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By: Audrey Waugh Why your spouse (and your marriage) shouldn’t get the leftovers. In the middle of busy seasons, priorities rarely collapse all at once. They shift quietly. Work stretches a little further. Energy gets a little thinner. Conversations at home become more functional than deep. And over time, the connection can start to feel harder to hold onto than it used to be.

By: Bec Harris The skill most of us get wrong Warren Davies shares about the difference between listening and just hearing someone, beginning by painting a picture of the difference, using his line of work as an example. “I first came across the concept doing a domestic violence course with Lifeline and there was on a page a Chinese symbol and it’s the Ting symbol which is the symbol of listening more than just you know hearing.

By: Laura Bennett Data tells us that in Australia, more than 20 percent of us have no close friends. Combined with the perceived difficulty of making friends in adulthood and shallowness in existing friendships, we’re in what Friendship Lab founder Sheridan Voysey calls a “wellbeing crisis” that needs remedying. In 2008 when he was attending a seminar on becoming a foster parent, Sheridan was asked a question by the moderator that motivated the development of Friendship Lab.

By: Michelle McAndrews Why every child deserves clean access to water. The morning before I flew to Tanzania started like so many others. My two boys woke up full of energy, ready to play. I packed their school lunches and filled their drink bottles without giving it a second thought. A few days later, after a long journey, I arrived in a village in Tanzania. I was expecting heat and dust. But nothing could have prepared my mother’s heart for the stark reality of thirst.

By: Sabrina Peters Most couples struggle because love is getting lost in translation. One person is showing love by working hard, helping with the kids, paying the bills, or getting things done around the house. The other person is longing for affection, words, quality time, or emotional connection. Both may be trying. Both may even love deeply. But if love is not being expressed in a way the other person can actually receive, it can leave both people feeling unseen, unappreciated, and disconnected.

By: Dr Ken Long What if financial peace had nothing to do with how much you earn? If you’re an Australian staring at your latest electricity bill, wondering how you’ll stretch the grocery money until payday, or lying awake at night calculating whether the next mortgage repayment or rent increase will finally break the budget, then you need to keep reading.

By: Lorrene McClymont A proper night’s sleep can be hard to find, but good sleep hygiene habits can go a long way to giving you a restful night. Sleep is one thing we all need; it’s the foundation of everything we do. Yet sometimes it’s the one thing we can’t get, no matter how hard we try. We can go through seasons of life when we struggle to sleep, especially when there are small children in the house or when we are unwell.

By: Adriana Wales Here’s the science behind how many people you can realistically maintain meaningful relationships with, without draining all your energy. Scroll through your social media platforms and you’ll see plenty of people with over 1000 friends or followers. It might make you feel like you don’t have enough and that you should be befriending people online every chance you get.

By: Helping Hands TV What domestic and family violence survivors need most is a friend who will listen, believe them, and support them. When it comes to breaking the cycle of domestic and family violence, small acts of support make a powerful difference. Simply listening and believing a victim’s story, and offering practical help, could be the lifeline that helps someone break free, even saving their life.

By: Brian Harris Here’s three simple questions that can help to get things into perspective when you’re facing a difficult situation. The old ditty goes “Two men looked out through prison bars, the one saw mud, the other, stars”. I have always been intrigued by the very different responses people have to the same situation.