The Fear Factor: How One Emotion Connects Altruists, Psychopaths, and Everyone In-Between: Part B As I mentioned last week, I recently read the book The Fear Factor: How One Emotion Connects Altruists, Psychopaths, and Everyone In-Between by Dr. Abigail Marsh, Associate Professor of Psychology and Interdisciplinary Neuroscience at Georgetown University. Her book sparked some “light-bulb moments.” I shared the first two last week, and I am sharing the third and fourth light-bulb moments this week. For those who read last week’s post, you might want to skip directly to light-bulb moment number three, below. (Note: Dr. Marsh and many researchers refer to these disordered individuals as 'ps …
Self-Love and Healing Journey Day 28: VAKS
[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/NsHBjPwT9nY"] Did you VAKS this morning? If not, you have probably missed an opportunity to get one step closer to your goal or dream. Many successful people use similar exercises to achieve great results as part of their mental conditioning. Watch the brief session to learn about VAKS and how you can integrate it into each and every day to see changes in your life. Exercises like this would probably take only 5 minutes, but it is so important to make them as part of your daily routine. Plan your day to allow enough time for yourself, otherwise things will get in the way and you will realize you haven’t even spared a second of your day to look y …
Self-Love and Healing Journey Day 27: TIME
[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/O8a3UExwFGc"] For some TIME stands for Tears In My Eyes, and for some others it’s a Triumphant, Innovative Meaningful Experience. Time may be a noun for you and a verb for me. It depends who is using it and how, but one thing we all know for sure is that time is FREE for all of us, and it is the most priceless thing. Let me reveal a secret, if you are reading this sentence, you are wasting five seconds of your time, but…you are wasting it wisely. This quick visualization exercise will help you understand how you can become the pilot of the time. We all know that time flies, but not many of us get ready to take off our jets and enjoy that extraordinary f …
Our cultural conspiracy of silence about predators and pain finally begins to crack
By Eleanor Cowan “She broke her neck on her way down,” said a police officer at the scene. Thick yellow spray paint outlined an ovary-shaped form on the grass from which my mother’s body had been removed, wrapped in a zippered tarpaulin. Two screaming witnesses, bathers who’d been enjoying a pleasant afternoon by the building’s outdoor pool on that sunny August day, had happened to glance up to witness my mother’s horrid plummet from her seventh-floor balcony. “She didn’t feel the final impact,” the investigator added. I noticed a tinged bloodstain on the grass. “The skull sustained a crack,” said the kindly officer, following my gaze. This week, more than four decades since my mo …
Our cultural conspiracy of silence about predators and pain finally begins to crackRead More
Self-Love and Healing Journey Day 26: CREATE
[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/0dyXTMNpwgg"] When is the last time you have done something creative? Think about the film photography. If you remember looking at one of your old camera films, all you used to see on that strip was negatives. If you ever get curious how positives are developed from negatives, it’s a creative, but a complicated process - it involves removing chemicals by washing, bleaching, drying and other bizarre procedures. In the end we get beautiful quality pictures that receive everyone’s admiration. Like the film photography, life is developed from negatives. We have already learned about bizarre procedures like detoxing, cleansing, energizing, working out our bo …
Self-Love and Healing Journey Day 25: DETOX
[youtube_sc url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVNB1x9BsOs"] Can you unfriend yourself on social media? Well, me neither. We are stuck with the relationship with ourselves no matter how toxic we get! Some of us need to detox our contact list and some of us need mind, body and soul detox, like a mental enema. See, if you are thirsty and I hand you a glass, telling you it’s clean water, you will probably drink it with no problems. If, however I tell you I just filled the glass from the sewer, there is no chance you will ever touch that glass. What if you drink it without me telling you it’s from the sewer and find out about it later? Well, I would throw up too... I guess we have both be …
Self-Love and Healing Journey Day 24: NOURISH
[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/Aj0jHyW20ek"] I never seem to get lucky with orchids. Maybe I water them too much or put them in a wrong place, but they don’t seem to have that long of a life with me. As I look at the beautiful blooms of yesterday here on my desk, I wonder what I could do to nourish them to make them last longer, live longer and serve longer. Devices need power, so when they are out of juice, we plug them to a nearest power point. What do we, humans do when we run out of energy? How do we recharge ourselves? To understand this phenomenon we are going to learn where we get energy from in the first place. This visualisation exercise takes us on a journey with a little s …
Self-Love and Healing Journey Day 23: BELIEVE
[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/8tEVP4emVTI"] How do we get to believe in anything? If I tell you the world is flat instead of being round shaped, would you believe me? Why not? You have not seen the world from a distance to prove to yourself that it’s round and we walk and live on a flat surface. Conditioning, this is what makes us believe in things or people. We have been conditioned to believe things are a certain way so we start believing in some theory, in people and things. Scientific research, media, parents, peers and anyone we may come in contact with are able to condition our thinking to believe in certain things or to think a certain way. Looking back, you may feel that y …
Self-Love and Healing Journey Day 22: EMBRACE
[youtube_sc url="https://youtu.be/P3Y5p-BHiv8"] What happened when my parents came across to my crazy youtube videos? They got last minute tickets to check on me from London. And what happened to the 30 day Love & Healing series you ask? It turned into more like a 45 day Love & Healing! This however does not mean that you will be healing slower. All that matters on this journey is the understanding that it only takes one person to change your life – You. You are in charge of yourself and you Must take personal responsibility. Either you run that problem or the problem will run you - there seems no other way. So, if you are reading this post, it’s never late to start taking res …
After being targeted by a sociopath, self-blame is natural, but misguided
My motivation for writing "Husband, Liar, Sociopath: How He Lied, Why I Fell For It & The Painful Lessons Learned" and Narcissists, SOCIOPATHS & Wolves: Lessons From Little Red Riding Hood was multifaceted, including to help myself and others understand and heal. Understanding and healing is an ongoing process, and I am always learning. Self-blame and victim-blaming are common. Many involved with sociopaths experience self-blaming and are also the target of “victim-blaming.” It’s bad enough when someone we thought cared deeply for us gives us little sympathy and says things like, “How could you have been so naive?” “How did you cause this?” “How could a smart person be so stupid?” …
After being targeted by a sociopath, self-blame is natural, but misguidedRead More