You’ve heard me rant  ad nauseum about how important sleep and sex is for your well being so today I lay down the gauntlet…

Here is a must read article from my friends at Your Tango:  5 WAYS BETTER SLEEP LEADS TO BETTER SEX.

Enough said.

Be smart and just read it.

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Pssst!

Don’t forgote to take advantage of this discount!

THIS WEEK ONLY!
My friends over at Leoluca Handbags are offering 15% off ALL of their handbags in stock.
YUMMY.
Check out their fall line as well as their colorful new spring line…they’re pretty frickin’ sweet.
Use promo code: BTSWfabulous15off
Happy Shopping!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Check out the following article (by yours truly) which was originally posted on WOMEN.COM (awesome site by the way):

5 Ways to Feel Closer to Your Partner this Valentine’s Day

With Valentine’s Day on Tuesday, many women are flooded with “Vietnam flashbacks” of last year’s Valentine’s Day disappointment.  For some of you it may sound or look like this:

“…so there we were sitting in the most beautiful restaurant, eating the most delicious food, and I felt like I was doing all of the talking!  He just sat there, looking like he was listening but I wonder if he even cared about one thing I said…”

Ladies, if this is you then have no fear because I have a specific roadmap for you to follow which can definitely increase your chances of connecting with your main man this Valentine’s Day.  First off, men by nature are kinetic.  Meaning they connect to ideas through motion and being physical whereas women connect in a more verbal way.  In fact, research shows that men have a higher capacity to learn when they are physical and moving.  So if you want your husband to listen to you, then you need to connect with him in a way that he biologically can and here’s how:

1)  TOUCH – We underestimate the power of touch.  Between Facebook, Twitter, texting, Skyping, etc., people are less and less in the same physical vicinity let alone touching each other.  When was the last time you walked up to your husband and just grabbed him and gave him a BIG bear hug?  Take advantage of getting that oxytocin (the bonding hormone) flowing between the two of you and give him a good, tight, at least 10-second squeeze on Valentine’s Day morning.

2) PLAN A PHYSICAL ACTIVITY WITH HIM – If you have high hopes of engaging in verbal conversation with your partner on V-day, plan a walk or hike with him.  No, I’m not kidding.  Any form of physical activity (even hanging out with him while he’s golfing, etc.) will allow that kinetic part of his wiring to help him feel more inspired to not only talk to you, but tolisten to you. So know your audience and get moving with him.

To read the rest of this post, check out my article on Women.com HERE.

To all of you: Wishing you a beautiful Valentine’s Day full of hugs and lots and lots of connective moments with the people you love…

Are you a parent with teens living in the Los Angeles or surrounding areas? If so, read on:

PARENTING SEMINAR—TEENAGES: WONDER YEARS OR WORRY YEARS?

Sunday, March 4, 1:00–5:00 p.m.

$50 General; $40 Skirball Members; $30 Full-Time Students with ID

Advance registration required: Register on site at the Skirball, online at www.skirball.org, or by phone at (310) 440-4651 and press 2.

Help your teen children grow into responsible, caring, and secure young adults and discover how to keep your teens’ development on track and foster positive behaviors. This dynamic half-day seminar helps parents improve their understanding of the teenage brain and sheds light on the challenges of parenting a teen.

Parents will explore how to harness the advances in brain science to improve communication, recognize opportunities for optimizing development and emotional growth, and understand the vulnerabilities facing teens. As children move into their pre-adolescent and adolescent years, how can parents help them grow into mature young adults? Are confounding behaviors that include defiance, risk-taking and rebelling simply stages on the way to establishing independence from authority figures?

Dr. John M. Watkins, distinguished clinical psychologist and specialist in the field of neuropsychology, will decode the latest research in his keynote lecture, “The Teen Brain: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us about Emotional Development in Adolescents.” Advances in neuroscience help us understand how and why the developing adolescent brain differs from the adult brain and can help parents answer the question, “What was my teen thinking?”

Learn about the following topics: what motivates teens; what is the reward center; and how social acceptance or social exclusion affect your child. The seminar will also address the topics of peer pressure and what kind of environments are important for teen maturation and development of empathy.

Following the keynote address, a panel of teens will share what is on their minds, including their perspective on their challenges and hopes for the future, which will be facilitated by child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist Dr. David Meltzer.

The seminar will conclude with breakout sessions for parents, led by Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis-trained mental health professionals. Please bring questions and challenging scenarios from everyday life for discussion to help you reflect on and process your relationship with your teen. You will also learn the necessary skills to recognize situations that need professional help.

The following post can also be found in today’s post at amotherworld.com:

Let’s face it:  Valentine’s Day gets a lot of hype (thank you Hallmark).  I’ve seen many women who report feeling very disappointed by the end of the day because certain expectations were never met.   However,  I’m not saying you shouldn’t enjoy this annual festivity, but making sure that you have realistic expectations of your loved one will definitely allow you to enjoy the day more.  That said, here are my 5 Tips to a Satisfying Valentine’s Day:

1)  Don’t make dinner reservations that night – That’s right, you read correctly.  The restaurants will be crowded beyond because you’ll be dining with every couple on the face of the earth, and the pre-fixed menus will be jacked up to the sky.  Instead, make it for the night before or the night after.

2)  Remember who your husband is and set the standards from there – Unless you KNOW that your husband is a die-hard romantic and every year he enjoys going all out for you on Valentine’s day, then the two of you should have an agreement of what the frame is as far as celebrating Valentine’s Day.  For example, maybe you both agree to have a $50 limit on gift purchases for each other as there’s nothing worse than jumping through hoops to find your spouse the perfect lavish gift while the other receives a pair of socks.  Or maybe you both decide on no gifts/just a card, and maybe even agree to write more than: Love, Bill.  By the way, if you have a wise-ass husband, probably a good idea to add to that “a 3 sentence minimum” so that “writing more” doesn’t result in Love ALWAYS, Bill…

To read the rest of this post, check out my article today at HERE at A Mother World…I wish you all a sweet and satisfying day of LOVE.

WAIT!!! Did you enter our Valentine’s Day contest yet for the ultimate James Bond gift for HIM?? Don’t miss out because you still have until midnight Thursday 2/9 to enter…Enter HERE.

Growing up in earthquake friendly California I became very familiar with the safety drill, “Drop, Cover, Hold on.”  Once the rumbling under my feet began to quiver, that’s exactly what did.

But today, let’s talk about the rumbling you’re feeling as a result of your anger.  Yes, possibly anger you feel toward your husband.  However, the big ole’ problem for many is that you’re not even aware of it, hence it’s spilling out sideways making an unnecessary mess for both you and him.  So let’s look at 3 of the most popular clues that there’s some serious anger rumbling inside of you and that it’s time to “Stop, Sit and Breath”:

1) Physical Visceral Sensation – Ever experience this:  You and your spouse are talking, he says something that was not very polite, and all of a sudden your body starts to feel as if hot liquid is running through your veins starting from your feet and going straight up?  I have also heard women report how their stomach felt as if it was going to explode like a boiling pot after a certain interaction with their husband.  These are both very common somatic reactions that some women feel when either not feeling connected to their emotion of anger or (without knowing) not feeling confident to even feel or express their anger to their husband.

Solution:  Well, your body is clearly screaming to you, “I AM SO F***ING PISSED!!!!!!” That being said, for god’s sake listen to your body!  Every red siren is going off and it’s your job to honor your feelings, and understand them so that you can communicate your anger appropriately.  The alternative is to become that boiling pot you are feeling in the depths of your gut, which would be a huge hot mess.  Definitely not smart.

2) Hyper critical comments – Come on…no one likes a nit picker and I know you don’t like watching yourself overly harping on your husband every time he doesn’t make the bed The Four Seasons style (he made the frikkin’ bed so be happy).  So if it’s not like you to be snipping at every move that he makes, yet you’re obsessed with every little “mistake” he makes lately, then MAYBE it’s time to pay attention to clue #2.  Maybe your not-so-normal critical statements are really about underlying anger you’re feeling toward him about something that has nothing to do with how he makes the bed.

Solution:  Once you recognize and hear your snipping voice at him, STOP.  It’s time to get into rumbling safety mode where you literally need to stop, sit and breath.  Try to get into touch with what the feelings really are inside of you before engaging with him in conversation.  What are you feeling? Underneath all the anger, are you really feeling sad about something in the marriage? Etc.  Once you connect with yourself, you are in a much better place to communicate your feelings effectively.  Nit picking will only push him away more. where as  if you own your feelings, he just might hear you.  Smart.

3) Zero Interest in Sex - Oh how I wish I could collect a dollar every time I heard a woman complain how sex with her husband is the last thing on her mind while simultaneously not feeling very appreciated by her husband lateley.  Ladies, if all your life you’ve had a healthy libido and suddenly one day (poof!), it’s just gone, then (pending there are no physical issues or immediate crises) chances are that you’re feeling something and I’m going to guess it might be anger.

Solution: It amazes me how so many women are automatically feeling more attracted to their partner once she has had the opportunity to work through her anger in an appropriate way.  So if sexy times have been completely void and you think that you may be one of those closet angry wives, then it’s time for a serious check in with yourself about what you are truly feeling so that you don’t end up depriving yourself of one of life’s very simple pleasures (yes, sex).  Journal, mediate, talk to a friend, talk to a counselor, take a walk alone, etc., do whatever you can do to connect to the feelings.  Once you do that, be brave and take advantage of what could actually become an intimate opportunity for the two of you by sharing with him what’s troubling you in the marriage.  Own your feelings and ask him to just listen.  If all goes well, here’s the cherry:  HUG.  Yes, hug for at least 10 seconds.  Get that oxytocin (bonding hormone) flowing and in no time your friendly libido will be happily back in town.

Come back this Thursday for more tips on how to be smart in your marriage…

Need I say more?

(thank you title)

In all seriousness, check out the video below as one of my favorite  relationship experts, Dr. Laura Berman, offers some tangible advice on how to fire up sexy times between you and your husband this year and steer your relationship on track.

So if you have kids, lock your door, watch the video and take copious notes because her advice is smart.

Everyone wants to know the secret to a long lasting marriage.  That said, I personally think there are several ingredients that can make or break a marriage, #1 being:  be an adult.  Both people in the marriage need to be the adults, because “children playing house” will always end in a disaster and for some people that can ultimately lead to divorce.  There are several other key factors that I planned to write about today until I came across this fantastic article: Don’t Bother Rekindling Your Marriage…Create Something New. The article is written by a colleague, Dr. Corey Allan, editor of Simple Marriage (an excellent marriage blog written by a very smart husband, ladies) and this is a must read article for anyone who is married as Corey outlines in 4 simple action steps on how you can bring back a lasting bond/connection in your marriage.

So here is your homework:

1)  Read the article Don’t Bother Rekindling Your Marriage…Create Something New

2) Start looking at/thinking about how YOU can implement the steps from the article into your marriage.

3) Send the article to your husband. I did.  Yes, THAT would be smart.

Make sure to check out Dr. Corey Allan’s marriage blog Simple Marriage and come back Thursday for more smart marriage tips.

Sh*t.

Another year just FRIKKIN’ FLEW by…

…and so will next year.

That being said, what will YOU do to make your new “wife year” different, better, happier, healthier, stronger, more satisfying, SMARTER, etc.??

(I’ll tell you what I’m focusing on doing, but that’s one of my posts for next week…ha.)

Ladies, it’s a brand new f*cking year and the only person who can make it better is YOU, so let’s close out the year with our top BTSW posts from 2011…

…but before I do allow me to say THANK YOU to all of you who tune in here every week and who write in with your comments, questions, thoughts, feelings, etc…I appreciate each and every one of you.  Stay tuned to 2012 as “Be the Smart Wife” brings you a “whole lot-ta” new and different nuggets through out the new year!

Top 10 Posts of 2011

#1   Your husband Wants a Threesome?!?!

#2   Date Night Options for Any Couple

#3   What to do With Those Damn Feelings

#4   One Very Simple Tip to Rev Up the Sex

#5   The Difference Between Him and Her

#6   You’re beating a Dead Horse

#7   Sleep is the New SMART

#8   Don’t be the  Dummy Wife Like I Was Last Month

#9   The False Alarm D-bomb is a Big No-No

#10  Here’s How You May be Torturing Yourself in your Marriage

Posts will resume again after Jan 2nd so see you all then and HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

Hmmm…let me think about that???

NO.

Yup.  That’s your answer and here’s how to say it in a calm, non-hysterical way…enjoy:

Date Night…

DO IT.

I BEG of you.

I will beat the importance of “Date Night” into the tiny fibers of your brain until you all get the message that YOU NEED TO BE HAVING A DATE NIGHT WITH YOUR HUSBAND REGULARLY (even if it’s once a month). That said, check out the plethora of date night options I shared with the lovely Her Say co-hosts, Tory Shulman and Jill Simonian:

date-night-our-night-out

So you think ya know it all, huh?

OK.

Well…

…good for you.

Um, I kind of hate to break it to you, but you know what???

You don’t.

Nope. You don’t.

Which leads me to this past month’s post, Top 10 Mistaken Beliefs a Smart Wife Must Let Go Of, and today we’re focusing on Mistaken Belief #5:  SHE KNOWS BETTER THAN HE…

When it comes to your marriage, you don’t always know better than he does.  Look, I’m SURE there are times when the obvious is SO obvious and for whatever reason your husband will never “get it” the way you do, but believe it or not there are times when he just may actually have the upper hand when it comes to a specific thought, an opinion, a perspective, etc. That said, it would behoove your marriage greatly for you to honor and respect your husband as an equal to you. Undermining him will only create a greater distance between you two, his resentment will rise, and you’ll both get caught in a viscious cycle of negativity, ultimately eroding the connection.  However, even if you ARE right in the situation, it doesn’t mean that you should be pointing out each and every “correction.”  Some things (not EVERYTHING, some things) are just better left alone. So pick your battles and BE SMART.

Come back next week for Mistaken Beliefs #6 & #7…

NEWEST YOUR TANGO VIDEO

Okay folks…so first off, let me just preface the below video by saying that the video is intended mostly for women who are dating or who are in a new phase in their life looking for the right partner and have just recently met a new person.  One person wrote in and asked what does one do if the sex is truly sub par…do you settle???