…hers, we cannot have a genuine experience of them. This leads instead to a feedback loop – we respond emotionally, without questioning, to what we imagine the other’s intentionality to be, and we act toward the unwitting soul who engaged us as though our (perhaps skewed) perception were the truth. Accordingly, they then react to our reaction with denial, defensiveness, or responsive anger, thus closing the loop: We have been wronged, and the jerk…
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…ety, depression, and low self-esteem. Constantly ruminating on failures or fears can create a cycle of negative emotions that reinforce feelings of hopelessness and sadness. Effects on Behavior Negative thinking can manifest in problematic behaviors, such as withdrawal, poor academic performance, and conflicts with peers or family. Teens who constantly view themselves in a negative light may avoid social situations and believe that they are unwo…
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…r things are good or things are bad…. You can motivate yourself not out of fear of being inadequate, but because you care about yourself.” Instead of condemning yourself, ask what you’re learning and what you can do to reach your goals, while taking care of you. How Self-Care Is Not Selfish Some people grow up with the idea that self-care is selfish. But taking care of yourself first is important, especially if you are dedicated to taking care of…
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…ly in public, all parents experience humiliation. They are embarrassed and fear that onlookers will regard them as faulty parents. However, do not let your self-consciousness or self-attacks affect your actions. Your focus should not be on worrying about how you are being seen, but on tending to the agony that your child is going through. When your kid is in this state, do not send her to her room. Isolation is not a constructive solution because…
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…someone and they don’t like you, well then on to the next one. There is no fear of failure because for every one or two rejections you get one or two matches. This is a game that you can keep playing until you win. However, this can lead you to feel as if potential partners are expendable. As you know that there are more people out there who you might be a match with. Why limit yourself to one match when you can have 10? Or why settle for one part…
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…ou choose to simply acknowledge that this is a tough moment, that there is fear or uncertainty in you. That’s OK, too. Sometimes it can be more helpful to sit with a negative emotion for a minute or two to see what’s causing it, to air it. Then you can choose your response – to let it be; to ask yourself what you can do about it; or to remind yourself of what’s positive instead. Tip 3: You’re enough Another trap we can fall into is of not being en…
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…e mid-1970s with not a single year’s decrease below epidemic levels of 8 to 11. Beginning in 1993, however, Clinton’s first year in office, the murder rate for the first time since 1933 began a steep and uninterrupted year by year decline, beginning at 10.5 in 1993, falling below 8 by 1997, and bottoming out at 6.4 by 2000, his last year in office (following which, under Bush Jr., it began once again increasing). To explain why this occurred, we n…
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…mbing, but you probably will, as long as you stop a) being afraid, because fear is heavy; and b) trying to figure out how you’re going to do it. You don’t know how you will. Knowledge here is limiting. Push past what you think you know, and for heaven’s sake, get up that sh*t.” Thanks to that advice, I did manage to climb the rock in question. There’s great comfort in a space where all action is experiment: no givens, no set limits. The depth of c…
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…not what women experience during transitions; instead, old traumas and big fears surface. I bring this up, because so often traumas and fears can completely derail mature women getting ready to date. If this happens, it is important to find a professional well versed in working with trauma to help, because trauma does not go away by ignoring it. The good news is that if old traumas and big fears do surface, this provides an opportunity to start to…
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…ation of the amygdala (within emotional center of the brain that registers fear), and with Mindfulness, we increase our Middle Pre Frontal Cortex functions, one of which is our ability to respond versus react. My response was to take a deep breath and begin again, and in fact, the experience allowed me to write from truth, to walk my talk, and helped me to write from the reality of experience versus abstract notions. (There was possibility in the…
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