About one in six people in England report experiencing anxiety or depression in any given week, and depression is a major cause of disability worldwide.

Some people have experienced very adverse experiences over their lives, leading to low self-esteem and other vulnerabilities which can make people susceptible to depression. Difficult life circumstances, such as financial problems, loneliness, stresses at work, among family or in relationships, poor physical health and genetic vulnerabilities also contribute. Even long-term depression can be treated, but the lifetime risk that the depression returns has been reported as about 50% for those experiencing one episode of major depression, with the likelihood increasing with further episodes.

Greater numbers of people experiencing mental health problems, and greater awareness of effective treatments, has increased demand for services. In recent years this has led to investment through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme, but because of huge demand, waiting times can still be a problem and its important that we develop new ways of helping people manage and overcome their mental health problems to prevent problems occurring in the first place, and to prevent them returning. A lot of this comes down to teaching people to help themselves more effectively.

To some extent this is already happening, for example with increases in self-help support within mental health services, and the use of self-help websites, online support and apps. Working with NHS staff, we have developed the Self-Management after Therapy intervention, or SMArT, designed to help people to stay well after they have recovered from an episode of depression.

Like other relapse-prevention approaches, it assumes that many people continue to remain vulnerable to depression. Recovery is seen as a process that continues after the end of therapy that has its ups and downs. This approach helps prevent someone from feeling they are back to square one if they have a setback, a frame of mind that can increase the likelihood of a return to more severe depression.

The approach, first developed by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer in the 1990s, has been found to support changes in behaviour, such as quitting smoking or doing more physical activity, through what are called implementation intentions. It is designed to help people turn an intention to act into a habitual behaviour. We know how hard it can be to make good intentions a reality (such as practically every New Years resolution), and when someones mood and motivation are low it can be even harder. As one mental health service user said during our research: I know what to do, but when Im down I just dont do it.

Implementation intentions work by linking a specific situation to a specific response. For example: Every evening between 7pm and 9pm I will write down all the positive things that have happened that day, or Every Thursday evening I will go to the pub quiz with my friend Katy. They often take the form of if , then statements, such as: If I feel down, then I will talk to my partner about why this might be.

When the situation comes up, the learned response is brought to mind, and is therefore more likely to be acted out. Using our SMArT intervention, people are encouraged to identify up to five of these implementation intentions. Its important that they are realistic and that they will have an impact on the persons wellbeing. The best way of thinking about them is to consider five things you do on a regular basis that are important to you. Then, imagine how you would feel if you didnt do them. That is what tends to happen in depression, or when a person is at risk of a relapse.

The use of the SMArT intervention is supported in mental health services by psychological wellbeing practitioners, and patients are encouraged to share their intentions with friends or family who can support them.

SMArT is just one of a number of ways of helping people who are prone to depression to stay well and were carrying out more research to see how effective it is. It provides a bridge between the end of therapy and life without therapy and helps people see the importance of setting plans and having routine in their lives. It also emphasises that recovery is a process that includes learning about oneself and self-management strategies. It is something for the long-term not just for all-too-soon-abandoned New Years resolutions.

Originally posted here:
How five short intentions can help people recovering from depression stay on track - The Conversation UK

I opened it on the morning of my 24th birthday; Id slept with the envelope beside the bed so it would be the first thing I saw upon waking. I made my boyfriend leave the room, so I could read it alone. It felt the way Christmas morning feels when youre 6: deeply magical and filled with potential. When I unfolded the pages, though, I couldnt believe what I read. My 24-year-old self was horrified. It turns out I was an absolute fool at the age of 14. My 14-year-old self had two main concerns for her future self: 1) that she not be fat, and 2) that she had found love. The language was flowery; I beseeched myself to be a good (and thin) person.

Now the letter seems mostly funny and endearing to me. It makes me sad that I was so concerned with the shape of my body and how I might someday deserve the love of a man, but I also understand (and have the proof in writing) that we are all fools, in one way or another, at the age of 14. But my 24-year-old self was disgusted and disappointed. Id waited a decade, for what? My younger self had let my older self down. When my boyfriend read the loopy handwritten pages, he laughed out loud, and I glowered. I wrote a letter to my 34-year-old self later that day; I wanted to prove that I was more than Id shown earlier. That I wasnt silly or boy-obsessed. If these letters were a blueprint for who I was becoming, I wanted to make clear that I was becoming a person of substance.

The letter I wrote that day breaks my heart a little when I read it now. The 24-year old who wrote it is deeply worried about the next 10 years. She believes that the stakes are so high, that if she fails during this period, she will be a failure. She is scared she wont measure up, although its unclear to what standard, or who set the bar. She is specific about what she expects during those 10 years: that she will marry her college boyfriend, that they will have a child, that she will finish and publish the Gigi novel she is working on. That she will find a job either in publishing or as a high school teacher, to pay the bills while she writes.

Part of the reason I feel badly for her is because none of those plans came to fruition. I paid my bills by working as a personal assistant, first for a self-help writer and then for a rock musician. My college boyfriend and I became engaged after nearly a decade together, and then three months before our wedding he decided he wasnt ready to get married. All I can remember saying to him during that awful time was that he wasnt getting married, he was marrying me. I felt the distinction was key, but he didnt. We broke up, and for almost a year I felt so much pain that my skin ached while I walked. My Gigi novel was rejected by 80 agents, and I put it in a drawer. I wrote another novel, and although I found an agent for that book, it went unpublished, too. In my early 30s, I would fall in love again, with an Englishman who made me laugh, and who is now my husband. And at the start of our relationship, I sold my third novel to a publisher.

There were surprises during that decade, too. My parents after years of battle announced they were getting divorced, and then changed their minds inside of a month. I met and started a relationship with a half sister Id never known about. My 24-year-old self wasnt wrong about the stakes being high during that decade; thats why I feel sadness for the stressed girl writing down her futile plans while her boyfriend waited in the next room. The decade ahead would be filled with uncertainty and hard work and hope and crying alone in bed where no one could see.

See the rest here:
Dear Me: A Novelist Writes to Her Future Self - The New York Times

As a teenager in Queens, New York, Vladimir Sainte often didn't want to go home after school. So he didn't. His parents, Haitian immigrants, worked several jobs, and Sainte had become a defiant and anxious boy.

When his parents decided they could no longer manage him, they shipped him to Kansas City to live with his uncle. He was 16 then. But now, years later in his career as a social worker, he sees he could have been taught to manage his emotions better.

Children, he notes, don't have the "verbal literacy" of adults.

"Their brains are not fully developed. It's our job slash our mandate as adults to teach them those emotional skills for self-regulation, for communication," he says.

One way he teaches kids the ideas of self-worth and self-soothing is bibliotherapy reading books that show a character dealing with similar issues.

During sessions with one particular African American boy, however, no book seemed to fit the situation. That was largely because there aren't many children of color depicted in books that deal with mental health. Like Sainte as a child, the boy literally was not comfortable in his own skin.

"I remember just feeling that way, and what really hit home for me was working with this kiddo who was not okay with his skin tone to the point where he wanted to take sandpaper, and he thought he could rub it off," Sainte says.

He decided to write and illustrate a series of children's books.

"I love art, I know mental health," he recalls thinking. "If I want to see this, then I need to be the change and do it myself."

The first book, "Just Like a Hero," is about an African American boy who powers his way to good self-esteem.

The second in the series, recently released, is called "It Will be Okay." It's about Alma, a Latina girl who learns to combat fear and anxiety.

For that one, Sainte created an antagonist, a fear monster named Mr. Limbo, who watches Alma on monitors as she huddles in a corner and as she texts that no one likes her.

As in "Just Like a Hero," the child character learns tools to care for herself. She creates a "hope shield" with the help of therapist named Mr. Dave.

The shield, Sainte writes, is the "source of her powers on learning ways to conquer her fears. The shield helped remind her of all the things she had learned in therapy."

Things like breathing deeply, taking breaks when needed, and how to tell bullies she's not scared.

Thanks to the shield, Alma is even able to help her friends feel more positive about themselves.

Sainte is a married father of two, and at home he tries to speak openly about how he feels and what he'll do with those emotions. But he recognizes not every parent knows to try that.

"If I was a dad and I didnt have this clinical background, how can I understand this, digest it, and regurgitate it back to my child?" Sainte says. "I wanted to make the writing simplistic and easy and transferable, so anyone can read it."

He hopes his books will raise awareness about kids who behave the way he once did.

"Just remember that there's more going on to a child than what we're seeing on the outside," he says.

"So if we can take the time to be compassionate and understanding, it will go a long way to helping the individual."

Vladimir Sainte spoke with KCUR on a recent edition of Central Standard. Listen to the full episode here.

Follow KCUR contributor Anne Kniggendorf on Twitter, @AnneKniggendorf.

Continue reading here:
Kansas City Children's Book Author Gives Kids 'Hope Shields' And Other Emotional Super-Hero Tools - KCUR

The hypocrisies of Lets Talk Day have been well documented. Bell employees have come forward with horrifying stories about stressful work conditions, low pay and lack of benefits, and pressure on call centre staff to behave unethically to meet aggressive sales targets.

Many people who identify as experiencing mental illness openly dislike the campaign and find it superficial, unhelpful, even triggering.

It is important to recognize that the main beneficiary of Lets Talk is the corporation itself. True, Bell raises around $7 million per year for mental health initiatives through the campaign (while presumably receiving a charitable tax write-off). However, this is roughly $3 million less than the annual amount paid to George Cope, the companys former CEO and one of the highest-paid executives in Canada before he was replaced by Mirko Bibic in January 2020.

In turn, Bell gets over 100 million interactions from their campaign and trends on Twitter in Canada each year. Since Cope founded Lets Talk in 2010, Bells corporate profits have tripled to $3 billion per year and its stock price rose 37 per cent (the campaign may also have aided in Bells merger with Astral Media in 2013).

It would seem that Lets Talk is little more than feel-good advertising for a telecommunications company accused of exploiting customers and contributing to Canadians having some of the most expensive cell phone bills in the world.

It is well known that inequality has been steadily increasing for the past four decades both within Canada and globally. So yes, lets talk about mental health.

Lets talk about how between three and five million Canadians live in poverty, while the nations billionaires collectively hoard over $150 billion.

Lets talk about how the average worker in Canada earns roughly $56,000 per year, while top CEOs pocket over 175 times that amount, and millionaire bank executives whine about "bleak" bonuses.

Lets talk about how it is in the interests of all those who hold disproportionate wealth and power in our capitalist economy to promote the idea that mental illness should be attributed to individual instead of societal factors, and therefore is best responded to with market-friendly individualist solutions such as psychiatric medication, apps, self-help books, consumptive self-care, or, if one is fortunate enough to afford it, therapy.

Lets talk about all of this, because there is only one effective way for us to address the crisis of mental illness and addiction:

We must reverse the trend toward greater inequality by increasing taxes on corporations and the ultra-rich.

In The Inner Level, epidemiology professors Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson make a strong case for the damaging impacts of inequality on mental health, analyzing data from hundreds of studies from across the globe. They describe three typical responses to the status insecurity and multiple anxieties triggered by unequal societies. Some people become demoralized and depressed. Others become narcissistic and self-aggrandizing. And nearly everyone "becomes more likely to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol and falls prey to consumerism to improve their self-presentation."

Notably, they found that "although [inequalitys] severest effects are on those nearer the bottom of the social ladder, the vast majority are also affected to a lesser extent." Rates of mental illness are higher in societies with bigger income differences, with more unequal developed countries reporting up to three times the rate of mental illness than more equitable ones. Community life is weaker; people are less likely to be involved in local groups, voluntary organizations, and civic associations, and people are less likely to feel like they can trust each other and are less willing to help one another.

"Taken together, as of course they must be, both the quantitative and qualitative studies show how income inequality increases the strain on family life, and how things replace relationships and time spent together. The stories reinforce the statistics and vice versa. Parental experience of adversity is passed on to children through pathways that include parental mental distress, longer working hours, higher levels of debt and domestic conflict," the authors write.

There have been many criticisms of Western psychiatry and the "disease model" of mental illness from within the medical, psychological, and therapeutic communities. The rapidly growing field of epigenetics lends strong support to the idea that mental health struggles and addictions in adulthood are often a consequence of adverse childhood experiences. Our early experiences have profound impacts on our development and can change the expression of our genes. This particularly impacts the prefrontal cortex the area of the brain most responsible for executive functioning, personality development, and social behaviours which does not finish maturing in humans until their mid-twenties and thus is more susceptible to socioenvironmental influences.

The recent revision of the APAs official diagnostic manual, the DSM, was particularly controversial. Prominent critics included Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a leading trauma theorist and author of The Body Keeps the Score, who criticized the exclusion of developmental trauma, lamenting "psychiatrys obtuse refusal to make connection between psychic suffering and social conditions," and Dr. Allen Frances, who had served as the chair of the task force for the fourth revision of the DSM.

In 2013, Frances published a book warning about the out-of-control "medicalization of ordinary life" and how the changes to the DSM feed pharmaceutical profits. Another interpretation of Frances claim here could be that people are being prescribed medication to help them cope with the increasingly stressful realities of late-stage free-market capitalism.

Quite simply, the more unequal a society, the higher the rates of stress, materialism, drug and alcohol abuse, dysfunctional and abusive relationships of all kinds, and the more likely children will be neglected during their critical years of development (in the United States, neglect is the most prevalent form of child maltreatment).

For the majority of families who lack access to wealth and resources child neglect is at least partially the result of lack of time, inadequate access to maternal care, lack of affordable counselling services for parents and children with addictions and/or mental illness, underfunded public education and community services, and lack of affordable daycare (our foster care system is cruel and unjust because it punishes parents for lacking the resources they need to care for their children, instead of helping them). In wealthy families, on the other hand, neglect and abuse is most often because of parental narcissism and workaholism. Even if a childs physical needs are met and they are not being abused, emotional neglect can damage a childs development and lead to attachment disorders and other mental health problems.

There are higher rates of school bullying in societies with greater inequality, and research on bullying has consistently found that many victims experience long-term adverse psychological effects well into adulthood. While bullies are found in all socioeconomic classes, victims disproportionately come from lower-income families. One can assume from the endless stream of articles coming primarily out of the U.S. about "toxic bosses," "toxic work environments," "toxic friends," and "toxic relationships" that these patterns continue into adulthood. In fact, Pickett and Wilkinson report that unequal societies damage well-being through toxic power relationships even if no one is living in poverty: "in terms of predicting mental distress, rank trumped absolute income."

A good example of the impact of status insecurity comes from Dr. Rhea Boyd of Harvards School of Public Heath. In January 2020, she published an article discussing a book by Jonathan Metzl called Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing Americas Heartland, arguing as summarized in a Twitter thread (Boyd has since locked her account) that "Despair isnt killing white Americans. The armed defense of structural whiteness is."

As I grew up in a wealthy household, I am ill-equipped to write on the adverse effects of poverty I strongly encourage everyone to read work by writers, journalists, and academics from marginalized communities, in particular Black and Indigenous women, as everything discussed here is inextricable from the legacies of colonialism, slavery, imperial war, misogyny, and environmental destruction and so I am going to shift focus here to the impact high inequality has on those who were born at (or clawed their way up to) the very top of the hierarchal ladder. This is because I believe that in order to achieve a better world, we would be wise to dispassionately study the behaviour of oppressors and listen to the experiences of the oppressed, instead of the other way around.

The relevant academic and policy question is not "Why do some people have so much less than others?" but rather "Why do some people insist on having so much more at the expense of other people?" One answer: Because some are narcissists in an economy that rewards narcissistic traits. "Narcissism is the sharp end of the struggle for social survival against self-doubt and a sense of inferiority," Pickett and Wilkinson write. "The connection between inequality and narcissism is supported by research on how growing up poor is associated with status-seeking and growing up wealthy with narcissism."

"Outward wealth is so often seen as if it was a measure of inner worth. And as greater inequality makes social position more visible, we come to judge each other more by status. With more social evaluation anxieties, problems of self-esteem, self-confidence and status insecurity become fraught."

Narcissistic people are more likely to hyper-competitively seek status, power, and wealth, and they are more likely to obtain it in our current economic system (just Google "narcissists" and "money"). Or as Nathan J. Robinson put it in Current Affairs: "This, for the most part, is what the extremely rich have in common: They are the ones who wanted money the most." These are the people who desire to dominate and control the world around them (while many cases of anxiety, depression, and demoralization can be attributed to a desire not to be subordinated, but also as characterizing a reluctance to harm others for personal gain). It is generally well accepted that many business leaders and investment bankers are psychopathic or narcissistic and a growing body of research supports this.

Children of psychologically abusive, narcissistic parents grow up into adults with chronic feelings of emptiness and are prone to self-destructive behaviours. On reddit, the "Raised by Narcissists" forum currently has over half a million members, who share stories of everything from being pitted against their siblings to financial abuse.

In addition, as Dr. Ramani Durvasula points out in her new book, a childhood characterized by the combination of emotional deprivation (as in neglect and abuse) and material overindulgence creates conditions for narcissism to flourish; people who have more opportunity to dominate and impress others are more likely to be rewarded for narcissistic traits. The narcissistic personality overlaps with the concept of "toxic masculinity" and research has found that "externalizing disorders, mania proneness, and narcissistic traits are related to heightened dominance motivation and behaviours." Tellingly, research suggests men are up to three or four times as likely to be narcissistic (the gap is widest for entitlement), while the majority of self-help books and articles on healing from narcissistic abuse are written by women.

Abuse, contempt, and victim blaming are typically directed down in hierarchies, while admiration, jealousy, and acquiescence is directed upward. Research in primatology, anthropology, and early childhood development indicates that human beings are wired for fairness; however there have always been people usually young men who desire to dominate and to have more than others. This has two important implications. Not only does inequality stress people out, but the more unequal a society, the greater the rationalizations as to why this is meritocratic or natural.

"The anthropological evidence suggests that equality in early human societies was maintained by what have been called 'counter dominance strategies': people who behaved in domineering ways were put in their place fairly systematically by being ignored, teased or ostracized, as others tried to maintain their autonomy," Pickett and Wilkinson explain.

In the abstract to Saving Normal, Dr. Allen Frances warns that "all of these newly invented conditions will worsen the cruel paradox of the mental health industry: those who desperately need psychiatric help are left shamefully neglected, while the "worried well" are given the bulk of the treatment, often at their own detriment." It is revealing that Bells "four pillars" toward "moving mental health forward" state that stigma is "one of the biggest hurdles for anyone suffering from mental illness," but does not say the same for the second pillar care and access which is a far bigger barrier for the many people with mental illness or addictions who are low-income or live in poverty.

A friend and business partner of former Bell CEO George Cope (who received the Order of Canada for Lets Talk) described him this way:"I dont know anyone more competitive than George George really loves to win." Cope has reaped great personal prestige, power and wealth in a society that is organized to reward those obsessed with winning and keeps raising the bar for victory.

Many of those winners are motivated by conflict, and some are willing to inflict intolerable amounts of stress upon the rest of the population with little to no remorse. It is time for what A.T. Kingsmith referred to a few weeks ago in this publication as "anxious solidarity," because unless we collaborate to stop them, these vampires will drain the world. Vampires are an oft-used metaphor for both narcissistic and rich people. The label is apt in cases where people are addicted to money, competition, and power; they will not stop hoarding on their own. As Robert Sapolsky says in his multidisciplinary tome, Behave, "Our frequent human tragedy is that the more we consume, the hungrier we get."

Im not calling for a boycott of Bell or the Lets Talk campaign, but rather for us to make good use of the platform they have so "generously" provided.

I think we can safely assume that most of us are aware of mental illnesses at this point, and so it is time to shift the conversation to how to enact meaningful change and I suggest doing so using their hashtag, #BellLetsTalk.

We could share ideas for how Bell could improve the health of their employees (e.g. paying them better, or not firing them when they ask for mental-health leave.) We could suggest ways Bell could enhance the mental well-being of their customers by lowering the cost of cellular data, or maybe not exploiting prison inmates who wish to speak to their families.

We could explain how raising corporate taxes could fund a Green New Deal (as many suffer from climate despair), and social programs and public education reforms that provide support to families and improve the lives of all Canadians.

We could say how a universal basic income could lift millions out of poverty and empower workers to quit abusive workplaces and what David Graeber refers to as the "bullshit jobs" of capitalism, or how adding therapy and pharmacare to our health plan could be a lifesaver for hundreds of thousands of people who need but cannot afford help.

After all, talk is cheap. But, as this years slogan proclaims, "When it comes to mental health, every action counts."

Note: The author is not related to the founders of Bell Canada.

Read the original:
Talk Is Cheap: On Capitalism, Mental Health and Taxing the Rich - TheTyee.ca

A few months ago, my three-year-old threw a tantrum. I no longer remember what caused it. Probably I sliced his apple into pieces that were the wrong size or inadvertently threw away the scrap of bubble wrap he wasnt done popping, or some similar toddler-dictated infraction. He balled up his fists and shouted GRRRRR! But then, instead of flinging himself onto the floor in a distressed heap, his usual go-to move, he calmly announced: I need my guitar.

He walked over to his tiny instrument and hauled it and himself up onto the couch. He positioned a pick between his thumb and first finger and started strumming. Weve been playing guitar together since he could hold one, but this was the first time hed made up a song on the spot. The lyrics: Sometimes youll be angry, or sad, or mad, or you play guitar, like me...More harmonica!

Oh, my God. Hes a musical prodigy, I couldnt help thinking. My brain flashed immediately to private lessons and performing arts camps and sold-out concert halls. At the same time, I wondered why I was even considering setting him up for the potential distress I experienced in college over not making it doing what I loved.

Hard work + ambition = success? (Getty/iStock)

I spent much of my childhood playing music: piano, guitar and viola. By middle school, I was focused exclusively on the viola. I had a good amount of natural ability, but I was also driven. I didnt have to be persuaded to practise. I loved playing and I was determined to make it as a professional musician.

I quit viola after a miserable freshman year of music school, where the intense pressure of performances and auditions sucked all the joy from playing. I was so sure back then that the only route to happiness was music that quitting at 19 left me feeling completely lost, not to mention like a total failure.

I was raised to believe in the meritocratic promise that hard work + ambition = success. There will always be people who are better than you, but there should never be anyone who has worked as hard, my dad used to say. Hes a recently retired film professor who loved what he did for a living and believed that ones job and passion could and should be aligned. I believed it, too.

Even more than when I was a kid in the Eighties and Nineties, we now live in a self-help you can do anything culture. Were told to put in our 10,000 hours and cultivate grit and never, ever give up. When we do have setbacks, were urged to rebrand them as opportunities instead of feeling disappointed. Fail up, fail smart, fail forward. Get your vision board. Get your gratitude journal. Get your can-do attitude and mantras and wash your face, girl.

But in the midst of all this well-meaning encouragement to follow our dreams, I think we often neglect to give kids the skills to deal with what happens when things dont go according to plan. So many of us the vast majority hit a ceiling for one reason or another when trying to professionalise our passions. Sometimes we get what we want only to then realise it isnt going to make us happy, so we quit later on in the journey. This is totally normal, yet my peers and I are so hard on ourselves when it comes to moments we feel like we failed. We are constantly measuring ourselves against what we think our lives should look like. And its not getting any easier for younger cohorts.

I often contemplate how to encourage my kids burgeoning talents and interests in a way that also leaves room for him to healthily quit or change course when its the right time to move on. Is my job as a parent to tell him to dream big? To give him a sobering reality check? How do I convey the nuanced message: Work hard for as long as it takes to see a project through in a way that feels satisfying, keep going after that if you still feel driven and fulfilled, and quit if you dont?

I want my son to be able to quit something gracefully without feeling the deep failure I experienced in college. I want him to be ambitious and goal-oriented, but also to be somewhat detached from the outcome of his hard work because there is no simple formula for success despite what the internet tells us. Making it, if there even is such a thing, depends not only on putting in your 10,000 hours and having grit but on trickier variables such as talent, ambition, money, luck and personality.

Created with Sketch. Created with Sketch.

During a 2011 Interview with Vogue, actor Emma Watson opened about her failures. 'I dont want the fear of failure to stop me from doing what I really care about,' she told the publication.

Getty

In a 2006 Nike commercial titled 'Failure', basketball star Michael Jordan shared his low moments during his sporting career. 'I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career,' the sportsman said in the clip. 'I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.'

Getty Images

TV presenter and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey talked about failure in her 2013 Harvard Commencement address. 'There is no such thing as failure,' she told the audience. 'Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.'

Getty Images

Singer Taylor Swift spoke to her audiences during her 2013-14 'Red Tour' about how to have the confidence to keep fighting for succcess. 'Fearless is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again even though every time youve tried before youve lost.' she told her fans.

Getty Images for NARAS

Womens education activist Malala Yousafzai spoke about the importance of standing up for what you believe in during an ABC interview in 2013. The 22-year-old said: 'I think life is dangerous. Some people get afraid of it. Some people dont go forward. But some people, if they want to achieve their goal, they have to go, they have to move.'

Getty Images

In Self-titled: Part 2. Imperfection, a mini-documentary posted by the singer on YouTube in 2013, Beyonc opened up about the importance of failing in life. 'The reality is, sometimes you lose,' she said. 'And youre never too good to lose, youre never too big to lose, youre never too smart to lose, it happens. And it happens when it needs to happen. And you have to embrace those things.'

Getty Images for Coachella

In a 2008 Harvard Commencement address about the benefits of failure and the importance of imagination, author J.K Rowling stated: 'It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all in which case, you fail by default. Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.'

Getty Images

Ending her 2008 campaign for US President, former Senator and Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton reflected on her journey. 'Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in,' she said. 'And, when you stumble, keep faith. And, when youre knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you cant or shouldnt go on.'

Getty Images

The late American poet is widely believed to have once stated: 'Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.'

Getty Images

Actor Sandra Bullock shared her reflections on her fears in an interview with the Express in 2013. 'I was afraid of being a failure, of not having the best time or of being chicken,' she told the publication. 'But every year I get older I think, "what was I fearing last year?" you forget. And then you move on.'

Getty Images

During a 2011 Interview with Vogue, actor Emma Watson opened about her failures. 'I dont want the fear of failure to stop me from doing what I really care about,' she told the publication.

Getty

In a 2006 Nike commercial titled 'Failure', basketball star Michael Jordan shared his low moments during his sporting career. 'I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career,' the sportsman said in the clip. 'I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.'

Getty Images

TV presenter and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey talked about failure in her 2013 Harvard Commencement address. 'There is no such thing as failure,' she told the audience. 'Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.'

Getty Images

Singer Taylor Swift spoke to her audiences during her 2013-14 'Red Tour' about how to have the confidence to keep fighting for succcess. 'Fearless is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again even though every time youve tried before youve lost.' she told her fans.

Getty Images for NARAS

Womens education activist Malala Yousafzai spoke about the importance of standing up for what you believe in during an ABC interview in 2013. The 22-year-old said: 'I think life is dangerous. Some people get afraid of it. Some people dont go forward. But some people, if they want to achieve their goal, they have to go, they have to move.'

Getty Images

In Self-titled: Part 2. Imperfection, a mini-documentary posted by the singer on YouTube in 2013, Beyonc opened up about the importance of failing in life. 'The reality is, sometimes you lose,' she said. 'And youre never too good to lose, youre never too big to lose, youre never too smart to lose, it happens. And it happens when it needs to happen. And you have to embrace those things.'

Getty Images for Coachella

In a 2008 Harvard Commencement address about the benefits of failure and the importance of imagination, author J.K Rowling stated: 'It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all in which case, you fail by default. Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.'

Getty Images

Ending her 2008 campaign for US President, former Senator and Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton reflected on her journey. 'Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in,' she said. 'And, when you stumble, keep faith. And, when youre knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you cant or shouldnt go on.'

Getty Images

The late American poet is widely believed to have once stated: 'Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.'

Getty Images

Actor Sandra Bullock shared her reflections on her fears in an interview with the Express in 2013. 'I was afraid of being a failure, of not having the best time or of being chicken,' she told the publication. 'But every year I get older I think, "what was I fearing last year?" you forget. And then you move on.'

Getty Images

The psychology professor Carsten Wrosch has found that people who are better able to let go when they experience unattainable goals have less depressive symptoms, less negative affect over time. They also have lower cortisol levels, and they have lower levels of systemic inflammation, which is a marker of immune functioning. And they develop fewer physical health problems over time, he adds.

Give time to let a childs interests unfold organically (Getty/iStock)

We have countless articles and books on hacking our productivity and achieving our potential. We are all greatness in waiting, according to the self-help section. How about some books focused on gracefully giving up on something? Or books that celebrate the freedom of letting go of our dreams and moving on to something else where we wont have to beat our heads against the wall? Or books that say its natural sometimes to hit the limits of our ambition, talent or desire? How about we stop telling people that they failed because they werent determined enough or didnt believe in themselves enough? Sure, sometimes thats true. But not all the time. Probably not even most of the time.

Were obsessedwith progress and growth and linear success. But the truth is there are plenty of moments in our lives when we will be better served by quitting than persevering. I sometimes give my music school days the romantic gloss of the suffering artist, but the reality is I was literally sick to my stomach most of the time. My shoulders and back ached constantly. My entire body was screaming at me to quit. There has got to be some distinction between the kind of resistance you can persevere through as part of your tale of triumph and the kind that indicates youve had enough and its time to head in another direction.

More and more Ive come to believe that true grit and resilience are defined by flexibility and adaptability, by not holding on too tightly to any one storyline about who you are or what your life should look like.

For now, Ive vowed not to get ahead of myself in terms of my childs potential abilities, musical or otherwise no small feat in the intense Brooklyn parenting wilds. There is time, I tell myself, to let my childs interests and desires unfold organically, to figure out as a parent when to push and when to pull back.

In the meantime, as my son would say: more harmonica!

And Then We Grew Up: On Creativity, Potential, and the Imperfect Art of Adulthood by Rachel Friedman is published by Penguin

Go here to read the rest:
Why Im going to teach my child how and when to quit - The Independent

The Good Place is full of morally questionable but relatable characters, and here are their Dungeons and Dragons alignments.

Eleanor Shellstrop lived a great life on Earth, full of nachos and Rihanna concerts...When she died, she discovered that the afterlife is real, and it's full of frozen yogurt.

RELATED:The Good Place: Every Main Character Ranked By Intelligence

This show asks the main characters to examine their choices, their motives, and the effects their actions have had on the world.Let's take a look at some of the moral alignments of the characters, and how the events of the show may have changed some of our favorites from selfish "ashholes" to upstanding citizens of this fine universe of NBC's The Good Placeto celebrate the conclusion of the show.

Mindy St Clairewhat else is there to say? Arguably the most eccentric character on the show, Mindy is the only person to be awarded her very own Medium Place. She helped her sister to start the world's largest relief fundbut why did she want to do it? We may never know.

Later, after her death, she helps Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Janet, and Jason whenever any of the Cockroaches come knocking on her door. She hides them, helps them remember plans they've concocted in other timelines, and even agrees to let the team run their experiment in her Medium Place. However, she also filmed Chidi and Eleanor having sex without them being aware of itnot for blackmail, just for herself. This is True Neutral.

Simone is a tricky character to evaluate. She seems (on the surface) to be generally good. She's fun to be around. She brings cupcakes to work for her coworkers. She helps Chidi with his thesis. But when you dig deeper and look at her motives, and especially what she does when the chips are down, things begin to get dicey. Didn't she only buy those cupcakes because funding came through? (Even Eleanor comments on how she spent the funding on cupcakes.) And everything can be summed up in Simone's last actions during the experiment: she leaves Chidi to save Brent on his own so she could attempt to escape without them.

Michael starts the story as lawful evil. He wants to make the Bad Place better for all demons, make things more fun, and be a great Bad Place employee. Pretty quickly, his neighborhood turns him into an outcast, and he's forced to ally himself with Eleanor and the crew. After Chidi teaches him about mortality, Michael beginsto care about the humans around him. Eventually, he grows to consider himself a caretaker for the humans in his neighborhood, and furthera demon who is responsible for fixing the afterlife system. Michael is totally neutral good.

When we meet our Janet (not a girl), she's just like any other Good Place Janet: Lawful Good through and through. (Bad Place Janets are lawful evil, while Neutral Janets are quite obviously True Neutral.) After 800+ reboots, Janet begins to change.

RELATED:The Good Place: Janet's 10 Quirkiest Moments, Ranked

She stays loyal to Michael, her architect, throughout the entirety of the showbut her first season days of doing whatever she was told exactly how she was told to do it with no questions asked are over. Most infamously, Janet conspired against the judge with Michael and the Cockroaches to keep the humans safe. Whatever she does, she does it for good reasons, but she's not afraid to break the rules.

Vicky, Real Eleanor, or as Janet once drunkenly slurred, "Victoria," is one of the funniest characters on the show, if not the most dramatic. In season four, we saw her shine in her new role as a trainer in the new afterlife system. However, it's in this plotline that Vicky shows her true colors as lawful neutral. When we first meet the character, her only goal is to contribute to Michael's neighborhood and torture the four humans as well as she possibly can. But in season four,she flips sides immediately after hearing the afterlife system would be changing. This proves Vicky is in this for herself, and for whatever the people want. After all, she is a performer.

Chidi is so lawful good he might have a secret tattoo about it somewhere under his sweater vest. In season one, he agrees to help Eleanor before he knows her situationbut after he knows her situation he still helps her because he feels bound by the promise he had made to her.

RELATED:The Good Place: 10 Hidden Details About The Main Characters

Later, he refuses to lie, even if only to save his life from literal demons in the Bad Place. He's obsessed with doing the right thing to a literal fault. And in season four, we learn his greatest regret is accidentally moving with an overdue library bookand as a result, he put the library in his last will.

Maya Rudolph was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her role as Judge Gen in this show twice--and why wouldn't she be? Judge Gen is truly one of the most complicated characters to ever appear in a prime-time sitcom. Since the dawn of time, Judge Gen has the most important job in the universe: to weigh in on unresolved disputes in the afterlife, and to remain as impartial as possible during the process. While it's clear that the character outside of the job might want things (she's obsessed with Netflix and also Chidi) she remains neutral and impartial in her decisions and actions.

Jason Mendoza, the m0l0tov cocktail king, is a shining example of chaotic neutral. If he likes you, you're his people, just like Pillboi and Donkey Doug. If he doesn't like you, you're out, just like Sheila the black market alligator dealer with a pierced jawbone, who he framed for stealing boogie boards back when he was alive in Jacksonville, FL. He sold drugs to college students, but it was really oregano. He rescued Janet from the Bad Place fearlessly. But then a few episodes later he skips out on the work required to remake the afterlife system. In short: you never know what you're going to get when Jason's on the screen.

She raised billions of dollars for charity, but it was mostly so she could outdo her sister. She led a nonprofit that focused on producing self-help seminars and books... but all the while, her favorite thing in the world was the feeling she got when the flight attendant would close the curtain between first class and business plus.

After four seasons, Tahani is the character most likely to say something accidentally offensive. However, she's also the character who is most outside of her element. Until she gets a little more comfortable relating to other people, her actions will remain chaotic good.

Eleanor begins the story as a neutral evil character. Most tragically, she agrees to pet and house sit for a weekend, but when one of her mildly trashy friends invites her to a Rihanna concert in Vegas, Eleanor abandons the dog, leaving piles of food all around the kitchen and yelling at the dog to ration before leaving for the concert. When next we see the dog, it's so round that it's being carted around in a toy wagon, and Eleanor still doesn't apologize. But by the end of the story, Eleanor is offering to sacrifice herself to Shawn just to get the afterlife working a tiny bit better, making her truly neutral good.

NEXT:The Good Place: 10 Worst Tortures, Ranked

Next Underwater: The 10 Most Frightening Movie Monsters To Emerge From The Oceans, Ranked

Virginia Winters-Troche is a late twenties, early to rise New Englander who has watched and rewatched so many shows on Netflix, her neighbors wonder if she ever leaves the house. (She obviously does--that's how the snacks happen.) Specializing in shows where anyone could bite it at any moment, Virginia channels her constant urge to speak during movies into writing about them. When not watching Netflix, you may find her watching Hulu, HBO, Cable TV, or, rarely, sleeping.

The rest is here:
The Good Place: D&D Moral Alignments Of The Main Characters - Screen Rant

Theres a wealth of evidence to support the notion that spending time outdoors boosts your mental wellbeing. But before you say it, getting back into nature does not require weekend getaways or travelling outside the city, if thats where you live.

Rather, many Twitter responses involved simply paying attention, or getting involved. Observing the trees, flowers, the sky, looking for the first signs of spring, walking on the grass, watching the sunset, smelling the air, growing things from seed, listening to the rain from inside it seems that despite hundreds of years of urbanisation since the Industrial Revolution, we are all still creatures of the earth at heart.

Special shout out to Becca Caddy for this genius idea: I have an alert for when the ISS is passing overhead, and running outside to spot it always gives me a bit of perspective and wonder!

Here is the original post:
How to be happier: find the joy in simple, free things - Stylist Magazine

Tracey Thorn: I would never impose boredom on anyone. Photograph: Katherine Anne Rose/The Observer

Tracey Thorn began her career as a singer and musician, before becoming best known as half of Everything But the Girl, with her lifelong partner, Ben Watt. She then became a solo artist, and a writer of three bestselling books: her 2013 memoir Bedsit Disco Queen, 2016s Naked at the Albert Hall and Another Planet, published last year, which traces her years growing up in Londons suburbs, and is out in paperback on 6 February.

How does writing about the 1970s world of Another Planet feel now? My own kids cant imagine how we ever survived when I tell them about staying in all evening waiting for a phone call from someone, who youd then arrange to meet under a clock tower in a nearby town, only to have the bus cancelled and not be able to get there. The thing that strikes me now is how locally rooted our lives were. Without the internet, we had no access to other people in other places, so we did a lot of dreaming and a lot of fantasising. The rest of the time, we just tried to avoid dying of boredom.

Your diaries fill the book. Theyre hilariously unpoetic: about clothes you failed to buy, Coronation Street episodes, unsuitable boys. What surprised you about them? How dishonest they are in places. Given that I was only writing them for myself, I didnt often take the opportunity to express my true feelings. Instead, I lied, and put on a brave face. Never fancied him anyway, Id write when a boy dumped me. Id leave out things that had gone wrong, or been difficult. I think it was partly an exercise in defiance, a refusal to be defeated by lifes adversities. So in that sense, my diary was a bit of a self-help manual, written by me, for me.

So often the story of rocknroll is told from a male perspective

The book is also about your parents, and how wildly their lives and expectations differed from yours. You mention your father saying I never knew Tracey was so into music after you wrote your first memoir Bedsit Disco Queen. What was it like to trawl those memories? My dad barely features in my diaries, as I think we were quite distant at that time, which perhaps goes some way to explaining how little he knew or understood me. We werent connecting, and I think he lost sight of who I really was. As for my mum, we had been very close, and then fell out badly when I rebelled against all the rules and conventions. Some of the diary entries I found very painful to read. Accounts of ugly rows. Tears and shouting. The casual way in which I mention that she has been put on Valium by the doctor.

Another Planet celebrates female musicians that offered you a way out of ordinary life. How have the memoirs of several you mention like Viv Albertine and Chrissie Hynde inspired you? Its been fantastic to hear the true life stories from those women. So often the story of rocknroll is told from a male perspective. So often it feels like men own music. And I still get as angry and frustrated about that as I ever did. Reading those womens accounts of their lives has reminded me how much they paved the way back then. And history too often erases the women, in all art forms. Every single published story of a female artist goes a small way towards redressing the balance, and is another one saved from the fire.

You write about pop stars that emerged from the boredom of suburbia, like David Bowie and Siouxsie Sioux. Do we need more boredom? No, I would never impose boredom on anyone. Life is short and its a shame to spend some of it feeling trapped and thwarted. I know that it can be an inspiration to some people, and spur you on to make things happen, but at the same time it can also just drag you down. Sometimes it crushed our imaginative spirit. Sometimes it made us reckless, and for young girls that was risky. Wed do anything to escape being bored, and that wasnt always good for us.

Has your songwriting changed as youve written your memoirs? My last album [2018s Record] definitely has a memoir-ish vibe to it. Its a record of a womans life, detailing the things that often get glossed over in songs - things like body image, and going on the pill, and the realities of being up all night feeding babies, and the fact that even once youre older, and a mum, and supposedly the embodiment of everything thats safe and cosy, you dont lose your desire for excitement and euphoria, which for me is often to be found on the dance floor with a glass in my hand.

Which books about suburbia have you enjoyed? Hanif Kureishis The Buddha of Suburbia is amazing. Also, when I had just finished writing Another Planet a book was published by John Grindrod called Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of the Green Belt. I panicked and asked my publisher to read it for me, fearing that the book I had just written was going to be an exact copy of this one. Luckily it isnt, although I have only recently dared to look at it. It is very worth reading.

Which writers did you like when were young that have stayed with you? My reading habits as a teenager were a bit skewed by trying to impress, if Im being honest, boys. So I went through a phase of carrying Camus and Sartre under my arm, thinking that would be irresistible. I also fell hard for Kerouacs On the Road, which spoke to my yearning for freedom and travel and drugs and sex and all the rest of it. I darent read it again now in case I dont like it any more. The writer I loved as a teen who has most stayed with me is George Orwell.

Which genres do you particularly enjoy reading that might surprise us? Are there any you avoid? Quite recently I discovered Lee Childs Jack Reacher books and I have become a complete addict. I read the first four in what seems like a few fevered days, and I am looking forward to reading them all. Absolutely adore the economy, and the plotting, and the sheer sense of energy that runs through them.

Whats the last really great book you read? Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen, which is the third part of her Copenhagen Trilogy. She was born in 1917, a working-class girl in Copenhagen, and grew up longing to be a writer. These books tell the story of how she made that happen, but also her struggle with drugs and alcohol. Her writing is incredible, so focused and clear. Not a word that doesnt need to be there.

What do you plan to read next? Ive got a to read pile in the kitchen, and on it at the moment are Funny Weather by Olivia Laing, The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd, and The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante.

And what book would you give to a teenager? Ive never liked being prescriptive with any of my kids. They should read whatever they fancy. Having said that, I just gave our 18-year-old Kevin Barrys Night Boat to Tangier and hes really enjoying it.

Another Planet by Tracey Thorn is published by Canongate (9.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over 15

Go here to see the original:
Tracey Thorn: I went through a phase of carrying Camus under my arm - The Guardian

Over the years they've been in existence, the Airdrie and District Victims Assistance Society has been a great, silent partner in the community, but this year they plan to make some noise.

Faced with growing caseloads of victims of crime and tragedy in the area, and less and less sustainable funding, ADVAS will be focusing more on raising funds to help them continue the great work they're doing.

Fund Developer Conor Tapp said the 1:1 campaign held in December proved to him, and others in the organization, that if they get the word out, they will receive supports.

"The community was very generous to us. We set an ambitious goal but it would have included some government support and big corporate support. In terms of individual support we received above our target from individuals in Airdrie and district and we're very appreciative of that."

Tapp said because of stable funding for ADVAS in the past, they were content to work in the background and accept the fact that people didn't need to know they were there. That has changed and now ADVAS will work harder to get the word out about the things they are doing in the community.

According to Tapp, ADVAS's programs will not change but the Board of Directors and Executive Director will be looking at how they're spending their money, as well as raising more. Tapp said they run their programs in a very lean way but want to see if there are other ways to save. However, fundraising will become more of a necessity in the future.

Tapp sais they're reaching out to all levels of government to make them aware of the work of ADVAS. They will continue to seek out supportive members of the community, both individuals and the businesses. Right now, the two Boston Pizza locations in the city are holding their Heart Campaigns which run until Valentine's Day. The money this year will benefit ADVAS. Tapp is hoping that more of the business community will catch the vision of the restaurants.

"It's so important for any non-profit or charity to have the support of the business community. This (the Heart Campaign) is perfect for ADVAS because we are grassroots, we are community. We need those businesses who are engaging with the community and really being a true partner to us and helping to tell our story."

Tapp said the 1:1 campaign was a great start to show the community what ADVAS does to help the victims of crime and tragedy, now they hope to build on that.

"You'll hear us talking more about how we can support one another. That includes self-care but also how can we respond to our friends and family members who might be hurting because they were a victim."

Comments? Questions? Story ideas? Email [emailprotected]

"

Read the original here:
ADVAS to focus on raising funds to help meet increasing caseloads in 2020 - DiscoverAirdrie.com

Editor's note: This is the first in a three-part series about how parents can learn some important life lessons from their kids.

If you want to live your best life, theres no shortage of social media gurus, self-help books or life advice memes. I should know, as one look at my Audible and Kindle library will reveal Im a bit of a self-help junkie. Amazon has even stopped recommending new self-help books and is starting to recommend I just get help.

Its not that Im a hot mess, per se; its just that Im obsessed with the pursuit of joy. And Ive learned its a choice, not a result. So I gobble up everything I can about taking responsibility for my life and learning how to be disciplined enough to make the right choices.

But Im starting to think the best education I can get on the topic isnt in a book, but in the child with a runny nose currently begging me to catch her boogers.

Ive learned three huge life lessons by simply observing my girls. Theres actually more than three, but my editor reminded me this was a column, not a book. So Ill break each lesson down into a short series.

The first lesson Ive learned is this: Love what is, rather than wanting what isnt.

For example, if one finds themselves insecure with low self-esteem, just watch a child catch a glimpse of themselves in the mirror. Quick, find a pen! Youll want to take notes.

If there's one thing I know about my girls, it's that when they look in the mirror, they like what they see. Girlfriend's hair will be all matted up in the back like a neglected poodle, yet when she sees her reflection, she sees a rock star. A rock star who enjoys wearing her pink lip gloss a full inch off the lip, mind you. Thats how she rolls and she rolls good.

She grins, poses, prances and spins. She even gets inspired to pretend shes Elsa. I mean, whos gonna stop her?

Now, compare this to her own mothers reaction to her reflection. There are days when I completely avoid eye contact with my mirror, let alone light up like Lady Gagas in my house.

Children give us a glimpse of how its supposed to be. Their innocence shows us a beautiful side of our inherent humanness that, for so many of us, eventually gets soiled with pain. But the truth is still there, buried under our learned and experienced baggage. Children dont see imperfections because they arent aware they even exist. Theres no comparison; they delight in who they are. They simply celebrate what they have and shake what the good Lord gave em. Hair isnt too red, too brown, too straight or too curly. Eyes arent too big or too small or wide or narrow. They see themselves and think, Wow, here I am! And I dig it!

I wonder if I could learn to see through this lens of loving what is rather than wanting what isnt. Is it even possible, with all of our cultural programming? All the hurts, baggage and traumas that took our eyes away from the beauty thats there and started searching endlessly for what we wish was there instead?

I dont know, but I think Id like to try.

As a naturally ambitious person, I cant tell you how blind Ive become to the incredible life thats around me while my eyes scan for more. For better. Always better. Its not a lesson in settling, Ive learned. Its a lesson in enjoying, while trying.

I mean, listen. I can make positive changes to my health fueled by loathing the way my thighs rub together, or fueled by deep wonder that I even have these amazing thighs to rub together in the first place.

Kids choose wonder. Why cant I?

I can. If I choose to. And the first step is learning to love what is, rather than wanting new thighs.

Anna Lind Thomas is a humor writer and mom to daughters Lucy and Poppy and English bulldog Bruno, wife to Rob Thomas and founder of HaHas for HooHas. She writes for momaha.com.

Read the original here:
Forget gurus. Learn how to live your best life from kids - Omaha World-Herald