It takes a village to raise a child. To teach them life lessons, to give them love, and to structure an environment in which that child belongs. Adults need a village, too. We all need a village. We all need a network of people who care about us to help guide us through life’s big milestones.

When things get hard, you have two options: you can avoid it or you can accept it. Avoidance is our way of cutting out negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors so all that’s left is a glowing record of all the good things happening in your life. So, yeah, you love your body. Curves and all! But true acceptance means some days you probably don’t love your curves. True acceptance means some days it’s harder to love your crooked nose than others. Or it could even mean that some days you don’t love your nose at all.

Connection is one of the basic human needs. We need each other, not only to survive, but to be fulfilled, to make meaning, and to develop purpose. ]We see that people in healthy, secure relationships are able to welcome and adapt to change whereas other attachment styles cannot.

The approaching new year creates a universal hope that the trials and tribulations of this year don’t plague us in the next. The hope that things will be different in the new year, and you’ll finally be happy or successful or fulfilled, and that you know just what you have to do to get there. But, sometimes we can take these goals a bit too far and this layer of urgency can make our new years resolutions unhealthy.

Have you ever had to give bad news to someone you care for? The dread can overtake you. In the hours leading up to the big conversation, you might notice your thoughts rushing around in your head yet somehow stuck on a single thought — “What do I do?” This kind of a reaction means you really care about how the conversation goes. It means you love this person enough to want to keep them from ever experiencing pain.

One of the hardest parts of a break up is figuring out what’s yours and what belonged to the relationship. The thought of sorting it all out can be overwhelming and sometimes it might feel like the best thing to do is just forget about dating altogether. But you deserve the effort it takes to move on and get back out there — whatever you want that to look like.