My Story

People often ask me how I became an expert on relationships.

The truth is, it was entirely unexpected.

In my teens and twenties, I was a wild child looking for love in all the wrong places. I was into anything that would give me a feeling of love, peace and acceptance. At the time, I truly believed those things were men, booze and rock n’ roll. It wasn’t until my 30th birthday did I discover I was heading down an empty tunnel, travelling even deeper into the abyss. Just prior to that, I had married a man who I knew did not love me and spent our brief marriage trying desperately to make that happen. When we inevitably divorced in 2005, I went on a quest to find out why the same guy, same scenario, same break-up, same circumstance kept repeating over and over in my life like a broken record. When my ex-husband left me without any notice one Friday afternoon, I immediately went to the bookstore to seek answers.

I started to take courses, workshops and sought advice from some of our greatest spiritual leaders like Shakti Gawain, Debbie Ford and Marianne Williamson. After years of research and personal transformation, I serendipitously ended up writing the very book that I was looking for that fateful Friday afternoon.

I wanted The Commitment Phobe to be an honest, thought-provoking and enlightened book on relationships for a generation where we learned that self worth is elusive and much easier found in the love we can get from men. Beyond smut and sanctimony, I wanted women to be unafraid to challenge their emotional pasts and sexual correctness. I challenge my readers to go beyond the common labels and find themselves. The Commitment Phobe was written to explain who this mysterious man is, why he has issues with intimacy and commitment and how to break the cycle of the push/pull relationship and create lasting love.

Over the next years, I remarried and engaged in my own commitment with my wonderful husband and daughter. After the sleeplessness subsided and my daughter got older, my mind space began to clear and I began to teach seminars in Los Angeles and London.

The modern ideology of love is compelling. Never have we been so scared at the idea of being alone, suffering and single. Never have we expected more from our intimate relationships and never has we tolerated more emotional abuse in the name of love. Under the weight of so many expectations, the pressures of our culture make it hard to accept ourselves, with or without a man.

While I always knew I was acutely interested in my love life and the love lives of those around me, my infatuation with psychology and interpersonal relationships began at a very young age. As a child, I would often blurt out or recycle unsolicited advice from what I thought to be relevant sources and my own “intuition.” Most of my heady behaviors derived naturally from childhood traumas. However, I never expected my career would be in psychology.

I learn daily how to master the art of relationship coaching. The great thing about being an expert on the field of relationships is that I don’t have to worry about age-ism and boredom. It’s not like keeping up with technology: as long as my brain works, I can practice till I drop — and I certainly intend to.

Thanks for reading my story.