Self-help books for women are part of a multibillion-dollar industry, sensitively attuned to our insecurities and our purses.

Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to.

Keep in mind that the tendency to be judgmental - toward yourself or another person - is a good barometer of how anxious or stressed out you are. Judging others is simply the flip side of judging yourself.

The term girl not only serves to avoid certain anxiety-arousing connotations inherent in the word woman regarding aggression, sexuality, and reproduction, it also serves to impart a tone of frivolousness and lack of seriousness to ambitious, intellectual, and competitive striving that women may pursue.

We cannot make another person change his or her steps to an old dance, but if we change our own steps, the dance no longer can continue in the same predictable pattern.

We all fear change, even as we seek it.

We commonly confuse closeness with sameness and view intimacy as the merging of two separate I's into one worldview.