Originally Sourced From https://www.thelawofattraction.com/shadow-work/

We often talk about ourselves having a dark side. We might mention that we try to keep this part of our personalities in check or talk about the things our dark sides tempt us to do. However, it turns out that this part of you is extremely important, and has a lot to teach you… The process of using this dark side is known as shadow work.

Using the work of psychologist Carl Jung, we’ll look at how to make use of this darker part of our minds.

Beginning with an explanation of what your shadow side actually is, we’ll work through the key questions you might have about the significance of your dark side.

We’ll look at the origins of our shadow side – when, how, and why they develop – and consider the costs of holding back these parts of ourselves.

Finally, we’ll explore the most significant benefits of working with your shadow side, and offer two detailed exercises you can use to start this work.

What Is Our Shadow Side

In the simplest terms, our shadow side or shadow self is the part of us that is chiefly made up of negative feelings.

For example, emotions like rage and greed exist in our shadow self, along with our darker impulses, such as the thirst for revenge.

As Jung explains it, this dark side of our nature is extremely primitive, with its desires and feelings harking back to some of the earliest experiences humans had in the fight for survival.

We often find this part of ourselves uncomfortable to think about, and may feel guilty when we indulge it.

After all, we typically want to conceive of ourselves as good people.

However, we all have a shadow side, and access this aspect of ourselves can actually be a useful source of insight and empowerment.

Our Dark Sides

Even with the above explanation in place, perhaps you’re asking yourself “What’s part of my dark side, exactly?”. The answer is that the shadow self consists of everything that you push away and reject in yourself.

Anything that you want, think, or feel that you label inferior or unacceptable will be absorbed into the shadow self. In other words, if we experience something that doesn’t fit with our chosen idea of who we want to be, it is disowned and packed away into this dark part of ourselves.

While most of these things are negative, they aren’t necessarily so – anything that we disown goes to the shadow part of us.

This means that even positive or neutral traits that we reject can end up being integrated into our shadow side. For example, if you don’t like being empathetic because it makes you feel weak, that ostensibly positive trait may be rejected.

And if you’re not happy that you’re attracted to a colleague because it’s inconvenient and awkward, that neutral attraction may be rejected too.

Crucially, these bits and pieces that we disown can’t really be annihilated. They live on in the shadow part of us, but we experience them as boxed away so that we no longer have to engage with them.

However, this lack of engagement can be to our detriment. The better we know ourselves and the more authentically we choose to live, the happier we tend to be.

So, in some cases, a failure to engage with a large and complex shade side can actually deny us the chance to be ourselves.

Uncontrollable Emotions

While many of us feel guilt and shame about our shadow traits, the truth is that they are out of our control.

They are not conscious, but unconscious – we no more choose our shadow selves than we choose the dreams we have at night.

We don’t get to decide what is in.

These parts of ourselves, and ought not to blame ourselves for them.

However, we all differ in how “dense” our shadow selves are.

The more that you struggle with an inability to regulate emotions, the more likely you are to banish many thoughts, feelings, and impulses to the shadow side of your mind.

With time and work, we can become better at owning and regulating our own emotions, so that fewer things are perceived as threatening enough to be locked away in the shadow self.

That said, we’ll never get rid of our shadow selves, and they serve an important function in even the most healthy, well-adjusted individual.

When Did Our Shadow Come To Life

Now that we’ve answered the basic question “what is your shadow self?”, you might be wondering when this aspect of you came into being. For most people, the answer is a very early childhood.

All children experience love, joy, and kindness, but also rage, fear, and greed. Our caregivers send out cues about which parts of us are “good”, and which are “bad”.

We then accept the “good” bits as part of ourselves and send the “bad” parts to our shadow side.

Should You Ignore Your Shadow?

Given the childhood origins of your shadow self, you might be tempted to think you can just ignore all of this in adulthood.

After all, you’re no longer the disappointed kid who didn’t get their basic needs met at some crucial moment, and who felt something so negative it had to be locked away.

However, ignoring negativity of the sort we find in our shadow side is a mistake. Our shadows persist, and if we don’t give them conscious attention then they can influence our actions without our awareness.

Take rage, for example. If you’re conscious of the anger in your shadow side, and the origins of that anger, you’ll know when it might be triggered and can act to moderate it.

In contrast, if you refuse to acknowledge that rage, it may pop up unbidden in an argument with a loved one, leading you to say cruel things you don’t truly mean.

The Effects Of Holding Your Shadow Back

There are other negative consequences of ignoring your shadow self. One of the most common is projection. Essentially, this is a psychological phenomenon where we see in others what we loathe in ourselves.

We then feel free to attack it once it is in another person. For example, suppose your ignored shadow side includes a disposition toward greed.

You may accuse your partner of being endlessly greedy when they are only a little greedy, and say that their greed disgusts you.

While this might sound like an odd way to deal with difficult feelings, it has long been documented in psychology as a way we deal with things we don’t like about ourselves.

At this stage, then, we have a thorough picture of the shadow self and some of the ways we endure damage if we ignore that shadow.

Let’s now look at the positive side – the benefits of exploring your shadow self, which can help you stop holding yourself back.

The Benefits Of Shadow Work

It’s natural that people feel hesitant about engaging with their shadow selves. After all, it’s more pleasant and affirming to think about our talents, our strengths, and the positive effect we feel about others.

It can feel daunting to look directly at the darkest parts of ourselves. You may be worried about what you might learn, or you might have a fear that looking at this side of yourself will cause you to somehow become a “worse person”.

However, in reality, shadow work techniques that help you explore your shadow side actually present tremendous opportunities for growth.

It can’t make you a more negative person – it just gives you insight into negative thoughts and feelings you may have struggled with in the past.

If you’re not yet sure that you want to engage in this kind of work yourself, read through these benefits and reflect on whether it may be worth trying.

Improved Energy And Health

While it might sound odd, there is compelling evidence that Jungian Shadow work can actually increase your energy.

Why would this be – why would looking at the darkest parts of yourself boost your energy levels?

To understand this, think about how much energy is used up when we’re carrying unresolved issues.

When we push down beliefs, feelings, and anxieties because we don’t like them, it’s like we’re hauling a huge suitcase behind us everywhere we go.

The result can sometimes be unexplained lethargy, sometimes also including disturbed sleep. Further, when we get tired own this way, it naturally starts to drag our mood down as well.

We may start to struggle with symptoms of depression, and a sense of dissatisfaction with our lives.

In contrast, when we do shadow work we look through that heavy suitcase and organize it so that it doesn’t need to be so heavy. This helps us restore lost energy and can improve mental health as a result.

Improved Relationships With Others

When you think about how to improve relationships, looking at your shadow side probably doesn’t immediately spring to mind.

Indeed, you might think that your darkest parts can only harm your relationships, giving you even more reason to hide from them.

On the contrary, shadow work seems to help all our significant relationships – friendships, family bonds, and romantic partnerships.

This is because shadow work is all about coming to terms with this darker part of us and integrating it into us.

This means we know ourselves better. And when we know ourselves better, we’re better able to voice our needs in relationships with others.

As a bonus, learning to accept our shadow side helps us accept the shadow side of our loved ones. We’re more understanding, more empathetic, and more realistic about others.

Shadow work teaches us we’re all worthy of love and care even though we all also carry pain and anger.

Improved Creativity

Finally, shadow work is also a wonderful recommendation for anyone looking to learn how to improve creativity skills.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

For one thing, in spite of stereotypes, the mentally healthy consistently test as more creative and productive.

Secondly, if you learn how and when to engage with your shadow self, you have much more to draw on in your creative work.

In other words, nothing is too scary to explore.

While you’re hiding from your shadow self, you’ll unconsciously put up walls that limit where your creativity is allowed to go.

For example, if you’re a writer, you may veer aware from certain themes that spark repressed rage in you.

Or, if you’re a musician, you might find yourself stuck when composing because you begin to engage with buried emotions that feel too overwhelming. In contrast, after shadow work, you can lean into this darkness and even find the beauty in it.

Shadow Work Exercises

If you now feel ready to start doing your own shadow work exercises, there are two basic techniques that you may want to try.

Suitable for beginners who want to dip a toe into connecting with their shadow, these exercises are easy and practical.

Observing Your Emotions

This first exercise draws on the importance of emotional intelligence.

To begin, consider that your shadow self is deliberately evasive. We’re very well practiced at repressing it and keeping it distant.

However, the more often we focus on our feelings, thoughts, and actions, the more likely we are to notice the presence of our shadow. There are lots of ways to do this, but the current techniques ask you to focus on how you react to people around you.

Notice your strongest reactions, and take note of them. One way to do this is to take five or ten minutes at the end of each day to make a quick list of the biggest emotions you felt around people that day.

For example, perhaps your friend was late and you almost wanted to walk out of the restaurant. Alternatively, maybe you felt furious at your colleague when they seemed to be bragging about how well their recent presentation went.

The next step is to look at the items on this list and ask yourself this honest question: what do these reactions say about your shadow self? Remember the lesson that we project things we hate about ourselves onto other people.

Our biggest negative responses are often, deep down, negative reactions to ourselves. So, to return to one of the examples above, you might admit to yourself that part of your shadow self is pridefulness or smugness about certain achievements. This, really, is why you reacted to your bragging colleague.

Use Your Inner Voice

The second key approach to shadow work is all about connecting with your inner voice. You might already have some experience of connecting with a spiritual inner voice, for example when doing certain types of mindfulness.

However, this new spin requires harder work – you have to be willing to hear the voice of the most disliked part of yourself. Note that Jungian experts aren’t saying that you have to talk to yourself, as such.

Rather, the idea is that we all have multiple “parts” to our personalities and that we can engage in dialogue with all these bits of ourselves.

When we don’t listen to some parts of ourselves, they can influence our behavior when we don’t want them. For example, failing to listen to the angriest part of ourselves leads that anger to build and build until it comes out – perhaps at an undeserving target.

We can all think of times when we spoke or acted in a way that led us to ask “Why did I do that?”. Most times, the answer is that your shadow self was briefly in the driver’s seat. And the only way to prevent this is through active dialogue.

One relevant technique involves keeping a “shadow self journal”. Try to connect to this darkest aspect of you at least once a week, and let that part write an entry about its negative thoughts and feelings.

Then, with a compassionate eye, read these entries and try to understand where this negativity comes from in your history.

Using Hypnosis To Build Emotional Health

In this guide, we’ve given you an introduction to the importance of your shadow side. We’ve looked at how you can work with that hidden part of yourself to improve emotional health, build self-awareness, and live a more authentic life.

However, there are limitless ways to take this self-development forward. One of the most effective ways to improve mental health is self-hypnosis – and we offer a wide range of programs aimed specifically at improving our emotional health.

Hypnosis only helps you change in the ways you want to, and self-hypnosis allows you to experience these transformational sessions in the privacy of your own home.

Self-hypnosis and shadow work have something significant in common. Specifically, they both help you to tap into your subconscious thought processes, making changes that promote healing.

Self-hypnosis guides you into a deep state of relaxation, where you become susceptible to suggestions that can help you feel better about yourself and your life.

So whether you struggle with anxiety or a phobia, constantly battle low self-esteem, feel overwhelmed by stress, or just have a sense something is holding you back, self-hypnosis can help you take a huge step forward.

The post Jungian Shadow Work: Get to Know Your True Dark Side appeared first on The Law Of Attraction.

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Originally Sourced From https://themindunleashed.com/2020/07/americans-are-dropping-lsd-at-an-increasing-rate-and-acid-use-probably-tripled-in-2020-alone.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=americans-are-dropping-lsd-at-an-increasing-rate-and-acid-use-probably-tripled-in-2020-alone

(TMU) – As 2020 has clearly shown, life is fraught with existential dread and can often resemble a nightmare for many of us.

If it were just a matter of cabin fever resulting from the coronavirus health crisis, that would be one thing. But this year has also entailed chaos in the streets, economic instability sweeping through our families and communities, not to mention the usual madness that has been raging across the world in recent years.

And if you’ve thought of reaching for some chemicals to escape the madness, even momentarily, you’re hardly alone.

As a recent study has shown, a growing number of Americans are using LSD to escape the deep crisis that our society has found itself in. In fact, the hallucinogen’s popularity has grown exponentially in recent years.

The authors of the study have a very simple explanation for why adults – primarily millenials and Gen Xers – are dabbling or diving headlong into using hallucinogens. Simply put, the world is on fire.

“LSD is used primarily to escape. And given that the world’s on fire, people might be using it as a therapeutic mechanism,” University of Cincinnati doctoral candidate Andrew Yockey explained to Scientific American. “Now that COVID’s hit, I’d guess that use has probably tripled.”

In undertaking one of the first major studies of acid dropping among adults in the U.S., the researchers examined surveys of 168,000 Americans and found that intake of LSD had risen by a shocking 56.4 percent between 2015 and 2018.

And while one might expect that it would be the youth – in this case Generation Z – that decides what the trendiest drug might be, it turns out that Gen Z isn’t so interested in the drug that helped define the hippie an psychedelic counter-cultures of the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, those aged 18 to 25 saw their LSD use decrease by 24 percent.

By a huge margin, Those who tripped the most on acid were adults with college degrees and people aged 35 to 49, whose interest in LSD skyrocketed by 223 percent in the three-year period. Meanwhile, those over 50 saw 45 percent increase while those age 26 to 34 saw an increase in LSD use by 59 percent. Those with college degrees did 70 percent more LSD.

A number of factors have boosted the popularity of the psychedelic substance, well before the current global crisis made us desperate for some form of escape. Researchers believe that one factor may have been the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, which made certain groups seek out the drug in lieu of, perhaps, escaping to Canada.

The rising popularity of microdosing is also a likely factor in the rise of LSD use. Microdosing typically involves taking one-tenth to half of a typical “trip”-sized dose as a means to reduce depression or anxiety, enhance creativity or simply sharpen the mind.

Acid has been found to have major mood-boosting effects and, like psilocybin or “magic” mushrooms, has been found to be effective in treating anxiety, depression, and certain mental illnesses.

As a psychedelic drug, however, LSD is classified as a schedule 1 substance by the federal government due to the belief that the drug is addictive, dangerous and has no medical value.

While LSD’s popularity is rising over the years it still doesn’t come close to the mid-20th century peak of acid culture, experts say.

Help us help others. Please like this article. Share this article on your social media and with your tribe. And leave your comments below!

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Originally Sourced From https://www.thelawofattraction.com/proactivity/

We’ve all seen the wonderful results achieved by proactive people. From world leaders to business owners and people who are confident in the dating scene, proactivity can lead to fast, significant results.

Indeed, it’s one of the key predictors of a successful Law of Attraction work.

Those who score high on proactivity are better at manifesting their life goals. But what can you do if you’re not proactive? What do you need to do to change?

We’ll start by looking at what it really means to be proactive. From there, we’ll start to look at how you can begin to be more proactive in your own life.

We’ll offer five practical techniques you can use starting today, and we’ll also explore how you can spread proactivity to those around you.

Finally, we’ll consider the idea of proactive manifestation, and how you can use what you’ve learned about proactivity to become more effective in achieving your dreams.

What Does It Mean To Be Proactive

Let’s begin with this foundational question: What does it mean to be proactive?

Firstly, it doesn’t mean taking intuitive on a particular thing.

Rather, it’s a kind of mindset or attitude shift that means you act rather than reacting.

You become active, rather than passive, and you play a role in creating the events that develop around you.

In addition, being proactive means to make decisions that serve your long-term ends, not just making choices when you’re forced into it.

In sum, the proactive person directs their own narrative instead of drifting along on the river of other people’s decisions and desires.

With this in mind, it’s helpful to break proactivity down into its key features – these are the features we’ll help you cultivate with our five techniques.

The Key Features Of Proactivity

Taking a proactive approach to life, then, involves the following major features:

Anticipation: you look at long-term goals, not just the present. So, for example, you don’t react to the mood of the day but rather organize the day around the future you want to create. You think ahead to anticipate your own needs and opportunities.

Change-orientation: you actively seek out and create change, rather than just adapting to it if it occurs in your life.

For example, you don’t only think about changing jobs when you’re made redundant – rather, you actively and continuously question whether your current role helps you grow. You embrace change even when it’s daunting.

Self-directedness: you don’t need to be asked by others to act, and nor do you need to be given a set of detailed rules to follow.

For example, if you meet someone with whom you’d like to develop a friendship, you ask them to do something rather than assuming that they’ll ask you if they want to get to know you. You are comfortable writing the rules for yourself, and prioritize growth over the fear of rejection.

Of course, these are just the key ingredients of proactivity. Recent psychological research also suggests that other factors in maintaining a proactive attitude involve planning, reflecting, and envisioning.

Planning means brainstorming steps to take and following a roadmap you design for yourself. Meanwhile, reflecting is all about continuous monitoring of your progress, and changing course when things aren’t working as well as they could.

Finally, envisioning is similar to the creative visualization work advocated by Law of Attraction practitioners – it’s dreaming about the future, and believing in the potential to turn that dream into reality.

Comparing Proactivity To Other Behaviors

Proactive work has some similarities to related behaviors, but it’s good to have a clear idea of the boundaries between proactivity and other traits.

Firstly, proactive isn’t quite the same as proficiency. When you’re proficient, you meet specific rules effectively – but it’s possible to do this without being proactive in the slightest.

Secondly, proactivity is distinct from adaptability, which measures how well you respond to changes. Once again, since proactivity involves seeking change, you can be adaptable and yet never proactive if you never actually deliberately create change.

To be clear, both proficiency and adaptability can also help you manifest more effectively, and in many cases, proactive people are also proficient and adaptable.

However, it’s important to be aware that simply becoming proficient and adaptable isn’t enough to make you a proactive person. There must also be a drive to create change and to plan for an abundant future.

5 Ways To Start Being Proactive

Now that you have a clearer idea of what being proactive means, let’s look at concrete ways you can work to become more proactive in your own life.

We’ll look at five proactivity and productivity tips that you can bring to your Law of Attraction work, helping you to manifest more effectively than ever before.

Develop Foresight

One of the best proactive thinking skills to hone is that of foresight. To become proactive, you have to learn how to better predict what’s coming. While you don’t need to be psychic, you do need to pay attention to patterns.

For example, the behavior of people you know tells you a lot about what you can expect from them in the future. And the natural cycles of the economy give you information that’s useful if you’re planning to start a business.

However, proactive people never get bogged down in one possible future – they’re always aware that foresight requires creativity.

To develop foresight, challenge yourself to predict at least two things that will (roughly) happen this week. Write down the patterns and clues that justify your predictions.

If you get it right, hold onto that information. If you misfire, notice where you want wrong and recalibrate for the next weep’s attempt at the same exercise.

Prevent Problems

As noted above, the more proactive you are, the more you take initiative in life. One significant aspect of taking initiative is to practice anticipatory problem-solving.

In other words, take steps to prevent or minimize the damage caused by something that might not even be on someone else’s radar.

This is empowering – instead of surrendering to luck and circumstance, you take control of your own situation as best you can. While such a strategy is fallible, it optimizes your chances of success.

To combine initiative with your Law of Attraction work, think of three things that might stop you from attaining your goal. Then, come up with a battle plan for tackling each of these blocks to manifestation.

Throughout, maintain a positive attitude – you can beat these setbacks. And if you don’t do so every time, turn those moments into lessons – what will help you find and solve problems more effectively next time?

Plan For The Future

When you’re focused on what’s going on in your life, it’s easy to get sucked into one-step thinking where all you consider is the present moment.

To be more proactive, you need to look at what’s going to happen and try to anticipate what will happen next.

Ask yourself: how can I plan ahead to ensure success tomorrow? This is all part of proactive vs reactive attitudes – you need to see each decision as one in a chain of decisions that all add up to your dream future.

One technique you can use to develop better planning skills involves breaking all your goals down into smaller goals. So, for example, say you already know you want to manifest a new business.

What do you need to do to get there? One of the steps might be building a website. Then that goal can be split into further goals – such as writing a biography and uploading images.

Don’t Be A Bystander

As much as being proactive involves pushing ahead and acting independently, it also requires us to interact with other people and the world.

More specifically, if you’re proactive you’ll be an active participant in life and not an idle observer. In psychology, the bystander effect refers to our tendency to act more slowly when others are present.

For example, if someone is in distress, we’re less likely to and help them if there are several other people nearby. The same can be true for opportunities – we might not grab at an opportunity because others are there, and we assume they’ll be quicker or more deserving.

Now, what can you do to move out of bystander mode? Some psychology experts suggest it has a lot to do with self-awareness.

So, for example, keeping a diary and sticking to daily mindfulness practice can help you become more in time with others and how you respond to their presence.

Start Performing

The biggest key to proactivity is just to commit to a decision to stop procrastinating. You must jump into being decisive, rather than simply planning to change over the coming weeks or months.

However, acting now doesn’t mean acting impulsively. Rather, it means making a careful, considered decision and turning it into reality immediately.

To reach this state of mind, try practicing. For this week, write down three things you’re going to do. For each of them, write a plan for the stages that these goals will involve.

Keep them limited and manageable at first – such as getting rid of old clothes, or having an important conversation you care about.

In the old clothes case, for example, your plan might be this: find at least five things to give to charity, five things you can give to friends and five things you’ll wear more often.

If you follow such a list every week, proactivity becomes second nature.

How Do I Make Others Around Me Proactive?

Of course, much of our work is done with others, so you may be wondering how to induce proactivity in people around you.

Firstly, simply modeling a proactive attitude can go a long way – others will see how well it works for you, and want to emulate it.

In addition, the Law of Attraction tells us that your proactivity will draw more and more proactive minds toward you.

This gives you the best chance to find an ideal business partner, a promising romantic partner, or even just a wonderful new friend.

Further, don’t be afraid to share your proactivity tips with others. You can explain how they’ve helped you, and how you think you and the other person can benefit from tackling a proactive life together.

Using The Law Of Attraction To Proactively Manifest

Everything that you’re learning and putting into practice about proactivity will make you a better more manifest.

The core traits of both types of people overwhelmingly overlap, so by developing a proactive mindset you also cultivate a mind that uses the Law of Attraction to its advantage.

Plus, proactivity is innately positive – it’s forward-moving, it’s bold, and it represents trusting and valuing yourself. All of these boots your vibrational and helps you stay in a place of abundance, attracting more good things into your life.

There are many ways to merge manifestation and proactivity techniques, but let’s end with two of the most powerful – living “as is” and creative visualization.

Living “as if” is a Law of Attraction exercise that challenges you to act, walk, dream, and talk as though you already have all the things you want.

This is exactly the kind of technique that also pushes you to embrace change and create calculated risks. Meanwhile, creative visualization is all about building up a detailed mental picture of what you want.

Picture yourself meeting that goal right now. In so doing, you both embody proactivity and help to attract your dream goals toward you.

The post How To Promote Proactivity In Your Life To Manifest appeared first on The Law Of Attraction.

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Originally Sourced From https://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/three-steps-to-establish-healthy-eating-habits-that-last/

As any dietician, fitness blogger or biology student will tell you — if you want to lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than your body is burning. While this simple rule can certainly be a useful tool to incorporate into your larger health and fitness plan, cutting calories does not make a healthy diet. In fact, over-prioritizing portion control can lead to negative health consequences of its own, without offering the desired benefit of improved wellness and fitness. 

A healthy diet is, at its core, more about understanding what goes into the food you eat than it is about reducing portion sizes. If you can learn how to improve the foods you love, you can begin to make those foods fit into a holistic long-term diet that allows you to truly enjoy your relationship with the food you eat.

Learning healthy eating habits is essential if you want to achieve lasting results, improve longevity, boost your energy and elevate your overall wellness. To establish a holistic diet, you must first understand what nutrients your body needs to function at its highest potential. Then, you can begin to discover ways to incorporate those nutrients into your everyday diet. Here, we’ll dive into an easy-to-remember formula that can be used as a guide along the path to establishing healthy eating habits that last: inform, incorporate and indulge.

Inform: Are you getting the nutrients you need?

When you begin to understand what essential nutrients and ingredients to include in your diet, you can become empowered to make informed decisions when it comes to shopping and meal preparation. For those who are new to the world of healthy eating, however, understanding nutrition can feel like an insurmountable task. 

If you want to create a more balanced and healthy lifestyle, it’s important to be informed about the nutrients you may be missing, and where to find them in the grocery aisle. Eating fresh ingredients and avoiding processed food, for example, can help guide you toward healthier options.

To avoid information overload, it’s important to stick to science. Conduct your research with reputable blogs and sites, and consult with a doctor or nutrition expert for any concerns you may have. Once you’ve established a baseline understanding, you can begin to choose foods that are rich in essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.  

Next, remember to check the nutrition labels on the foods you buy. While lengthy lists of ingredients may seem confusing, organizations like the Center for Disease Control and the U.S. Department of Agriculture offer useful guides to help consumers understand the food labels they’re reading at the checkout counter. By making a conscious effort to pay attention to the ingredients in your food, you can be more mindful of avoiding unhealthy ingredients such as trans fats, cholesterol, sodium and sugars.

You may also consider working with a professional. Each person has different needs and goals — there is no one-size-fits-all diet plan. For this reason, it’s best to consult with a nutritionist, dietician or medical professional to assist you in designing a routine that will yield the most benefit for your specific health needs. Most personal care physicians can offer patients a referral for a reputable nutritional expert, and organizations like the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics offer referral resources. 

Incorporate: How does nutrition fit into your lifestyle?

The next step in achieving a healthy diet is to incorporate those essential nutrients into your meal planning. With a working knowledge of your nutrition needs and health goals, you can begin to establish a sustainable, healthy lifestyle and build new habits.  

It may seem daunting to completely overhaul your weekly grocery list, and such a stark change may be difficult to maintain — so start small. Incremental changes can build over time into a fulfilling lifestyle change that works for you. 

For busy parents, students or people with limited mobility, shopping for fresh ingredients can be a challenge — especially during a global pandemic. To boost your diet, consider incorporating supplemental food products to help ease the transition. Incorporating high-quality fortifying products, like multivitamins, protein supplements, and additive powders, can be an effective way to reach your nutritional goals. 

Consider products that offer a range of essential ingredients, such as protein, fiber and omega-3 fatty acids, or vitamins like A, C and K. Nutrients such as these can support critical functions like brain development, and can protect against common health concerns like macular degeneration and cataracts. Many of these products, such as EasyKale, can be easily added to meals and beverages to help increase the amount of essential nutrients in your diet, without requiring a special trip to the grocery store. 

These small lifestyle changes can bring about much larger health benefits, and lay the foundation for a more balanced diet.

Indulge: Are you making space for the foods you love?

Once you’ve established a strong routine with balanced meals and improved nutrition — remember to indulge on occasion! Many well-intentioned people fail in their diet plans when they view nutrition a tedious task, rather than a natural component of a more fulfilling lifestyle. Maintaining a health-conscious diet may feel like a chore if you completely eliminate the foods you enjoy most. 

For any diet plan to be successful in the long term, it must hold space for the meals you love. Enjoy the foods that make you happy, and consider ways to improve them. It becomes easy to indulge when you are empowered with a thorough understanding of your nutritional goals, and how to include those nutrients in your regular meals. By substituting unhealthy ingredients and adding key vitamins and minerals to the recipes you enjoy, you may find that your favorite foods still have a place on a healthy dinner table.

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Bilal Qizilbash is the Founder & CEO of EasyKale 

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Originally Sourced From https://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/why-romanticized-love-is-destroying-relationships/

Divorce rates are currently at 40-50% in the US and even higher for subsequential marriages.

Marriage satisfaction is 58%, so something is not working.

What has gone wrong?

Love is the top reason for people getting married in the USA.

But where did this come from?

We have to start with a history lesson, so buckle up.

Throughout history, marriage used to be an arrangement created to promote the family unit’s survival and safety.

The industrial age changed all that.

As safety increased and resources became independent of the tribal collective to survive, individuality took form.

They didn’t rely on the tribe or family to survive, so the concept of marriage for safety stopped making sense.  

Marriage used to be seen as a duty, not something you did for personal fulfillment or emotional satisfaction.

The new economic realities of the 19th century merged with the ideas that sprung from the Enlightenment about individual rights and the pursuit of happiness, and the result was Romanticism.

The new ideal was to get married for love.

Love was to provide the ever after happiness and feeling of meaning, worthiness, and value that individualization had torn apart when our sense of tribal communities fell apart.

With a lack of social meaning and purpose, we looked for a partner to fill that gap and make us complete.

It wasn’t until the relatively recent 150 years ago that the ever-popular “happily ever after” idea was born.

So, what’s wrong with this new idea of a soulmate everlasting love, you might ask?

Feelings are unreliable, unstable, and not consistent in any way or form.

As wonderful as the drug of oxytocin & dopamine can be, they are nature’s way of making us bond and invested enough to have sex and make babies.

This chemical cocktail only lasts a few months to 2 years max, and then the honeymoon stage is over.

During this stage, you will idolize your partner.

You love that they are so spontaneous. Later you will likely see the same traits as annoying and unreliable.

We see all our partner’s traits positively and even make some up that are not even there.

It’s a state of obsession, and there is a reason it’s been compared to obsessive-compulsive disorder as the chemical imbalance and behavior are similar.

Eventually, the unnatural high from nature meant to draw you together to mate will go away, and now it requires skills and self-awareness to create a much more in-depth and profound love of companionship.

Frequently couples think the love is gone, which means the relationship is over, so they leave to see the next drug of chemical intensity that we call in-love.

Or they accept to live in disappointment and resentment as the data above indicate.

Emotions also don’t tell us anything about long-term compatibility.

We often feel attracted and fall in love with an ideal when we meet someone that unconsciously shows traits we wish we had or that makes us feel seen, accepted, and valued.

Who we fall in love with is also motivated by our attachment style, and so does not indicate in any way that this person is healthy or nurturing for us long term.

The In-love feeling is based on a fantasy.

As we see traits we desire in the other, our brain is designed to create a story based on our desires, expectations, and past experiences.

These stories tend to have an overly optimistic bias setting us up for disappointment because of the chemicals.

We tell ourselves these stories about this person and how perfect they are.

We idealize them and become obsessed with this fantasy.

This is not love.

Love is safety, trust, and seeing you partner in all their glory and mess and accepting them in that space.  

And, that takes time, effort, and a whole lot of growth on both parties.

Our rush to have sex also blurs our vision through chemicals that make us feel connected to people that are not compatible.

We rush to sex because we feel anxious and believe that sex will create the bond and safety we crave and validate that we are desired, wanted, and enough.

As a dating coach, I help people find their most suitable match.

We are all a pain in the a.. to live with.

We have different backgrounds, triggers, goals, expectations, communication styles, attachment styles, love languages, and ideas of roles in a relationship, so there are bound to be many misunderstandings.

If we don’t have the skills to navigate this, it’s bound to go wrong even if we started with a bang and felt we found our soulmate.

Intensity is like a drug, taking us out of everyday life’s mundanity and makes us feel whole, worthy, valuable, and alive. But it is an illusion that will not last.

Slow down and take time to get to know each other.

Focus on what shows compatibility instead of the quick, intense emotions that will mislead you.

I am not stating emotions do not matter, and you should be with someone that makes you feel miserable.

Emotions matter.

My point is that we need to restore the balance between emotions, sensation, and logic.

It’s what neuroscientists call integration, and it’s how we function the best and make good decisions.

There is a reason I recommend premarital counseling. Without these skills, you are leaving love to luck, and as we know, that does not turn out well most of the time. 

Love requires skills.

You got this far; that’s an achievement.

The four skills I teach in couples therapy and that you need to create long-lasting love are

Self-awareness

You won’t get far without self-awareness.

I know the fantasy of romantic love lied and told you that your soulmate should magically know what you need, but let’s be honest. You don’t even know what you need half the time.

Even a mother is wrong 70% of the time with her baby.

You have to become aware of your wounds, triggers, needs, and boundaries so you can communicate these to your partner. This is something I teach people in marriage therapy.

This requires a lot of self-reflection and turning something inwards; we often dread as that could mean meeting some of those uncomfortable emotions when there are no distractions.

Mindfulness, journaling, and therapy are all great tools to expand your self-awareness.

If you don’t understand yourself, how can you expect someone else too?

Regulation

Attachment is two nervous systems linking, and that’s why scientists have found that our close attachments impact our nervous system far more than those we are not connected to.

When relationships go to hell and back then, it’s because our brain and nervous system have been hijacked by fight or flight, and we are not to toddlers fighting it out.

No chance that will end well.

Being able to restore calm in ourselves and our partner, so our adult brain comes online is imperative to mature love and longevity of your relationship. 

Vulnerability

The essence of intimacy is our inherent need to be seen and accepted.

As we grow up, we learn quickly to adapt and hide parts of ourselves to get acceptance from our parents’ teachers and peers.

Once we find a partner that can allow us to show these parts and be accepted, we feel an immense connection and love.

I call it coming home.

Responsiveness

How we respond to our partner sets the foundation for safety and love.

Emotional attunement

Is how we can tune in to our partner’s emotional world and seek to understand their experience?

The old saying, “do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” is valid.

If your partner ends up agreeing with you, but at the expense of their self-worth or humiliation, then you both lose.

Being right is also subjective as we all have different expectations and values of how the world should function, so no one is ever right. We just have different experiences.

Seek to understand your partner’s experience with questions such as.

How did you feel when…?

Attachment reassurance

This is perhaps the most important skill that I work with couples as a relationship coach.

Love flourishes when we feel safe, and it dies when we feel unsafe.

Knowing your partner’s and your attachment style and making each other feel safe is paramount to nurturing lasting love.

Turn towards each other

When we have conflict, tension, or stress, we either turn away from each other or towards each other.

Turn away is when we attack, blame, criticize, or disengage. They create a disconnect, resentment and slowly break a bond.

Turning towards is when we engage and try to understand our partner’s experience and find win/win solutions.

To do this, you first have to regulate, so you are calm.

Acceptance

Vulnerability turns into intimacy when it’s met with acceptance.

Similar intimacy dies when met with judgment.

So, if you feel judgement, look at what makes you judgmental.

Are you scared or fearful of something?

Does what your partner express make you feel inferior or not good enough?

Once you heal yourself, you can meet the world with acceptance, and acceptance does not mean you have to give your partner everything they need or want.

It just means you accept their experience and needs as valid.

Thomas is the Founder of Zensensa.com the leading institute for relationship intimacy.He is the author of two books and the host of the Zensensa podcast. A dating coach, relationship coach, confidence coach & sex coach. Provides premarital counseling, couples therapy, online marriage counseling, relationship counseling & marriage therapy. Marriage counseling near you.

Trained in Somatic relationships therapy.Created the 3-step love model, end people pleaser syndrome.

The post Why Romanticized Love is Destroying Relationships appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.

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