Improve your relationships starting here.
Below are ideas for improving all aspects of your relationships, with some posts being previews of what you’ll find over on the newsletter. I hope you’ll subscribe!
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Most recent Relationship stuff:
Prevent (your own) Murder: I dumped him but he won't he leave me alone!
/“When does it become stalking? (And what do I do then?)” The truth is, ANY amount of contact after you have rejected someone is problematic.
Read MoreJoe on Netflix’s YOU is not Romantic Just Cause He’s Hot AF.
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The brilliant book and the fantastic TV show “YOU” are about the giant chasm between a NICE guy and a GOOD guy. Look and listen to the book or the show and let “YOU” teach you that. Read what @Pennbadgley has to say on Twitter to the many women who send him messages about loving Joe. Sure, you’ll love Mr. Badgley even more, but don’t confuse him with Joe.
Read MorePrevent (your own) Murder: Stranger Danger
/This post is about avoiding stranger violence. (Pseudo-stranger and intimate partner violence are topics to be covered later.) So, where to start? Read my first post on intuition. Then this book by Gavin deBecker.
And, a caveat. It might seem tempting to victim-blame by re-thinking what a person should or should not have done to avoid danger. That’s not what we are doing here. What we are doing is learning about sending a potentially hazardous interaction down a different path, so the person wishing you harm doesn’t get what he wants.
Read MoreTrue Crime, serial killing, and non-fiction books you’ll love. Don’t blame me if you can’t sleep tonight.
/These are un-putdownable. Trust me. Old or new, they deliver: the writing is impeccable. The storytelling in all of them rivals the best fiction out there. You might notice most are about death and/or murder, and usually serial murder. That's 'cause in my next life I am going to be a profiler. Or a rock star. Either way, these books rock.
Read MoreA life-changing, astonishing, exciting event is happening. (And, no, I'm not having a baby.)
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Hello, Voyagers!
I have some brand-new, great news. But first, an old, tragic story.
When I was young & living in the suburbs, a little girl in the Dallas area was kidnapped from her front yard and later found murdered. Her name was Tyra. Tiny me became obsessed with Tyra: Who was Tyra? What had happened to her? Who took her? And why would someone do that? Around that same time, my uncle was murdered in Odessa, Texas and the case quickly went cold. While I didn’t know Tyra (or my uncle, really, whose case is still unsolved), a clear marker exists between who I was before and who I was after these events. My interest in criminal behavior and violence was sparked, and I began asking that eternal question: Why do people do what they do? I was not yet 10, and already I wanted answers.
That craving for answers and obsession with crime, violence, and human motivation has never waned; in fact it grew into an Interpersonal Communication class dedicated to the prevention of interpersonal violence. It is this course of which I am most proud and, as many students reported, truly saved lives.
But, even while I was still teaching, I never kept it a secret that my “next life” would involve Psychological Criminology. Recently, I realized that that “next life” is now.
My next life.
In short, this could soon be me:
Or, more likely this will be me:
Get it?! Yep. I decided to head back to school, to pursue another Masters Degree, this one in Criminology. So I applied to the University of Cambridge. And after what felt like YEARS, last week I finally received this email, albeit, without the fireworks (I added those).:
the happiest letter ever.
