor. The book is also rich with mediations, exercises, rituals, vows, prayers and special blessings.

Having married hundreds of couples in unique interfaith and creative non-denominational wedding ceremonies she generously shares her experiences and ideas, as well as comments from many of the brides she has married and counseled. These little snippets offer great inspiration and tips on how to have a powerful and graceful wedding experience.

Many books tell how to plan a wedding. This one tells how to live your wedding experience -- including the sacred, along with the practical, every step of the journey to the altar.

Wedding Goddess is a great book for woman who wants to cross the threshold in the most inspired way. Order your copy here.

Posted July 11, 2010 2:15 PM by Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email This