Narcissistic Personality Disorder Has No Place in Our Government

Narcissistic Personality Disorder Has No Place in Our Government

Life & Living
Lately, I've been determined to limit my daily news intake to maintain some level of sanity while witnessing what often feels like a bad reality show playing out in our governmental institutions. So many of today's political leaders are an embarrassment to our country and themselves – diminishing the credibility and respectability of our nation across the global arena. While I'm not a certified mental health care provider, one doesn't need such a certification to diagnose these politicians as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. Let me first say that I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat. In truth, I cast my vote based not only on proposed policies and philosophies but more on the integrity and morality of a politician. Today, more than at any other time in our nation's…
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Simpler Living Is a Mindset Old Souls Understand

Simpler Living Is a Mindset Old Souls Understand

Generosity & Kindness, Life & Living
American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder once remarked, "I believe we would be happier to have a personal revolution in our individual lives and go back to simpler living and more direct thinking. It is the simple things of life that make living worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest, and living close to nature." For me, simpler living is a way of life I witnessed, cultivated, and adopted through the invaluable and countless occasions I happily shared with my grandparents. I can evoke memories of sitting around my grandparent's kitchen table, pouring cups of freshly brewed tea from an ivory ceramic pot while munching on cookies or other sweet treats my grandmother placed on a coordinating dinner plate. We'd communicate stories about our days,…
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Green Therapy Inspires Us to Reconnect With Ourselves

Green Therapy Inspires Us to Reconnect With Ourselves

Life & Living
Green therapy is the name of a new therapeutic practice in which one's experiences in nature aid in strengthening and rejuvenating one's mental well-being. Some believe that green therapy is total nonsense and could never provide one's mind-body connection – the link between a person's mental well-being and how those emotions influence our overall health – with any concrete benefits. But others would disagree. While I completely understand being skeptical of green therapy as another self-help fad, I turn to science to argue for its potential benefits and necessity in our lives. According to PsychologyToday.com, our autonomic nervous system – the network of nerves controlling our unconscious processes, such as breathing and heart rate – is comprised of two parts, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. Sound confusing? Let me clarify. The sympathetic…
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Take the Opportunities You Can – Or Maybe It’s Time to Create Your Own

Take the Opportunities You Can – Or Maybe It’s Time to Create Your Own

Life & Living
"Expect change. Analyze the landscape. Take the opportunities. Stop being the chess piece; become the player. It's your move." Tony Robbins, Motivational author and coach Our existence is a series of complex navigations in which the map is often withheld from sight and relies heavily on our personal decisions regarding where the path ultimately leads us. One certainly wouldn't start a cross-country adventure with such limited guidance, but in life, many circumstances are beyond our own control. As children and young adults, we're often encouraged to take the opportunities presented to us with both significant consideration and caution. But, as with so many decisions in life, there are pros and cons that inevitably come along with opportunities, and often we perceive these occasions in the short term rather than their…
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Thankful for Where We Are, Not Where We’ve Been

Thankful for Where We Are, Not Where We’ve Been

Life & Living, Love & Relationships
Many of us rarely think about our lives in the present. That's because we often go about our days with memories of the past or expectations of the future influencing our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us. So being truly thankful for where we are in this moment – grateful for all the blessings right here, right now – is a monumental task. The holiday season between Thanksgiving and the first of the new year can be difficult for many of us. Memories of long-gone holiday traditions, joyous celebrations, and familiar faces, now vacant from our reality, haunt our current existence causing us to struggle to maintain any semblance of positivity. Being thankful for where we are in the present is a challenging concept to adopt. Many often…
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