Last week marked the 41st anniversary of the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, where the famous words uttered by Neil Armstrong beamed down “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Most of us will not be able to have our feet touch the lunar landscape in our lifetime, but can you imagine what kind of step would be the equivalent of that for your life here on Earth?

When you’re on a tightrope or crossing over a stream you must be very conscious and super-present at every moment, as one wrong move would surely cause you harm.   Each step serves its unique purpose to get you further to your destination, no matter if there are 200, 20, or a very special 12.

As the wise saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Sometimes we need to take baby steps, sometimes we have to take one giant step, and many times we seem to take two steps forward and one step back.

But most of all, from time to time, it’s important for us to step outside our comfort zone. If we don’t take the initiative to stretch ourselves here and there, then we often miss opportunities to learn and grow (and/or the Universe eventually ends up pushing us one way or another anyway)!

So if you are in transition or at a place where you feel like your footing is a little unsure, give me a buzz. I will help you get your bearings, hold your hand, keep you steady, and guide you along, one step at a time, to get from one side of the riverbank to the other or one moonbeam to the next.

John and Abigail Adams. King Hussein and Queen Noor. Bill and Melinda Gates.  Barack and Michelle Obama.  Bethenny Frankel and Jason Hoppy? These are just some couples who appear to have a great partnership as well as romance and passion in their marriages.  (The jury is still out on Bethenny and Jason…but they looked the part for TV, didn’t they?)

Back in the day (and in some parts in the world still) especially for women, being hitched was linked to survival or a business transaction between families.  In 2010, where we can now lead successful independent lives, where does that leave us with the whole question of saying “I do”? (For an interesting musing on the subject check out Liz Gilbert’s recent book, Committed)

The ‘fruits of feminism’ have at times confused us all. As I recently heard in a lecture by sociologist and masculinity expert Michael Kimmel, if a woman is captain of the ice hockey team and top of her class at Yale, the guys subconsciously think, what the heck does she need me for?

Whether a woman or a man we all have needs, and then things we think are needs. You may not need another person to take care of you physically, emotionally, financially and/or spiritually, but everyone wants someone to love and to be loved in return, whether you’re woman, man or even a fish. We look for partners, friends, lovers, intimacy. And that has nothing to do with what gender you are, what era you were born in or who the object of your affection may be – it is a timeless, eternal and basic human instinct.

But before you tie the knot with another (or at any point throughout your nuptial bliss or blitz) I always recommend marrying yourself first – whatever that means to you.  Because if you don’t promise to love, honor and cherish yourself, then why would anyone else?

Can’t quite make it to the altar with yourself or your beloved? I’m no Dr. Ruth, Millionaire Matchmaker or internet-ordained minister, but I can serve as justice of the peace and help you discover that first comes self-love, then comes some form of marriage, then comes whatever it is you desire, even if it is just a cabbage.

There’s a saying that warns about not ‘seeing the forest for the trees,’ a metaphor for when one is too mired down in details to recognize the big picture of whatever a particular situation encompasses, or your life in general.

These days it is easier to do so in the most unconscious ways; now more than ever we are sucked into dealing with all the daily minutiae of responding to emails and texts, updating and reading tweets and facebook posts, paying bills, cleaning out/up our homes/offices etc.  – all of which to a certain extent are necessary and which make us feel productive, but many times are not moving us forward or getting us closer to our goals.

Fairy tales often center around the woods and the mysteries they appear to contain or reveal.  Be sure to make regular, not just once upon a time, visits with your journal to a forest near you to experience their magic and wisdom, keeping in mind  the ‘enchantments’ that accompany such journeys always point to the fact that the answers, tools and courage our hero/heroine is searching for exist inside themselves, and as a result transformation occurs.

So the irony of that famous saying then is that being literally surrounded by trees is one of the best places you can be in order to see the forest!

But if you can’t make it upstate or to the woodsiest part of Central Park for a few hours, give me a buzz and I can be like one of those Ents from Lord of the Rings that shepherds you with a bird’s eye view to help you live happily ever after all the way through!

Our founding fathers, mothers, cousins and friends infused our nation with extraordinary concepts of human evolution and the ideals of true freedom, and we have much to thank them for.

Their ‘greatest social experiment in history’ has had its ups and downs, and our culture is in constant motion; good, bad or otherwise because of it. Although we no longer exist beneath the thumb of our former rulers across the pond, we all live to some extent under the control of something or someone.

July then is a great time to step back, reflect upon and extricate yourself from whatever that might be. Whether technology, bright shiny things, outdated relationships or ways of thinking, food or other substances, and the illusion of connectedness and fulfillment that they all give, find your voice among all the white noise and distractions and replace them with the enlightened, revolutionary spirit this country was founded on: your definition and assertion of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

These times they are a changin’, so in the Spirit of ’76 take this month to also perform your own experiment and declare independence from blind obedience to conventional wisdom that may no longer be conventional, nor wise.

If you can’t quite see through the rockets’ red glare, give me a buzz and I will show how you do indeed live in the land of the free, and can make your life a home of the brave!