I’ve accepted yet another invitation from my teacher, and will be heading out on a new journey, one that takes this place of love and light and suffering – the heart center – as a starting point, and charts the course of movement, breath, and aware…
Tag: relationships
How to Escape from an Abusive Relationship
It’s important to have a safe exit plan from an abusive relationship. The following tips might help you with this:
• Make a note of the phone numbers for your local women’s shelters.
• Confide in someone you genuinely trust (a good friend, a colleague at work, or a family member. Develop a code so they can help you if you are in an emergency (like a word you can text to them.)
• If your partner harms you, go to the emergency department and ask the staff to document your visit, and your reason for seeking medical attention.
• Journal each threat or abusive incident (with dates). If possible photograph any injuries.
• Prepare your escape in advance. Plan where you will go, and how you will get there.
• If you have a car, keep it backed in the driveway, with plenty of gas, and the keys close at hand, so that you can make a quick escape. Hide an extra set of car keys in case your partner steals and hides yours.
• Set money aside, either in a secret bank account or with a trusted friend or family members.
• Leave a packed bag with a friend or family member. This should contain an extra set of keys, essential ID (birth certificates, social security card, credit card, bank information, important phone numbers, passport, medical records etc), some clothes and any medications. If possible, avoid making use of neighbors or mutual friends.
• Know your partner’s schedule, and plan ahead for safe times to leave.
• Be especially alert to securing help through your computer or phone. Delete your internet browsing history, any websites you’ve checked out for resources, and all your old emails. If you called for help just before you left the house, dial another number afterwards in case your partner hits redial.
• Leave a false trail behind. For example, call hotels or rental agencies that are several hours away from the place you are planning on moving to.
No relationship is all sunshine, but two people can share one umbrella and survive the storm together.
here’s a tip: if you start dating a depressed person, don’t be surprised if they are still depressed while they are dating you.
they’re not depressed because they’re single, and you are not an all-powerful cure for mental illnesses. just be there for them.REAL
FUCKING
TALK
» Soulmates Have Worst Relationships – Psych Central News
Provocative new research looks into the way that people think and talk about love.
Social psychologists observed that people talk and think about love in an incessant variety of ways but underlying such diversity are some common themes that frame how we think about relationships.
One popular perspective considers love as perfect unity (“made for each other,” “she’s my other half”); in another view, love is a journey (“look how far we’ve come,” “we’ve been through all these things together”).
These two ways of thinking about relationships are particularly interesting because, according to study authors Spike W. S. Lee and Norbert Schwarz, they have the power to highlight or downplay the damaging effect of conflicts on relationship evaluation….
If your friends feel like family, there’s a good reason for it
The truism that friends are the family you choose may be more accurate than you might suppose.
A study published on Monday found that people are apt to pick friends who are genetically similar to themselves – so much so that friends tend to be as alike at the genetic level as a person’s fourth cousin.
The findings were based on an examination of about 1.5 million markers of genetic variations in a group of nearly 2,000 people who had taken part in a long-running health study based in Massachusetts. The researchers compared people identified as friends to those who were not.
The study showed people were most similar to their friends in olfactory genes, which involve the sense of smell, and were least similar in relation to immune system genes.
“Olfactory genes have a straightforward explanation: People who like the same smells tend to be drawn to similar environments, where they meet others with the same tendencies,” said one of the researchers, James Fowler, a professor of medical genetics and political science at the University of California, San Diego.
The study, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follows research released in May that found that people tended to choose spouses who have similar DNA.
Image: [x]
Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it’s supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful—something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that’s not what love is all about.
Loving behavior doesn’t grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn’t hurt, it feels good. Loving behavior nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace.
Susan Forward, Toxic Parents, p381 (via mxnotmrdarcy)
This also applies to survivors of abusive relationships.
(via rapeculturerealities)
So real
(via kimberlyxjane)
I read this and all I can think about are my niece and nephew.
(via fuckyeahlgbtqblackpeople)
Attachment Disorder
Attachment disorder is where a child or adult is unable to form normal healthy attachments. This is usually due to detrimental early life experiences – such as neglect, abuse, separation from their parents or primary caregivers (after six months of age and before three years of age), frequent change of caregivers, and lack of responsiveness from their caregivers.
Symptoms vary depending on age. In adults, they fall under one of two categories – either avoidant or anxious/ ambivalent personalities. These are summarized below.
1. Avoidant
· Intense anger and hostility
· Hypercritical of others
· Extremely sensitive to criticism, correction or blame
· Lacks empathy
· Sees others as untrustworthy and unreliable
· Either sees themselves as being unlovable or “too good” for others
· Relationships are experienced as either being too threatening or requiring too much effort
· Fear of closeness and intimacy
· Compulsive self-reliance
· Passive or uninvolved in relationships
· Find it hard to get along with co-workers and authority figures
· Prefers to work alone, or to be self employed
· May use work to avoid investing in relationships
2. Anxious/ Ambivalent
· Demonstrates compulsive caregiving
· Problems with establishing and maintaining appropriate boundaries
· Feels they give they give more than they get back
· Feels their efforts aren’t noticed or appreciated
· Idealizes people
· Expects their partner to repeatedly demonstrate their love, affection and commitment to them, and the relationship
· Emotionally over-invests in friendships and romantic relationships
· Are preoccupied with close relationships
· Overly dependent on their partner
· Believes that others are out to use them or to take advantage of them
· Fears rejection
· Is uncomfortable with anger
· Experiences a roller coaster of emotions – and often these are extremes of emotion
· Tends to be possessive and jealous; finds it hard to trust
· Believes they are essentially flawed, inadequate and unlovable.
Hey, big fan of your blog and you! I was wondering though, I recently went on depression medication and I feel that it is killing my sex drive and making it much harder to get off. Have you or any of your followers had this experience/have any advice? Thank yo so much.
It’s possible that is a side effect, yes. My advice is to talk to your prescribing psychiatrist about these side effects. Many antidepressants have this side effect, but all medications work differently on different people. This means that this medication may decrease your sex drive, but another SSRI might not, while still helping your depressive symptoms.
It’s best to wait at least 2-4 weeks for a medication to work normally in your body, but if you’ve been on it for a while, you can discuss switching or adding a medication that won’t have this side effect.
It may be awkward to talk about but your sexual wellness is health-related and you are justified in this concern. Your doctor should be very willing to discuss other options to help with this problem. If they are not, I would suggest a second opinion.
xx SF
Am I in a Healthy Relationship?
Does your boyfriend or girlfriend treat you as well as you treat him or her? Does your BF or GF support you in good times as well as bad? Does he or she get who you really are? Find out if you’re in a healthy relationship… more
Aimed primarily at teens, but still some good information no matter what age you are, particularly on the page that talks about signs of an unhealthy relationship.
Holding the Bowl 