Podcasts are a great way to get much-needed advice when you don’t have the time to do personal research, can’t sit down to read a book, or don’t know where to start. Having trouble in a relationship? Want to learn how to be optimistic? Interested in hearing an inspirational story?
Even with the vast social networks and instant communication we have available to us, many of us feel alone.
We feel separate and isolated from others. Our longing for deep and meaningful connection is tangled up in the facades that we carry and try to match to another’s. And we think we are alone in this.
Let’s not pretend that there are not hard times.
Let’s be real that we all go through them, are going through them, and will go through them again.
Sleep pillows are a sweet way to help when a restless mind or body, recurrent anxiety dreams, or even outright nightmares are keeping you awake. The use of sleep pillows is not new. “Dilly pillows” stuffed with dill, lavender, and other relaxing aromatic herbs were traditionally used to help babies relax and fall asleep. Sleep pillows also make great gifts, something to keep in mind as the holidays approach.
Not everyone is the same kind of person. While for some, encouragement, motivation and looking at the bright side works – like Poppy in the animation movie Trolls -- for others, like Branch, the opposite is true. Too much optimism can actually make some of us complacent, overconfident and less of achievers than what we truly are. And let’s face it: we all have been subject to negative thoughts that creep up upon us as self-doubts, inferiority complexes and even a fear of losing all that we have. So what do you do with all those scary, negative thoughts?
I would say the prevailing sentiment for me right now is disillusionment. I’m seeing things as they are, not how I’d like them to be. I read an article the other day about the presence of white supremacists growing faster on twitter than ISIS. The number of accounts has grown by 600 percent since 2012. What’s interesting is instead of feeling scared, I feel relieved.
Fear seems to be running rampant in the U.S. these days. Fear of the future, fear of other people. As Elizabeth Gilbert says, the Land of the Brave has become the Land of the Very Anxious. I get it.
I have a lot of fears. Most of them centering around physical safety. For much of life, I’ve tried to inoculate myself from danger by either not engaging, or by believing terrible things wouldn’t happen to me because I’m protected by my higher power. A few years ago, I was hit by a car as a pedestrian and that viewpoint shattered. It was a horrible time that shook me to my core. I realized being a woman of faith doesn’t mean I’ll escape all harm. Rather, it means regardless of what happens there is always a loving force with me.
The kidneys are often under-rated organs. They are the great detoxifiers of the body and help the body to release all that could not be used by the cells, which were then disposed of through the body's extensive lymph system. Every cell takes in nutrients from the bloodstream, which comprises around twenty percent of the area touching the cells, and then every cell releases unwanted wastes into the lymph – comprising 80% of the rest of the area around the cells.
For many of us, death is not something we think about until someone close to us passes. We may find ourselves ill-equipped to handle the intense emotions that come with losing someone we love. We may not want to think about death as it could make us upset or frightened, yet it is the people who reflect upon dying that find both a deep gratitude for being alive and an urgency to focus on what matters most in this life.