March 19, 2024

Culture


Brain expert: The No. 1 thing that sets ‘SuperAgers’ apart from people with ‘weak memory skills’

No Title

No Description

There is a group of people that longevity researchers call “SuperAgers,” who are in their 80s and beyond, but have the cognitive function of those decades younger.

Conversely, it’s possible for your brain to be older than your chronological age, which is what we want to avoid.

As a neuroscience researcher and author of “The Age-Proof Brain,” I’ve found that it’s our behaviors, not just our genes, that have a powerful impact on our brain’s destiny.  

So what sets SuperAgers apart from people who have weak memory skills? According to a 2021 study that followed SuperAgers over the course of 18 months, one key differentiator was that they kept learning new things throughout their life.

SuperAgers learn something new every day

Think of the brain like a bank account. We make “deposits” — or new connections between our brain cells — by learning. Our memories are housed in these connections.

As we age, we naturally lose some of those connections. It’s like making a withdrawal every year. But the more deposits we make throughout our lives, the less our net worth is affected by these withdrawals.

One study found that adults with more years of education had more active frontal lobes when they took memory tests. Activity in the frontal lobe is associated with better memory.

But higher education isn’t the only way to maintain memory. In another study, even if individuals had lower levels of education, if they attended lectures, read, wrote and read often, they had memory scores on par with those with more education.

Which types of learning are best for brain health?

Keeping your brain healthy is not all about Sudoku, Wordle or crossword puzzles. Those can have cognitive benefits, but you are mostly exercising with the knowledge and skills you already have.

What does make significantly new connections in the brain is learning new skills and information. And the process should be challenging: SuperAgers embrace — and sometimes crave — that feeling of frustration when they learn something outside of their expertise.

‘Cross-train’ your brain

Approach learning the way you would with fitness training. You wouldn’t go to the gym and only work out your forearms. Eventually, you would look like Popeye.

The same goes for the brain. Learning a new language, for example, works out different parts of the brain than a new sport or instrument does.

You can cross-train your brain by mixing mental and physical learning activities. Get out your calendar and plan different types of activities using this plan:

  • Day 1: Learn something mentally stimulating, such as listening to a podcast or taking an online course.
  • Day 2:  Do something that requires learning through movement, such as a new sport, dance or yoga pose.
  • Day 3:  Be social. Grab coffee with a friend or go to a dinner party. Yes, social interaction is a form of learning that has been associated with staving off dementia.

No matter what it is, learning new things keeps your brain young. So if you discovered something you didn’t know before from reading this article, you’re already helping your brain age at a slower pace.

Marc Milstein, PhD, is a brain health expert and author of “The Age-Proof Brain: New Strategies to Improve Memory, Protect Immunity, and Fight Off Dementia.” He earned both his PhD in Biological Chemistry and his Bachelor of Science in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from UCLA, and has conducted research on genetics, cancer biology and neuroscience. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.


Preventing the new feudalism in the housing market

If you don’t follow the housing market closely, you might not know how much the price of an average home in American Fork, Utah, increased between March and April. 

Or what the Canadian government announced April 8.

Or who is the largest landlord in Spain.

But these seemingly disparate things are all connected and spell trouble for not only for housing in general, but for democracy more broadly. They could even affect the size of American families in coming decades. Let me explain.

As thorough reporting in the Deseret News has already noted, there has been a huge shift in the residential property market in recent years. This change is not confined to the U.S., but is truly a global phenomenon.

The shift started after the Great Recession and has been building steam since that time. As a prelude to the Great Recession, speculative investors began buying up dodgy mortgage securities, and the housing market eventually came tumbling down like a house of cards, with many families losing their homes (and investors losing a lot of money). 

The weak point in the scheme were the mortgages; their value depended on homeowners making their payments and many defaulted. But what if you eliminated the weak point? What if speculators simply bought the houses and condos outright, and instead of flipping them, they held on to them? 

That’s a whole new game. Now the profit derives not from collecting mortgages, or even from selling flipped homes. Now the profit derives from rents and selling rent-based securities (SFRs), because in a context where new building has stagnated for various COVID-19-related reasons, landlords hold a lot of power. And now powerful Wall Street investment firms are landlords who have shown they wield:

Power to raise rents by an average of 23% nationwide in the last year, and up to 40% in some locales, as well as tack on numerous new fees (some patently extortionate), not to mention the euphemistically called practice of “re-tenanting.”

Power to foist all repair responsibilities onto tenants. And power to evade SALT deduction caps.

In other words, landlords have the power to make an immense amount of money without needing to be socially responsible. One renter described her Wall Street landlord as “a huge, billion-dollar slumlord.”

No wonder approximately 1 in 5 homes is bought by an investment firm now (in some areas, it’s 1 in 3), and homeownership rates are dropping. In the 1970s, homeownership stood at about 63%; among young adults now, it’s down to 37%, and that’s not necessarily by choice. Last year, about 15% of families looking for a home found they either could not afford a home, or there were no homes to buy. In Utah, year-over-year increases in average home prices are about 20%.

Investment firms can take those large profits from rents and plow them right back into buying additional housing stock, and they’re expanding into buying mobile home parks and college housing. Ordinary homebuyers don’t stand a chance against the money Wall Street investment firms have amassed to instantly pay cash for any property they see, with a premium above the current market value tacked on to secure the winning bid. These buyers show up to home sales with suitcases full of cashier’s checks or cash, which is why the price of a home in American Fork rose by over 6% just this past month.

And it doesn’t matter if all this outbidding leads to housing price inflation, because people will always need a place to live — and landlords can charge them premium rents to offset the premium price they paid. As the Deseret News’ Katie McKellar has noted, “A stunning 1 in 5 Utah renters are considered ‘severely cost-burdened,’ meaning they pay more than 50% of their income on rent, according to state and federal data.”

Investment buyers can even use their profits to build new units — not to sell, but to rent. “Build-to-rent developments,” they call them, and you can see them all up and down the Wasatch Front. Properties that would have been sold to ordinary homebuyers will now never be sold to ordinary homebuyers. Their occupants will simply have to resign themselves to being permanent tenants instead. There is little chance they will ever be able to afford a home of their own, along the lines of the World Economic Forum’s idea of an idyllic world: “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy. Whatever you want, you’ll rent.”

So while it’s true that strategies to increase housing stock — such as innovating new building technologies that are less expensive and not subject to supply chain issues, or buying federal lands for housing construction — can help stabilize home prices and rents, if these new units are simply bought by investment firms, the underlying problem remains the same

As Elena Botella points out, “Although the number of houses being purchased by mega-investors is currently not enough to move the market in most parts of the country, these firms’ underlying structural advantage is profound and growing.”RELATED

This megatrend lurks in the background as various advocates argue for and against density, mass transportation, zoning regulations, accessory dwelling units, rent caps and changes to the property tax codes.

Maybe it’s time to take a harder look at what’s in the background of these foregrounded debates, and ask if change in that background will be necessary in order to see progress on these other issues.

Why ownership matters

My thoughts on this topic were prompted by a superb essay, “Serfing the Future?” by Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox, who argue that we’re entering an era of land ownership consolidation that hasn’t been seen on this scale since the days of feudalism. They assert this shift has massive implications for the future:

“Unless reversed, young people will be forced into a lifetime of rental serfdom. The assets that drove middle-class stability, wider social benefit, and subsidized comfortable retirements, will likely not be available to them. Property remains key to financial security: Homeowners have a median net worth more than 40 times that of renters, according to the Census Bureau. Shoving prospective homeowners into the rental market not only depresses their ambitions, but it also forces up rents, which hurts poorer households and even solid minority neighborhoods.

“But this impacts far more than just finances. Low affordability and high rents tend to depress the fertility rate, contributing to what is rapidly becoming a demographic implosion in many countries. … Families overwhelmingly favor less dense housing and frequently decide to have children once they buy a house. A recent National Bureau of Economic Research study draws this conclusion, seeing a 10% increase in home prices leads to a 1% decrease in births among nonhomeowners in an average metropolitan area. … High prices and density are poison to fecundity.”

Moreover, they say, democracy throughout history has depended upon small-property owners. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “A nation of homeowners, of people who own a real share in their land, is unconquerable.” Dispersed property ownership is one key hallmark of democracy.

If Kotkin and Cox are right, then this shift to neofeudalism facilitated by the consolidation of land ownership by investment firms has immense ramifications for our future, whether we speak of that future in terms of poverty, demography or even robust democracy.

What’s to be done, then? Countries are starting to fight back against this trend, and the United States — and Utah — would be well advised to take a look at what they are doing, and see what can be emulated here. 

A number of countries have outright bans on foreign ownership of existing residential housing stock. In fact, Canada just announced a two-year ban on real estate sales to foreigners. Australia and New Zealand already have such restrictions and also impose much higher property taxes on foreign owners of real estate. Other countries allow such sales, but only if local authorities agree to them or other tight restrictions are met. Certainly this low-hanging fruit is something that U.S. and Utah lawmakers could consider addressing forthwith.

Unfortunately, in the U.S. and Utah, in large measure, “the call is coming from inside the house.” While such bans and taxes may help decrease, for example, Chinese investment in the U.S. housing market, they won’t affect American investment firms engaged in these same practices. And American investment firms, such as Blackstone, are some of the very largest global players in this game, as well as generous donors to American politicians. Did you know, for example, that Blackstone is the largest private landlord in all of Spain?

If lawmakers are serious about avoiding the fate that Kotkin and Cox foresee, they must come up with effective ways of prying housing stock loose from large American corporations and investment firms. Housing must be available to be bought, not merely rented, by ordinary people in Utah and the United States. The effects are not only felt in wealth accumulation for families, in the existence of a middle class and in family reproductive trends, but also spill over into neighborhood formation; as one commenter put it, “Owning makes people take responsibility and feel more investment in their community.” 

Carrots and sticks

A two-pronged approach is needed. Lawmakers must come up with ways to restrict sales of housing to corporations and investment firms and also devise ways to incentivize corporations and investment firms to sell housing stock they already own to ordinary buyers (aka “owner-occupiers”).

Various countries have begun exploring both avenues. For example, with regard to sales restrictions, the Biden administration is already (slightly) clamping down by new regulations on cash-only real estate purchases, limiting sales of FHA-insured and HUD-owned properties to large investors and proposing higher taxes for investor buyers.

Cincinnati is buying homes that might be bought by large investors, and then planning to sell them to owner-occupants. Ireland has moved to block investment firms from buying large chunks of housing stock by levying special taxes on the purchase of more than 10 properties, and by insisting that 50% of new developments go to owner-occupiers. Other locales have even set a numeric limit on the number of units that can be owned by a corporation or investment firm (and all its subsidiaries and shells), or limits on number of rental units in a given subdivision. 

Other strategies include measures that prohibit bulk sales of foreclosed homes or mandate that the owner must live in the property for a year before the unit can be rented out. Still others make such sales very expensive by levying a special social impact tax on investor buyers at the time of sale or on yearly profits that can add up to the price of the home, or by placing restrictions on the bidding process itself to make it fairer to regular homebuyers, or by offering government grants to ordinary homebuyers to help them be more competitive in bidding against investment firms. (Berliners have even voted to force predatory corporate owners to divest and sell units to the government.)

The second prong of the strategy is to make holding onto the housing stock burdensome for the corporate owner. Proposals to establish special (read: higher) property tax tiers for corporate owners, or changing tax law to make certain expenses and taxes non-deductible for corporate owners have been floated, as well as devaluation of property investments for tax purposes for investment firms.

Rent increase caps are a frequently used approach to denying corporate owners exorbitant profits, though they can sometimes have unintended negative effects.

Still other countries and locales outlaw the practice of forcing tenants to repair their own units, fine vacant property owners for failure to keep up the property, impose special taxes on vacant properties or properties owned by foreigners, tighten underwriting for investor buyers, and make it far easier for tenants to fight eviction.

Some countries and locales use a carrot instead of a stick and reward corporate owners who establish “rent-to-own” contracts with their tenants (though care must be taken in crafting these) and also make it easier for renters to qualify for mortgages.

In short, neither the U.S. nor Utah is helpless in the face of this great shift toward neofeudalism. We needn’t countenance the push to turn our children into a generation of serfs, our land into some investment firm’s feudal dukedom, and our government into rule by a landed corporate aristocracy. It’s high time for federal, state and local leadership to face this serious challenge to our future, otherwise, as Kotkin puts it, “Unlike their forebears, the next generation seems likely to live increasingly as propertyless serfs.”

More at:

https://www.deseret.com/2022/4/28/23041171/perspective-preventing-the-new-feudalism-in-the-housing-market


‘Smartphones as security blankets’ prevent us from living fully human lives

It’s an irony that the very devices that are causing us so much stress have also become pacifiers that make us less likely to actually do something.

A Saturday column in the Washington Post posed an unsettling question: “Are smartphones serving as adult pacifiers?” It begins with the story of a UPenn assistant professor observing that while working on her PhD, she often reached for her phone when she was stressed. “Just holding it made me feel good,” Shiri Melumud said. “It gave me a sense of ease or calm. It was similar to children who seek out their pacifiers when they are stressed. For many of us, our phone represents an attachment object, much as a security blanket or teddy bear does for a child.”

At first glance, the comparison doesn’t seem apt. After all, our smartphones often cause us active stress — social media companies intentionally use anger, fear, division, lust, or loneliness to monetize our attention and drag our eyeballs past more ads to keep their tabs running higher. But Melumud’s comparison went further. Like children, she noted, we often “become frantic” when we misplace our omnipresent smartphones, which serve as digital security blankets. We use them constantly, and for everything. We route our lives through these devices.

But as it turns out, the role of smartphones in our lives may be even larger than we thought. According to the Post: “[S]cientists studying the relationship between people and their smartphones also have come up with additional insights in recent years about how people behave when using them, including discovering that people can draw needed comfort by their mere presence.” In short, we genuinely form “a deep personal connection with our phones” that become, in some senses, extensions of our personalities—and we open up more on our phones than in other spheres of our lives.

According to Aner Sela, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Florida who has been researching the subject: “Smartphones allow people to be themselves. When we are engaged with our phones, we feel we are in a protected place. You feel like you are in your own private bubble when you use them. We get into a state of private self-focus, looking inward, paying attention to how we feel, and less attuned to the social context around us.” Without this “bubble” — or pacifier — we tend to panic.

Kostdin Kushlev, a psychology professor at Georgetown who researches health and digital technology, agrees. Although we don’t entirely know what is at the root of our attachment to our smartphones, he says, “one theory that makes sense to me is that they represent that we have friends. It’s a reminder that we have friends, and knowing we can reach them, even remotely, is comforting. Also, they are very personal devices, more so than any other device, and with us all the time.” In some ways, we have invested a bizarre level of humanity to our smartphones. We are “users” — not in the good sense, either.

But researchers also agree that “smartphones as security blankets” are preventing us from living fully human lives as relationships go digital and we outsource our connections to technology. Time spent on our smartphones, after all, is necessarily time spent not doing other things. Children raised with screens will often literally see them as pacifiers, and what parent does not default to distracting children with a smartphone when trying to get something done, have a conversation, or simply get a moment’s peace? The problem is that we are conditioning ourselves — and increasingly, not growing out of the habit as we would with traditional pacifiers.

A few weeks ago on my LifeSiteNews podcast, I interviewed Chris Martin, author of the new book Terms of Service: The Real Cost of Social Media. Martin detailed how Big Tech has hacked our brains; how our smartphones have taken over our lives; and how we can (and must) carve out space to live more fully human — and Christian — lives again.

It is an irony that the very devices that are causing us so much stress — through non-stop social media, doom-scrolling the latest pandemic or war news, the fear of missing out on what is going on right now — have also become pacifiers that make us less likely to actually do something. Smartphones have become the problem and the solution in a single package — the source of and the solution to our stress. As Martin points out, extracting ourselves from the digital hamster wheel is the only genuine and lasting way to live more human lives.

More at:

https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/smartphones-as-security-blankets-prevent-us-from-living-fully-human-lives/?utm_source=home_blogs&utm_campaign=usa


Mass Formation Psychosis

Video by Dr. Robert Malone

Billions Of People Are Affected By This & They Don’t Realize It | Dr. Robert Malone 2021

Dr. Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA vaccine, breaks down the “mass formation” phenomenon that makes it difficult to reason with those who have fallen victim to the globalist leader propaganda. Hear what he says is the hope we have before a total takeover.

Billions Of People Are Affected By This & They Don’t Realize It | Dr. Robert Malone 2021


People in ‘Blue Zones’ live longer. What’s the secret? Follow the Blue Zone Power 9 rules

Bryant Stamford Special to Courier Journal

In a recent column, I wrote about the results of a survey of 70-year-old folks asking them if they wanted to live to be 100. Results were surprising because the vast majority said no.

Why? They viewed their quality of life as poor, living with chronic aches and pains, taking all sorts of prescription medications, suffering with a loss of mobility, etc., and life was certain to get worse with advancing years.

While the above attitude is understandable, there are places around the world where folks would respond quite differently to this survey. These folks are healthy and physically active in their advanced years, and many live to be 100. Such locations are referred to as Blue Zones, and include specific regions of Greece, Costa Rica, Japan, and Sardinia, plus one in the U.S., a community in Loma Linda, California with a high concentration of Seventh-Day Adventists.

What’s their secret? Scientists suggest that about 20% of the longevity effect is associated with genes. This means that to reach a healthy and active 100 years likely requires some sort of genetic advantage. Without such an advantage, you can still be robust in your 80s and 90s. The key is a healthy lifestyle, and one approach is to follow the Blue Zone Power 9 rules.

What are the Blue Zone Power 9 rules for a long, healthy life?

The Power 9 rules recognize that the body operates as one unified entity, taking into consideration not only the physical concerns of the body but also the emotional and psychological concerns. The first four of the Power 9 rules have to do with taking care of the body.

1). Regular exercise is critical

Improving mobility by using cellular therapy increases the ability to improve walking gait which in turn lowers risk of disease and mortality.

Regular exercise is critical and is built naturally into the lifestyle. This means lots of everyday movements with a purpose, like growing a large garden, yard work, doing household chores manually, walking your errands, etc. Because of the constant demands of such exercise, it works the entire body frequently throughout the day, challenging the muscles to stay strong, expending considerable calories, and keeping the joints mobile and responsive.

2). You must eat responsibly

Eat responsibly, and not with the goal of becoming full. Blue Zone folks eat most of their food when they are highly active, in the morning and early afternoon. Smaller meals are consumed later in the day, then they stop eating altogether. One aspect is not eating too much at one meal. Ancient Confucian teaching applies. Stop eating when you are 80% full because the 20% gap between being hungry and feeling full is likely the difference between gaining or losing weight.

3). Focus on plant-based foods

A traditional Mediterranean diet, with olives, nuts, fruits, many types of vegetables and olive oil, has been shown in a recent medical study to be the best diet for keeping people healthy. (Herald-Times / DAVID SNODGRESS)

Focus on plant-based foods, with core items like beans (black, soy, lentils), nuts, fruits and vegetables. Modest fish consumption is OK, but meat, if consumed at all, is eaten rarely and with a serving of about the size of a deck of cards (3.5-ounces). A vegetarian lifestyle is popular in the Loma Linda community of Seventh-Day Adventists.

4). Everything in moderation

A common element in all Blue Zones is moderation, emphasizing moderate alcohol consumption, primarily red wine, a glass per day with meals, or with friends. Red wine has been touted as healthy for the heart due to the antioxidants contained in dark-colored grapes. The same is true for antioxidants in black coffee, consumed in moderation throughout the day.

And, of course, it goes without saying, no smoking.

What are the emotional, psychological Power 9 rules?

The last five of the Power 9 rules have to do with taking care of the body from an emotional and physical well-being standpoint: 

5). Have a purpose in life

Yoga poses (asanas) are only one small part of a larger practice that includes ethics, breathwork and mindfulness.

Have a purpose in life, a reason for getting out of bed in the morning. This is thought to be a major factor, especially considering that late in life we retire from the workplace, and when we do, we often lose our sense of purpose.

6). Cope effectively with stress

Healthy longevity demands that we cope effectively with stress, and not let it get the better of us. Varying strategies are employed in Blue Zones, including daily prayer, taking a mid-day nap, happy hour with friends and relatives, and taking time to remember ancestors. Another aspect is living a low-tech lifestyle, without being overloaded by constant input from TV, radio, and social media.

7). Cultivate a faith-based sense of belonging

Cultivate a faith-based sense of belonging. In their research of Blue Zones, scientists found that 258 out of 265 centenarians (100 + year old folks) belonged to a faith-based community. The denomination didn’t matter, nor the nature of the beliefs involved. The key was belonging and regularly gathering and sharing with others with similar beliefs.

8). Family ties are critical

No matter what gift you give the grandparents in your life, if you put thought into your gift and give with love, you'll make them very happy this holiday season and throughout the whole year. ©istockphoto.com/omgimages (courtesy)

Family ties are critical. In Blue Zones, the emphasis is on staying close, even keeping aging parents and grandparents in the home. Also, in Blue Zones there is a great commitment to a life partner.

9). Socialize with like-minded people

Social networking in small groups with others who share lifestyles that support healthy behaviors helps keep folks on the path. This also goes a long way toward combating the loneliness that is so common among the elderly.

How can I take the Blue Zone Power 9 quiz?

If you are curious about your odds of living to be 100, there is a quiz you can take that addresses how you are doing with regard to the Blue Zone Power 9 Rules. It’s called the True Vitality Test by Blue Zones. I took the quiz, which can be found at apps.bluezones.com/en/vitality/background, and I did pretty well, but no brass ring. I’m not predicted to reach 100, but some advice was provided for tweaking my lifestyle that can add a few years.

More at:

https://www.courier-journal.com/story/life/wellness/health/2021/12/02/how-to-follow-blue-zone-power-9-rules-long-life/8516023002/


Love, Communication & Touch

Clear communication is a window into the world of your partner; truly being heard is a powerful aphrodisiac

By Harvelle Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt

September 10, 2021

The Latin word “imago”—meaning “image”—refers to the “unconscious image of familiar love.” What we find is that there is frequently a connection between frustrations in adult relationships and early childhood experiences. As an example, individuals frequently criticized as a child will likely be highly sensitive to their partner’s criticism. Childhood feelings of abandonment, suppression or neglect will often arise in a marriage or committed relationship.

When such “core issues” repeatedly come up with a partner, they can overshadow all that is good in a relationship and leave one to wonder whether he or she has chosen the right mate.

Through Imago Relationship Therapy, couples can learn to understand each other’s feelings and “childhood wounds” more empathically, allowing them to heal themselves and their relationships so they can move toward a more “Conscious Relationship.”

As illustrated in Dr. Hendrix’s New York Times bestselling book, Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, learning and teaching the “Imago Dialogue” allows couples to move from blame and reactivity, to understanding and empathy, so they can create a deeper and loving connection with each other.

From conflict to hope

At some point in their relationship, couples often find themselves struggling with anger and shock, despair and sadness. Some are newlyweds, and can’t understand how they have plummeted from the heights of love and glory into a swamp of hopelessness and conflict. Others have been married for many years, and though they have been slogging along – in calm or storm – their days of wine and roses are a dim memory. Even if life at home is relatively peaceful, couples lament that they have “nothing in common anymore.” And so they lead a disappointed or angry co-existence, each with their own friends and interests, in a marriage of convenience, or an arrangement they endure “for the sake of the children.”

Shattered dreams, whatever form they take, are painful. But there is hope. In fact, the pain and conflict of committed relationships arise not out of lack of love for our partners, but from a misunderstanding of what love relationships are about. Your conflict can be the very fuel for the fulfillment you seek.

Why do we fall in love?

What is really happening when we fall in–and out of–love?
What’s really going on when couples fight?

To gain insight into the hidden agenda of a relationship, we need to look at the complex process of human growth and development, and at how we human beings fit into the larger scheme of things.

We believe that we are creatures of nature, with the evolutionary program of our species encoded in our genes, and that we all begin life in a state of relaxed and joyful bliss. If our caretakers are attuned to our wants and needs, ready and able to provide warmth safety and sustenance, our feelings of aliveness and well-being are sustained. We remain whole.

But even in the best of circumstances, our parents are not able to maintain perfect standards, to be available every minute, to always understand exactly what is needed or to meet every demand. Tired, angry, depressed, busy, ill, distracted, afraid–our parents fail to sustain our feelings of security and comfort.

Every unmet need causes fear and pain and, in our infantile ignorance, we have no idea how to stop it and restore our feeling of safety. As a response, we adopt primitive coping mechanisms ranging from constant crying to get attention to withdrawing inward and denying that we even have needs. Meanwhile, throughout our childhood, we are also being socialized, molded by our caretakers and communities to fit into society. Observant and malleable, we learn what to do to gain love and acceptance. We repress or disown parts of ourselves that society finds unacceptable or unlovable. Our sense of “allrightness” diminishes, and we end up as shadows of our whole, true selves.

Most of us had “good enough” caretakers; we do all right. Some of us didn’t fare so well, and our lives are handicapped by deep hurts. All of us were wounded in childhood to some extent. We are now coping as well as we can with the world and our relationships, but parts of our true nature were suppressed in the unconscious. We look grown up–we have jobs and responsibilities–but we are walking wounded, trying to live life fully while unconsciously hoping to somehow restore the sense of joyful aliveness we began with.

When we fall in love, we believe we’ve found that sense of joyful aliveness! Suddenly, we see life in technicolor. We nibble each others’ ears and tell each other everything; our limitations and rigidities melt away. We’re sexier, smarter, funnier, more giving. We feel whole, we feel like ourselves. Finally we feel safe, and breathe a sigh of relieved deliverance. It looks like everything is going to turn out all right, after all.

Harville and Helen: Making a Pact to Remove Negativity

Harville Hendrix and his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, talk about how to stop the “monkey brain” and how couples can work together to heal their relationship. https://kripalu.org

Why does falling in love go wrong?

But inevitably–often when we marry or move in together–things just start to go wrong. In some cases, all hell breaks loose. The veil of illusion falls away, and it seems that our partners are different than we thought they were. It turns out they have qualities that we can’t bear. Even qualities we once admired grate on us. Old hurts are reactivated as we realize that our partners cannot or will not love and care for us as they promised. Our dream shatters.

Disillusionment turns to anger, fueled by fear that we won’t survive without the love and safety that was within our grasp. Since our partner is no longer willingly giving us what we need, we change tactics, trying to maneuver our partners into caring–through anger, crying, withdrawal, shame, intimidation, criticism–whatever works. We will make them love us. Or we may negotiate for time, love, chores, gifts.

The power struggle has begun, and may go on for many years, until we split. Or we settle into an uneasy truce.

What is going on here? Apparently you have found an Imago partner. Someone, I’m afraid, who is uniquely unqualified (at the moment), to give you the love you want.

Furthermore, this is what’s supposed to happen!

Let me explain. We all think that we have freedom of choice when it comes to selecting our partners. But regardless of what it is we think we’re looking for in a mate, our unconscious has its own agenda.

Our primitive “old” brain has a compelling, non-negotiable drive to restore the feeling of aliveness and wholeness that we came into the world with. To accomplish that, it must repair the damage done in childhood as a result of unmet needs, and the way it does that is to find a partner who can give us what our caretakers failed to provide.

You’d think, then, that we would choose someone who has what our caretakers lacked. If only that were so! But the old brain has a mind of its own, with its own checklist of desired qualities. It is carrying around its own image of the perfect partner, a complex synthesis of qualities formed in reaction to the way our caretakers responded to our needs. Every pleasure or pain, every transaction of childhood, has left its mark on us, and these collective impressions form an unconscious picture we’re always trying to replicate as we scan our environment for a suitable mate.

This image of “the person who can make me whole again” I call the Imago.

Though we consciously seek only the positive traits, the negative traits of our caretakers are more indelibly imprinted in our Imago picture, because those are the traits which caused the painful experiences we now seek to heal. Our unconscious need is to have our feelings of aliveness and wholeness restored by someone who reminds us of our caretakers. In other words, we look for someone with the same deficits of care and attention that hurt us in the first place.

So when we fall in love, when bells ring and the world seems altogether a better place, our old brain is telling us that we’ve found someone with whom we can finally get our needs met. Unfortunately, since we don’t understand what’s going on, we’re shocked when the awful truth of our beloved surfaces, and our first impulse is to run screaming in the opposite direction.

But that’s not all the bad news. Another powerful component of our Imago is that we seek the qualities missing in ourselves that got lost in the shuffle of socialization. If we are shy, we seek someone outgoing; if we’re disorganized, we’re attracted to someone cool and rational. But eventually, when our own feelings—our repressed exuberance or anger—are stirred, we are uncomfortable, and criticize our partners for being too outgoing, too coldly rational, to temperamental.

Why is conflict good!?

Being aware of ourselves is the key; it changes everything.

When we understand that we have chosen our partners to heal certain painful experiences, and that the healing of those experiences is the key to the end of longing, we have taken the first step on the journey to real love.

What we need to understand and accept is that conflict is supposed to happen. This is as nature intended it: Everything in nature is in conflict. Conflict is a sign that the psyche is trying to survive, to get its needs met and become whole. It’s only without this knowledge that conflict is destructive.

Divorce does not solve the problems of relationship. We may get rid of our partners, but we keep our problems, carting them into the next relationship. Divorce is incompatible with the intentions of nature.

Romantic love is supposed to end. It is the glue that initially bonds two incompatible people together so that they will do what needs to be done to heal themselves.

The good news is that although many couples become hopelessly locked in the power struggle, it too is supposed to end.

Regardless of what we may believe, relationships are not born of love, but of need; real love is born in relationships, as a result of understanding what they are about and doing what is necessary to have them.

You may already be with your dream partner, but at the moment, he or she is in disguise–and, like you, in pain. A Conscious Relationship itself is the practice you need to restore your sense of aliveness. The goal of Imago Practice is to change the power struggle and set you on the path of real love.

How to make conflict bring us closer

Many couples’ problems are rooted in misunderstood, manipulated, or avoided communications. To correct this, we have created the Imago Dialogue, the core skill of Imago Practice.

Using this effective communications technique, you can restructure the way you talk to each other, so that what you say to each other is mirrored back to you, is validated, and empathized with. You can use the Imago Dialogue to tell each other all about your childhoods, to state your frustrations clearly, and to articulate exactly what you need from each other in order to heal.

Clear communication is a window into the world of your partner; truly being heard is a powerful aphrodisiac.

Over time, we move from a staring at exteriors to a sharing of interiors, as we learn to participate in the emotional realm of the other, while holding onto our own, separate experience.

Initially, Dialogue may feel artificial. With practice, it will become seamless and connecting.

In the Dialogue, both partners cross a bridge into each other’s worlds, motivated not only by the Receiver’s desire to be “hear and understand” but also to meet the Sender’s need to be “heard and understood.” The Dialogue fosters intentionality, a commitment to slow down our lives and devote specific uninterrupted time to our relationships. The Dialogue ultimately says to the other, “I respect your otherness; I want to learn from it. And I want to share mine with you.”

One of the greatest learnings of Dialogue is the discovery of two distinct worlds. Whenever two people are involved, there are always two realities. These realities will always be different in small and large ways, no matter what. And the reality of the other person can be understood, accepted, valued, and even loved but not made to be identical to our own.

Finding true love

The Dialogue must also be turned into action: we give our partners what they need, and not just what is easy to give. Now we come to the heart of the matter: in a Conscious relationship we agree to change in order to give our partner what s/he needs. This is a radical idea. Conventional wisdom says that people don’t change, that we should simply learn to accept each other as we are. But without change, there is no growth; we are confined to the fate, to remaining stuck in our unhappiness.

Change is the catalyst for healing. In changing to give our partners what they need, we heal our own painful experiences. Our own behavior was born in response to our particular deprivations; it is our adaptation to loss. In giving our partners what is hardest for us to give, we have to bring our hidden selves out into the light, owning and enlivening parts of ourselves. When we change our behavior in response to our mate, we heal our partner and ourselves.

I call the process by which we alter our entrenched behaviors to give our partners what they need stretching, for it requires that we conquer our fears and do what comes unnaturally. Our resistance reflects our defenses. Often we may feel that we’re losing ourselves but we are not ourselves now; it is in the crucible of change that we regain ourselves.

Over the course of time, as our partners demonstrate their love for us, as they learn about and accept our hidden selves, and as we stretch to love our partners, our pain and self-absorption diminishes. We restore our empathic feelings for our partners, and our feelings of connection to the other that were lost in the pain of our childhood. Finally we learn to see our partners for themselves, with their own private world of personal meaning, their own ideas and dreams, and not merely as extensions of ourselves, or as we wish they were. We no longer say, “You liked that awful movie?”, but rather “Tell me why you liked that movie. I want to know how you think.”

Finally, we can relax; everything is all right.

A conscious relationship is a spiritual path which leads us home again, to joy and aliveness, to the feeling of oneness we started out with. All through the course of Imago Practice, we learn to express love as a behavior daily, in large and small ways: in other words, in stretching to give our partner what they need, we learn to love. The transformation of our relationships may not be accomplished easily or quickly; we are setting off on a lifelong journey.

More at:

What is Imago? – Harville and Helen

What is Imago Relationship Therapy? Developed by Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt in 1980, Imago Relationship Therapy is a form of relationship and couples therapy that focuses on relational counseling to transform any conflict between couples into opportunities for healing and growth.

The Surprising Benefits of Doing Nothing

Amid the ‘great resignation,’ some Americans are accomplishing more by doing less

By Sofia Jeremias  Aug 25, 2021, 10:00pm MDT

Celeste Headlee pushed her nose right through the grindstone. After years of putting in long hours as a journalist and public speaker she decided it wasn’t worth it. Despite making good money, and having control of her schedule, she wasn’t enjoying the fruits of her labor. Headlee had become impatient and irritable, and she had stopped enjoying activities that used to bring her joy. Simply put, she wasn’t happy. She wanted to enjoy spending time with friends and family again, to realign her life around the things that mattered most.

She started researching the history of labor and work culture in hopes of healing herself. She realized it wasn’t going to be simple; the right app or a digital detox wouldn’t dissolve her malaise. After talking with friends and family members who also admitted feeling more tired and stressed out than ever, she used her research to write “Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving.”

The pandemic has encouraged many people to reevaluate their professional lives. Call it burnout, languishing or simply the realization that life is too short, but many workers are not thrilled to return to the status quo. Four million people in the U.S. quit their jobs in April, while 40% of the global workforce was considering quitting this summer as some employers started mandating that they return to the office. Many have cited feeling exhausted from overextending themselves through lockdown and other implications of COVID-19. Economists have taken to calling this shift the “great resignation.”

In an interview with Deseret, Headlee explains some of the key lessons of her book, how she’s been managing to take her own advice and how the global pandemic gave us an opportunity to recalibrate our values.

Deseret News: COVID-19 forced many people to work from home for the first time. Do you think the past year exacerbated the tendency to overwork? Or do you think it provided some folks the opportunity to slow down and reconsider their habits?

Celeste Headlee: When the pandemic hit, I was convinced that in order to cope with the incredible stress, trauma and anxiety of COVID we were going to make the wrong choices. I was right. People started working longer hours, taking more meetings and spending hours at a time at their computers without standing up. They allowed work to claim every part of their home. People also brought home their toxic productivity habits. They became someone who not only made sourdough bread, but baked the ultimate sourdough bread. But they also had a dawning realization that it was too much. There was a purpose to all the things our parents and grandparents used to do, from playing card games to stamp collecting to polishing rocks. The purpose was leisure.

DN: I love how you mention cross-stitching as an activity that brings you joy but isn’t productive. Why is it so important to have hobbies that are simply for pleasure?

CH: One study showed that people felt even more impatient while listening to beautiful music if you made them think about how much their hourly pay was. If you want to enjoy your life and what you do, stop thinking about whether it’s adding to your brand or making you money.

DN: In your book, you talk about the concept of “polluted time.” Can you explain what that is and why it’s harmful?

CH: “Polluted time” is when work creeps in on our free time. If you’re at dinner with a friend or a family member and a work notification comes in, even if you don’t check it, your focus is going to be pulled away and it will take about 15 minutes to fully refocus on that person. When you pollute your time you start to feel like you’re short on it. That’s going to make your empathy, compassion, patience, tolerance drop. When your brain has a sense of scarcity of any kind, your IQ declines by 13 or 14 points. This has a massive impact because you become more impulsive and make terrible decisions, resulting in an even greater sense of scarcity. Things become a crisis.

DN: You write about the “default mode network,” an important mental state where we put past events into context, imagine the future and make moral evaluations, and you say it can only be accessed when we allow our minds to wander. How do you activate your default mode network? And what benefits have you seen?

CH: It’s simple. I leave my phone in another room, I move away from all screens and I sit down. And I just sit there until I start to feel bored, which happens pretty fast. I’ll let that feeling of boredom wash over me, and it’s not pleasant. But your brain basically turns into this manic librarian, racing through the stacks of your mind pulling stuff out and saying, “Hey what about this?” And that’s when you start to have these creative thoughts, when you start to surprise yourself with what you remember.

DN: You mentioned that you have one untouchable day every week where you don’t look at your email or phone. Have you been able to keep it up?

CH: I have not been able to keep it up on a weekday because people have been so anxious during the time of COVID, and, if I don’t respond to somebody for a full 24 hours, they start to worry. But I do on the weekend. I log off my social media Friday afternoon, and I won’t look at my email inbox until Monday, and it’s the best thing ever. I gotta tell you, it’s hard at first to let go like that. But at one point I was outside walking my dog, wandering down this forest path and thinking, “I haven’t even thought about email for hours.”

DN: Disconnecting to that degree seems impossible for a lot of people. The only way I’ve figured out how to do it is by backpacking in places where I am forced to live without cell service. What would you say to people who feel they need to stay connected or who work at companies where that’s the expectation?

CH: Pretend that every Saturday or Sunday you’re taking a backpacking trip and on those days put an email notification on your inbox that says, “I’m away from the office today. If it’s urgent, call me. Otherwise I’ll get back to you tomorrow.” You’ll discover that nobody calls, which means nothing is urgent. It’s been about three years since I started doing untouchable days, and I’ve only gotten a couple calls during that time. All of my fears about what would go wrong never materialized.

DN: You write that humans can’t truly multitask, and that trying to do so is just slowing us down. What’s happening in the brain when we try to talk on the phone while checking our email?

CH: There’s maybe 1% or 2% of the world’s population that can truly multitask without seeing a massive loss of productivity and intellect, but over 70% of people think they’re in that group. Probably the worst effect is that it can cause real, lasting damage to your brain, and those who try to do it on a regular basis have a loss of brain density, specifically the area where you have self-control, empathy and compassion. And it’s not helping you get more things done. That’s an illusion.

More at: https://www.deseret.com/2021/8/25/22640327/the-paradox-of-overdoing-it-do-nothing-burnout-productively-work-life-balance

_________________________________________________________________________

| SENIORS WHO REUNITE WITH OLD FLAMES

August 15, 2021

Rekindling a romance has become trendy since the creation of web sites to find old classmates, people search engines, and now social networking websites, but it is not a new phenomenon. I have been researching rekindled romances since 1993. A majority of my survey participants (55 percent) chose to reunite with someone they loved when they were 17 or younger – their first loves. And another 29 percent chose a former sweetheart from late adolescence (ages 18 to 22).

Some individuals reported “returning” to people they considered lost loves from when they were 8, 9, or 10 years old. Participants older than 65, especially, reunited with these “puppy loves.” These reunions had the same high success rate as reunions of lost loves from high school or college.

The reunited couple grew up in the same community during their formative years, went to school together, shared a peer group, and were often close to their first love’s family. Descriptions of the rekindled romances invariably included “comfortable” and “familiar.” Lack of sexual involvement when these couples were teens neither increased nor diminished the adult couples’ success in the reunion.

Successful senior reunions
Thirty-seven percent of the participants were in their 40s and 50s when they reunited with their lost loves, 10 percent reconnected between the ages of sixty to seventy, and 4 percent were in their 80s or 90s. Longevity, of course, is a factor in the decreasing percentages with age.

Although the number of reunions decreased with age, the success of these reunions increased. In their written comments on the questionnaire, seniors attributed their success to their maturity: improved communication skills, a new-found ability not to “sweat the small stuff,” and knowing exactly how they wanted to spend their later years. They also commented that they lacked tolerance for arguments, so they avoided arguing. These factors have also been reported in research on relationships of seniors with their spouses and their old friends.

The couples’ love had endured through their many years apart and, in the case of widows and widowers, often through very happy intervening marriages. These older reunited couples were more spiritually inclined than the younger participants in the study. They often believed they were soul mates and that a Higher Power brought them back together. One man in his 70s wrote: Where we end up after death, only God knows. But we will surely be together.

More at: https://www.lostlovers.com/seniors-who-reunite-with-old-flames/

_________________________________________________________________________

Girlfriend draws up 17-page contract for Tinder flame after dating two weeks

September 12, 2021

She’s basically a modern-day Rachel Green, and they are definitely NOT on a break.

Annie Wright, 21, drafted a 17-page relationship contract after dating her now-boyfriend for only two weeks.

While it’s no 18-page letter to Ross Geller, Wright’s contract to her boyfriend Michael Head, 23, was just as extensive.

The contract came with four main objectives: honesty, communication, awareness of partner’s needs and clarity and alignment in their intentions.

“I made the idea as a joke, then he said, ‘No, seriously. We can do that and talk about it,’ ” Wright, an Atlanta, Georgia, native, told Kennedy News.

The couple met last October on Tinder after Wright left a toxic relationship, and she was determined to make this relationship with Head, a law student, work out.

“At the time, I had braces in college, and I was very embarrassed,” said Wright. “It was also pandemic time. But I got to the point where I was like ‘screw it — I’m going on dates with guys and don’t care anymore.’ I matched with almost anybody on Tinder and would tell my matches, ‘I’m going on a walk with my dog at 2 p.m. today — are you free?’ It was a fluke that I met him. I was going on three Tinder dates a week to go out there and meet people.”

Thankfully when Wright met Head they instantly clicked. “He was like, ‘I want us to be boyfriend and girlfriend,’ ” Wright said. “In order to be ready for that, we had to lay some serious ground rules.”

Within the 17-page document, Wright outlined all of her expectations for their relationship, which asked Head for no silent treatment, to pay for date nights and to not isolate her from her loved ones.

“We printed out terms and conditions, I went over to his place, we sat on either end of the bed and read them out loud,” she recalls. “I felt like the biggest issue I had in my last relationship was it felt like boundaries of mine were crossed that I never established. I was like, ‘This time I’ll write them out and no one can cross my boundaries.’ Michael’s also pre-law so he was pretty keen on the idea of making a contract.”

Additionally, she asked for “a romantic gesture once every two weeks” and to work out “at least five times a week.”

“We treat our relationship almost like a business interaction,” Wright told the Sun. “We deal with conflict like partners in business would. We sit down and treat it more like we’re partners in life, and love is an added bonus.”

Clearly something is working for the two of them as they are approaching their anniversary. Wright joked that her boyfriend will want to add a clause or two of his own, including taking off shoes in his apartment, which she “always forgets” to do.

“This has been a game changer,” said Wright, who is surprised more couples don’t draw up contracts. “I’d recommend all couples have one. It’s the best thing ever.

“People just fall into relationships,” said Wright. “This makes me know what I’m signing up for. I live in constant fear of waking up two years into a relationship and realizing my partner doesn’t have the same life plan as me. You’ve put one or two years into a relationship, but you don’t agree on the core things. If you don’t have that core connection, you’re wasting time and prolonging heartbreak. At this point, we update it every six months or so. We’ll visit it.”

The contract, Wright claims, is what contributes to their relationship success.

“We’re partners in this,” Wright said. “We’re agreeing to tackle life together and this is our game plan for doing it.”

https://nypost.com/2021/09/10/girlfriend-draws-up-17-page-contract-for-tinder-flame/

_______________________________________________________________________

| Happy Wife, Happy Life! A Positive Life Partner Fosters Strong Mental Health In Old Age

August 17, 2021

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Marriages and long-term relationships are rarely ever smooth sailing 100% of the time. A life-long partnership between two people is very much a journey that will inevitably experience peaks and valleys. That being said, as anyone who has been in such a relationship can attest, life is usually a whole lot more enjoyable when our significant other is in a good mood. Perhaps, then, we shouldn’t be all that surprised that a new study finds a positive partner will foster good health in their significant other.

Researchers at Michigan State University have concluded that as an individual grows old with a happy life partner, they will see their risk of developing dementia, cognitive decline, or Alzheimer’s disease steadily decline.

“We spend a lot of time with our partners,” comments William Chopik, assistant professor of psychology and co-author of the study, in a university release. “They might encourage us to exercise, eat healthier or remind us to take our medicine. When your partner is optimistic and healthy, it can translate to similar outcomes in your own life. You actually do experience a rosier future by living longer and staving off cognitive illnesses.”

Living with a particularly optimistic partner makes it easier to lead a healthier lifestyle. The research team say that happier partners are much more likely to support their significant other in self-improvement initiatives, such as quitting smoking or visiting the gym more regularly.

“We found that when you look at the risk factors for what predicts things like Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, a lot of them are things like living a healthy lifestyle,” Chopik adds. “Maintaining a healthy weight and physical activity are large predictors. There are some physiological markers as well. It looks like people who are married to optimists tend to score better on all of those metrics.”

The study tracked close to 4,500 heterosexual couples, for as long as eight years in some cases. After analyzing the collected data, there was a clear connection between being married to an optimistic person and avoiding dementia or cognitive decline in old age.

Read more at: https://www.studyfinds.org/happy-wife-happy-life-a-positive-life-partner-fosters-strong-mental-health-in-old-age/

Share the News