What You Do for Others Will Eventually Benefit Yourself

Ideally the mother, father, or caregivers encourage and normalize the child's entire range of feelings: fear, anxiety, distress, sadness, anger, joy, interest, shame, etc When the parents are able to invite and hold the child's feelings, to play with and socialize them, the child is able to integrate and own the whole range of human emotion. However, in practice it doesn't work out this way. Parents have their own wounding, blind spots, and neurotic avoidances. Some feelings are okay, while others are threatening to the parents. The parents convey to the child in many overt and covert ways that certain feelings can't be tolerated and disrupt the child-parent bond. These feelings quickly become threatening to the child. Repression sets in along with other defense mechanisms such as disavowal, and the person walls off important feelings, impulses, desires, and areas of the self. Every family member should be allowed to express their thoughts and feelings without being criticized or interrupted. If you happen to be in one of those families that likes to talk over or yell and fight with each other, you may want to think about asking an objective third party to sit in on the meeting and help facilitate the conversation. A few people you could consider are a family friend, a social worker, or a pastor. Identify caregiving roles and responsibilities The roles and responsibilities of your family members will depend on their individual relationship with your loved one, how much time they have to give, and where they live. For example, if your sister lives far away from your loved one, she won't be able to give hands-on care, but she may be able to take charge of setting up appointments or managing finances. Don't worry if things don't go perfectly Don't expect to solve every problem in one meeting. Some questions will inevitably go unanswered, and not all plans will work out the way you thought they would. If you can accept the fact that sometimes your family will disagree or fight, it will allow you to stay calm and steer the conversation back to the problem at hand if things get off track. The truth is that you will be a better student, achiever, and role model if you are physically available and empowered. You will process stress better and produce happy hormones, so that when the challenging days arise (and they always will), you will be naturally equipped to hit them head-on. The more you work your body, the more that you will become creative and clear.

Stress is toxic. It always brings on self-judgment and a feeling of discomfort in our own skin, a lack of connection between mind and body that causes us to underperform in life, feel unhappy, and be prone to the onset of disease. Many adult women have to chip through layers of calcified doubt before they can even start to feel good about moving again. But you have a unique opportunity to avoid all that extra work. This is why it's so great to be a teenager! You have a head start. You can bring your attention to the amazing machine that is your body before that connection fades away in a sea of insecurity. Happiness doesn't depend on your car, your house, or anything in the outside world. You can be happy right here, right now! Science has found that your external circumstances make only 10% of your happiness. Surprisingly where you are born, how much you earn, where you live, where you work has a remarkably small impact on your happiness. Yes, some people are born happier than others. A whopping 40% of your happiness can be influenced by intentional activities. This is where the gratitude, the long walks, the meditation comes in. This also means if you are born less happy you can improve your happiness by doing these intentional activities. Don ' t postpone your happiness to the future, the new apartment, the new car, the promotion. Happiness is right here, right now. Sleep allows you to revisit the sunken treasures of memory and imagination and to see the deep associations that lie beneath the stepping-stones of logic. When you wake up again (and this can even be after a few minutes of zoning out), the answer is there in front of you, as obvious as it is unquestionable. Your unconscious isn't your only information source;

You can immediately feel when something's off. A person's presence makes you uncomfortable, a situation doesn't sit right, or your gut says there's more going on than meets the eye. But the gut is a funny thing. Sometimes you can trust it to warn and defend, and sometimes it's like a dog barking at squirrels. Heed your instincts, but include your critical faculties as well. A Cancer Mercury studies its target with all its senses and doesn't miss a trick. Cancer Mercury/Gemini Sun: JUST RIGHT: take the same jacket, lose the skirt, add of-the-moment accessories, and you're Y&H. Y&H Effortlessly Chic ACCESSORY Essentials DRESS FASHIONABLY, BUT DON'T BE A FASHION VICTIM There's a big difference between being a slave to the latest trends and being aware of them. You want the latter. Every season, the fashion industry presents hundreds of trends. Some are exciting, some are fun, some are silly, and some are downright idiotic. Your mission is to be a smart shopper and buy only the trends that work for you -- your body, your personality, your lifestyle. Take your cues from the lists in this article -- Top 25 Clothes That Just Gotta Go and Too Young! You want to dress appropriately Y&H -- not with clothes that date you, and not with clothes that are designed with the twentysomething in mind. People crave to be successful, acknowledged, appreciated by others, own their dream house or car, travel the world and more. But they do not really believe it will ever happen. They are afraid they might fail, aren't good enough, or will never be able to afford the house, car or to travel the world.

For them, what they want or desire, will never happen unless they start believing that it is possible and that they can do it. This is true for you as well. You will not manifest something that you want, only something that you believe. A positive attitude and behavioral pattern releases positive energy that attracts positive results. We discussed it in the article about the results a person with a positive mindset creates. Right in the beginning we stressed the importance of knowledge when discussing the Circle of Success. Knowledge about what you want to do gives you not only the know-how, but also the confidence to start. The unconscious becomes filled with all the shadow elements of the self that are unacceptable. And the key to keeping these feelings walled off is anxiety. One of Freud's most important discoveries is called signal anxiety. When a forbidden feeling starts to emerge, the unconscious defenses go on high alert. Signal anxiety warns the person, Be careful! Here comes a forbidden feeling! The defenses swing into action and push the feeling back down into the unconscious, without the person ever even realizing the feeling was there. The whole process is unconscious except for a vague feeling of anxiety, the source of which is mysterious to the person. This is what neurosis is. Neurosis and its defenses run on signal anxiety and fear. Get organized and keep others in the loop When it comes to maintaining peace in a family, I've found that the best offense is defense. If you keep members informed and updated about your loved one's status and care, a lot of problems and confusion can be avoided.

Come up with a strategy for keeping family members informed. If there are any unexpected changes or there's an emergency, consider setting up a phone tree to spread the word. After you have a family meeting, consider writing down a summary of what you talked about, what decisions were made, and so forth and emailing it to all family members. Making a tentative schedule for your next family meeting to reevaluate your loved one's care is also a good idea as regular meetings can help prevent miscommunications. Parkinson's and Dementia: Caregiving for a Double Diagnosis I purchased a baby video monitor to be used when my mother is napping. It is hard for her to talk loud enough to call for help. Make movement a consistent part of your life--every day--and reach adulthood with an already ingrained connection to your body. Your body is your ally in your search for a bright and balanced life. BRUSH YOUR TEETH, WASH YOUR FACE, MOVE YOUR BODY I wrote the CONNECT section of this article with the goal of inspiring you to listen deeply to the physical, mental, and emotional parts of yourself. In EAT, I encourage you to become a bold gatekeeper who determines what foods are granted entry to your body and what foods are left on the shelf--we're talking to you, processed junk food. Here, in MOVE, I ask you to take the final step toward living a life in balance by taking ownership of your movement. We have been given the gift of bodies that are designed to move, not only to take us from point A to point B, but to keep our physical, mental, and emotional selves activated and healthy. Moving keeps your muscles lean, your bones strong, and your cardiovascular system at peak performance, and it also contributes to a healthy brain, a calm nervous system, and the fight against many diseases. Movement is part of my everyday life. It's that simple. In a sunrise, in the smile of your children, in a beautiful piece of music, you are listening to. Sometimes - when you stop chasing happiness and just stand still, you might notice that happiness has been on your heels all along. Your happiness - same as your self-esteem - depends solely on you.