We all experience emotional pain in our lives. Someone close to us will eventually die. A friend or lover will betray us. We will lose our jobs or not get the one we really wanted. Many of us have been victims of physical, emotional and/sexual abuse. We experience racism, sexism and other forms of hatred. Many of us have difficulties with processing these issues.

Many Americans live in a state of distress and unhappiness. We are suffering from a host of mental health problems.

According to The National Institute on Mental Health, approximately 40 million American adults ages 18 and older, or about 18.1 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have an anxiety disorder. Anxiety prevents us from being happy, can cause physical ailments, and keeps us from taking healthy risks that may improve the quality of our lives.

My wife, Gail and I will soon be celebrating our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. I am often asked, "What is the key to staying together for so long?"

This is an important question in modern day America where fifty percent of marriages fail. It seems that primary relationships are difficult to maintain in contemporary society.

When you reach age forty, your needs for companionship may change drastically from when you were younger. You may require more honesty and dependability or you may be uncertain about what you need in a friend.

Exercising while focusing on your friendship issues can help you clarify confusion that you are experiencing. There is research indicating that one can obtain a sense of calmness after only fifteen minutes of exercise.

There are several traumatic events that severely affect the soul of our nation. These terrible events cause many of us to live in a state of fear, uncertainty and hopelessness.

The Iraq war, the Virginia Tech massacre and the Imus incident are examples of these traumas.

How are we to deal with the intense feelings we have about these devastating events?

The warmer weather is here and it gives us more opportunity to go outside and move our bodies. In addition to looking better and feeling better, here are five benefits of exercising that you may not have thought about.

We all get rejected at different times in our lives. Our lovers unexpectedly break up with us. Friends terminate relationships sometimes without rhyme or reason. The job that seemed a shoe-in was not to be had. The college you banked on accepting you with open arms sends a terse rejection letter.

Rejection hurts whether you are prepared for it or not. There is a whole series of emotions you go through when you are snubbed. These emotions are similar to what one goes through while grieving. At first it is extremely difficult to take in the rejection experience. It often feels like being totally abandoned and left to fend for yourself. Denial is the state that occurs here. The rejection does not feel like it actually happened. It feels surrealistic, a trauma someone else is facing, not you.

Over 50 percent of all American marriages end up in divorce. All though divorce is common place in today’s society, it can have devastating effects on those going through it. A marital breakup can cause depression, anxiety, confusion and isolation. It can adversely affect mood, parenting and job performance.

It is common for those divorcing to feel like they have failed. Marriage is seen as a key element in the American dream. Therefore when this union is terminated, feelings that you have let others as well as your self down can become overwhelming.

Take a look at present-day suburbia—what do you see? Neighborhoods filled with children, most of them playing indoors, usually by themselves. When they do engage in activities outside the home—soccer, baseball, martial arts, music lessons—today’s suburban children get shuttled from the house to the playing field or studio by their moms or dads in the family car. They return home the same way, once they have finished their structured activities, and after eating dinner with their parents, they do their homework, often in front of a computer, and then go to bed. They mingle very little on a daily basis with their neighbors’ children, and their tight after-school schedules set aside no time for spontaneous play.

My mother died Dec. 18, 2005. She was eighty-four years old and died of complications from open heart surgery. I am a psychotherapist in private practice and had to return to work shortly after her death. I wondered how I would deal with my deep and heart-stabbing grief while I tried to help my clients work through their issues. Yet, little in graduate or post-graduate training prepares us to deal with such a time in therapy, let alone our lives...

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