Posts from — May 2009

That’s a hard question. But, when making your decision keep in mind that every path has puddles.

My ex sent me a document that he is insisting that I sign and return to him. Can he force me to sign it?

Only a judge has the legal authority to force you to sign documents you don’t want to sign. So, unless the document your ex sent is one that a judge has ordered you to sign, you don’t have to sign it unless you want to.

Here are a few “don’t’s” to consider when deciding whether or not to sign a legal document like the one you received from your ex:

1. Do not sign any document you have not read very carefully.

2. Do not sign any document you do not fully understand.

3. Do not sign any document that contains terms you don’t agree with.

4. Do not sign any document your attorney has advised you not to sign.

5. Do not sign any documents that contains terms or promises you can’t keep.

Don’t carry a grudge. While you’re carrying the grudge the other guy’s out dancing. – Buddy Hackett

How you present yourself in court is very important. I know it’s not right to judge a book by it’s cover, but we do it all the time. And judges are no different than the rest of us.

You want to make the best impression you can on the person who has the power to decide how much alimony you are going to get or whether or not you are going to be able to keep custody of your kids. And you only get one chance to make a good impression.

So what should you wear? That’s a hard question. I’ll tackle the easier question of what not to wear:

1. Do not wear anything your daughter would wear.

2. Do not wear the same outfits you wear or used to wear to the night club.

3. Do not wear anything you think Cher, Madonna, Beyonce or Brittney Spears might wear.

4. Do not wear anything made from shear fabric, spandex or leopard skin.

5. Do not wear anything your mother would not wear.

1. Divorce hurts. How you behave during the divorce hurts most.

2. I don’t need to know the details of why your marriage didn’t work out.

3. It’s not fair to take your anger out on me.

4. It’s not my job to make you feel better.

5. Don’t make your divorce about me.

6. You and my dad feelings may have changed toward each other but my feelings toward each of you remains the same.

7. I am tired of hearing about how poorly you were treated.

8. I can’t move on until you do.

9. Don’t use me as a weapon to punish my dad.

10. I am both tougher and more vulnerable that you think I am.

If you live in Greensboro, then the Women’s Resource Center is a very good place to start.

Their mission is “to promote the self-reliance of women by assessing needs, providing services and acting as a gateway to community resources. In seeking solutions for unmet needs, the WRC provides strategic leadership through collaboration and partnerships within the community.”

Their programs and services are free and the people who work and volunteer at the center are truly committed to empowering women. You can reach them via the web at http://womenscentergso.org Their street address is 628 Summit Avenue, Greensboro, NC 27405

Just finished reading a really good book called In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan. This book has really opened my mind about healthy eating. Pollan offers three basic guidelines: eat food, not too much, and mostly plants.

Most of the stuff sold in supermarkets does not meet Pollan’s definition of food. According to Pollan, anything your great-grand parents would not recognize as food probably isn’t real food. So what is the stuff that lines the grocery store shelves. It is imitation food that is created in a laboratory by food manufacturers.

Practicing law can be a stressful endeavor. Eating healthily is one thing I try to do to combat that stress. That’s why I enjoy reading books like Pollan’s. If you run across any other good books on this topic please let me know.

You have to have confidence in your ability and be tough enough to follow through. — Rosalyn Carter

Last week my husband and I got into a really heated argument. Before I knew it I had slapped him several times across his face. Although I am not proud of the fact that I loss control I must admit it felt really good to release the pent up anger I have been feeling for the past several years. Every since that incident he has been threatening to take out assault charges against me. He is twice as big as I am and I have not laid a hand on him since that incident. Should I be concerned about what happened?

The fact that you are a woman and he is larger than you are does not mean that you can’t be charged with assault. Violence is difficult to control and once it enters into your relationship you never know where it might lead. And it usually escalates over time. It starts with heated arguments, moves on to slapping and then the next thing you know someone is looking down the barrel of a gun. You need to take steps to stop it now before it gets worse. You and your husband should both consider getting counseling if you plan to stay married.

In My Quest for Beauty, psychoanalyst Rollo May desribes how his search for beauty and his efforts to create beautiful works of art saved his life. While working as a college professor, he and had an emotional crisis.

According to May, “I had what is called, euphemistically, a nervous breakdown. Which meant simply that the rules, principles, values by which I used to work and live simply did not suffice anymore. I got so completely fatigued that I had to go to bed for two weeks to get enough energy to continue my teaching.”

May said his quest for beauty began when one day, finding himself with no place to turn, he wandered into a field of wild poppies. “It was a gorgeous sight: brilliantly crimson and scarlet, the poppies were lovely forms as they bent delicately in one direction and then another.”

He sat down in the field and tried to capture the beauty around him in drawings. That experience inspired him to enroll in art classes and to begin what he described as his “devotion to art and to beauty.”

My Quest for Beauty, provides a detailed description of how an individual searth for beauty cannot only be lifesaving but a guide to saving the world as well. How can beauty do so much? May wrote: “The strange thing about beauty is that it wipes away all the boundaries and inspires us to realize our common humanity.”

We are all inundated with what writer Brenda Ueland called “literary bilge.” We forget that the written word can be as beautiful as any song we have ever heard or any painting we have seen. The written world can be beautiful in the eloquence of composition or in the truth it conveys.

Reading books that have been beautifully crafted can support you in healing your wounds and moving beyond your divorce.