Sweet Sara. That’s what people always used to call me. It didn’t matter where I went in the world — whether it was to visit a cousin in the Midwest, have tea with a girlfriend in Bangkok, or read a piece of fan mail from someone I’d never met before. Everyone I knew at some point arrived at “Sweet Sara” as my nickname.
Whether you're endlessly agonizing over an issue, it's a tough place to hang out. Maybe this, maybe that. You drive yourself nuts, occupying yourself with your dilemma. You feel incapable of making up your mind and feel confused, stuck, indecisive, or ambivalent.
Why do we drink alcohol? And what would make us do less of it? The government has its own answers – on January 8, the chief medical officer for England, Dame Sally Davies, announced the new government alcohol guidelines. There is now no “safe” drinking level, and the recommended lower-risk maximum per week has been reduced to 14 units, for both men and women.
It’s no secret that people slow down mentally after making a mistake. Monkeys do, too. Neuroscientists call it post-error slowing or PES.
Smugly looking down from a moral high ground – and secure in the knowledge that we don’t share their character flaw – we often dismiss those who are obsessed with the doings of others as shallow.
- By Tobin Blake
Ending guilt asks only that you accept what is right now, and stop forcing your mind to dredge up and continually relive old wounds, pains, and regrets. Forget the past; it is gone and is therefore unreal. Healing can only occur by aligning with Reality, which is located in the present.
You’re at the park with the kids. Everyone’s having fun, and then a strange dog appears. There’s no owner around. It’s eyeballing the kids. Immediately your threat system becomes activated.
New Year’s resolutions are set with the best of intentions. But they notoriously fail to translate into lasting behavioural changes.
Humankind is fit only to be exterminated – that might sometimes seem like the only answer to our ever-growing population, environmental degradation and the human threat to biodiversity. But if you accept it’s impossible to reconcile this with any meaningful morality, we need a new approach to how we conduct ourselves.
In recent decades, the popularity of self-help has made the discovery of life purpose part of our lexicon but also an inadvertent cause of pain. If no clear answer arises for the seeker, suffering sets in. People think they are flawed if no cosmic assignment is relegated to them.
- By Mary Heath
First, it’s absolutely vital that we acknowledge that we are not alone in this ‘madness’, that the holidays come around every year come what may. There is no escape but there are plenty of tried and tested techniques to assuage the stress, anxiety and exhaustion that comes along with it.
The line between “intended” and “unintended” pregnancy can be blurred. Some unintended pregnancies can lead to wanted births, and some intended pregnancies are aborted. But women should not be blamed for getting pregnant accidentally, because factors outside their control are often involved.
It's obvious that the holiday season is upon us. The idea is to thrive and enjoy during this time rather than just survive. Give yourself two great gifts for the next weeks - a lack of stress and actually celebrating the true spirit of this time of year – joy, love, and peace.
As we get older our physical and mental abilities decline, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Research suggests that the way we live our lives - our diets, our exercise regimes - can have a big impact on how we age. And it’s not just about the things we do to age well, it’s also about the things we avoid.
Every day, we are confronted with choices about how to spend our money. Whether it’s thinking about picking up the tab at a group lunch or when a charity calls asking for a donation, we are faced with the decision to behave generously or not.
Anyone with siblings knows they can differ from us in maddening ways. They share our parents and our family history, but their personalities can be so different. Birth order offers an intuitively appealing explanation for these perplexing differences.
The smell of cinnamon wafts through the air. My guard is down; resistance is futile. Like a zombie, I roll my luggage across the airport food court and stand in line to pay too much for what I don’t even want, a diet-killing Cinnabon.
Recent media reports have raised questions over the therapy undergone by several people making allegations of historical sexual abuse against prominent public figures. In particular, it has been suggested that certain forms of therapy run a high risk of unintentionally generating false memories of sexual abuse.
Many people still operate with an inner belief that if they try harder to be better — the best, perfect — then everything will be so much better in all areas of their lives. So they take a vow: “I have to be perfect and will be critical of myself until I am.”
- By Lisa Garr
The best advice I’ve ever heard is what I will tell you right now: When something in your life goes wrong, look for the lesson that you can learn from this event. Somewhere there is energy that is trying to teach you something.
Can something as simple as watching movies—and empathizing with fictional characters—help generate more compassion and understanding in the real world?
The history of our species is brutal, tragic in the cruelty we have afflicted upon one another, upon other species, and upon Earth herself. Our situation has come to a critical stage. Are there some heretofore hidden processes in us that we could activate, some homeopathic remedies for our violence that could stimulate more empathy, connectedness, and love?
For the majority of people if they turned on a radio and the station was negative and critical, fearful, whining, or complaining they would turn it off. Most people would take control of the situation and choose something that would be more enjoyable and more productive. You may wish to take some time to tune in and really become aware of the background station that you are tuned into...