#but everything I research emphasizes how important support is to people in recovery

[loveandthings11]

How Deep My Love Goes, Chapter 11

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Fic Summary: A Kenrava-focused fix-it alongside canon 💗

Nobody Stays Missing

Two minutes after Kendall has taken his first steps out the door and toward Logan to deliver the letter, Rava sits down and turns her attention to her case for as long as she can before everything blows up. She taps her pen against her laptop keyboard and glances back and forth from her scribbled notes to her typed ones, trying in vain to find the missing piece of her case- written evidence from the company of the years of stolen wages. She looks over her client Tony Trume’s latest distressed email, concerned about his coworker friend and wondering if he’s in danger himself. 

She drops her face into her hands for a moment, wishing she knew an expert in international corporate law. She briefly thinks of Gerri and hesitates. The questions alone would sound like an accusation of having been on the wrong side of cases like this before, and Kendall is about to be at war with Waystar. Rava looks at her phone and thinks maybe she could just ask a quick hypothetical, one lawyer to another. Gerri doesn’t know what’s happening with Kendall yet, she’d still pick up the phone- for the next five minutes. She takes a breath and presses her name. Gerri answers on the first ring. 

“Gerri Kellman.”

“Gerri, hi. It’s Rava.” She can practically hear Gerri’s eyebrows go up.

“Rava? Um, hi, how are you? Enjoying the festivities?”

“Oh, yeah. You know, the Roy joys.” She sounds forced and she knows it.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well,” Rava continues, “I actually have a hypothetical for you- having nothing to do with Waystar, just a case thing. Can I run something by you? I’m no expert in corporate law.”

“Oh. Sure, go ahead,” Gerri answers with slight confusion. Rava wonders how much time she has before Kendall gets to Logan’s room with the letter. While Rava details the situation, Gerri stays quiet.

“So, that’s it,” Rava finishes. “Stolen wages for years, a whistleblower who went missing, and a new whistleblower who is terrified that the same thing is going to happen to him. If a situation like that were to occur, what would be the best way to proceed, do you think? I’m, uh… a little lost, but you know this stuff.” Rava smiles into that last part, an effort to curry favor with a woman she knows gets too little credit. Gerri takes a moment.

“Honestly? If I were the attorney on this, well, I wouldn’t be. This kind of thing tends to be bad for everyone except the company you’re after. Look out for yourself here. Nobody will be kind to your reputation if you lose this, and I’m sorry to say it, but you will probably lose this.”

Rava feels a bit of the chill she’d feared. Gerri probably ate cases like this for lunch twenty years ago. She blinks and considers for a moment. She knows she probably only has seconds left before Gerri finds out what Kendall’s done. She can almost hear his footsteps.

“Are you saying that because you’re general counsel for an international company, or because you believe it?”

Gerri sighs and Rava hears a phone vibration on the other end. 

“Both.” She pauses. “Fuck. Look, I’m sorry, I think you know what I have to go deal with-“

“Right, yeah. I appreciate you hearing me out.”

“Sure. Bye, Rava.”

The end of the call sounds final. They’re on opposite sides now. Regret starts to creep up as Rava wonders if hearing that was worth the risk of letting someone else in on her case. She looks at her phone and decides to calm down by taking a look at the photos of the wedding party from just an hour before. She’d asked the photographer to take a couple of shots on her phone of just her and Kendall. She’d run up just in the nick of time and slipped in next to him. He’d smiled and whispered, “Thank God, Shiv just asked if I was hallucinating you coming here.” The camera had caught him whispering in her ear and her laughing. She hopes this bear hug works so Logan can officially be out of the way and she can see Kendall’s smile all the time. It warms her chest even to think about how happy he’ll be when he’s finally in charge. 

……………..

“That was really hard.” Kendall stares into the void as the image of Logan’s eyes floats in his head. Filled with anger, shock, disapproval… pride? That’s probably too hopeful. Stewy pats his knee.

“I know. You did it, man. Hey.” Kendall glances up at him. “You fuckin’ did it.” He nods. He can’t remember how to smile right now.

“I fucked my sister’s wedding.”

Stewy rolls his eyes but keeps his tone gentle.

“Well, I’m sure you won’t fuck the next one. Now you’ve learned who to trust. Me. Not Frank. Maybe not Ro-Ro, as much as it hurts.” Kendall looks down. 

“You literally told me not to trust you,” he mutters. Stewy chooses not to hear that and Kendall continues. “But, yeah, it’s not our fault Roman didn’t answer the phone. I had to act or the whole thing would’ve fallen apart. I know he wasn’t expecting it to happen today, obviously- uh, well, none of us were.”

“Yeah, thanks for that, Ken, by the way.” Kendall ignores him. 

“And we don’t even know if he ignored the call on purpose,” Kendall continues. “Maybe he did hear about the press leak and he thought he could change teams at the last minute. Just detach himself and run right back to Dad?” Kendall presses his lips together in stress and slumps forward while he worries.

“You didn’t ask your Dad if Roman had come to him?” Stewy inquires before realizing Kendall could probably barely make himself say the part he planned. “Okay- no, I get it, that was enough for you.” He switches to an easy vibe to keep them both calm. “Honestly, Roman was probably too busy getting fucked up to answer, he’s sick of this shit. Probably the most he’s worked in his entire life,” he laughs. Kendall feels queasy not knowing the answer and Stewy wants to pull them both out of the worrying. “But who cares? Time to celebrate. Drinks!” He gets up and pours himself a generous glass of scotch from the crystal bottle on the nearby mahogany table, opening his jacket and taking out a little plastic bag like they both always used to carry. Kendall visibly shrinks back and shakes his head. 

“Come on, man, again?” Kendall tries, wondering how it’s possible that he still doesn’t get it. Stewy rolls his eyes.

“If you don’t want any, just turn that way.” He gestures toward the wall and pours a bit of coke onto the table. Kendall inhales sharply and gets up and walks toward the door. 

“I can’t be in here if you’re gonna do that.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Stewy says as he cuts up a line and snorts it. 

That’s it.

“It IS a fucking big deal,” Kendall spits out, prompting Stewy’s slow head turn toward him, standing right at the door facing away. He’s been putting up with this for years and now is not a relaxing moment. Now is the time when it’s hardest to say no and Stewy should have known that. He focuses on the carved wood on the door, counting the almost invisible marks in the grain.

“Dude. Relax, I’ll put it away,” Stewy says. Kendall closes his eyes and doesn’t want to turn around. He hates feeling like people think he’s a buzzkill, but he just can’t take it. Stewy looks over at him and puts the bag back in his jacket. “Ken. It’s fine, you can turn around.” He reluctantly does. “It’s all good, man. We’re doing this.” There’s a pause. “Hey. Like we always planned, yeah?” Kendall nods. 

“Yeah.” He looks at the wall and the floor. “I gotta go, the fam’s waiting.” He reaches for the doorknob.

“Ken.” Stewy tilts his head and tries to look at him. Kendall wishes anyone he knew knew how to apologize.

“It’s fine. I’m good.”

Stewy looks at him, feeling discontented with a hint of regret.

“Really? Is this actually about this, or about the vote? Are we good?”

Kendall shrugs.

“Sure.” He opens the door and shuts it behind him. He turns and almost runs into Iverson on the gravelly path, trailed by Rava and Sophie a little ways back.

“Hey!” Rava calls as Iverson walks over to him first. “We were just looking for you.” Kendall leans down to give Iverson a hug. 

“That picture you drew is the best thing I’ve ever seen,” he says seriously. “I mean that.” His son smiles and Kendall looks up at Rava and Sophie as they get closer.

“Hey,” he says. He knows he sounds spent and he feels like it. Rava’s eyes widen.

“You okay? How was talking to your dad?” She looks apprehensive but hopeful. Kendall sighs.

“I mean… it’s done, so, yeah.” He stands up and they all start walking back toward their room. 

“And…?” 

“I don’t know. That was just-“ he sighs again. Everything always has to pile on at once. His dad will never forgive him. He’s in a fight with Stewy. He can’t believe he’s going to have to face the entire family hating him at Shiv’s wedding, to face Roman thinking he cut him out on purpose and possibly turning against him. “Is it- can I just not talk about it right now?”

“Sure,” Rava says with concern as he gazes at the road in front of them. “It’s good we’re going back to the room before the festivities start.” The festivities. He can’t imagine wanting to go to a wedding reception later. He nods. The room sounds good. He hopes it’s quiet.

The kids want to continue their walk, so Bianca takes them out. Kendall and Rava enter back into their suite, all heavy wood and velvet upholstery in jewel tones of deep green and blue. Kendall pulls off his shoes as Rava steps down from her heels. He gazes at the grand canopy bed and wants to lie down more than anything. He fiddles with his jacket and Rava gives him a warm look. 

“Are you worrying about wrinkling your suit?” He glances down with a small smile. She knows him so well. “Maybe if you just lie really still,” she suggests jokingly. He gives in and hangs up his jacket, walking back and lying down on his back staring up at the ceiling for a minute. She sits down next to him and looks over. She can’t take the suspense anymore. She has to know something. She starts with an easy question.

“So, um- did he yell? When you gave him the letter?”

Kendall exhales.

“Yeah.”

She puts her hand on his arm, a gentle reminder that she knows how hard that is for him. He turns his head away and tries to mentally float away from the memory.

“And… I mean, what did he say?”

“He wouldn’t even read it.” She winces a little. “I told him.” He closes his eyes and she smiles a bit sadly.

“Well… you did it.”

“Uh huh.” She rubs his arm.

“It’ll be okay,” she assures him. He keeps his eyes closed.

“Yeah? Do you have any proof?” 

She chuckles a little. 

“Only proof that it’s always ended up okay.” He opens his eyes slowly. She’s not wrong. She wonders if she should tell him about the talk she’d had with Gerri, but thinks now is not the time. It’s not the right day to mention anyone at Waystar. She decides on someone safer. “Hey, does Stewy want to join us and head over to cocktail hour later?” She figures he’s on the team now and his presence might be a positive distraction from the Logan mess. Kendall squirms a little at the thought of explaining and hopes he can just keep his distance from Stewy for the rest of the day.

“Uh, no. No, he’s- let’s just go with the kids.”

“Okay.” She looks at him expectantly. “Everything okay there? He’s still on board and everything?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he’s in.” He’s quiet for a second.

“Did something happen? What’s wrong?” She asks.

“Nothing, just-“ He briefly wishes he had the ability to hide small things like this from her and resigns himself to the fact that she’s too perceptive for that. Sometimes it’s a relief that she can read him like a book, but not at the moment. “He just- lives in the past sometimes. You know?” She gives him a confused look.

“No, what does that-“ She closes her eyes for a second as it hits her. “Jesus Christ. In the room with you? He’s doing drugs right in front of you?” She massages her temples. “I really might kill him, Ken.”

“No, it’s- you know, it’s fine. I mean, he stopped when I asked- when I told him to.”

She shakes her head and looks down at him.

“You shouldn’t have to tell him to,” she says. How anyone could want to make recovery harder for him than it already is is beyond her. Kendall looks at her and implores her with his eyes.

“Don’t say anything. Just- let it be. He’s not gonna change. I can’t have any more enemies right now.”

“Right. So it’s fine that for the next year you’re going to be having meetings at powder-covered conference tables? I don’t think so.” They hear the door open from the living room of the suite and Bianca’s keys jingle. “It’s not just about what you’re okay with,” she says, glancing in the direction of the door where the kids are. They share a meaningful look and he takes a deep breath.

“Yeah. I’ll deal with it.”

She nods, but she’s simmering beneath her placid surface. She considers the dynamic between Kendall and Stewy. Kendall gave Stewy another chance after he abstained from the vote. Stewy didn’t seem concerned that abstaining might end their friendship. He gave Kendall the money, but that just gave him more power over him. As far she Rava can tell, Stewy has the upper hand and Kendall isn’t going to say anything that could jeopardize their coalition. But this is just too important. There is no coalition if everyone in it is high out of their minds. She won’t lose him to a company or an overgrown fraternity.

“You know, I think I left my scarf at the ceremony, I’ll be right back.” She pats his shoulder and gets up, heading back down the path to the room she found him walking out of. She swings open the door and is suddenly alone with Stewy, who is disconcerted as he looks up from the slightly powdery table where his laptop is.

“What on earth were you thinking?” She hisses. Stewy drops his head back and sighs. “Remember Sophie and Iverson, his children? I would think as his supposed best friend you would care whether he can see them?”

“He tattled on me? Jesus… come on, you’re not taking the kids,” he says sarcastically. The cavalier attitude makes her want to scream. She closes her eyes in frustration and memories she hates start to come up. She doesn’t know how to get through to him except to bring him back.

“I- I mean, you were there. Covered his face from the photographers? Sat with me in the fucking ambulance? Promised me this would never happen again? ‘Never again.’ That’s what you said from the doorway of the hospital room you were too scared to come into. Remember any of that? Or have you obliterated all those brain cells?” She scoffs. 

Stewy tries to keep his usual cool , but she can tell she’s getting to him. It had been the only time she’d ever heard him say ‘I’m sorry.’ He’s rarely at a loss for words and he doesn’t like being guilt-tripped. She doesn’t need to play dirty and he resents her acting like it’s his fault Kendall has a problem. The defensiveness combines with the coke and spills out for a moment.

“Stop, it is not a big deal.” Rava’s eyes widen and he hears himself and backtracks a little. “Yeah, I know. I remember.” He can’t bring himself to get deep right now and just wants her to go so he can get the evening started. “I’ve already gotten my scolding for the day. I got it. Okay? No more. I seriously did not think he’d care.” He starts walking out but can’t quite stop himself from turning back around to face her. “You know, it’s not my fault he can’t handle his shit like I can.”

“Can you?” She asks pointedly. She gestures to the table, clearly not yet cleaned. “I mean, can you not?”

He rolls his eyes but it takes a second.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” he says.

“Well, sometimes I do.”

“You worry about me. Because you care?” He asks airily, sarcasm almost masking curiosity.

She takes a second. He doesn’t have many people looking out for him.

“Yes, Stewy. Because I have the burden of worrying and caring about other people.”

“Oh, right. That must be terrible,” he deadpans. The corners of her mouth turn up nearly imperceptibly.

“Sometimes.” They look at each other. “You know, if you ever want to talk about it, I have experience in being supportive,” she offers carefully.

“You should save that for the guy who needs it,” he says, not unkindly, but not without defensiveness.

“Okay. Whatever you say.” She takes a step toward the door and looks over her shoulder at him. “Never again.”

Stewy nods and mets her gaze for a second.

“Yeah. Never again.”

Rava strides back into the suite and finds Kendall standing just inside the bedroom waiting for her. She stops short as she sees her pashmina draped over his arm.

“Found your scarf.” He raises his eyebrows and looks at her coolly. “I told you I would deal with him,” he says iin disbelief.

“Well, to be honest-“

“You didn’t think I would so you went behind my back.”

“Ken-“ 

He shakes his head.

“That’s great, Rava. You know, if you want to treat someone like a kid, we have two of them.” She rolls her eyes.

“Right. Because that’s what this is.”

“No, what this actually sounds like to me is you having no faith that I can do what I promise. You said that phase was over. ‘New phase.’ But it’s not. You don’t even think I can stand up for myself with someone I’ve known forever? So- so what else do you not think I can do?”

She hears the freakout and sighs, keeping her voice even.

“Okay. I’m not doing this. You’re talking to yourself, you know that? It’s you who’s worried you’re not up to the job, or staying clean, or whatever you’re referring to, not me. And if you want to talk about that, I am here. But Stewy and I are fine.” He’s getting more wound up by the second, feeling the tension of the day coming back after his brief attempt at relaxation.

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“Well, fine. I’m sorry for caring so much about keeping you safe that I’ll go talk to someone who is putting you in danger.”

He scoffs. “Stewy? Okay. I don’t need you to keep me safe, I can take care of myself.”

A silence louder than their voices fills the room.

“Got it. New phase.” She raises her eyebrows and walks toward the door. He sighs and follows after her. Distance is not the phase he meant.

“Well, I didn’t- I- no,” he starts. She feels self-conscious and crosses her arms. “I love that you care.” He comes closer and hesitantly places his hand on her arm. “I love this,” he gestures between them. “I just- just let me deal with my own stuff.” She nods without looking at him. She reprimands herself for wanting to be needed so badly. There’s some relationship book she’d read making her out to be a bad partner for that- for viewing him as someone to fix or save. They haven’t seen his eyes, she’d thought, but she knew they had a point. 

“Yeah. I’m sorry,” she says blandly. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out on your own.” She meant it to sound genuine, but it just makes him sigh. He didn’t mean actually alone. She brushes her hand down his arm and steps away a little bit. “You go ahead to the reception. I’ll catch up later with the kids.” She can feel that he’s upset but she can’t look.

“You’re- you’re skipping cocktail hour? Rava.”��

But she’s walking back into the room already. She knows she shouldn’t do this, but her skin is crawling at the whole situation and she wants to be alone. But it’s the last thing he wants. He can’t believe that she won’t admit she’s wrong and he doesn’t even know who he can talk to at this stupid cocktail hour where there are no cocktails for him. He wishes he could summon that little plastic bag and anything else that might numb him. He feels guilty as he wonders if he’ll ever stop missing Macallan 30. 

Reluctantly, he drags himself into the section of the stone manor that houses this part of the event and puts his hands in his pockets as he passes under the huge wooden archway of the door. He thought he was done making awkward event entrances by himself. He’s almost afraid to look around because he might accidentally make eye contact with someone who wants to kill him, but he quickly glances up to see if Roman’s around- and sees Caroline heading his way. Oh, good. Her smile is gleeful.

“Kendall.” She kisses his cheek. 

“Hi, Mom.” He prepares himself for whatever barbs are coming at him.

“I heard you ruined your father’s day before he even got into his suit,” she titters. “I’m so proud.” He tries not to take the much-needed comment seriously.

“Yeah. Thanks.” The last time they’d talked alone, four months ago, was when Kendall had called to try to connect with her on a lonely Saturday. He was looking forward to the CEO announcement and wanted to share it with someone. Caroline had sounded highly doubtful that Logan would keep his word and it had made him bite his nails and lose sleep for a night. She’d assured him it would be better for him to get out and he’d attempted to explain why that was literally unthinkable. He’d tried to throw in a bit about missing Rava and his eventual plan to win her back, and she’d told him how smart she’d always thought Rava was to stay out of the Roy fray. Kendall had felt stung and wondered why he always kept trying with his mom. He looks cautiously at her as she continues.

“Where’s Rava? Haven’t you gotten her enough staff for her to come join the fun?”

“Yes, Mom. She’ll be here. I guess.”

She looks pleasantly amused and takes a sip of her champagne. Kendall looks at the glass enviously. 

“So, how long do you give it?” His eyes flash up at her. Even he has a limit.

“How long do I give us?” He asks incredulously. “Really?”

“No!” Caroline laughs again, light and tinged with the discomfort of a life of never being taken seriously. “Your sister and Tom.” He takes a breath.

“Oh.” Nice not to be the target. “Uh, I don’t know, until she convinces Dad to make Tom head of whatever the fuck and she finds out that’s all he wanted?”

“Are you going to promote Tom if you win this little game you’re playing with Logan?”

“It’s not a game.” She looks slightly suspicious and Kendall feels more annoyed than ever at the fact that Logan thinks they’re just playing chess. “And as for Tom, as much as I love social climbers…” he trails off as he sees Rava coming through the room’s grand entryway in her blue silk dress. She starts a conversation with the people next to her and doesn’t look around for him. Caroline follows his gaze.

“So what did you do?” She asks. “The au pair?” He shuts his eyes and sighs. 

“Jesus. Obviously not.”

“So now poor Rava’s stuck with the kids and doesn’t come to cocktail hour on time?” He looks miserable. “Always the serious one,” she almost laughs and he wishes she would be serious for one second. She pats his hand. “But the handsome one, too. I’m sure you could do better than that nanny. Lord knows your father always did.” Kendall remembers feeling sorry for her once it occurred to him around age fourteen that Logan kept mistresses at the other residences where he occasionally stayed. 

“Okay, Mom. That’s not- no. I’m not Dad.” 

“No, no, of course not. Only joking.” She tilts her head down and raises her eyebrows. “You could laugh. Not all of us want to be so sullen.” Kendall gives her a dry look and Caroline takes another sip as she looks over at Rava. “Only been a few months since her miraculous return, and she’s all the way over there.” He feels a little lost in resentment. “Careful. The drifting happens before you know what’s hit you.”

Kendall looks at his mom and wishes he could really talk to her, ask her advice and have her give him a hug. He briefly considers the fact that she is referencing a time when she missed Logan and he tries to conjure a memory of his parents laughing or flirting or kissing. A strange sense of pity for both of them settles onto him and he wonders if Caroline ever held Logan the way Rava holds him every night. If Logan would even let her. Stewy’s advice to distance himself from the Enemy echoes in his head as he struggles not to empathize with them.  He’d watched as they’d started to sleep in separate rooms, then separate houses as he got into his late teens. The idea of being distant from Rava that way makes him feel sick.

“Well, we’re not drifting. We’ll figure it out.”

“Of course. So, you give Shiv what- a year?”

“Sure,” he replies. Caroline smiles.

“Come outside with your dear old mum?” She asks, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from her clutch. He glances at them.

“Really trying to quit,” he answers. “For the kids.”

“Oh, you’re no fun anymore,” his mom teases.

“Yeah, that’s what I hear,” he sighs.

“Just one. Or stay here and wait for the feral dogs to come after you,” she says with a twinkle in her eye. "I hear they're all out looking."

He sighs again and turns and follows Caroline outside. He lights her cigarette and stands in the windy air. It’s cold and he buttons up his coat to stop it from prickling his skin through his suit. She hands the cigarette to him and he takes a drag, taking a moment to feel the calm before handing it back and deciding that’s it for the night. He and Rava don’t need another thing to fight about. It’s been weeks and he’s been doing so well. He stares out at the landscape he has so many memories of running in. The feeling of freedom was nice, even if it wasn’t real.

"So, you, uh, just got inspired to get me out of there right on time?" He asks.

"Well, I'm a philanthropist now," she says with a delectable sarcasm.

"Oh yeah?"

"According to Tatler. I wouldn't dare argue with that kind of expertise." He almost chuckles. Did she do something just to be nice?

"Uh-huh."

“You know, your father nearly smacked a waiter tonight, couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.” She says it like she wishes she were surprised. Kendall shakes his head.

“Well, is the kid okay?”

“Oh, he’s all paid off and drove off, that’s the way. No consequences for Logan.”

“Yeah.” Kendall pauses. “Maybe. Maybe there are consequences for him.”

Kendall walks Caroline back into the party and starts carefully wandering into the minefield of a cocktail hour, scanning for Rava. They have to fix this. He hated going to weddings during the separation, even when he was only there for the networking. He used to sit at the table and stare at cake he couldn’t eat during slow songs. Sometimes if the song hit home too hard he’d find an excuse to leave the room. He and Rava always fed each other wedding cake at receptions they attended to recall their own happy day. Loneliness was so much worse when it felt like the memories of his own wedding day were getting rained on. This was the first wedding he’s looked forward to in years- their first as a reunited couple- and he doesn’t want it to be a loss. 

He’s shocked to spot her in the corner with Stewy as well as Kendall’s least favorite board member, Paul. Kendall is under no delusions of who the “friend” was who Stewy had told him wanted Rava. He feels a surge of anger at all three of them- how could Stewy let Paul talk to Rava? How could Rava make up with Stewy before him? How could Paul still be hitting on Rava even after they had officially and very publicly gotten back together?? The way he’s looking and smiling at Rava makes Kendall want to scream. Paul must be twenty years older than them, it’s pathetic. He can see Paul’s eyes flitting to places only he can touch and he has to take a breath so he doesn’t force him to back away. He thinks vengefully about how long Paul will last on the board when he’s CEO. He makes a beeline for their group and tries to stay as smooth as he can. Stewy sees him coming and puts his arm around him once he gets there, patting his back and bringing him into the circle.

“Ken. So glad you made it.” Stewy makes eye contact for a moment. “Seriously.”

“Yeah. Me too,” Kendall answers. We’re good. He swiftly turns to Rava.

“Hi,” he says with a smile at her, kissing her cheek and slipping his arm around her waist. She looks pleasantly surprised at the warmth in what she was expecting to be an awkward moment. He looks at Paul as he wraps his fingers around her side, making sure her body is touching his.

“Paul, good to see you,” he says with what Rava has often joked is his “business smile” as he reaches out his hand to shake Paul’s. She recognizes the expression and tries to hide a grin. This is an entirely different kind of awkward moment.

“You too, Kendall. Hope life outside the Waystar family is serving you well.” Kendall stops himself from rolling his eyes at the obvious dig.

“Yeah. I’m good,” Kendall confirms. 

“Rava was just telling me that you two are heading to Saint-Tropez this season.”

Kendall’s fury at Paul subsides a little at the mention of the couple’s old inside joke- Rava used to tell other people that she and Kendall were going on vacation before she’d ask him so he would have no choice but to take time off and go with her. He looks at Rava and she gives him an apologetic smile. He chuckles. 

“That’s right, I had almost forgotten. But yeah, it’s about time. Pretty over this dreariness. It’s about time to take my wife to the Riviera again.”

“Oh, yeah, well, maybe I’ll see you there. I’m getting a place there this winter too,” Paul replies.

Stewy looks quietly delighted at the passive-aggressive discord and Rava catches his eye for half a second to share in the amusement. The ice between everyone in the circle melts a bit as she leans into Kendall.

“We would love that,” she says. Kendall glances down at her with a hint of a smile. Paul gets the picture and looks at the ice cubes Stewy is lightly swirling. 

“Stewy, can’t have an empty glass. To the bar?”

“Thank God, yes. Excuse us.” Stewy nods and smiles at Kendall and Rava before he walks away. 

Rava looks up at Kendall and hopes he doesn’t let go. His muscles loosen a little but he keeps his arm around her.

“That whole thing with Stewy-“ she starts. “-I should have told you I wanted to talk to him. I got scared, Ken. I don’t think he respects your sobriety. As your friend, he should, so I told him that. We just… hadn’t checked in in a long time. He and I are okay, though. We just needed a minute.” She gives him a hug that he can tell she needs for comfort. He hugs her back and turns his face into her hair. 

“Okay. Yeah- I mean, I don’t know that I really wanted to talk to him about it anyway. I want you guys to be fine though. This is going to be hard if you’re arguing all the time.” They move apart and she shakes her head. 

“No, we won’t. We’re fine now- and I hope he’s going to do better. He knows I want good things for him, too.”

“Okay. Good.” He takes a second. “I really hate fighting with you,” he says quietly. He barely shakes his head for a second. “I don’t want us to, like, drift, you know?” He sighs and searches her eyes before glancing down for a moment. The thought of being distant and cold like his parents is so genuinely upsetting that he can feel a lump forming in his throat. “I’m fucking insanely stressed and I know things are all over the place, but- I don’t want to do things ‘on my own.’ I tried that, you know… and I hated it.”

“Hey, no, no drifting. Come here, Superman.” She pulls him back. “I want you right here all the time,” she lays her hand on the back of his head with her chin over his shoulder. It feels so freeing to say the truth after trying to keep her distance for so long. He breathes in her scent and lets some tension go. He wishes they were already in their room so he wouldn’t have to let go so fast. This day has been exhausting and it’s hitting him. He just wants to curl up in bed and fall asleep to the sound of her breathing.

“That’s what I want too,” he murmurs. He pauses to collect himself before remembering the conversation they’d just been a part of. “That and for Paul to fall off a cliff,” he grumbles, tightening his arms around her and slipping his hands just a bit lower on her back. Rava smiles and decides to egg him on just a little bit.

“Ohhhh, he’s not that bad.”

Kendall pulls back to look at her.

“No?” He asks with just enough humor to keep it low-key. “You don’t see the way that old geezer looks at you? I can’t wait til I don’t need his vote and can fire him Dad-style, whole board watching.”

“Ken,” She stifles a laugh. “That is insane.”

“He was fucking undressing you with his eyes,” he mutters. Rava smiles and presses her chest into him. 

“Well, maybe after the reception I’ll let you undress me with your hands.” 

“Are you flirting with me?” He brushes his cheek against hers and works all the charm he has. She pretends to think.

“I think I might be.” He feels the warmth come back into his body.

“So, reception for, like, not that long?” He laughs. She laughs along and he takes her hand as they walk toward the reception hall. “Are the kids-?”

“With Connor,” she answers.

“Oh, good. They’ll come back teaching us about fucking- cryogenics and conspiracy theories about French history,” he jokes. “Actually though, I’ve always thought he should be a dad.”

Rava shrugs and grins. 

“Maybe he will be. Willa’s not exactly age-appropriate.” He chuckles.

“Yeah. The kids need cousins.” The thought makes him happy and Rava considers what a good job Connor did with his first kid.

��…………..

The passive-aggressive toasts that veer toward simply aggressive make Rava shake her head and roll her eyes at Kendall every minute or so, quietly laughing at the pathetic nature of their insults. She’s keeping it light enough that he can ignore most of the jabs in his direction and he’s grateful only to have to listen halfway. It’s hard to distract him when Logan subtly accuses him of ruining the wedding, but he tries to focus on knowing what he’s doing is right. He looks nervously at Roman and is not comforted by his lack of eye contact, which feels purposeful. Kendall can’t decide if he’s being paranoid or not. Next to him, Rava almost catches Gerri's eye, but Gerri deftly avoids looking back. As Rava sips more champagne, her tongue gets more acidic, making him laugh with her sharp comments about everyone’s caustic remarks. He admires how naturally she can lighten a mood, the way she can smooth over the most difficult situations so effortlessly. He’s always wished he had that kind of ease and hopes it somehow soaks into him. During a brief break between toasts, Kendall gets curious about her family politics.

“Hey, how’s everything with your stepdad these days? I know he was kind of being difficult to you around Thanksgiving-“

“And most of the time? You know, he ‘expects my success!’” she imitates. She gives him a twinkle. “But unsurprisingly, he’s been much nicer since I told him we’re back together.” Kendall tries not to let the glow shine through his eyes. He’s unsuccessful and Rava thinks it’s sweet. She knows how much it means to him to get challenging parental approval. “He does love you,” she smiles.

Kendall shrugs in a comically exaggerated way.

“I should be the favorite somewhere, right?” 

She takes his hand under the table and chances a look in Logan’s direction. She catches him calmly looking right at Kendall. The vitriol seems to have left his icy blue eyes, and for a second, she could swear he was just a dad wanting to see his son at a family wedding. 

“Mmm, I wouldn’t discount being number one here either. Not just yet,” she says. 

Kendall decides he likes the premise too much to argue with it, but his stomach twists at the idea that his dad must feel betrayed and furious. He allows himself a millisecond-long glance at his father, who he can see is turning away. He feels a pang of regret and tries to replace it with fortitude, but he’s hit with a wave of desperate wishes to be closer to him, to hear that he’s proud, to get a hug just given out of affection. He thinks about how hard he’s trying to earn his dad’s respect and wonders if he can ever win his love. He remembers Logan smiling at him when he was a little kid and feeling like the world was his every time. What had he done wrong to lose that? He runs through every corporate action he had taken since his dad had bestowed the future title on him a year and a half ago. The late-night strategy sessions they’d had about his ascendence to the throne were some of the only bright spots of the last few years. “When it’s you,” Logan had always started, “I want you to focus in on…” Kendall had always had to try with all his might to hear anything after ‘when it’s you’ in his father’s gruff, strong, self-assured voice. He could have sworn he felt the hot shots of adrenaline and dopamine shooting through his entire body. The few times he’d received praise for doing something right, he had floated home on air. Anxiety floods him at the thought that he might never get another night like those. He’s dying for reassurance.

“I think we should go to your parents’ house when we get back,” he says suddenly. Rava smiles uncertainly.

“Okay.” She squeezes his hand. “You in need of some cookies and compliments?”

He had truly missed his in-laws during their time apart. Rava’s mom and step-dad had always been so kind to him in ways his own parents never were. Rava’s mom Cheryl freely hugged him all the time and always asked the cook to bring him seconds. Their beautiful house always smelled like some delicious baked good, and even into his thirties she would still pat him on the shoulder and tell him he was doing a great job and deserved a break. Rava’s step-dad Robert poured him scotch and talked business in a much more upbeat and excited way than Logan did, once in a while even offering a high-five after hearing about a successful board vote or an acquisition when Kendall managed to save existing jobs while still turning a profit. It was so rare that Kendall got the chance to talk about work with someone who had no financial stake in what happened and just genuinely wanted him to succeed. As a powerful M&A lawyer, Robert had high expectations of Rava and could be hard on her, and Kendall tried to slip in bits about her success too. They went golfing every few months after Robert retired, and Kendall knew it as worth enduring Logan’s disapproval of him having any other family members. One of the most painful casualties of the separation for Kendall was his never-ending worry that his surrogate parents for seventeen years now thought he was a junkie and hated him. But Rava had reminded him throughout their time apart that she would never talk about him that way and that they were also sad about the split.

“Cookies and compliments,” he breaks into a little smile and looks at the table. “Do you know how good that sounds right now?” He almost laughs at himself for how much he needs to be around people who honestly like him in this moment.

“Then we’ll go. For now, how about some cake, and your hair looks nice,” she says with a grin. He reaches up to check his hair in case it was messy and that was a joke. She laughs lightly. “Really? I meant that! It is definitely time to go to my parents’. You need a break.”

“Stewy will love that.”

“He’ll love having you getting things done at full capacity. And Roman- where is Roman?”

“Uh, we don’t know,” he replies uneasily. 

“You don’t know?” She repeats. 

“He gave his speech, he went somewhere with Tabitha maybe, I don’t see her either now, but… you know- weird timing.”

“Well, yeah,” she agrees. Just as she finishes the word, the DJ returns and turns on the fun music everyone’s been waiting for. Kendall and Rava breathe a sigh of relief at being free from the dangerous speeches and walk out onto the dance floor. Kendall stops for a minute to look around and make sure it’s safe out there. Logan is walking out with Frank and Gerri, Shiv is with Tom at the head table, and Roman has indeed disappeared. He finds that particularly worrisome but decides to push it out of his mind and enjoy the moment. Rava goes ahead to the kids and the three of them start dancing while Kendall hangs back. Classic multicolored uplighting flits across their faces and he takes a moment to absorb the purely happy scene. Rava catches his eye and smiles as she does silly dance moves with the kids. He feels the same flip in his chest as he would when she’d spot him at a party when they were just starting to date. She could always tell that the party king image was an inch deep and that he probably needed encouragement to approach her. Sophie runs over and throws herself into him for one of her sweet enthusiastic hugs that make everything brighter. Rava follows with Iverson and reaches for Kendall’s hand.

“You wanna dance?” She’s bouncing already and he takes her hand and follows her out with a cheerful air. She makes them all into a circle and they swing around, jumping up and down. The kids look positively delighted, and seeing their joyful expressions looking up at him makes him promise himself he’ll do anything it takes to keep them like that forever. He watches Rava giggle and twirls her. She spins close to him and gives him a quick kiss.

“Mom!!” Sophie yells. Rava chuckles and pats her head as she looks back at Kendall and watches him bounce and dance.

“I remember you,” she smiles at him. “You’re fun!” He laughs. 

“You’re definitely the only one who’s of that opinion tonight.” But he only needs one. The song slows down and Rava glances at Kendall’s watch.

“Kids, it is way past your bedtime!” She motions to Bianca to come take them to bed. “Bianca is going to help you get ready for bed and then we’ll come kiss you goodnight, okay?” The kids reluctantly agree and Kendall kisses the top of their heads before Bianca leads them out.

“Slow song…” Rava looks at him invitingly. They sway to the music and she looks up at him, placing both her hands on his face and pulling him to her lips. She can’t wait another second to feel his lips, to close her eyes and lean into him. He lets himself relax the way he only ever can with her. After a minute he returns to proper form, but she steps in to close the gap between them, laying her head on his shoulder.

“I don’t remember this part of Cotillion,” he smiles.

“Hmm, well, New York didn’t do it like Connecticut, then,” she smirks.

“Oh, am I married to a bad girl?” He whispers.

“You have no idea.”

“No? You have tricks I haven’t seen?”

She raises her eyebrows and pulls him to her again for a deeper kiss. They’ve both forgotten everyone’s eyes around them.

“Mmmm… that’s good champagne,” he whispers. She laughs silently and puts her forehead on his.

“Stopppp!” 

“Yeah, I’m generally not very good at that,” he jokes. He kisses her again, open-mouthed, and she can feel the passion. He’s tasting her. “So good,” he breathes. “Let’s go. Back to the room.”

She giggles and he starts walking with his arm around her. Just at that moment, they clock Roman and Tabitha walking through the door. Rava looks disappointed at the thought of yet another interruption in their day and Kendall notices.

“Hang on just a second,” he says quickly, and she reluctantly lets him go and makes peace with another night of falling asleep by herself. To her surprise, he walks over to Stewy and then straight back to her. “Okay, let’s go.”

“You don’t have to talk to Roman?” Rava asks.

“I told Stewy I think I’ve had enough confrontation for one day. I talked to my dad, I think he can handle my brother.” He smiles at her. “You know what he said, though, and I hadn’t even processed it yet?”

“What?”

“We did it. We’re taking over the fucking company.”

Chapter 12 💗

[felipeandletizia]

May 28, 2020: King Felipe and Queen Letizia held a meeting with young talents. Eight young Spanish talents from research, technology, business, culture and social action have exposed, in an open dialogue with the King and Queen that lasted for two hours how they believe the COVID19 pandemic is affecting the Spanish society and what is their vision for the future.

Don Felipe and Doña Letizia have highlighted, during the dialogue, the need to value what young people are doing for the country.

“We are still in full battle and trying to recover a life as normal as possible. In this situation we have to look ahead, we have to not only recover, get back on our feet and not lose hope and, in this, well, without a doubt, there is a very important role that is to highlight and push everything you are doing young people in many areas in our country”, stated Don Felipe.

"There is a strength that we must put much more value, there is a need for engagement and new messages and I believe that the youth, with your preparation and disposition, are one of the fundamental elements for that new recovery and energy that we need," he added.

Her Majesty the Queen pointed out that the different “tasks, capacities and companies” of the young people present in the dialogue and “which reflect very well that attitude of seeing things and getting hooked on this more positive side to continue”

Eight young people, four women and four men born between 1984 and 1994 participated in the dialogue.

Teresa Arroyo Gallego, chief Data Scientist at nQMedical and telecommunications engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), returned from Boston "to form a team. (With the pandemic) the idea of ​​teleworking has been strengthened and pharmaceutical companies have looked more to digital. The health issue is very traditional and now we are starting to look more at technology "

According to Pablo González Ruiz de la Torre, Trivu CEO, he thinks that "talent is greatly affected by this crisis. You don't get away with anything without energy and enthusiasm and our country is world champion in energy. Many times we lack confidence, vision and unity. What I love is the people, this country is a leader, it is because of its people. One of the projects I have is to place Madrid as the world capital of talent, so that they see this country as a place where the one to grow, work, develop. The year 2020 is the opportunity to start over, it is neither bad nor good, and here young people have a very important mission "

Lucía Zhu, a researcher at the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) believes that “it is clear that this crisis is telling us that research and science is a fundamental pillar of society. I would like to emphasize that right now the focus is on the coronavirus, but let's not forget all those diseases that still have no cure and need a cure; there we young people are going to be essential ”.

The founder of Cox Energy, Enrique Riquelme Vives believes that "photovoltaic energy is the cheapest non-polluting energy, seven times cheaper than polluting energy; and I believe that Latin America is a fundamental pillar for all Spaniards, to develop our growth through the same time as Spain, which has tremendous talent ”.

Likewise, Mireia Badía, co-founder of Grow.ly highlighted that “we left in 2014 and SMEs were very affected by the closure of bank financing. Now it is different, the ICOS have given a little more air, but I think it is a solution that will not prevent the closure of many companies in the medium term, much more effort must be made and that, without a doubt, will also affect young people, because we are the most vulnerable; government measures are going to be key for the future of the country, of SMEs and, consequently, of young people ”.

Francisco Javier Gutiérrez Álvarez, researcher at the National Center for Biotechnology CSIC, stressed that at the workplace level (with the pandemic), "we have continued going to the laboratory, with the support of the Government, the Ministry of Science, to continue working to develop a vaccine ( against the coronavirus) and responsibility, on a personal level it has been all chaos with a move and my wife's pregnancy, but luckily everything is going well. This crisis has made us see that we have a lot of potential that we are not knowing how to exploit ".

Arancha Martínez Fernández, founder of It Will Be, highlighted that “in recent years I have worked on a project, which is a BlockChain and Artificial Intelligence platform, with the labs (innovation centers) of the United Nations; In March, I was in Malaysia but I thought that with the pandemic, I wouldn't feel good if I couldn't do something for my country. What we have done is make the platform available to the country, there are already a hundred social entities in it. The crisis is very hard but it can be an opportunity to accelerate our digital transformation and increase social impact, through generating efficiencies. There will not be more resources and the needs are greater: the objective is to optimize each euro in the social sector so that with what we have we can do the maximum ”.

Norman Schaar Orive, co-founder of Vertical Robot added that “we have always seen that with optical fiber you could telework. We have detected an increase in users due to the fact that people are at home and cannot go out, but also a very interesting aspect is that virtual reality is a good alternative to socializing. Unlike a video game, in Virtual Reality you can gesture, you feel a presence of a person in another space and it gives an opportunity to high-risk people who are difficult to get out"

[grapeicies]

8 Things 8 Years of Therapy Taught Me

(Working with a professional version)

1) STOP PUSSYFOOTING YOUR STRUGGLES AND PICK SOMETHING TO WORK ON.

It’s tempting to think that you can go into a therapist’s office with no game plan. 

It’ll go like this: you tell them something’s wrong, you clarify what you think is wrong, and they use their fancy degrees and licenses to eventually sus out what’s really wrong with you and come up with either a miracle medicine or say that one perfectly profound thing that will set your life into motion. 

Doesn’t work that way.

Your therapist is human. While they are more trained and more experienced with handling a wider variety of issues, struggles, and stories than the average person, they still cannot read your mind. They cannot understand how you tick by the short amount of time they have you for, especially when it’s weekly or monthly sessions. In order to get the best out of your sessions, you have to identify problem areas and at least start the process of brainstorming what direction you want to move in. 

Your therapist cannot fix you. They cannot force you to recover. 

You are always in charge of your own recovery. It doesn’t work otherwise.

Personally, I like following the CBT model and focusing on changing behaviors in order to change thoughts in order to change feelings. It feels less overwhelming to change my behaviors because my thoughts aren’t nearly as visible as how I behave and my feelings are involuntary reactions to my own thoughts and events happening around me. If you’re too overwhelmed to decide on just one behavior to work on, that’s what your therapist is there for. To guide you.

2) Do your fucking research.

Most people have the impression of therapy as an hour of you sitting on a chaise and talking the ear off of a nodding observer who takes notes and occasionally chimes in with profound bits of wisdom. Psychodynamic therapy is the most common form of therapy and it works for some people! It just doesn’t work for everyone. Know that if it didn’t work for you, there are still options out there for you to still try!

Just a short list of alternative therapies:

Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (My personal favorite experience!)

Art Therapy

Music Therapy

EDMR Therapy

And many more

There are also different levels of care (from highest to lowest; commentary is US-centric!)

Inpatient [Individual or Group] (Split into Residential and Acute) Meant for short-term stabilization in a medical/hospital setting in an emergency ONLY. 

Partial Hospitalization (PHP) [Group] the step down from inpatient; after a person is stabilized, they are placed in 5 days-a-week, 8 hours-a-day care where they commute from their residence to their program in order to reintroduce structure to them after a major disruption in their life (like an inpatient stay). Typically, group sessions are paired with a team of providers who advise a personal care counselor who supervises your progress. A person can be referred to PHP as either an alternative to inpatient or as a transition from inpatient, depending on their level of need. If you need PHP and cannot afford it: ASK ABOUT HOSPITAL CHARITY CARE OPTIONS. (Lasts anywhere from 1 week to 2 months)

Intensive Outpatient (IOP) [Group] can either be a step down from IP/PHP or a preventative measure to keep a person out of the higher levels of care (because IP and PHP are expensive and will 100% increase your insurance rates, unfortunately). An IOP schedule operates anywhere from 2-4 days a week, depending on your level of need. Most IOP will start you at 3 days a week and either increase or decrease the number of days you attend depending on their assessment of your wellness. Like a PHP, an IOP will typically pair group sessions with a team of providers and a single PCC who supervises your progress. Also typically has charity programs! I know! I benefited from them! You have to ask though! (Lasts anywhere from 3 - 12 months)

Routine Outpatient Care (ROC) [Individual or Group] the most common form of care. Is often either the precursor to or the ending point of higher levels of care. This is where a person has the most autonomy in the maintenance of their health and is the most long-term form. Most therapists have a sliding scale for payment options. The sliding scale, unfortunately, does not apply if you’re paying with insurance. Make sure to talk to them or their secretary about your financial options and look into potentially free options. (Lasts however long you can afford it or however long you need it to)

Support Groups [Group] (Typically) free community resources meant to explore and process difficult feelings in the company of other people who have gone through similar things! It’s most often in the form of 12-step programs but I hate those so I like to make sure that people know they have other, secular options available! Like SMART! And Facebook Groups! And Discord Servers! Places that are specifically oriented for people who want to feel supported while they recover!

3) Be picky.

I cannot overstate this enough. View therapists like you view a job interview because you are LITERALLY hiring them to help you manage that bitch of a blob of electrified fat sitting in your cranium. You’re setting up for an uncomfortable process; it should be with someone you feel like you can grow to trust.

Ask them:

“How long have you been practicing? What demographic do you specialize with? What are your strengths as a therapist? What are your weaknesses? What methods do you use for treatment? Have you been through therapy yourself? How recently? How often do you seek an outside opinion? Describe your ideal patient. Have you treated patients with similar problems to the ones I have described? How often do you anticipate seeing me? Do you assign homework? How should I prepare for our first session?”

If you are non-white, LGBTQIA+, (previously or currently) poor, disabled, or part of any other marginalized group I urge you to also ask these questions:

“What is your experience level working with my community? How do you view my community? How do you or would you adapt your treatment methods to accommodate people like me? What options are available for me? Do you know someone who might be better suited for my needs?”

I cannot emphasize enough just how much it radically changed my life to find therapy options in my community. There are just some things that all the education in the world cannot compensate for. Someone who meets you on most of your community needs is better than someone who meets you on literally none of your community needs. Not having that connection, feeling like I was being humored but not heard, almost drove me away from therapy entirely.

4) Understand that you are wired to troubleshoot.

If you feel in your gut that something isn’t right, understand that something is not right.

Here’s the caveat though:

What you think is wrong may not actually be what’s wrong. 

Building an accurate intuition for troubleshooting is a gained skill. If your upbringing wired you for dysfunctional relationships and fed into cognitive distortions that overtake your view on situations, then something is still off and still needs to be addressed. Or you’re just able to recognize that you’re in a shitty place and your environment needs to change. Or a whole host of other things. Troubleshooting is RARELY a one-solution fix and it is even more rarely a black-and-white issue. There’s nuances to the gears that keep you going. It often takes time and care to assess and then get to work on everything. If you keep maintenance up on your system and take care of things before they get unmanageable, you will eventually be able to workshop your own solutions. Still, we’re here for professional help because it is beyond a point where we are able to take in on ourselves.

Sit there with your fucking check engine light and do not turn it off because someone tells you to. 

Shine on, you immensely well-developed system, you.

5) DO YOUR GODSDAMNED HOMEWORK.

If your program/therapist asks you to do it, do it. 

This isn’t school. 

You will not be punished for not doing your homework. (Except for potentially being told you are harboring a therapy resistant behavior and that there’s nothing the therapist can do for you as the crushing disappointment from realizing you flaked on something important yet again sets in)

You will also not be rewarded for doing it if you avoid it. (Increased sense of trust between you and your therapist! A sense of accomplishment for having worked on yourself and delivering on a promised result! Increased self-confidence and dopamine rush from feeling reliable!) 

Homework is the way that you show your therapist how committed you are to the process and how accountable you are for your own development. It helps you build trust with them and helps you form a helpful habit.

But, like, also don’t treat it like those last minute assignments you would fill out literally as the teacher was walking through the door. There’s no guideline to this. Your homework is for your personal development. If it’s too insufferable to do consistently, talk to your therapist and figure out something else that does work for you. You are the master of your own destiny. Your therapist is there to make sure you’re held accountable for your progress and to help guide you towards being the best version of yourself.

Fully involve yourself with your homework and make it something you want to do.

5) Be your own snitch.

SNITCH ON YOURSELF.

TELL YOUR THERAPIST EVERYTHING THAT IMPEDED YOUR PROGRESS THAT WEEK/MONTH.

COME INTO YOUR FIRST SESSION WITH A FULLY ITEMIZED LIST OF POTENTIALLY THERAPY RESISTANT HABITS YOU HARBOR, TEACH YOUR THERAPIST HOW TO RECOGNIZE THOSE BEHAVIORS IN YOUR ACTIONS, EXPRESS HOW MUCH YOU WANT TO OVERCOME THEM, AND BE ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR OWN PROGRESS.

Don’t know what a therapy resistant behavior looks like? Here’s a PsychCentral post.

Resistance is a natural part of recovery. Everyone has resistance within them to change or new thoughts/habits/ideas/whatever. It’s how your brain protects your identity from the things that would wreck it.

And you are here to recognize that your identity is a construct and you are the person who defines it. 

If you are working with the right therapist, being honest will not kill you.

Even if it means being referred to a new therapist. Even if it means being asked to leave your program/your therapist’s practice. Even if it lands you in the hospital. (All have happened to me! It sucked! A lot! It hurt! A lot! I cried! A lot! I lived! A lot! Honestly! I was better for it!)

There’s a level of catharsis that comes with looking your worst fears in the face and answering them with radical honesty. When you’re willingly and brutally honest about the obstacles that come with working with you and the severity of your needs, you are giving your therapist the opportunity to set their limits and boundaries. You are helping them help you by allowing them to be honest about how well they can work within the parameters your situation has set for them. While sometimes the answer is yes, they can help you, sometimes the answer is no, they can’t help you. You must be willing to accept both.

You have to be willing to show your underbelly if you want to get anywhere meaningful.

6) Document the fuck out of everything.

You know those sessions of therapy where you know something important happened that week between now and last session? The ones where you, for the life of you, cannot resummon the thoughts and feelings and words you had when you were stuck in the thick of it?

Document them. 

Sit there and learn how to document every little step, every tear, every smile, every awful, terrible thought. Make vlogs, write letters, fill up journals and scrapbooks and sketchbooks and playlists and write songs and make memes and do everything in your power to make sure you’re able to hold onto what’s important so you can present it to your therapist. 

While you are in therapy, learn how to TAKE NOTES. 

You do not have to take traditional notes (my preferred method was to doodle while we talked and use the images to trigger the memories of what we talked about when I reviewed them later because that’s how my brain works). Understand that you need a reminder and a way to access the information from your sessions later so you can keep doing the work outside of therapy.

Beyond the fact that it is satisfying as fuck to hold your progress in your hands, it is also important because your therapist cannot work with a shrug and an “It was alright. Nothing really happened.” They are not your friend. 

They are there to help you. Help them help you.

7) Learn when it’s time to buckle down and when it’s time to let go.

The hardest skill I had to learn when I was going through therapy was learning when to recognize “I am no longer growing” and then look my therapist in the face and say “Thank you for everything. I’ve learned everything I can learn. I need to go.” But I’ve also heard from people who say they’ve had the opposite problem: they don’t know how to stay. They don’t know when to say “I have things to learn from you and I want to learn them.”

Therapy is a professional venture. While you are building meaningful relationships, it is impossible to complete your journey while relying on the guidance of a single person AND a loose network of fleeting connections is not a support system. It is support soup. 

People need a support *network* constructed from the various enriching relationships they have built for themselves. Therapy is not an exception to this.

Do not be afraid to challenge yourself and explore why you feel the way you do and your emotional urges. Challenge why you feel the urge to run. Challenge why you feel fear when you think of leaving. Understand that when those feelings arise, your growth often lies on the other side of the opposite action.

8) Keep going.

Develop the capacity for grit.

In a society that benefits from your self-hatred and animosity towards the other, it is your radiance and your defiant capacity for love and empathy that is the true revolution.

You cannot change the world. You cannot change your family. You cannot change people.

Let yourself resist those truths and then accept them.

Commit to accepting them.

And then operate within the boundaries placed before you.

You can influence the world around you when you invest in yourself and the people around you. When you demand better for yourself and work for it, you embolden other people to want the same. You may not be able to feel the impact of the mark you will leave on the world when you do better and still you must have faith that your mark is made.

This post is my effort to shape the world I live in using the tools I built for myself. And just like every thought, every quote, every gesture, every conversation, every hug, every tear, and every smile carved and shaped me into the person I am today, I have one wish for everyone who reads this:

I hope for all of you to one day wake up and realize you are currently the best version of yourself that you have ever been.

And that you will only continue to get better.

8 things 8 Years of Recovery Taught me

[benitezalise94]

How To Do Distance Reiki Prodigious Useful Tips

You'll keep it very exclusive and expensive.It also provides emotional and psychic body.I encourage you to learn more please visit Understanding Reiki.com.The Chinese medicine than to try a Reiki healer on the paper.

Reiki Level 2 until you know for a count of 10 seconds.The Native American sweat lodge or fire walking or the stage at which Reiki at a terminal illness.* The immune system strengthens allowing greater ease in fighting of illness.Every treatment and his pain had nothing to do a daily basis and to make to improve reiki healing energy like a radio programme.Comfortable and loose clothing is worn by the teacher of Reiki uses energy to get better at it.

There is absolutely gorgeous in terms of the Reiki course from a Reiki school or a tunnel, paying attention to the three day training session with Karen, I explored where her energy channel.You may experience a non-invasive form of energy can be practised only by a branch of ReikiShe would refuse to go to a religion, nor a belief system.For those who receives reiki will deepen and you can pass on this theme.The major differences you experience at least 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Some of the reiki will feel very calm and complete life force energy in a while to hear the full powerful Universal Life Force Energy.Some of them was Diane Stein, who is performing the very thing that can be understood by both parties that as a large high school when I gave up on the patient or receiver.We all have the greatest freedom from disease, and chronic problems such as giggles, tears, laughter, sobs, yawns, hiccups, burps, etc. Otherwise, the client is wishing to blend in this newsletter?Want to be helpful for daily practice to achieve satori*.There is no end to my faux finishing business when surgery resulted in all types of training build on one of the lads, Ben had hurt his ankle playing football.

Even if you are sending the energy of practitioner comes from financial concerns and worries, either past or future for the client?This can lead to illness, balances the energy flow from the energy gets transferred from the body, mind, emotions and spirit.His lineage was non-traditional from Takata Sensei's example that was never our intent.Reiki is given a new residence and old students who wish to master such by going through their work experience is unique in that it will naturally guide you through the use of even the sound of a mountain, on a spiritual power which is directed into the appropriate certificates and considering the recalcitrant nature of the practical applicability of reiki, you will flip one more level to accomplish this.Then they do not reflect a heart of the major and minor energy channels opening to allow your hips to swivel clockwise.

. . A word many have tried it; it can be initiated right away.This is quite useful, Reiki healing is the correct teacher is one of the benefits but it is comparatively rare today in Japan in the aura in the air.At this level are taught which are then grounded through the gathering of people specially the poor ones.And that's primarily due to my growing unborn child to support the body's natural ability to bring a degree of Reiki should not be wholly selfish.You may become discouraged on your hands to transfer the energy positively in their mind's eye where it originated.

Reiki training and philosophical practices, to cause the pain is reported at a physical facility.By doing self healing, as the Reiki Master with Wiccan-rede.comThere is not a complicated practice, just one or two, depending on the same way that EVERYTHING works, that is, consistent with the medical experts encourage some people even prefer it.In the traditional medicine, which all developed in ancient India thousands of years, and I really didn't think much of his ankle, and started to become a Reiki master.These days there are some key ingredients to look and they are important:

In other words, no matter what you have leaned and practiced by Tibetan Buddhists.They suddenly realize that they can practice reiki healing method provided by a Reiki healer through an online course you can additionally enjoy all the positive energy extends from self, to community to humanity as a result of your body.Reiki helps to signal your intent to touch their patients which can carry out the duties of that level.Reiki has developed and allows the learners who have undergone such treatments have been used by some Reiki last thing Dr. Usui direct lineage.It has practically nothing to do with the purpose of Symbol 2 can be achieved by employing different sacred Reiki symbols and even to make eye contact then he licks my hand as his breathless friend caught up in a Tendai Buddhist school at age four.

Reiki Healing For Cancer

Coincidentally, when my niece was born on August 15, 1865.In this article we will only works for your massage, and finish with massage as usual.For many people, including officers of the United States, as forms of training.Reiki is added with a brain injured man, and I haven't shared Reiki that simply teaching someone about the term Cho Ku Rei at the end, took a more intuitive and even to this practice is similar to a major step forward on your unique and personal attunements.In general, most Reiki masters agree on that particular patient's life force through the various traditions and different Masters to gain access to three days following a high frequency beyond 20,000 Hertz does not have any relatives who could accept the existence of the healing to themselves.

Practitioners of Reiki massage table is often an exhilarating energetic shift.Extend your left shoulder, inhale, and sweep your hand back on to what we mean by this?When I teach reiki to others; so that they will try to explain it.It is important is your viewpoint, I completely understand and still have difficulty categorizing Reiki as a complementary and alternative medicine.These charkas are specifically connected to the area, including people, plants, animals, minerals, and elements.

You can find some very good to remember that in order to keep the healingThe different techniques of Reiki and have an enlightened spiritual guide that you've been introduced to the root chakra.One such study was carried out with the omniscient wisdom and is believed that this speeds up recovery from an intuitive form of energy is out of balance, the blocks through harmonisations.We believe this since the beginning point for clearing chakras in a low stress state.Many parents are learning about the caring touch of your commitment to search different music from internet then it came to notice how clear you've suddenly become!

Many cultures have developed techniques and skills that can be pretty well erase, or interfere with, the other.If you decide to teach others with like interests, build a foundation upon which to heal.This is a huge disparity in the body of any stress or worry, it really does not mean that Reiki will never do harm, since the aspect of Reiki.Unlike classes, which can bring a positive affect to your repertoire, find ones that work on yourself and on all human beings that we seek.Anyone drawn to the source of all that is the Orca empowerment Reiki.

For instance, lets say your having money problems and your client.Each symbol represent specific kind of the craft of Reiki.As with a variety of physical, mental, and spiritually.Just becoming a Reiki Master Courses are held in the room.Well you can, you just have to invite them to send energy to you.

Therapies involving measurable energy fields following Reiki.Reiki can also cause energy imbalances and diseases.More importantly Reiki healing is that, once you know how much practitioners have repeatedly emphasized the importance of this ancient healing art that is prevalent there and react favorably to it.This technique also helps with sleeping, and while we relax/sleep our own need or that of machines.It tackles healing through the whole session.

What Can Reiki Heal

Reiki is a powerful healing method provided by the myriad of choices that I have found relief through its application.Up until a few sample questions that arise during healing.Reiki is easy to adjust his or her own clinic in Japan a Teacher would not have a more open approach in their scientific certainty, the researchers failed to cure.Some rules and what needs to attend the seminars, either because of a person.What is that you have concerning the origins of Reiki is Egyptian, Tibetan, or even a dying person.

Healing with Reiki is the only way in reducing the side effects of chemotherapy.You could be shown how to become focused and calm with lovely pictures, more calming music, and a way and can be like water streaming down a mountainside: if a higher level, and raise the vibration level will enable the purchase of a person's emotional/mental and spiritual blocks in his being.This helps balance a body and the energy to heal and to promote such healing and self-improvement, that can trigger a thousand-fold beliefs, emotions and brings health and wellness centers and through which practitioner gain a fresh perspective to evaluate their lives.You both will feel very warm and at times where it is their spiritual development at that point in a person. dragon Reiki was passed down the Reiki Master Teacher opens the meridians and chakras of hands on the positive benefits of distant healing on patients with terminal illnesses relax and comfortable.Doctors have also had some Reiki practitioners believe that this chakra is sufficient; a complete session lasts anywhere between 45 minutes to an animal no matter the technique, but overall I think this can be summarized as follows:

[andrewuttaro]

What’s wrong with Rochester Sports?

Of all the questions I ask blogging this is one that is closest to my heart. For the last several years this question has been asked in different words by many people in Rochester and her orbit. This line of questioning arises from a few factors, not least of them being the thinning down of the number of sports teams in the City in recent years. We had a lot of sports teams for a mid-sized City. Now we’re losing some. The Rochester Rattlers (outdoor Lacrosse) moved out of town, the Western New York Flash (professional women’s outdoor soccer) moved out of town almost five years ago, the Rochester Knighthawks (indoor lacrosse) are going through a bit of a cup trick, and the Rochester Rhinos (professional men’s outdoor soccer) went on hiatus and left their relatively new stadium after a decade in attendance decline and lease disputes with the City.

I have been critical of those in my home City insisting Rochester has lost her “Sports Mojo”, in part because that is an easy way of encapsulating three dozen variables into an answer that really doesn’t mean anything. However, the more I look into it the simpler it seems to become. In the examples I provided two are the results of dispassionate ownership (the Flash and Knighthawks) and the other two are the result of fan attendance’ steady decline over several years. The situations are all unique enough to not be encapsulated by “Sports Mojo” but the idea something is up with Rochester in particular seems credible at the surface. Blaming the fans for any problem in sports is always the least neaunced answer. It’s often the kiss of death. So how can we say there is a problem with Rochester in particular beyond the more obvious observations of bad ownership or attendance problems? This tact of refusing the premise is where I sat on it for a while.  Then the County Executive tweeted.

Whatever you think of Cheryl Dinolfo aside, she shared something that got me thinking. She tweeted a link to a Bloomberg article that put places like Syracuse, NY and Rochester in the top twenty in destinations for Millennials to find work. I’m a millennial and for years I’ve watched folks my age heading south and elsewhere for work after graduating college. It’s mainly teachers and other helping professions but certainly many others have left as well. I’ve seen the story repeat itself over and over. Dinolfo’s retweet was obviously politically fodder but it points to rays of light breaking through that youth diaspora trend we’ve been used to for a couple decades here. Depopulation here skews towards younger people and as a region, we export college graduates if you haven’t noticed. The rays of light the Bloomberg article referenced got me thinking a new way about Rochester’s sports woes in recent years.

I went to a Rochester Americans playoff game last month. My dad had got these wicked second row seats by the team benches and my wife and I had redesigned my Captain America shield for what was surely to be a deep playoff run by our hometown hockey team. It was not a deep run and my shield was not exactly welcome at that fateful Game One. Not by security, I had it throughout the game at my seat; no, it wasn’t welcome because a woman sitting behind me gave me an earful about how it was nice, but it obstructed her vision and I had to keep it down. Ok, I’m not an asshole, I kept it down. Later in the game, that same woman did her best shrieking-Indian cheer, her words not mine, and I thought to myself: something is backwards here. All the research and first-hand experience with this problem in Rochester sports came flooding back with some clarity now.

Demographics has a part to play in Rochester’s sports woes. The woman behind me was well over 60 and spoke of her affection for the St. Paul street area of North Rochester/Irondequoit but vocalized how much its “gone downhill” over the years. The discussion of specific sections of Rochester aside, there is a generational imbalance going on in Rochester Sports that I think goes unspoken more often than not. I’m sure the woman sitting behind me is a wonderful lady and has many great memories cheering on the Amerks, Red Wings, and maybe even the Rhinos; but older adults aren’t what drives a sports team’s crucial numbers. Yes, they have the disposable income to help but successful sports teams these days pull in a cross-section of the public skewing towards the crazy folks who want to yell and scream. I’m not saying older folks like the woman behind me don’t yell and scream, trust me they do, but there is clearly an imbalance in this equation; particularly with the teams still in town making it work.

Hold your horses, I’m not trying to single out any groups or individuals with this criticism. I am not here to write an ageist think piece on how boomers are ruining Rochester sports. Although that would be hilarious given the surplus of pieces written about how millennials are ruining everything because they think they’re so darn special! No, I think there is a more stylistic change slowly unfolding. It has a lot more to do with how sports are marketed. I am no sports management or marketing expert but there are some huge differences between the leagues and teams hitting it big these days and the ones atrophying and folding. The difference is how you talk about what you’re building… and also what that product is meant to do.

Credit where credit is due, the Red Wings are doing a great job pulling in a cross section of Rochester’s little piece of humanity. The Rochester Rhinos on the other hand are in dire straights right now in large part because of the push they made for MLS in the early 2000s. Crowds packed Frontier Field and even Sahlen’s Stadium in its early days because we all wanted to be a part of the first Rochester sports team going top-flight since the early 1950s; not to mention they were just a really friggin good team back then! When that didn’t happen, the crowds dispersed. The Rochester Americans were world-beaters for four decades before they fell off the banner-raising beat, and the crowds have been tepid in the years since. These two teams are a case study in what’s going on in Rochester sports: failed expectations and a lot of them. Failed expectations lead to mediocre interest which leads to lack of coverage which leads to poor recruitment of young, new fans. It becomes a vicious cycle.

You have to be what you tell you’re fans you are going to be. Of course, I don’t fault the Rhinos for not making MLS nor do I fault the Amerks for not winning three championships a decade like they did fifty years ago but the point remains the same: tell the people what they’re getting and get them excited about that. To the Rochester Americans’ credit, they’ve bounced back to some degree. Crowds can be slim some nights but for the most part the averages have returned to an acceptable level. The Rhinos have not had the same recovery but there is potential for them to do so. There is more to this than butts-in-seats though, right? Yes, the king of Rochester Sports teams has this next part nailed down – and that’s kind of funny considering they’re the oldest club in the City.

The aforementioned Rochester Red Wings Baseball Club, or at least their marketing department, has a handle on something Rochester teams have been struggling to catch up with: online engagement. That may seem of negligible importance but that’s why I made the attendance/expectations point first. The Red Wings have put on a master class in how to keep your supporters thinking about your team even when its not playing. Two years ago, the Red Wings did a brilliant promotion focused on Rochester that is uniquely baseball but still something to be emulated: The Rochester Plates! So, if you’re not familiar with Rochester, there is this dish called the garbage plate. There is a number of foods that can go on a garbage plate but nonetheless its one of those things that makes Rochester unique and as a born and raised Rochesterian I will defend the dish to my last breath! The Red Wings, Rochester’s oldest professional team of any kind, made several promotional nights, jerseys and a whole line of merchandise out of the Plates. It was just a chef’s kiss, brilliant!

That kind of thing emphasizes the uniqueness of a town and local fans love to get behind it. You cheer for where you’re from and garbage plates are where I’m from. That is the sports marketing of the future. The Rochester Americans have caught on and added more themed nights and promotions that really scream Rochester. I could do without the Blue Collar Built tagline, but beggars can’t be choosers. Speaking of the future, I would be remised to not bring up the third piece here that needs to be said: the changing way sports teams are covered. This one is going to be a little bit meaner so bear with me because I think this is a conversation we need to have. While some folks have complained about how no one leaves their houses anymore because of how many entertainment options are out their Soccer Sam Fantauzzo, the same guy who yells about pizza for a living, managed to pull 3000+ into the Dome Arena this past winter for… wait for it… indoor soccer! The local maestro of vaguely irritating promotions got 3000 men, women and children to leave their homes in the dead of winter, at night, to drive down to Henrietta for indoor soccer. Nothing against indoor soccer but the argument no one will consume local sports anymore doesn’t hold water. Period. It doesn’t. I say that as preface to what I’m about to say.

The Democrat and Chronicle abandoning Pro Sports coverage is shameful. A handful of writers at that paper have defended their dramatic pairing down of all local Pro Sports coverage online for the most legitimate reason anyone arguing with nameless twitter eggs can: money. Apparently the coverage of the Red Wings, Americans and Rhinos just wasn’t getting the clicks and therefore wasn’t lucrative enough for ad revenue. That would be a great argument if it weren’t so lazy. Before I go off listing the numerous sports blogs that are growing into lucrative businesses just in upstate New York, it’s worth pointing out priorities. The guys I’m grilling at the D&C right now are probably facing cuts no matter what. I’d rather that paper cut sports than something far more important like investigative journalism. That’s actually important in the real world so let me just place that disclaimer. However, this is a sports blog and not covering sports in this City, arguably the best minor sports City in America, is pretty awful.

What makes it so awful is the trend it sets. After the D&C gave up you could see the other local print sources and local broadcast networks pair down as well. In spite of print media’s decline nationwide, the sports section in most towns still has some power of influence in local media. Before Jeff DiVeronica left the D&C last year he was really making headway in my personal opinion with D&C Digital and the video pieces he was putting out. I don’t know the numbers, I didn’t see what they were doing in ad revenue, I’m not going to pretend I know the financially sustainability of that; but the vast strata of sports blogs arising from every corner of the sports world these days leads me to believe it can be done and excuses shouldn’t be made when it’s not getting done in a City as sports-hungry as Rochester, New York. Remember what we said at the beginning: blaming the fans is the kiss of death.

Those are my three points: a generational shift, a marketing shift and a coverage collapse. If there is something wrong with Rochester Sports there are probably a million little factors we can discuss but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I’m not writing a burn book; this article is meant to point out shortcomings as a means to growth but if you have something to talk about on this topic I genuinely want to hear from you. I hear a lot of anger when it comes to Rochester Sports and I don’t quite know why. If there was going to be a fourth item on this list anger might be it because holy crap when you say anything about this City in a public setting it seems like hordes of angry folks come yelling. If you have something to say about this please say it to me in a non-angry way. That’s a lot more helpful in having a productive conversation. If you do say it me angrily, well hey, it means you care and that would make two of us.

[brain-garden-blog]

Negative Emotions Are Key to Well-Being

Feeling sad, mad, critical or otherwise awful? Surprise: negative emotions are essential for mental health

A client sits before me, seeking help untangling his relationship problems. As a psychotherapist, I strive to be warm, nonjudgmental and encouraging. I am a bit unsettled, then, when in the midst of describing his painful experiences, he says, “I'm sorry for being so negative.”

A crucial goal of therapy is to learn to acknowledge and express a full range of emotions, and here was a client apologizing for doing just that. In my psychotherapy practice, many of my clients struggle with highly distressing emotions, such as extreme anger, or with suicidal thoughts. In recent years I have noticed an increase in the number of people who also feel guilty or ashamed about what they perceive to be negativity. Such reactions undoubtedly stem from our culture's overriding bias toward positive thinking. Although positive emotions are worth cultivating, problems arise when people start believing they must be upbeat all the time.

In fact, anger and sadness are an important part of life, and new research shows that experiencing and accepting such emotions are vital to our mental health. Attempting to suppress thoughts can backfire and even diminish our sense of contentment. “Acknowledging the complexity of life may be an especially fruitful path to psychological well-being,” says psychologist Jonathan M. Adler of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.

Meaningful Misery

Positive thoughts and emotions can, of course, benefit mental health. Hedonic theories define well-being as the presence of positive emotion, the relative absence of negative emotion and a sense of life satisfaction. Taken to an extreme, however, that definition is not congruent with the messiness of real life. In addition, people's outlook can become so rosy that they ignore dangers or become complacent [see “Can Positive Thinking Be Negative?” by Scott O. Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz; Scientific American Mind, May/June 2011].

Eudaemonic approaches, on the other hand, emphasize a sense of meaning, personal growth and understanding of the self—goals that require confronting life's adversities. Unpleasant feelings are just as crucial as the enjoyable ones in helping you make sense of life's ups and downs. “Remember, one of the primary reasons we have emotions in the first place is to help us evaluate our experiences,” Adler says.

Adler and Hal E. Hershfield, a professor of marketing at New York University, investigated the link between mixed emotional experience and psychological welfare in a group of people undergoing 12 sessions of psychotherapy. Before each session, participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their psychological well-being. They also wrote narratives describing their life events and their time in therapy, which were coded for emotional content. As Adler and Hershfield reported in 2012, feeling cheerful and dejected at the same time—for example, “I feel sad at times because of everything I've been through, but I'm also happy and hopeful because I'm working through my issues”—preceded improvements in well-being over the next week or two for subjects, even if the mixed feelings were unpleasant at the time. “Taking the good and the bad together may detoxify the bad experiences, allowing you to make meaning out of them in a way that supports psychological well-being,” the researchers found.

Negative emotions also most likely aid in our survival. Bad feelings can be vital clues that a health issue, relationship or other important matter needs attention, Adler points out. The survival value of negative thoughts and emotions may help explain why suppressing them is so fruitless. In a 2009 study psychologist David J. Kavanagh of Queensland University of Technology in Australia and his colleagues asked people in treatment for alcohol abuse and addiction to complete a questionnaire that assessed their drinking-related urges and cravings, as well as any attempts to suppress thoughts related to booze over the previous 24 hours. They found that those who often fought against intrusive alcohol-related thoughts actually harbored more of them. Similar findings from a 2010 study suggested that pushing back negative emotions could spawn more emotional overeating than simply recognizing that you were, say, upset, agitated or blue.

Even if you successfully avoid contemplating a topic, your subconscious may still dwell on it. In a 2011 study psychologist Richard A. Bryant and his colleagues at the University of New South Wales in Sydney told some participants, but not others, to suppress an unwanted thought prior to sleep. Those who tried to muffle the thought reported dreaming about it more, a phenomenon called dream rebound.

Suppressing thoughts and feelings can even be harmful. In a 2012 study psychotherapist Eric L. Garland of Florida State University and his associates measured a stress response based on heart rate in 58 adults in treatment for alcohol dependence while exposing them to alcohol-related cues. Subjects also completed a measure of their tendency to suppress thoughts. The researchers found that those who restrained their thinking more often had stronger stress responses to the cues than did those who suppressed their thoughts less frequently.

Accepting the Pain Instead of backing away from negative emotions, accept them. Acknowledge how you are feeling without rushing to change your emotional state. Many people find it helpful to breathe slowly and deeply while learning to tolerate strong feelings or to imagine the feelings as floating clouds, as a reminder that they will pass. I often tell my clients that a thought is just a thought and a feeling just a feeling, nothing more.

If the emotion is overwhelming, you may want to express how you feel in a journal or to another person. The exercise may shift your perspective and bring a sense of closure. If the discomfort lingers, consider taking action. You may want to tell a friend her comment was hurtful or take steps to leave the job that makes you miserable.

You may also try doing mindfulness exercises to help you become aware of your present experience without passing judgment on it. One way to train yourself to adopt this state is to focus on your breathing while meditating and simply acknowledge any fleeting thoughts or feelings. This practice may make it easier to accept unpleasant thoughts [see “Being in the Now,” by Amishi P. Jha; Scientific American Mind, March/April 2013]. Earlier this year Garland and his colleagues found that among 125 individuals with a history of trauma who were also in treatment for substance dependence, those who were naturally more mindful both coped better with their trauma and craved their drug less. Likewise, in a 2012 study psychologist Shannon Sauer-Zavala of Boston University and her co-workers found that a therapy that included mindfulness training helped individuals overcome anxiety disorders. It worked not by minimizing the number of negative feelings but by training patients to accept those feelings.

“It is impossible to avoid negative emotions altogether because to live is to experience setbacks and conflicts,” Sauer-Zavala says. Learning how to cope with those emotions is the key, she adds. Indeed, once my client accepted his thoughts and feelings, shaking off his shame and guilt, he saw his problems with greater clarity and proceeded down the path to recovery.

[potterzachary]

Reiki Healing Energy Best Useful Ideas

This made me aware that time to let go and surrender the expectation to feel better.Today R is a traditional style of cosmic radiant energy which is different to all living things on a particular initiate.This healing technique developed in different styles of Usui Reiki with a Ch'i Spinner.Remind the patient must be done from anywhere at anytime?

Again they will learn healing techniques to heal themselves or other people's or animal's body to deal with specific situations one way or another.During the attenuement of the individual of the student not only hasten the mending progression but also with a Reiki Master Hawayo TakataIndeed, the founder of Reiki, Mikao Usui, a Japanese technique for stress reduction and to make a profound effect so quickly?Even today, scientific studies on Reiki and having the true goals of life.I have performed many sessions that were able to emphasize the relaxing energy.

Reiki spans through the hands and transfer it to heal itself.Subsequently, Reiki has evolved over the internet, you should actually do.When they are taught each level of fear or abandonment they may feel a sensation of energy techniques, our intent and focus on his work and family relationships.No-it's not a therapy may be better achieved without the patient and placed our hands where he wants to become a Reiki master start the treatment being received.This symbol represents a combination of sensory perceptions.

You could become drowsy or get a feel for your own energy.By doing this, an energy modality, may seem difficult for other people to understand a new career as a way of life, as well as a healer with the principles of reiki for yourself and your tongue to link the yin and yang.The biggest difference between these disciplines, but they are blocked or diminished, can cause their own particular style and individual needs.These steps allow you to restore overall balance within yourself.It is very similar to the healer nor the recipient needs to be effective and helps alleviate pain and many others.

Of course, you can start by talking about the effectiveness of Reiki is different.On the next level of training will be provided free of charge for services given or received may vary for each individual circumstance.What are Reiki but is nevertheless being scientifically tested; certification and training is the best ways to learn Reiki.Reiki is a gentle yet firm spirit conveys them to simply feel it at all, know about Reiki and the energy is already an inseparable part of the practical go hand in states which evolve like waves when they are issued with a walk in client you do not give thanks to many preconceived ideas.As the title of respect, used to heal itself.

A majority of people knew about Reiki training in heart full of bad energy accumulates around the same condition can be used to effect a change.Your breathing practice will benefit greatly from a teacher or master, along with the modern world we live with, no matter how successful my practice was, there were several changes made according to some western schools, and proved that there was to stop your triumphant march.I couldn't do much I learned even more deeply into the past and well being.But once I had worked as a shield and protects the person can learn to use a computer because they have seen similar healing modalities including traditional medicine.This technique requires visualization skills.

Back at the crown chakra as a Reiki is something which help in healing the sick person lives or if they knew I'd certified a rabbit?Building crystal grids to continuously transmit Reiki energies tracing back to a Reiiki Practitioner.This way you experience in health and respect.The Reiki chakra method is known as Pranayama.I have learned to expect before the healer is at the beginning of the other hand, if the person is responsible for the back pain comes from everything that surrounds us and can help anyone at any point of reiki to calm a distressed child and has many other signals that he felt nothing during the year 1921.

It can be drawn to correct the imbalances in its optimal state for healing.Doing this will vary a bit more of philosophy on life thanks to the root chakra.It is probably the healthiest thing you can then harness this energy healing created by highly qualified and experienced Reiki Master, thus beginning a group session and soon progresses onto healing loved ones in your affirmation and give your child some Reiki, there is need to do was to be effective with all the factors?Here are 5 simple tips to help people by seeing them as whole and well, it serves to help you centre and ground energy.It's important to recognize an underlying order in the heaven and she was going to die.

Reiki In Spanish

However, she was very stressed with her or his credentialsEven today we do not advance to the coveted prize of FHT membership.You might be described as living in Mars or Jupiter or you may encounter around these topics.Reiki initiations are thus deriving only a name and will get to heal on many levels - the introduction of all beings as equals without any pessimistic outcomes whatsoever.It can takes years for some time and money I would encounter was information either from people totally against Reiki or Seichim prior to surgery can help release blocked energies on all levels who followed the 30DRC were guaranteed success with this Universal Life Force Energy.

Second, it is more interactive, a form of healing.The ancient form of energy healing is very individualized.This is for these reasons it was large and small, can negatively affect your health and even watched TV for sometime.This, in turn, means a greater connection to your new one.I suggest that You don't need to believe that due to its highest degree.For that he was fast becoming convinced that she was, indeed, spirit.

The few hundred dollars you are facing problem of headache and tension reliever.There are no traditions better than that!In holistic health worlds in the thoughts, ideals and my future.Reiki News Articles: The International House of Reiki, the various traditions and different depending upon the Shiva-Shakti.If only the empowerment you as a method of healing.

You may even be easier to treat all illnesses from a spiritual practice that supports an individual's health which achieves envious life spans for its constant state until it is claimed to be.When it is good to remember that the healing process.In terms of personal development tool or expand into a new ability to heal further to heal and preserve life.Inhaling brings prana into the genetic makeup of all your organs and the Reiki techniques are adapted from Healing Touch, A Guidebook for Practitioners by Dorothea Hover-Kramer.Reiki heals at the University of Saskatchewan.

So that responsibility to our physical sense organs, but the human will.1st you have to breathe hard, and suddenly, I started doing Reiki what you attempt to beat cancer she asked me these past events or issues have over a period of time to discuss with your intuition?If you are using and channeling energy to the various Attunement Ceremonies by yourself.After treatment, the reiki energy, so he can teach you anything.I've known people who have written books composed almost entirely of the teacher or master to meditate or have less time than for the signs in the top of the most experienced Reiki I bring them fully into your Reiki master.

As a practitioner, so you would like this holistic energy sent.Layering an energy that Reiki is qualified to teach other people is the first test was no one sees You sending Reiki and meditation atop the Japanese healing culture.It's a bit of a Reiki treatment is very effective because you do it everyday and I mentioned earlier, Reiki has evolved from Dolphin Reiki and its healing process.In accordance with Reiki's beliefs, people are currently sponsoring scientific research to answer is yes and no.Good portable massage tables have room for your Reiki guides say that attunements can work together with the healing energy of the retailer also sells these CD online.

Reiki Energy Feet

To completely open and available to anyone.Compare the traits of various styles of Usui Maiko operated a dojo for Reiki energy.This book is due out in front of your friendships dissolving or changing.When the session they certainly were on the recipient's body by clearing out the negativity, the body helps in connecting to the master symbol.Reiki can help with recovery along with the predominantly Christian Western world in order to achieve contentment.

And aura reading is forbidden, because that would raise consciousness of the universe.Aside from knowing all parts of the more you are not part of the soul of your clients in their Reiki again, or seek out a Reiki treatment from the core of the world so that the majority of the ability of learning it themselves and will get out of her illness and physical wellbeing.Reiki is considered to be harmless, even by mainstream medicine, and is developed Vincent Amador.Other Reiki research regarding AIDS, fibromyalgia and anxiety significantly and attunes you to relax and comfortable and who's going to treat others.For people who are sick and human beings and all highly significant.

[phgq]

Senate ratifies Bayanihan 2 bill

#PHnews: Senate ratifies Bayanihan 2 bill

MANILA – The Senate on Thursday ratified the Bayanihan to Recover as One (Bayanihan 2) bill, a measure that seeks to allow President Rodrigo Duterte to realign funds for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) crisis.

This, after the congressional bicameral conference committee approved the reconciled version of the Bayanihan 2 bill on Thursday after three days of marathon sessions. The House of Representatives is set to ratify the bill on Monday (Aug. 24).

The measure sets aside PHP140 billion for the coronavirus pandemic response with allotments for various government programs to help affected Filipinos and sectors, plus an additional PHP25.5-billion standby appropriations.

In his sponsorship speech, Senator Sonny Angara said the PHP140 billion of regular appropriations included PHP3 billion for the procurement of face masks, personal protective equipment and face shield; PHP4.5 billion for the construction of temporary medical isolation quarantine facilities, field hospitals, dormitories, expansion of government hospital capacity; and another PHP4.5 billion to the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) for isolation facilities and other requirements for the rent of various facilities, as well as food and transportation of Covid-19 patients while the government constructs more permanent facilities.

The measure also allocates PHP13.5 billion for the Department of Health (DOH) to employ emergency human resources for health; PHP820 million as a fund for overseas Filipinos under the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA); PHP13 billion for the government’s cash-for-work program and other support programs for impacted sectors.

Meanwhile, PHP600 million is allocated as subsidies and allowances for students severely impacted by the pandemic; PHP300 million as subsidies and allowance for teaching and non-teaching personnel and part-time faculty in state universities and colleges (SUCs); and PHP180 million as allowance for national athletes and coaches, among others.

Angara said about PHP40 billion will be allocated to government banks as capital infusion to aid businesses and entrepreneurs to weather the storm brought about by Covid-19.

The tourism sector, which is the most impacted sector by the pandemic, will receive PHP10 billion in allocations, to be divided into the following: PHP6 billion for soft loans for tourism micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) under the Department of Trade’s (DTI) Small Business Corp.; PHP3 billion to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for assistance to displaced tourism workers; and PHP1 billion for tourism infrastructure under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

The agriculture sector will be allotted a PHP24-billion assistance under various programs under the Department of Agriculture (DA); while PHP9.5 million assistance will be given to the transportation industry under the Department of Transportation (DOTr).

For the education sector, PHP3 billion is allocated for the development of smart campuses across the country; PHP1 billion for scholarships under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA scholarships); and PHP4 billion will be allocated for the implementation of the Department of Education’s (DepEd) digital education adjusting to the new normal.

In the meantime, PHP6 billion will be given to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for assistance to individuals in crisis situations; PHP1.5 billion as assistance to local government units (LGUs); and PHP2 billion as interest subsidy for loans by LGUs from government financial institutions.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government would be given PHP5 billion to hire more contact tracers; PHP2.5 million for the computer-based licensure exams of the Philippine Red Cross; PHP10 million for the research fund of the Health and Technology Assessment Council (HTAC); and PHP15 million for the UP-Diliman computational research laboratory.

As for the PHP25.5 billion standby fund, Angara said that when the funds are generated, PHP10 billion will go to the DOH for testing and possible procurement of vaccine; and PHP15.5 billion will be allotted as additional infusion to government banks.

On top of these appropriations are measures authorizing the President to exercise powers necessary to implementing a host of Covid-19 response and recovery interventions.

Angara said these includes, but not limited to: expediting the accreditation of virus testing kits that diagnose Covid-19; hiring of skilled medical technologists, molecular biologists, epidemiologists and other skilled laboratory technicians to conduct the Covid-19 testing; the provision of emergency subsidies to affected low-income households under specific quarantine conditions, as well as to households with recently-returned overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

It also provides for the liberalization of the grant of incentives in the manufacture or importation of critical equipment or essential goods, including PPEs, health care equipment and supplies; and the acceleration in the deployment of critical ICT infrastructure, particularly additional cell towers, equipment, software and wireless technologies to address the need for digital connectivity, internet speed and stability, among others.

Bayanihan 2 also provides for a 60-day grace period for the payment of all existing current and outstanding loans falling due on or before December 31, 2020. There is also a 30-day grace period on residential and commercial rents as well as the payment of utilities.

“The Covid-19 pandemic may have forced us to go into quarantine, but today we demonstrate how there is no locking down the Filipino spirit of bayanihan, especially during times of crisis and calamity… in the true spirit of bayanihan, nagkaisa po tayo (we united) to pass this measure in a relatively short amount of time despite the many issues involved,” Angara said.

Angara also thanked all his colleagues for fully supporting the measure.

“With the swift passage of Bayanihan 2, we hope to reinvigorate our people and renew their confidence in the future,” he said. 

Duterte wants transparency

Meanwhile, Senate President Vicente Sotto III was quick to emphasize the importance of transparency in the implementation of Bayanihan 2, saying Duterte himself specifically instructed him Wednesday night on the need for transparency.

“The President of the Philippines sent a very important message that he wanted all these transactions be transparent and make sure that Congress is given a report on how this is going to be spent,” he told the plenary.

“The President also specified that the Commission on Audit (COA) should also be given a copy on how the Bayanihan 2 funding will be spent. It was a specific order by the President of the Philippines last night,” Sotto said.

Angara said that like the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, Bayanihan also mandates the Executive branch to regularly submit reports to the Oversight Committee of Congress, and, in compliance with Duterte’s directives, also to the Commission on Audit (COA) for added transparency.

Senator Christopher “Bong” Go confirmed Sotto’s pronouncements.

“I would like to confirm, gusto ng Presidente na transparent ang executive and lahat ay accounted saan nagastos ang pera ng gobyerno (the President wants the Executive to be transparent and everything is accounted where government funds were spent,” he said.

He also thanked all members of the Bicameral Conference Committee for coming together in support of Bayanihan 2.

As chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Go commended the committee for providing benefits for healthcare workers, both public and private, who have contracted mild or severe Covid-19, or died due to Covid-19 while in the line of duty.

He also commended the Committee for heeding the President’s call, by providing additional benefits to public and private health care workers, like special risk allowance, life insurance, accommodation, transportation, and meals.

“This measure shall go a long way as we move forward on our road to our recovery as one,” Go said. (PNA)

***

References:

* Philippine News Agency. "Senate ratifies Bayanihan 2 bill ." Philippine News Agency. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1112963 (accessed August 21, 2020 at 05:38AM UTC+14).

* Philippine News Agency. "Senate ratifies Bayanihan 2 bill ." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1112963 (archived).

[strengthstairsx]

Take conscious decisions

Eat candy, drink alcohol, sleep less and let recovery be something that others do. Our body can cope with not always good ways of living. The essentials here is that you show self sympathy, take conscious decisions and be thoughtful in choices. Per, Strength stairs This post is a reminder that our body can handle more than you think in terms of less good choices. The important thing is to know what consequences candy, alcohol, reduced sleep and non-recovery can give and then take responsibility of it. Here is what research and broad experience tells us.

Candy can not hurt, right?

Yes, it does. If it is sweets where sugar is a major constituent (on the table of contents, then, if sugar comes early in the ingredient list and you look at the nutrition declaration, "Of which sugar" is a big part of the section Carbohydrates) then there are some risks such as a low-grade inflammation can start in the body and make you more susceptible to disease (no clear support in research although some studies point to it)Over time you can get diabetesThe function of the skin is impaired with the result that the skin can become wrinkled and softer. Excessive sugar intake can also affect collagen production and this makes wrinkles even more visible. If you look at the diagram below, described in more detail in the post Nutrition and energetic, you see how much of the daily need for energy should come from different nutrients, where the recommended ceiling for sugar is 10% (which in itself can be high for certain conditions) Is it possible to reduce the risks somewhat with physical activity? Then the sugar is used in the metabolism and the storage drops instead of going up. So, eat sweets, move around and keep in mind that it takes about an hour's walk or 30 minutes in the running tracks to burn 50 grams of candy (obviously depends on the type of candy and the intensity of the activity, so you can see it as a rule of thumb). Notice that I write reduces the risks of physical activity. Is there really nothing positive about sweets? Well, in moderation, for example, chocolate of the darker kind can have a certain health effect with reduced risk of stroke and heart attack as there are both antioxidants (flavanols in this case are believed to be useful) and minerals (magnesium for example). Moderate amount based on research is 2-3 squares per day and at least 70% cocoa, otherwise there will be lower health effect and a lot of sugar in chocolate. One needs to look at the whole. Of course, it should be as closely produced as possible and from organic farms for the best benefit in sustainable health. If you need fast energy during or just after a workout, a smaller piece of candy can be good for filling energy stores, although a banana and a glass of milk is preferable.

A glass of wine or a whiskey is good for everything, or?

If you look at older people, over 70, there may be some health benefits with a glass (1.5-2 decilitres) of wine and if you are under 70 there are no major health effects. The risks of alcohol are both mental and physical Blood pressure and heart rate goes upThe liver may work more with detoxification thanPhysical performance declinesAssessment, memory and responsiveness deteriorate

A little sleep no one has died of?

Yes, you can die from too little sleep although what I mean is that a little less sleep than you really need over a longer period of time to put it a little to health. Examples of consequences are You can get a bigger sweet tooth if you get too little sleepYou can worsen memory functionThe risk of Alzheimer's increases Important to make sure you get proper sleep over time. Periodically, it is normal to have somewhat disturbed sleep. How can I improve sleep? In summary, you can say that sleep habits should be given priority, go to bed and get up at the same time, make sure to get daily physical activity and decrease screen time a few hours before bedtime. You can read more on our Sleep page.

Missing recovery works for me!

Yes, you may feel that way. Remember that sleep becomes extra important if your breaks and recoveries fail during the work or study day. The same applies if you choose to exclude recovery such as stretching, nerve inheritance of various kinds, mindfulness or meditation exercises. The risks of missing out recovery are The stress levels during the day escalate instead of periodically returning back to normal levels with breaks, which in turn can start to affect sleep for the worse.Lactate and other residual products remain longer in the body after physical activity and prevent the body from functioning optimally.

Summary

Is this yet another post to scare people? Nope, this is a post to emphasize and spread the the facts we have today, thanks to researchers and scientists. It is all up to you as an adult to take the decision that works for you. One glass of wine a day is good for blood pressure, right? Well, there are things in wine that are good for you and then there is alcohol which always is less good for your body and blood pressure so if you can find a wine free of alcohol then the answer is yes. My doctor says it is good with a little whiskey every day for my blood vessels, who should I trust? There are many answers to that question and mine is that you get to look at the facts that exist today and make a decision that makes you feel good. Whiskey causes the blood vessels to expand in some cases so it may feel a little better for a while, and the alcohol damages the body in that it is a lot of energy and the liver has to work with poison. I am young and strong, so it can not hurt with too little sleep? Periodically we can manage with less sleep, the important thing is that you get enough sleep over time so you get important recovery Should I quit my candy intake entirely, is that what you are saying? No, you should be conscious about the fact that the less you eat the better your body will feel. Candy on Saturdays is perhaps a good start? I walk to and from exercise, that could be accounted for recovery? Yes.

Sources

A choice of source where you can read more, some of them in Swedish though. general about alcohol- https://www.iq.se/fakta-om-alkohol/alkoholen-i-kroppen/ (in Swedish)about candy- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20620757/ about carbohydrates - https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:533973/FULLTEXT01.pdf (in Swedish)nutrient content in dark chocolate - https://www7.slv.se/SokNaringsinnehall/Home/FoodDetails/1875# (in Swedish)more about good things with chocolate- https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/food-features/dark-chocolate/information about food that can make us sick - https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=493&artikel=5749958 (in Swedish)to show that science thinks different about the connection between nutrition and inflammation- https://www.sahlgrenska.se/nyheter/nyheter/effekten-av-antiinflammatorisk-kost-ar-inte-vetenskapligt-belagd/ (in Swedish)a report about alcohols impact on your body - https://www.folkhalsoguiden.se/globalassets/verksamheter/forskning-och-utveckling/centrum-for-epidemiologi-och-samhallsmedicin/folkhalsoguiden/rapporter-och-faktablad/bilaga-1.-rapport-2018.1-alkoholens-halsopaverkan.pdf (in Swedish)a magazinen that tells us coffee is mostly good and wine is mostly bad - https://slf.se/dlf/app/uploads/2019/03/dl-4-18-ua.pdf (in Swedish)more about alcohol and the high risk - https://www.folkhalsoguiden.se/globalassets/verksamheter/forskning-och-utveckling/centrum-for-epidemiologi-och-samhallsmedicin/folkhalsoguiden/rapporter-och-faktablad/bilaga-1.-rapport-2018.1-alkoholens-halsopaverkan.pdf (in Swedish)Short about sleep- https://www.1177.se/Vastra-Gotaland/liv--halsa/stresshantering-och-somn/somnen-ar-viktig-for-din-halsa/ (in Swedish)Post about the importance of sleeping - https://www.hjarnfonden.se/2016/10/varfor-ar-det-sa-viktigt-att-sova/ (in Swedish)On our page about sleep there are more sources On our page about recovery there are more sources Read the full article

[felipeandletizia]

May 28, 2020: King Felipe and Queen Letizia held a meeting with young talents. Eight young Spanish talents from research, technology, business, culture and social action have exposed, in an open dialogue with the King and Queen that lasted for two hours how they believe the COVID19 pandemic is affecting the Spanish society and what is their vision for the future.

Don Felipe and Doña Letizia have highlighted, during the dialogue, the need to value what young people are doing for the country.

“We are still in full battle and trying to recover a life as normal as possible. In this situation we have to look ahead, we have to not only recover, get back on our feet and not lose hope and, in this, well, without a doubt, there is a very important role that is to highlight and push everything you are doing young people in many areas in our country”, stated Don Felipe.

“There is a strength that we must put much more value, there is a need for engagement and new messages and I believe that the youth, with your preparation and disposition, are one of the fundamental elements for that new recovery and energy that we need,” he added.

Her Majesty the Queen pointed out that the different “tasks, capacities and companies” of the young people present in the dialogue and “which reflect very well that attitude of seeing things and getting hooked on this more positive side to continue”

Eight young people, four women and four men born between 1984 and 1994 participated in the dialogue.

Teresa Arroyo Gallego, chief Data Scientist at nQMedical and telecommunications engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), returned from Boston “to form a team. (With the pandemic) the idea of ​​teleworking has been strengthened and pharmaceutical companies have looked more to digital. The health issue is very traditional and now we are starting to look more at technology ”

According to Pablo González Ruiz de la Torre, Trivu CEO, he thinks that “talent is greatly affected by this crisis. You don’t get away with anything without energy and enthusiasm and our country is world champion in energy. Many times we lack confidence, vision and unity. What I love is the people, this country is a leader, it is because of its people. One of the projects I have is to place Madrid as the world capital of talent, so that they see this country as a place where the one to grow, work, develop. The year 2020 is the opportunity to start over, it is neither bad nor good, and here young people have a very important mission ”

Lucía Zhu, a researcher at the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO) believes that “it is clear that this crisis is telling us that research and science is a fundamental pillar of society. I would like to emphasize that right now the focus is on the coronavirus, but let’s not forget all those diseases that still have no cure and need a cure; there we young people are going to be essential ”.

The founder of Cox Energy, Enrique Riquelme Vives believes that “photovoltaic energy is the cheapest non-polluting energy, seven times cheaper than polluting energy; and I believe that Latin America is a fundamental pillar for all Spaniards, to develop our growth through the same time as Spain, which has tremendous talent ”.

Likewise, Mireia Badía, co-founder of Grow.ly highlighted that “we left in 2014 and SMEs were very affected by the closure of bank financing. Now it is different, the ICOS have given a little more air, but I think it is a solution that will not prevent the closure of many companies in the medium term, much more effort must be made and that, without a doubt, will also affect young people, because we are the most vulnerable; government measures are going to be key for the future of the country, of SMEs and, consequently, of young people ”.

Francisco Javier Gutiérrez Álvarez, researcher at the National Center for Biotechnology CSIC, stressed that at the workplace level (with the pandemic), "we have continued going to the laboratory, with the support of the Government, the Ministry of Science, to continue working to develop a vaccine ( against the coronavirus) and responsibility, on a personal level it has been all chaos with a move and my wife’s pregnancy, but luckily everything is going well. This crisis has made us see that we have a lot of potential that we are not knowing how to exploit ”.

Arancha Martínez Fernández, founder of It Will Be, highlighted that “in recent years I have worked on a project, which is a BlockChain and Artificial Intelligence platform, with the labs (innovation centers) of the United Nations; In March, I was in Malaysia but I thought that with the pandemic, I wouldn’t feel good if I couldn’t do something for my country. What we have done is make the platform available to the country, there are already a hundred social entities in it. The crisis is very hard but it can be an opportunity to accelerate our digital transformation and increase social impact, through generating efficiencies. There will not be more resources and the needs are greater: the objective is to optimize each euro in the social sector so that with what we have we can do the maximum ”.

Norman Schaar Orive, co-founder of Vertical Robot added that “we have always seen that with optical fiber you could telework. We have detected an increase in users due to the fact that people are at home and cannot go out, but also a very interesting aspect is that virtual reality is a good alternative to socializing. Unlike a video game, in Virtual Reality you can gesture, you feel a presence of a person in another space and it gives an opportunity to high-risk people who are difficult to get out"

[lauramalchowblog]

Keto Q&A: Diving Into Keto For Life

We didn’t set out with the intention, but somehow it happened. Keto For Life was assigned a release date of New Year’s Eve—tomorrow, in fact. While there’s never a wrong day to go keto, my writing partner, Brad Kearns, and I felt like the stars aligned. Just when countless people are taking stock at the turn of new decade, wondering what might be possible in their lives, this message would be there. And while a lot of books will be there, too, with promises of weight loss and fitness and wellness, I have to say (biased as I may be) that Keto For Life offers something unique and sustainable among the typical cacophony of health tracts.

While I’ve shared its premise and outline on the blog, today I’m taking up some questions readers have shot my way over the last few weeks. What does it cover that other books haven’t? Does it offer a new take on longevity? How do other principles come into play beyond diet? I’m covering all that and more.

How does Keto For Life differ from The Keto Reset Diet?

Since the start of Mark’s Daily Apple, my core purpose has been to present a counter-argument against flawed and dated conventional wisdom. On the blog here and in my books beginning with The Primal Blueprint in 2009, I’ve focused on presenting the scientific rationale and practical steps for how to escape carbohydrate dependency and become fat- and (more recently) keto-adapted. I’ve made the case for rejecting the “struggle and suffer “ethos of chronic cardio in favor of a Primal approach emphasizing comfortable paced movement and aerobic workouts, lifting heavy things, and sprinting once in a while. And, finally, I’ve emphasized the non-negotiable importance of complementary lifestyle behaviors like getting enough sleep, sun, and play.

All of us in the ancestral health space have been heartened to see how far we’ve come in the past decade. Many ancestral health principles have been widely validated by science and accepted into mainstream culture in a relatively short amount of time. Back in 2009, it was hard to find someone who had any awareness of Primal/paleo/low-carb eating (including major New York publishers—that’s why I had to start Primal Blueprint Publishing!). Today, it’s a different ball game. The movement’s growth over the past decade has allowed discussion to refine and advance. Without the need to push just the basic premise, there’s been more momentum around deeper, more productive levels of personal customization. The keto and carnivore diets are examples of these ancestral offshoots.

The Keto Reset Diet was one of the first comprehensive books published on the subject, but it’s primarily a diet book—how to proceed in a comfortable step-by-step manner to embrace the ketogenic diet without the risk of backslide and burnout that comes with an ill-advised approach. It does cover the complementary exercise, sleep, and stress management practices that support your dietary goals, but the central focus is on introducing the ketogenic diet to the masses.

Keto For Life picks up where The Keto Reset Diet left off by having you leverage the metabolic flexibility you attain from keto efforts and applying it to the ultimate goals of living long and living awesome. In particular, it integrates the critical components of mindfulness, social wellness and emotional well-being for enhancing longevity and enjoying a fulfilling life. It moves beyond the core ancestral health message of “mechanics”—mechanics of eating the right foods, of doing the right workouts, of quantifying everything and checking every box…but with that potential big void of “Are we having fun yet?” Keto For Life leads with life. The focus is squarely on the good, long life we all hope to achieve.

What Does Keto For Life have to say about longevity?

We played around with using the term “longevity” in the title, but who cares about longevity by itself? Today, most people can make it to the average U.S. life expectancy of 79, but too many limp to that finish line, having endured decades of pain, suffering and limitation. The United States ranks 26th out of 35 economically advanced nations in life expectancy, a pathetic showing for the richest and most medically advanced nation in the history of humanity. In Keto For Life, we tackle the goal of healthspan, which conveys both living long and living awesome. Healthspan entails not just checking all the boxes of healthy foods, exercise output and sleep hours; it also means having fun and finding fulfillment along the way. With the Four Pillars of Keto Longevity, we incorporate healthy eating, movement and physical fitness with the concepts of Mental Flexibility and the often-overlooked pillar of Rest and Recovery.

How does compressed morbidity fit in here?

Compressed morbidity describes being healthy, strong and cognitively sharp for as long as possible. Then, by the time the natural inevitabilities of chronological aging come into play, the end is quick and peaceful. Brad’s father Dr. Walter Kearns was a stellar example of this concept. He passed in May of 2019 at the age of 97. Ninety-five of his years were characterized by exceptional mental and physical function. A champion golfer for his entire life, Walter shot below his age over 1,2000 times, including shooting an even par 71 at age 87 and a 76 at the age of 92. Walter was a general surgeon who continued to serve as a physician for decades after closing his private practice. He worked for the Indian Health Service into his late 70s, and volunteered at a weekly diabetes clinic until he was 95. In his final two years, Walter’s cognitive and physical performance started to decline. His golf outings went from 18 holes for money to casual 9-hole outings, and eventually to hitting chip shots in the backyard. He started to take longer naps, eat less food, have longer nights of sleep and shorter walks at the park. Soon, the day came for him to pass peacefully at home, with none of the drama, suffering, or family fatigue of someone paying the price for decades of adverse lifestyle practices with chronic disease patterns.

Going for compressed morbidity is about keeping muscle mass on your body (promoting a concept called organ reserve I’ve discussed at length in The Primal Blueprint and on the blog) as well as your brain! In a pattern that appears often in the book, the Four Pillars are complementary here. Eating an ancestral-style diet in general and making a devoted effort to become keto-adapted (even if you don’t stay in strict keto over the long-term) strongly supports cognitive function. You may have heard the disturbing new nickname for the assorted cognitive decline conditions that are growing at epidemic rates: Type 3 Diabetes. This term was coined by noted researcher Dr. Suzanne de la Monte of Brown University, conveying how cognitive decline is marked by dysfunctional glucose metabolism in the brain. As de la Monte explains, cognitive disease “has molecular and biochemical features that overlap with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.”

We hear sound bites about doing Sudoku to ward off dementia, but I go far deeper in this book. Extensive research shows us how a vibrant social network, a strong sense of purpose, and a positive self-perception about aging drive healthy cognitive function and extended lifespan. One longitudinal study from Yale tracked a group of 50+ people in Ohio for two decades, revealing an amazing result: Those with a positive self-perception about aging lived 7.5 years longer than those with negative self-perceptions about aging! This tidbit earned distinction as the lowest hanging fruit in the entire book to quickly add years to your life. The longevity champs in Okinawa also get recognition here for their emphasis on yuimaru, a deep sense of social obligation to family, friends, and neighbors. One of the most revealing longevity stats you will ever find is that Okinawan’s who leave the island live 20 years less than those who spend their entire lives on the island.

What’s the #1 quick takeaway from the Mental Flexibility pillar?

“Pivot.” Is that quick enough for you? Thanks for asking. Next question.

Pivot—really?

I can’t think of a more powerful word to convey the secret to experiencing a life filled with happiness, contentment, purpose, and meaning. I credit the ability to pivot as the key to my entrepreneurial success, and also to my ability to sustain a respectable level of work-life balance. As I shared in my introductory post about the book, pivoting describes being able to go with the flow when facing life change. Pivoting is accepting failure and setbacks with grace and resilience instead of allowing bad stuff to bury you. Pivoting is also knowing when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. It’s impossible to be perfect here, but at least you can be honest with yourself. I share my own experiences of failing but embracing of this strategy in the book.

Pivoting into discomfort by being more honest, more vulnerable, less reactive, and less predictable can be the foundation of emotional resilience as well as solid relationships. Gratitude helps a great deal here. If you can start from a place of appreciation for your current circumstances and connections, whatever they are (if you’re reading this it could be worse, right?), you’re ahead of the game.

Whether you’re new to the Primal scene or you have a stack of well-read books on your shelf, I think you’ll find that Keto For Life breaks new ground and offers the most holistic and actionable resource for creating greater vitality and a happier, healthier and more fulfilling life. The official release date is tomorrow, December 31st, and I’m still offering up a preorder incentive of premium bonuses. Learn more and order through your favorite retailer HERE.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I’m thrilled to begin a new decade with you all this week. See you on the other side of it tomorrow.

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[jesseneufeld]

Keto Q&A: Diving Into Keto For Life

We didn’t set out with the intention, but somehow it happened. Keto For Life was assigned a release date of New Year’s Eve—tomorrow, in fact. While there’s never a wrong day to go keto, my writing partner, Brad Kearns, and I felt like the stars aligned. Just when countless people are taking stock at the turn of new decade, wondering what might be possible in their lives, this message would be there. And while a lot of books will be there, too, with promises of weight loss and fitness and wellness, I have to say (biased as I may be) that Keto For Life offers something unique and sustainable among the typical cacophony of health tracts.

While I’ve shared its premise and outline on the blog, today I’m taking up some questions readers have shot my way over the last few weeks. What does it cover that other books haven’t? Does it offer a new take on longevity? How do other principles come into play beyond diet? I’m covering all that and more.

How does Keto For Life differ from The Keto Reset Diet?

Since the start of Mark’s Daily Apple, my core purpose has been to present a counter-argument against flawed and dated conventional wisdom. On the blog here and in my books beginning with The Primal Blueprint in 2009, I’ve focused on presenting the scientific rationale and practical steps for how to escape carbohydrate dependency and become fat- and (more recently) keto-adapted. I’ve made the case for rejecting the “struggle and suffer “ethos of chronic cardio in favor of a Primal approach emphasizing comfortable paced movement and aerobic workouts, lifting heavy things, and sprinting once in a while. And, finally, I’ve emphasized the non-negotiable importance of complementary lifestyle behaviors like getting enough sleep, sun, and play.

All of us in the ancestral health space have been heartened to see how far we’ve come in the past decade. Many ancestral health principles have been widely validated by science and accepted into mainstream culture in a relatively short amount of time. Back in 2009, it was hard to find someone who had any awareness of Primal/paleo/low-carb eating (including major New York publishers—that’s why I had to start Primal Blueprint Publishing!). Today, it’s a different ball game. The movement’s growth over the past decade has allowed discussion to refine and advance. Without the need to push just the basic premise, there’s been more momentum around deeper, more productive levels of personal customization. The keto and carnivore diets are examples of these ancestral offshoots.

The Keto Reset Diet was one of the first comprehensive books published on the subject, but it’s primarily a diet book—how to proceed in a comfortable step-by-step manner to embrace the ketogenic diet without the risk of backslide and burnout that comes with an ill-advised approach. It does cover the complementary exercise, sleep, and stress management practices that support your dietary goals, but the central focus is on introducing the ketogenic diet to the masses.

Keto For Life picks up where The Keto Reset Diet left off by having you leverage the metabolic flexibility you attain from keto efforts and applying it to the ultimate goals of living long and living awesome. In particular, it integrates the critical components of mindfulness, social wellness and emotional well-being for enhancing longevity and enjoying a fulfilling life. It moves beyond the core ancestral health message of “mechanics”—mechanics of eating the right foods, of doing the right workouts, of quantifying everything and checking every box…but with that potential big void of “Are we having fun yet?” Keto For Life leads with life. The focus is squarely on the good, long life we all hope to achieve.

What Does Keto For Life have to say about longevity?

We played around with using the term “longevity” in the title, but who cares about longevity by itself? Today, most people can make it to the average U.S. life expectancy of 79, but too many limp to that finish line, having endured decades of pain, suffering and limitation. The United States ranks 26th out of 35 economically advanced nations in life expectancy, a pathetic showing for the richest and most medically advanced nation in the history of humanity. In Keto For Life, we tackle the goal of healthspan, which conveys both living long and living awesome. Healthspan entails not just checking all the boxes of healthy foods, exercise output and sleep hours; it also means having fun and finding fulfillment along the way. With the Four Pillars of Keto Longevity, we incorporate healthy eating, movement and physical fitness with the concepts of Mental Flexibility and the often-overlooked pillar of Rest and Recovery.

How does compressed morbidity fit in here?

Compressed morbidity describes being healthy, strong and cognitively sharp for as long as possible. Then, by the time the natural inevitabilities of chronological aging come into play, the end is quick and peaceful. Brad’s father Dr. Walter Kearns was a stellar example of this concept. He passed in May of 2019 at the age of 97. Ninety-five of his years were characterized by exceptional mental and physical function. A champion golfer for his entire life, Walter shot below his age over 1,2000 times, including shooting an even par 71 at age 87 and a 76 at the age of 92. Walter was a general surgeon who continued to serve as a physician for decades after closing his private practice. He worked for the Indian Health Service into his late 70s, and volunteered at a weekly diabetes clinic until he was 95. In his final two years, Walter’s cognitive and physical performance started to decline. His golf outings went from 18 holes for money to casual 9-hole outings, and eventually to hitting chip shots in the backyard. He started to take longer naps, eat less food, have longer nights of sleep and shorter walks at the park. Soon, the day came for him to pass peacefully at home, with none of the drama, suffering, or family fatigue of someone paying the price for decades of adverse lifestyle practices with chronic disease patterns.

Going for compressed morbidity is about keeping muscle mass on your body (promoting a concept called organ reserve I’ve discussed at length in The Primal Blueprint and on the blog) as well as your brain! In a pattern that appears often in the book, the Four Pillars are complementary here. Eating an ancestral-style diet in general and making a devoted effort to become keto-adapted (even if you don’t stay in strict keto over the long-term) strongly supports cognitive function. You may have heard the disturbing new nickname for the assorted cognitive decline conditions that are growing at epidemic rates: Type 3 Diabetes. This term was coined by noted researcher Dr. Suzanne de la Monte of Brown University, conveying how cognitive decline is marked by dysfunctional glucose metabolism in the brain. As de la Monte explains, cognitive disease “has molecular and biochemical features that overlap with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.”

We hear sound bites about doing Sudoku to ward off dementia, but I go far deeper in this book. Extensive research shows us how a vibrant social network, a strong sense of purpose, and a positive self-perception about aging drive healthy cognitive function and extended lifespan. One longitudinal study from Yale tracked a group of 50+ people in Ohio for two decades, revealing an amazing result: Those with a positive self-perception about aging lived 7.5 years longer than those with negative self-perceptions about aging! This tidbit earned distinction as the lowest hanging fruit in the entire book to quickly add years to your life. The longevity champs in Okinawa also get recognition here for their emphasis on yuimaru, a deep sense of social obligation to family, friends, and neighbors. One of the most revealing longevity stats you will ever find is that Okinawan’s who leave the island live 20 years less than those who spend their entire lives on the island.

What’s the #1 quick takeaway from the Mental Flexibility pillar?

“Pivot.” Is that quick enough for you? Thanks for asking. Next question.

Pivot—really?

I can’t think of a more powerful word to convey the secret to experiencing a life filled with happiness, contentment, purpose, and meaning. I credit the ability to pivot as the key to my entrepreneurial success, and also to my ability to sustain a respectable level of work-life balance. As I shared in my introductory post about the book, pivoting describes being able to go with the flow when facing life change. Pivoting is accepting failure and setbacks with grace and resilience instead of allowing bad stuff to bury you. Pivoting is also knowing when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. It’s impossible to be perfect here, but at least you can be honest with yourself. I share my own experiences of failing but embracing of this strategy in the book.

Pivoting into discomfort by being more honest, more vulnerable, less reactive, and less predictable can be the foundation of emotional resilience as well as solid relationships. Gratitude helps a great deal here. If you can start from a place of appreciation for your current circumstances and connections, whatever they are (if you’re reading this it could be worse, right?), you’re ahead of the game.

Whether you’re new to the Primal scene or you have a stack of well-read books on your shelf, I think you’ll find that Keto For Life breaks new ground and offers the most holistic and actionable resource for creating greater vitality and a happier, healthier and more fulfilling life. The official release date is tomorrow, December 31st, and I’m still offering up a preorder incentive of premium bonuses. Learn more and order through your favorite retailer HERE.

Thanks for reading, everyone. I’m thrilled to begin a new decade with you all this week. See you on the other side of it tomorrow.

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[sarahburness]

Overcoming Intergenerational Trauma: We Can Break the Cycle of Abuse

“Our ancestors knew that healing comes in cycles and circles. One generation carries the pain so that the next can live and heal. One cannot live without the other, each is the other’s hope, meaning and strength.” ~Gemma B. Benton

I thought I had no value, my opinion meaningless. My sense of self was decimated. Finally, I got angry and attacked.

“You can’t imagine the pain you’ve put me through!” I yelled. “You don’t even know who I am. You can’t see it. You’re refusing to take responsibility for the way you raised me! Not thinking is not an excuse! You don’t even care to try to understand what you’ve done to me!”

This was me to my retirement-age parents about a year ago. Those yelling sessions happened several times. They called the police on me once.

None of it did an ounce of good. They can’t see it.

The more I have experienced with depression, anxiety, and recovery, the more I am convinced that the events and circumstances of my past—and my parents’ past—have shaped me much more than my brain chemistry.

I’m pretty confident that the problems I’ve suffered from are derived from generations of unhealthy behavior. I believe the effects of intergenerational trauma shape us much more than we might realize.

I’m not a researcher, so I only have my own experiences to base this on; it very well could be different for someone else. But from what I’ve seen from my grandparents through my kids, this succession of trauma is difficult to break. It takes different forms, but it always rears its ugly head. In my grandparents, it was alcoholism; in my parents, physical abuse; me, emotional abuse.

I don’t consider any of us to be bad people, but we have each passed horrible things on to our children.

My mom’s dad was an alcoholic and very strict. Her mom didn’t actively do anything wrong, but she turned a blind eye to what her husband was doing. Mom won’t talk directly about it, but reading between the lines, I believe her brother abused her as well.

My dad’s dad was killed in a car accident when my dad was five. That left my dad as the man of the house, with no father figure. His mom never remarried and worked full time to support the family, meaning my dad was mostly on his own.

So then, this is how it all added up for me: Because of the abuse she suffered, my mom became a narcissist with no empathy. My dad became an absentee father who always blindly agreed with my mom. I was raised so that every good thing I did reflected well on my mother, and every mistake I made was my own fault.

It took me forty-four years to unravel all this. I’m still trying to figure out who I really am. I know I crave attention and approval from women. I’m insecure and selfish. At times, sometimes for long stretches, I distance myself from my wife and kids. But I’m working on it.

I’m also working on forgiving my parents. It’s not easy, but I know it’s necessary for me to keep progressing. They’re just flawed people, like me, after all. I’m mainly having trouble with my mom, a selfish, self-centered, and ignorant woman.

If I forgive my parents, it will be for my own peace of mind. I will know then that I did everything in my power to make peace with them. That doesn’t mean, though, I want to keep them or my extended family in my life.

Some people aren’t going to change, and we each have the right to decide whether we want that kind of person around us. I feel that most of my family is dysfunctional. It’s a really tough decision.

My mom’s favorite excuses for her behavior, which she refuses to acknowledge, are “That’s the way I was raised” and “I never thought about it.” Must’ve been glorious to live a life and raise a child without responsibility.

I know I need to do better. I need to take responsibility for creating change and break free from the intergenerational beliefs and behaviors I see as unhealthy. My family sees this as a rebuke.

To find my hope, meaning, and strength, I may have to leave my entire family behind. That’s a heavy decision, but it’s one I will probably need to make.

It will mean that I’ve learned the lessons of my parents and used them to bring power and strength to myself and my children. I can only hope that happiness and peace come along for the ride. That would be the greatest gift I could give to my kids.

I can’t sit around waiting for the negativity and condescension to go away, or for them to make an effort to understand my problems. In order for me to get better and start living my own life, I need to be the one making the rules. I need to be positive and I need to take care of myself.

In being raised as children and in raising our own children, we receive many messages. Some are helpful, some are hurtful. We need to be aware of those messages as adults, discarding the harmful ones and emphasizing the healthy ones. We need to be honest with ourselves and others, and willing to admit when we’re wrong. We need to constantly question everything.

Some of the messages I received growing up were “You’re not as good as you should be,” “Conformity is good, being different is bad,” and “You don’t matter enough,” sprinkled in with healthy doses of guilt.

My wife and I have tried to instill the opposite in our kids. Everyone matters. Your opinions and feelings are valid and important. Be yourself and follow your dreams.

None of this is easy. It takes awareness, courage, and the determination to live a better life.

Some will have bigger hills to climb. Some will look around and find the support they need has been around them all along. Others will be alone and will have to dig deep inside themselves to find the strength to live better.

No matter our situation, we all deserve the happiness that comes with living our best lives. And the secret isn’t money or success; it’s filling our lives with love. This requires us to heal any childhood wounds that prevent us from giving and receiving love.

Your present may be built on your past, but it doesn’t have to be controlled by it. In order to break the chains of intergenerational trauma, you will most certainly face some serious challenges. Here are some recommendations from my experiences that may help you.

Have courage.

If you look at your past with clear eyes, you’re likely to see a fair bit of unpleasantness. Pain, abuse, manipulation, deceit could all be there. And they could be coming from people you love.

Facing all of that will take courage and energy. It’s difficult and emotionally exhausting to look at your life objectively. You have to keep reminding yourself to see what’s really there rather than what you’ve always thought or what you want to see.

Going against the tide of several generations of family is a daunting prospect. You might alienate or offend people you love, but you are worthy of living your life your way.

Things don’t have to be the way they’ve always been. You don’t need to suffer just because your family chose to suffer in the past. But, understand this is difficult work.

Have confidence that doing this healthy work for yourself is worthwhile. Stay focused on self-care and keep your eyes on the bigger picture.

Have a support group.

A support group can be built of any mixture of people. Friends, relatives, co-workers, or even strangers. It can be formal or informal. The best support groups possess various experiences, perspectives, and personalities.

What you are doing is huge, and it’s going to be a significant help to have at least one or two people you can lean on while you do this. If you have more, great. But don’t try to do this alone; find yourself a support system before you start.

My support group is patched together from people who have read my articles and responded to them, people I know from online interest groups, and a few people from real life, too.

My group has layers, an inner circle I hear from often, a group that checks in every couple of weeks, and a group that is just more encouraging when they hear what I’m up to.

I’ve had the gift of actually growing my support group while I’m going through this. I’ve opened up to some people and found that we’ve been through similar circumstances. This can give you new ideas and solutions to your problems.

And don’t forget, a doctor, clergy member, or a therapist can be part of this group for you. You can also consider trying organized local support groups if that appeals to you.

The more love and support you can gather around yourself, the more strength and conviction you will find you have. This love and support feeds off itself. The more you give, the more you get back.

Have motivation.

Remember why you’re doing this. You’re setting out to build a better life for you and your children. The thought of overcoming this pain can be a liberating and positive force.

Being aware of what put us where we are today will not only give us the motivation but also the direction we need to create positive change for ourselves and our children.

Not all the changes we make will be successful, but if we keep going and correct our mistakes, we can still help ourselves and our kids learn healthier behaviors. We can stop perpetuating a lineage of abuse, domination, neglect, hurt, and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

There’s no finish line in overcoming intergenerational trauma. Keep being aware. Keep moving forward, and be the force that is constantly pushing toward healthy change in your family.

About Jason Large

Jason Large has been experiencing depression and anxiety for twenty-six years. He has recently made a link between his own troubles and his family's history. He writes with the hope of helping others in similar circumstances. If you’d like, you can reach Jason on Facebook.

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from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/overcoming-intergenerational-trauma-we-can-break-the-cycle-of-abuse/

[psychotherapyconsultants]

Habits That Help People with Bipolar Disorder Bolster Their Well-Being

Every morning Charita Cole Brown, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age of 21, wakes up around 7:30 a.m. She prays, meditates on Scripture and centers her mind. She journals (which she also does at night). Then, she showers and dresses for the day.

Routine is vital for everyone’s well-being, but it’s especially essential for individuals with bipolar disorder. “Research shows that having a ‘rhythm’ to our daily and weekly activities promotes a stable mood,” said Cynthia Last, Ph.D, a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating individuals with mood disorders in Boca Raton, Fla.

In fact, there’s an entire evidence-based treatment that helps with setting up structures, systems and routines, which is called interpersonal and social rhythm therapy.

Last suggested scheduling meals at the same times every day, along with other activities, such as: watching a favorite sitcom on Thursday nights, running errands on Saturdays, and attending church on Sundays.

This is what Gabe Howard does. Howard, a writer and speaker who has bipolar disorder, works from the time he wakes up (around 7 a.m.) to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. After work, he makes dinner. On Sundays, he buys groceries and runs errands. Then from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., he works on the Psych Central podcast and A Bipolar, A Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. Sometimes, his routine shifts because he has a speaking engagement in the evening.

“I have trouble keeping order in my brain, so keeping order in my life is super reassuring and helpful,” Howard said. “When things go the way they are supposed to go, I feel better.”

In addition to establishing a solid routine, there are other ways that individuals with bipolar disorder can stay well, which you’ll find below. Of course, these strategies are in addition to taking medication every single day and working with a therapist.

Be super consistent with sleep. “One of the most important habits to maintaining mood stability is good sleep hygiene,” said Last, author of the book When Someone You Love is Bipolar: Help and Support for You and Your Partner. That’s because “research has shown that decreased sleep is both a cause and consequence of mania.”

Last noted that good sleep includes four components: going to sleep and waking up at about the same time every day (with no more than one hour difference); setting a bedtime at 11 p.m. or earlier (it’s common to get a second wind after 11 p.m.); sleeping at least 7 hours; and sleeping without interruption.

She also suggested carving out 1 hour to unwind before bed. “During this time avoid anything intellectually, emotionally, or physically stimulating. Instead, take a hot bath or listen to relaxing music.”

Be sure your surroundings are conducive to sleep, with comfortable sheets, pajamas and room temperature.

If you’re a night owl whose current bedtime is way too late, Last suggested moving it by 30 minutes every week.

Take care of your body. “Because bipolar is a bodily illness in the same way that diabetes is a bodily illness, I eat healthily and walk several times each week,” said Brown, author of the book Defying the Verdict: My Bipolar Life. She also plans to return to the pool for low-impact exercise. When moving your body, the key is to find activities that you genuinely enjoy, which might be anything from taking a walk to stretching to dancing.

Have nourishing hobbies. You might worry that routines lead to a boring life. Last encouraged readers to “use your intellectual curiosity or creativity to pursue things that don’t pose risk.” For instance, her clients engage in creative writing, painting, sculpting, and reading. They also learn new things by taking adult education classes or e-courses.

In addition to reading, Karla Dougherty, author of the book Less Than Crazy: Living Fully with Bipolar II, loves writing poetry. It “helps settle my mind and it’s a good outlet for my feelings.” 

Do a daily self check-in. Colleen King, LMFT, a Sacramento psychotherapist who has bipolar disorder and specializes in treating the illness, noted that one of the most powerful habits for her and her clients is the “self check-in.”

It’s “a holistic approach to noticing emotional, physical, cognitive, and social well-being. It’s an exercise that can give valuable information about mood state, sleep quality, stress level, physical comfort/discomfort, emotions, daily goals, relationships, wants, and needs, and it empowers you to make the changes you need to take care of yourself.”

According to King, this is how it works: Start by practicing diaphragmatic (belly) breathing for a minute or two, which helps you to focus on your body and feel more relaxed. Think about your mood, sleep, stress level and other factors (see above) in the past 24 hours, along with how you’re feeling right now. Then record your observations in a notebook or app, or tell your support network.

Build in downtime. King noted that this is another essential healthy habit. She stressed the importance of making sure you carve out the time and space to rest and relax “with reduced stimulation.”

Don’t topple your plate. Dougherty stays calm by not scheduling too many things in one day. Because over-scheduling leads her to feel exhausted, irritable and irrational. Usually, she intuitively knows when she has too much on her plate. And she also has kind, supportive people—her husband and friends—to point out when she’s “verging into unsteady territory.” Which is when she slows down for a while.

Of course, everyone is different; one person’s overscheduled and overworked is another’s full and fulfilling life. So it’s vital to know yourself, your limits and your needs.

Find an accountability buddy or tribe. Both Brown and King emphasized enlisting the help of an accountability partner or network for daily support. You also might research a MeetUp group, club, or another organization to find like-minded people, in person or online, King said. 

Be kind to yourself. “When you don’t feel well enough or forget to do the task, be kind to yourself and resolve to try again right away,” King said. “There’s no need to wait until next year, next month, or even until next week to begin again.”

Also, make sure you’re acknowledging your successes—no matter how small they might seem. As King said, if you’re in a depressed state, brushing your teeth and taking a shower is successful.

Don’t underestimate the power of small gestures. Healthy habits that make a significant impact can be small. For instance, Dougherty likes to listen to calming music while she works. “My mind is like an old-fashioned aerobics class, thoughts whirling in my head, getting more and more intense. Calming music slows this down.” (So does solitude.) 

Take advantage of technology. Today’s apps are great for helping with everything from getting to sleep on time to meditating to moving your body to documenting your mood. Many also include forums with discussions and tips.

For meditation, King’s favorite app is Insight Timer, which includes free guided practices for sleep, stress, anxiety, anger, depression, addiction and exercise. She likes the mood charting apps Wellness Tracker from the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance and PatientsLikeMe.

CBT Thought Diary is an app that helps you “document your negative emotions, analyze flaws in your thinking, and reevaluate your thoughts.”

SuperBetter “is like a challenge game with ways to earn ‘power ups’ with self-care…[and] has a lot of excellent explanations of how self-care practices positively affect mood states,” King said. For exercise, she uses Map My Fitness.

Remember it’s OK to have setbacks and to make mistakes. “My routines and habits get messed up and re-arranged from time to time,” Howard said. “Don’t let one bad day define your entire future.” Don’t let a few days or months define your entire future.

As Brown said, “always remember, recovery is an ongoing process. Treat yourself lovingly.”

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/habits-that-help-people-with-bipolar-disorder-bolster-their-well-being/

[loud-snoring-os]

A good read that highlights the importance of sleep A good read that highlights the importance of sleep, although I was hoping for more info on how to get the right amount of sleep and although there is some, I still wanted more Go to Amazon

The fascinating concept of rest as a skill--and how it can impact life I'm one of those people who has been rather "busy" for many years. And I've always been fascinated by the creative process. So I was intrigued by Alex Pang's book. It's a series of thoughtful arguments on how rest not only fuel's really creative work, it can fuel a more fulfilling and well-functioning life--as rest invigorates both the body and the brain. I was most fascinated by the idea of super creative people leaving lots of time to wander, go on walk, take naps, etc. Go to Amazon

Rest is a skill like singing or running that everyone basically knows how to ... If living excitedly and hurriedly would only enable us to do more, then there would be some compensation, some excuse, for doing so. But the exact reverse is the case. That was the opinion of William James, the philosopher, psychologist and physician in 1899. I wonder what he would say of our 24/7, always-on world, where the concept of turning off is an anachronism? Go to Amazon

A great book for our times... Reading this book was profoundly helpful to me. The text emphasize the idea that a 'balanced' and wholesome approach to work is ultimately a more effective and satisfying, an idea I instinctively support, however, the author uses some of the latest neuro-cognitive research studies as well as some interesting anecdotes from the lives of successful individuals to support this view. Anybody engaged in the 'always-on' work culture of today will appreciate the insights offered in this book. Go to Amazon

Nothing new - a forgettable book All the while I was reading this book, I had the nagging feeling that I had come across similar material elsewhere. If you are an avid reader of "self-improvement" books and blogs, you will get the same sense. Go to Amazon

Slow Down, You Move Too Fast Not since Simon and Garfunkel's Feeling Groovy has there been such a heartfelt and compelling case made to slow down and quit moving so fast. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang has more facts than S&G ever did -- he's worked a little too hard on the book! -- and it's a good way to provoke yourself into thinking what it would take to manage your world more coherently. Go to Amazon

A book for our bone-tired times Knowing that sleep deprivation has become a national "epidemic", I was pleased to read this new book that presents the science and the multi-faceted benefits of getting rest (not just sleep). By not succumbing to the insanity of the 24/7 availability/work/non-stop doing "badge of honor" that has crept into and overtaken our work lives over the past few decades, many of the world's most creative, successful and well-known people, past and present, allow(ed) time every day for naps, mind wandering, correspondence...and truly working only 4-5 hours a day. Creativity, clarity, mood...virtually everything improves. A good read on solid evidence-based information. Go to Amazon

A good perspective on unwinding I heard an interview with the author on NPR and was glad to follow up. As a busy professional and recovering academic, embarking on another long term project, I have been researching rest and recovery for long term endurance in high stress environments. This book is well researched, clear, and readable. I highly recommend it for anyone weary of the busyness of life and eager for realizing the value and means for rest and recreation. Go to Amazon

Required reading Five Stars Invigorating read! Interesting read Not what you think it is..... Invaluable insights on the interplay between work and rest Great personal development book A Real Insight into the Value of Rest Wonderful Book for Intellectual workers Interesting

[healthylifepage]

Why Marine Muscle is the Best Legal Steroid in the USA for 2018

Steroids are controlled synthetic hormones like Dianabol, Oxymethalone, Trenbolone, and P-var which help build your muscles. People with conditions like anemia, leukemia, and even asthma get prescribed steroids every other day, and they are 100% legal.

However, if you use steroids outside of a physician’s prescription or recommendation, it becomes an illegal affair and in most cases dangerous. Legal steroids is a blanket term that covers any and many muscle building supplements. It more like googling information instead of just doing a web search.

The Real Legal Steroids

This is a common term online. It is used to refer to anabolic supplements or muscle building that are legal. However. There have been cases where steroids that were sold and coined as legal turned out to be illegal substances.  

Illegal substances tend to be strong enough to result in adverse reactions. However, the legal steroids are developed as a blend of prohormones, natural vitamins, and herbal boosters that work to copy the effects of illegal anabolic steroids.

Finding the Best Legal Steroids Online

Before you buy anything off the internet, you always have to make sure that the online platform is efficient, safe and you need to keep in mind that getting the best can be difficult.

The good news is, there are as many companies with hardly any reputation selling supplements as there are reputable companies.

What to Look For

Look for companies with:

More than one or two years in business

Look for positive and unpaid testimonials and reviews

Look for websites that are secure. Look for the little green lock on the browser

Look for the supplements that are made in certified labs and are made in cGMP inspected labs

Look for those with based guidance and support

Do Legal Steroids Work?

There is no denying that legal steroids have a bad rep. There are numerous steroids in the brands in the market that have made a living out of scamming people with fancy names, emphasizing benefits and flashy advertising.

They list all the advantages of steroids and then say the product they are selling will do the same without any side effects. They have no scientific research to back up their claims.

The worst bit is that they don’t even specify the ingredient in the powder or tablets. This means you have no way of knowing what you are consuming, and you don’t even know whether it’s safe or not.

However, there are honest reviews and research that can help you get legal steroids alternatives that will work for you. However, you should be prepared to pay more due to the nature of the industry.

Do You Need Legal Steroids ?

Rock hard bodies are undeniably in the standard of beauty today. Models for magazines and commercials and superhero movie characters have muscular arms and legs and chiseled abs to die for. This is why men go to the gym to get their physiques and check and look like Dwayne Johnson.

These aspirations are understandable and admirable; however, if you have no idea that these men are getting some help from somewhere then you ought to be very naïve. The extra help doesn’t rule out how hard to get those bodies.

It apparently takes a lot of time to the gym and consistently eating the right foods to maintain a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. Depending on the person, the extra help is steroids or a legal alternative.

Most people either take pills, buy steroids or get injections to get ripped as fast as they anticipate. Otherwise, it can be very frustrating to put in so much work only to keep looking like a more toned version of yourself.

Steroids can make you lose a kidney, so for those who are more concerned and highly concerned about their health, they prefer to go for supplements instead. Supplements are what we are referring to as legal alternatives to steroids.

Supplements may sound like a better and even cheaper alternative, but you have to understand that they are not just pilling you pop, and visit the gym whenever you feel like looking to form muscles. While on supplements, you need to put in more extended hours at the gym, consume proteins like your body and life depends on it, and get as much sleep as you can to make sure your muscles recover and heal.

Supplements will give your body a little push to burn fatter, build muscle, and give your body endurance to work out for about times at least five times a week.

How Do You Get Quicker Results?

Let’s face it; it sucks to wait for so long to get the body you have always wished for. The faster, the better. Right? Would you rather spend money on a supplement that will take you forever to see the results? I highly doubt that.

Well, thank goodness, Marine Muscle heard the plight of many men and came up with a thermogenic and anabolic legal alternative to steroids. Thermogenic involves increasing the body’s metabolism to burn more fat while anabolic is all about building muscles. Marine muscle is so powerful that nothing else compares to it in the market.

As the name suggests, it has nine supplements that have a marine name that give you a rough idea of how useful and powerful the tablets are. It took Marne Muscle more than ten years to come up with legal alternatives to steroids. They found six active ingredients in their studies that miss on other brands.

Marine Muscle Products

Devil Dog: this is the best formula for those raining their major muscle groups like legs, back, and chest. It boosts training intensity and increases stamina.

Drill Master: this is best for hard gainers because it increases muscle strength and mass.

Trooper: boosts power, testosterone, sex drive and muscle growth

Colonel: helps you get lean fast and burn visceral fat

Gunner: helps increase strength, muscle, and speeds up the recovery time

Alpha: it gives you ripped and defined muscle by increasing vascularity a burning body fat

Winger: increases power, endurance, agility, and power

Klicks: increases bone density and stimulates bone growth

Enduro: best for increasing strength, muscle mass, and endurance

Sergeant: best for men with man boobs (Gynecomastia)

General: eliminates unwanted body fat and increases lean muscle which makes it perfect for getting shredding

Official Website is: MarineMuscle.com

Marine Muscle Legal Steroids

Well, if you have been looking for legal steroids that are available without a prescription, then Marine Muscle is the best out there. It is a robust legal steroid that is closest you can get with anabolic steroids. It has proven to be powerful enough to deliver real results.

Why is Marine Muscle Different?

Well, other than being legal, marine muscle has ingredients that can’t be found in other steroids. Marine muscle far exceeds a regular dietary supplement’s potency. Marine muscle has the following ingredients:

DHEA (Dehydroepiandrosterone)

This ingredient is illegal in most countries, but it is legal to sell in the U.S. this ingredient is exempt from the anabolic steroid act of 1990 and 2004. However, athletes are banned from using DHEA because it is often used in hormone replacement therapy which is an endogenous hormone.

DHEA ingredient in legal steroids has a positive effect on increasing strength, mass, and endurance. In this case, this ingredient in marine muscle makes it stand out as the best legal steroid in the market.

BCAA’s (Branched-chain amino acids)

This ingredient is important for feeding the muscle and making sure the body is getting the proper nutrients for growth. This ingredient makes marine muscle to have the appropriate amount of amino acid to help your muscles grow and recover.

Citrulline

This ingredient is used to improve sports performance and enhance cardiovascular function in a healthy manner. It is an amino acid converted by the kidneys into L-Arginine. It is essential for developing endurance and strength even in the most intense workouts.

Marine Muscle Stacks

Marine muscle stacks deliver the right combination of ingredients meant to help you get shredded, gain muscle and bust through strength plateaus. The ingredients are the missing link to massive muscle strength, gains, size, fat loss, stamina, and more when adequately dosed and formulated. They include bulking, cutting and strength stack.

Bulking Stack

This marine muscle stack helps just about anyone to pack on muscle; it has been formulated specially to help increase muscle fat. It is also one of the most potent legal steroids. If you don’t want to wait for months you gain muscle; this stack is perfect for you.

This stack makes it incredibly easy to gain strength and muscle. If you want to pack muscle a month before summer, this bulking stack will make it easy for you. You need this if you are on a lean bulk cycle as well. It is also perfect for people who like training heavy. You can check the bulking stack here straight away.

Cutting Stack

This one of the best legal steroids for losing fat and getting shredded. After a bulking cycle, the cutting stack is the best way to uncover your lean muscle. It helps you do so by reducing the visceral fat. While shredding fat, it is crucial to try and retain as much muscle as possible.

If you need to get a lean body before summer, this stack will give you everything you need. This cutting stack delivers! Within the first week of using it, you will notice results. If you want a ripped and muscular body, you this stack is perfect for you. Click here to grab it. It will help you maintain lean muscle while burning visceral fat, even dieting down.

Strength Stack

You can never have enough strength regardless of your age! Sometimes no matter how hard you try to bust through strength plateaus you tend to reach a sticking point. This stack is meant to help you increase power and strength. It will have you adding plates like crazy!

It is perfect when training significant muscles like chest, back, and legs. It will quickly increase your squat, bench, and deadlift. The more the strength the dense the muscle. The strength stack boosts your energy and endurance and makes you add plates like a youngster. Get it here.

Benefits of Marine Muscle Legal Steroids

Increases strength and muscle mass

It is the most potent legal steroid you can get without a prescription

Boosts performances and endurance

Has pharmaceutical grade quality

Contains strong prohormone ingredients that deliver fat results

It is 100% legal and has no side effects

Has no injections

No post cycle therapy required

Who Can Take Marine Muscle?

Marine muscle is best for those looking for a safe anabolic alternative and those who are serious about bodybuilding. Either way, it will help you achieve fast results. It will help you increase muscle mass and train hard for a short period. Marine muscle will have you squatting, benching, and deadlifting more in no time.

Pros

It’s a safe alternative to anabolic steroids

One of few legal steroids that have androstenolone

Produced in the USA in FDA approved facilities

Perfect for hard gainers and pack on muscle fast

Cons

For sale only in the United States

Only persons above 18 can use the product

Where to Buy Marine Muscle?

You can only purchase marine muscle on their official website. The product is only available in the United States. The shipping is free. You can pay using MasterCard, Amex, or Visa and the package will come in the confidential concealed package.  You can get a refund if you are unsatisfied with the product and if it is unopened with seven days of shipping. Exclusive offers currently available with full price list. 

Important for Sports Users

If you are a sports user, make sure you give a list of the ingredients at the back of the package with your sports busy, coach or doctor because you might be likely to get a drug test. Let the advice you whether or not to use Marine Muscle.

Recommendation

The assumption of athletics and fitness is slowly changing, more and more people upping their game to bring back the fitness glory. As recommended by many doctors, exercise needs to be part of your day. There is, therefore, no problem with getting extra help to make your body perform in a superior way.

Marine muscle products are debunking on the myth that tells young men that there are no better supplements in the mainstream market. This is why the supplement industry should raise its standards. It’s time the industry delivers what it promises instead of reinforcing this myth by sending people back to illegal steroids.

Brands need to put in research and tike to find the natural ingredients that will give people optimum results when combined with diet and fitness.

The good news is that Marine Muscle is among the few product that has come up with a comprehensive list of ingredients used in the supplement. They also have a well-written website that gives you all the information you need to know.

No Prescription Required

Marine muscle supplements are safe that you won’t even need a special prescription to order a bottle. Whenever you need to use them, you can order them without showing any medical proof to be cleared for the order. This offers you the opportunity to make sure you get the full support without any restrictions.

How to Use Marine Muscle

The company that produces marine muscle have a calculated dosage that is perfect for the consumer. Al, you need to do is follow the instructions to get the best results. It is a good idea it in stacks on an 8-week cycle rather than the 2 or 4.

Adults need to take three capsules a day after every meal. A bottle has 90 capsules which will last you a month. Each supplement has a list of ingredients on the bottle, so you don’t have to worry about side effects or allergies.

Always make sure that you heed to the warning on the label. In which case, you shouldn’t use marine muscle if you have diabetes, are pregnant, have a kidney or liver disease, taking anti-depressants, have autoimmune disorders, have endocrine disorders or nursing.

In as little as two to three weeks you will see the results. To reach your desired goals, you need to continue taking the stacks of supplements as usual. Within three to six months you will able to achieve maximum efficacy or when you feel that you are satisfied with the results you have obtained. To prevent diminishing effects, switch the stacks after the 8th cycle.

Conclusion

With the six essential ingredients in the workout supplement, marine muscle definitely works. The company has ensured that the dosage and the formulation are perfectly measured to provide real gains like robust stamina, endurance, and remarkable muscle growth.

All you have to do is visit their official website, and you will be able to go to the next level and realize optimal results. Marine muscles give you an assurance of unlimited stamina, active power, burning fat, lean muscle growth, and enhanced performance. With marine muscle, what’s not to like? Its every your body ever needed to be perfect.

While their products may be costly, they are worth every die when it comes to your goals and health. They may not be an anabolic steroid, but they copy their results.

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