People of all ages are interested in love, relationships and marriage. We are either on the lookout for the right person or we are trying to make a marriage work over decades.

Finding lasting love can be a challenge, but is there a formula for creating a perfect match?

Cornell University professor Karl Pillemer, seems to think so. He asked over 700 people averaging 43 years of marriage each, to tell him the secret to a happy marriage and they poured their hearts out. He shares what he learned in his new book, “30 Lessons for Loving: Advice from the Wisest Americans on Love, Relationships, and Marriage.”

Here are some of the gems they shared:

• Marriage is hard. It takes spirit and resilience.
• Marriage is something that you work at and get better at, but it is never completed. And when you "look back from the finish line over a half century or more of marriage, lifelong marriage is incredibly good. It's almost indescribable. It's such a source of joy.

Pillemer gathered these insights and many others after spending the last four years conducting the Marriage Advice Project. The sample included some retirees who were widowed and some same-sex couples. It also included folks who had been happily married for years, and those who had been through multiple marriages and divorces.

The longest marriage was 76 years between a 101-year-old woman and 98-year-old man. Pillemer has been married for 36 years to his high school sweetheart, Clare McMillan.

So if you are, searching for a mate, in relationships where you are considering marriage, married and need some new tips, then join us for this fresh, wise, surprising and compelling conversation on “what makes for an amazing love life that stands the test of time.”

When All You Want Is Taken Away: A Personal Love Story of Discovery Through Loss

Sometimes change is deeply unwelcome, disrupting everything we have ever wanted. In Polly Young-Eisendrath’s case, her beloved husband and best friend gradually reversed his cognitive and emotional maturity as early onset Alzheimer’s disease swept through his neurons like a wild fire.

Polly and her husband were long-time practitioners of Buddhism and they came to embrace the inescapable without fanfare or self-pity as their love changed from a partnership, to him becoming profoundly dependent on her. She eventually placed him in end-of-life care.

Dr. Young-Eisendrath will share from her new book, The Present Heart: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Discovery, a provocative and daring memoir, in which she shows how our most intimate relationships, often the source of our greatest pain, can prove to be our path to enlightenment.

The book also offers a new perspective on how to maintain engaged, reciprocal relationships—with a partner, parent, child, or friend—under any and all circumstances. Polly will also share lessons learned about the nature of personal love as a spiritual practice of vulnerability and equanimity that requires being a whole self and accepting another as a whole self, as well.

"Polly Young-Eisendrath illuminates love as a path—not a goal—of self and mutual discovery that goes to the very heart of our nature." - Barry Magid

Colette Baron-Reid started out as a singer in Toronto, Canada, and didn't realize her calling as a spiritual intuitive until she was 28. Since then, she has released three books on spiritual practice and for three years toured
as the opening speaker at publisher Hay House Inc. multi-speaker events and conferences. She has performed spiritual readings for over 50,000 people in nearly 30 countries, and released several music and meditation CDs.

She is most well-known for her lecture style, performing inspirational speeches based on consciousness and spirituality. She has the voice of an angel, is a "life strategist" as well as a world-renowned intuitive counselor, and her goal is to empower everyone she meets to be self-actualizing, awake and authentic. Deeply spiritual, Colette Baron-Reid encourages people to develop meaning and purpose in their lives.
Over the past 25 years, her words have reached nearly 150,000 people through speeches and one-on-one counseling sessions. A trusted advisor to an international coterie of celebrities, politicians and CEOs, Colette's mission is to deliver inspired self-revelation. Her purpose is to help individuals understand where they are, how they got there, where they are heading, and how to live life to its fullest potential and meaningful purpose.

Dubbed the "intuitive's intuitive" by W magazine, Baron-Reid is praised by many of her well-known clients for her objectivity, accuracy and highly detailed readings. She is the real deal when she makes a prediction, and her goal is to provide people with perspective on who they are, where their lives are going, and how they fit into the broader scheme of things. She is a storyteller and believes in the power of the poignant details that make up our lives. Clients are amazed when she can pick up on these intimate details in their lives.
As the year ends, join us for this playful yet informative and intriguing evening of conversation, music and readings. Colette will share with us how to access our divine intelligence, potential and power through our intuition. She will help us remember our future as we plan the New Year.

“We need to open our minds, she says, and explore our miraculous, spiritually profound world rather than denying it, fetishizing it or being afraid of it.” – Colette Baron Reid