Exercising

 

Self-Sabotage

• Many self-sabotaging cycles are trauma responses and patterns learned earlier in life as self-preservation.
• A fear of abandonment is really a fear of intimacy and connection.
• To change these patterns, we need to be willing to unlearn patterns of self-preservation while learning patterns of self-healing.

Source: twise/unsplash

Familiar and comfortable are not the same thing as healthy and safe. Yet, we are often attracted to what is familiar and comfortable because it resonates with our early conditioning. Until we begin taking a deep dive into our personal history, our repetitive patterns, and our learned conditioning, our ability to see whether we’re engaging in self-sabotaging behavior may be blurred. 

We may be in denial or turn to rationalizations or projections as excuses for why we continue repeating unhealthy patterns. At the core of all self-sabotaging behavior, we typically find fears of being abandoned, not feeling "good enough," and struggles with self-identity and self-esteem. However, once we peel back these layers, we begin seeing that many self-sabotaging cycles are trauma responses and patterns learned earlier in life as self-preservation.

Why We Self-Sabotage

Unresolved trauma: If we grew up in a toxic family, we were probably handed certain implicit roles, often for survival. We may have had narcissistic or abusive parents who shamed us, physically abused us, or emotionally neglected us. Or we may have had a parent who enabled others in the family to continue cycles of self-defeating behavior, including their own. 

These wounds are what get carried with us as self-sabotaging behavior. We often recreate the same patterns in our adult relationships that were modeled and conditioned for us in our childhood, including messages of not feeling worthy, fearing abandonment, or believing maladaptive mindsets that were taught as normal. Eventually, we wind up turning to more misery as “comfortable” or “familiar.”  READ MORE...

Rainndrops

Online Classes

 

For over 10 years I wore a mustache and while I did look very similar to the caricature illustrated above, I decided that I no longer wanted to be bothered by its maintenance...  so, off it came.

My PROBLEM all my life has been that I am very outspoken and so much so that I have been terminated from employment numerous times because of my outspoken behavior much to the constant disappointment of my spouse who has had to live wide the adverse side effects of my bullshit. 

Today, I am speaking out against education, specifically online education which seems to be gaining traction, especially in light of the COVID Pandemic that had become a global nightmare.

Personally, I have designed online courses and have taught online courses and in both instances, I have come to believe that online instruction is by far THE WORST WAY TO LEARN...  in general...  I say in general because for some people, online education is not only ideal but perfect.

My biggest problem with online education is...  it is very difficult to be hands on...  The best way to learn is to teach other.  The second best way to learn is to be hands on.

For me, learning means RETENTION.

The next problem I have is student interaction.  It is difficult to simulate student interaction in an online environment without being in some sort of chat room...  and, even in those chat rooms, there is very little that the instructor can do to stimulate the conversation and interaction.

My next problem is the quizzes.  Most quizzes are multiple-choice, T/F, fill in the blank, match items, and essay questions.  Online courses avoid essay questions because the instructor will have to do some work.  But more importantly, students have a very hard time answering essay questions as they have not been taught how to drill down on a subject or answer a question with a response longer than 1-2 short sentences.

How can an opinion be formulated in one to two sentences?

How can a student demonstrate competency and UNDERSTANDING in one to two sentences?

I can imagine teaching math in an online environment...  but, I cannot imagine teaching theoretical physics in an online environment...  or even applied psychology.

Opinions are like assholes...  everybody has got one...

MRI & The Lower Back (L4/L5)

L4/L5 are two disks in the lower spine of the human body and are more than likely involved when there is lower back pain being experienced by an adult in their 70s like myself...

Tomorrow, I will have an MRI performed on my lower back to determine the cause of my problems...

According to my research, my discomfort and inability to walk correctly could come from:

• a slipped disk
• a bulging disk
• bone degeneration
• pinched nerve

There are other issues but these are the main ones...  and the solutions are:

• do nothing
• injections
• surgery
• therapy

Of course, insurance has a lot to do with what type of treatment is offered unless you have the out-of-pocket funds to pay for what the insurance company does not...

My MRI will be sedated and because I needed to be sedated I had to wait two months for the procedure.  Many people think I am a PUSSY for needing to be sedated but I really don't give a shit what they think...  what I care about is what I think and what I need to have done for my own mental health and well being.

There is one good thing about being in one's 70s and that is you don't have to concern yourself with what others think.

American Freedom

 Anybody that starts dicking around with my Freedom of Speech really gets my nose out of joint...  

Personally, I don't give a damn about a conservative's point-of-view nor do I give a rat's ass about a liberal's point-of-view...  but what gets me pissed is not being able to hear both sides...

Freedom of speech is not an athletic competition where if one side wins, that's the views that we have to listen to until the next competition...

Freedom of speech is a constitutional right and that constitutional right does not favor one view over another view...  the constitution favors both views and demands both views be heard otherwise we do not have freedom of speech.

Now that Elon Musk has purchased TWITTER everyone on the liberal side of the fence perceives that it is going to favor the conservatives...  especially since before the purchase Twitter favored the liberals...  BUT THAT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN...  Musk might be a conservative but he is also intelligent enough to realize that freedom of speech actually means allowing BOTH SIDES to be heard equally....

What a concept!!!  just like the My Pillow guy saying he has towels that work...

Dragonfire

Emotional Intelligence

Healthy emotional intelligence can bring you greater joy and fulfillment in your own life, and it surely has the power to increase the quality of your relationships. There's a reason why my recent book Date Smart, which sets out to help people find and build healthy relationships, focuses so heavily on EQ skills: Solid emotional intelligence is critical for all healthy intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. In truth, with so much change and chaos in the world, emotional intelligence is the go-to quality we all need.


But emotional intelligence is not a given. We have to work to gain and maintain our EQ throughout life.

There are five core aspects of EQ:

1. Self-knowledge
2. Self-control
3. Social skills
4. Empathy
5. Personal motivation for self-growth

The depth and breadth of these key components might seem intimidating, but increasing your EQ doesn't need to be complicated. Over the years working with clients as a clinical psychologist, I've developed a simple, actionable strategy that reliably helps people grow in each of these areas simultaneously.

The method is a simple "1-2-3" process. As situations come up in life that bring up uncomfortable thoughts and feelings such as anger, irritation, or confusion, mentally run through these three steps. 

Although the process may feel unfamiliar at first, it will become second nature with patience, practice, and perseverance. Each step naturally increases all five of the core EQ aspects, though some steps will hone certain EQ elements more than others.

With this little "1-2-3" mindset shift—and a lot of ongoing practice—you'll feel your level of EQ growing stronger by the day:  

TO READ ABOUT THESE THREE STEPS, CLICK HERE...

Skateboarding

 

Lakes in the USA

Most of the United States doesn’t live along the Pacific or Atlantic Coasts, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t inland wonders and beautiful beaches. 14 of the clearest lakes in the US offer up an alternative paradise.

As with most bodies of water, the biggest threat to these natural resources is human development and debris left behind after recreational use. If you’re going to visit one of the clearest lakes in America, make sure to pack out everything that you packed in.

So where can you find some of the clearest lakes in the United States?

Here are 14 of the clearest lakes in the US:

1. Lake Tahoe
2. Hanging Lake
3. Crater Lake
4. Torch Lake
5. Norris Lake
6. Newfound Lake
7. Flathead Lake
8. Lake Chelan
9. Lake Murray
10. Lake Coeur D’Alene
11. Lake George
12. Lake Winnipesaukee
13. Lake Powell
14. Deer Lake

TO READ MORE ABOUT EACH OF THESE LAKES, CLICK HERE...

Dancing Ladies

 

Fighting COVID with Superstition

Columbia University reverted their COVID-19 policy, requiring students to mask indoors.

Gabriele Holtermann

Boy, is US higher education full of idiots: Columbia University, affiliated Barnard College and Pace University, among other schools, have all started requiring masking indoors again.

Columbia-Barnard only scrapped the mandate on March 14, so students got less than a month to breathe free, and now will be muzzled through June.

And all because campus administrators deem it more important to virtue-signal than to follow the actual science. They blame an uptick in COVID cases, though COVID poses no significant risk to their fully vaccinated student bodies.

Plus, as noted above, case numbers stopped being a useful indicator of coronavirus perils at least a year ago.

And just 0.001% of 15- to 24-year-olds are at risk of dying from COVID, per data from Johns Hopkins. And masking does very little to reduce transmission risks, anyway.

COVID is now endemic, not pandemic — meaning we’ll have to learn to live with the background risks it poses, just like the flu. It’ll help that learning process when the supposedly smartest folks in America stop relying on superstition to “fight” it.

Silver Ring

The Signs are Obvious

President Joe Biden has the lowest approval rating of any President in recent history surpassing Jimmy Carter (another Democrat)...

What does that say about the Democrats and all the people who vote for these Democrats?

Well...  it does not say much...  I'll tell you that.

The Democrats were so anxious to get Donald Trump out of office that they were blinded to the incompetence of their choice to replace their nemesis.  

Now that we have Biden as our President, we have:

• Inflation
• Escalating Immigration
• Increasing Crime & Violence
• Extended COVID Mandates
• Slow Economic Growth
• Increasing Illegal Drugs
• Educational Issues in K-12
• Censorship of Conservative Voice
• BLM/CRT/WOKE Issues

Social Media has caused Americans to be more divided than ever before as it is easy to put down the views of other people when you don't have to face them or make eye contact.  The divide has gotten so intense that some radicals believe that we are heading to a civil war-type confrontation.

However, I don't think it will escalate that far but what I do see is some sort of confrontation between the HAVES and the HAVE NOTS...  especially if prices continue to increase...  and artificially intelligent robots begin to replace jobs...

This is a lot closer than you may expect with 2030 being the turning point in this type of full-blown technology.

Our big issues are:

1. Freedom of Speech/Religion
2. Homeland Security
3. Employment/Wages
4. Abortion/Choice
5. Liberals/Conservatives
6. Wealthy/Poor
7. Healthcare Costs
8. Watered down College Education
9. Crime & Violence
10. Illegal Drugs

NOTE:  Once Elon Musk takes over TWITTER, there will be a change in mainstream media as it continues to try and censor the conservative voice.  Twitter will re-instate Donald Trump and social media will once again swing the pendulum in the opposite direction.

Exploding Flower

Book Sank on the Titanic

Only black-and-white images exist of the first "Great Omar" but a digital colourisation 

was created in 2001

One of the most lavishly decorated books the world has seen was despatched from London to New York in April 1912. The jewel-encrusted edition of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám was taken aboard the RMS Titanic and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, exactly 110 years ago.

A replacement was finished at great expense by the late 1930s but it was promptly incinerated by German bombers as the British capital was ravaged during the Blitz.

The young man behind this extravagant presentation of the polymath Khayyám's poetry would soon drown in an English seaside resort.

Would anyone dare to commission a third "Great Omar"?

'The greater the price the more I shall be pleased'

In 1911, Francis Sangorski finished work on a binding he had been labouring over at his Holborn workshop for two years.  READ MORE...

Amish Help

 

Indian Drama

Rasika Dugal starring in the 2020 movie Lootcase

Award-winning actor, Rasika Dugal, has never had more work, or been recognised more often.


The Indian actor's star is rising - she will soon be seen in the second season of drama, Delhi Crime on Netflix and in the film, Lord Curzon Ki Haveli. She is also currently working on a unnamed TV series.


But it hasn't always been this way. Like many actors, her early years in the industry were tough and frustrating. Ms Dugal worked on films that were never released and those that did reach the box office, did not attract much of an audience.


"While working on those films was a very fulfilling experience as a performer, the films didn't reach the audience I felt they deserved," she says.


When it came to distribution, the small films she worked on just did not have the marketing budgets to compete with the big blockbuster movies, so struggled to find an audience.


"All the popular and convenient screens and show timings [at cinemas] would already be taken by the bigger film," Ms Dugal explains.  READ MORE...

Sleeping Dog

 

New Cancer Clues

UK scientists have undertaken a huge "archaeological dig" of cancer in the UK, analysing the complete genetic make-up - or whole genome sequence - of tumours from about 12,000 patients.


The team says the unprecedented amount of data allowed them to uncover new patterns in the DNA of cancer - hinting at causes that are not yet understood.


They add that the genetic clues will ultimately help improve diagnosis and treatment.


The research is published in Science.


Cancer can be thought of as a corrupted version of our own healthy cells - mutations to our DNA change our cells until eventually they grow and divide uncontrollably.


Traditionally many cancers have been categorised by doctors based on where they are in the body and the type of cells involved - but whole genome sequencing can provide another layer of key information.


'Dinosaur footprints'
Whole genome sequencing is relatively new, but is already available on the NHS for a small number of specific cancers, including some blood cancers.


The NHS long-term plan aims to make it more widely available, through the NHS Genomic Medicine Service.  READ MORE...