You can Develop Close Relationships by Sharing Vulnerabilities and Emotions - I’m here today at Yale University with Margaret Clark/, a psychologist and one of the world’s top experts on personal relationships. Margaret has her own laboratory here where she studies human connection. Her work includes how romantic relationships and friendships unfold over time. She also studies how people forge and maintain close bonds with others. To create close relationships, she says, you need to be active, get out there/ and find others with similar interests. Once you find new acquaint ..read more

Mary Ann Frank, a clinical psychologist in New Haven, had much more than the empty nest to cope with after her last child went to college. She also lost her husband of 28 years to a brain tumor, a glioblastoma. He was Ralph Hoffman, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale medical school and a renowned research scientist in schizophrenia. “Little did I know how empty the empty nest was going to become,” she says. Seeking to make sense of it, Mary Ann tapped her talents as writer, singer and actress and launched a one-woman musical memoir “Spinning” in New Haven to tell her story. She says we “spi ..read more

Robert W. Levenson is a Berkeley psychology professor who has been conducting an ongoing study of baby boomers and their parents since 1989. He researches long-term marriages in midlife and beyond, focusing on couples who have stayed together. Bob is happily married, loves music and fine clothing ..read more

David and Claudia Arp have run seminars and marriage education programs for tens of thousands of couples in the United States and internationally for more than three and a half decades. They’ve also been married for 56 years. Together, they have written more than 40 books on relationships that have sold more than a million couples in 10 languages, including the Gold Medallion winner, The Second Half of Marriage and Ten Great Dates for Empty Nesters ..read more

Jeffery Jensen Arnett is a research professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is the author of Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties. In his book, he explains his new theory of development: Adolescents don’t go straight to adulthood—as you may have noticed. Rather, there is an in-between phase from ages 18 to 29. He calls that phase “emerging adulthood ..read more

The transition to the empty nest can catapult you into an existential crisis. Your zeal for climbing the career ladder, striving for social status, and collecting material things starts to subside, as is common in middle age. Friends and relatives may suffer from illness or pass away, bringing jarring reminders of mortality. This triggers a need to make sense of it all. You feel a growing sense of urgency: How do I use my time in a way that really matters ..read more

As you enter midlife, you might find yourself standing on the edge of the high dive, wishing you could cannonball. But you’re frozen. What’s holding you back? Fear of the unknown? Procrastination? Self-doubt? Fear of failure?  Just ask Amy Schmidt, a podcaster and author of Canonball, Fearlessly Facing Fifty, whose goal is to encourage women older than forty to push fears aside and “go all in.” In her book, she shares personal stories and those of others to help women cannonball fearlessly into the rest of their lives “with the biggest splash possible.” Amy says she wants to empower women ..read more

Mai Trinh is a chronic disease prevention expert and corporate wellness speaker. She says what we focus on grows. If we focus on stress and feeling disempowered, our feelings of helplessness grow. “As long as you are alive, you have the choice of where to place your compass,” she says. “By focusing on your health, you are pointing yourself in the right direction." You can find her at www.maihealthnow.com.   ..read more

Terri Hanson Mead is an entrepreneur and helicopter pilot based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also author of Piloting Your Life: Take the Controls and Be the Pilot of Your Own Life ..read more

On the heels of this pandemic and in the next few years, we will see an explosion in innovation and creativity. But many people stifle their own creative impulses. Martha Alderson helps people move beyond self-criticism, negative emotions, and unhelpful habits that block them from accomplishing creative goals. The author of Boundless Creativity: A Spiritual Workbook for Overcoming Self-Doubt, Emotional Traps and Other Creative Blocks, Martha focuses on unlocking inspiration!   ..read more