• Self-kindness: Being kind, gentle and understanding with yourself when you’re suffering.
• Common humanity: Realizing that you’re not alone in your struggles. When we’re struggling, we tend to feel especially isolated. We think we’re the only ones to experience loss, make mistakes, feel rejected or fail. But it’s these very struggles that are part of our shared experience as humans.
• Mindfulness: Observing life as it is, without being judgemental or suppressing your thoughts and feelings.

In the years I’ve been counseling and coaching, many people say, “I know I’ve been in sick relationships, but I don’t know what a healthyrelationship looks like.”

There are many long and complicated answers to this, but there is also a simple one: healthy relationships make your life larger and happier; unhealthy relationships narrow your life and make you crazy.

Healthy relationships do not include mind games, mixed messages, or control.  There is not a back and forth or continual makeup and breakup, or “I’m sorry, please forgive me” every week or so.

In healthy relationships, there is a partnership and a nurturing by both parties of that partnership.  At the same time, each person recognizes the need to have interests and time away from their partner to nurture themselves. They don’t need to have the same interests, but rather the same view of life. Healthy love is about taking care of yourself and taking care of your mate… and those things are in balance to the point where they seldom collide.

What is Real Love?

Healthy people lead to healthy relationships and healthy relationships lead to real love.

Real love does not seek another person to fill up what we are lacking. It takes a complete, whole person to really love and overly needy people cannot do it. Real love is balanced. Both partners love in fairly equal amounts. While the balance may shift back and forth, it is not lopsided. If you love someone who is not loving your back, or not loving you the way you love them, then it’s not real.

When you place expectations on people to fill your empty places, that is not healthy. It’s nice to have a partner, a companion, someone to help you weather life’s storms, but it is not okay to look for someone to complete you or fix your broken places. That is not real love; that is dependence, co-dependence, and unhealthy neediness.

Real love does not play games, cause us to lose sleep, friends, jobs, money, time and value in our lives. Real love is an enlarging and not a narrowing experience. And finally, real love does exist. But it is true that in order to find the right person, you need to be the right person.

To be the right person you have to do your work, examine your failed relationships and, find the patterns. Go to counseling if you have historical issues. Find out why you are attracted to a certain type that is not good for you. And, at the same time, build your life so that you are an independent, interesting, and attractive person.  You will attract other independent, interesting, and attractive people who are capable of good and loving relationships.

As I say over and over again, water seeks its own level. If you are attracting and attracted to unhealthy and dysfunctional, you are unhealthy and dysfunctional. Do your work so that real love andlasting love has a chance to walk in.

The first part of the Being and Flowing Sequence is a basic relaxation session where some (or several) of the techniques of guided imagery or meditation can be used. In fact, for this type of relaxation, you can use new techniques or techniques that are familiar to you and that have worked for you in the past. If you do the sequence regularly, you can switch between techniques if you like.

One caveat: We find that general medical/therapy techniques, specifically those that are not associated with a particular spiritual path, work best for the Being and Flowing meditation in this context. (We link to some general relaxation techniques from the University of Maryland Medical Center, below). 

Being and Flowing First Step: Basic Relaxation Session

One: Position

If you are outdoors, find a quiet, safe place in a garden, park, beach or woods. Remember, safety comes first. If you are indoors, find a place where you won’t be disturbed. Sit on a floor cushion or in a chair with your feet on the floor, or lie down in a comfortable position. Whatever position you choose, try to remember, you might choose not to move or shift while being and flowing, so make sure it’s really comfortable.

Two: Watch Your Thoughts

Once you are comfortable, the first thing to keep in mind: Don’t worry about your thoughts. Allow them to come and go as they wish. Give them their freedom to come and go as they like. Don’t try to control them. Just observe them. 

Three: Watch Your Breath

Don’t try to control your breathing. Just observe your breath. If you are familiar with breathing techniques and want to try them, you could, but to forge a new path it’s sometimes good to let go and experience non-familiar meditative pathways.

Four: No Goal

If you feel stressed or anxious, remember: there is no goal here. Just passively watch where your thoughts and breath take you. If after a few tries anxiety (or boredom, which can be a symptom of anxiety during meditation) feels overpowering, take a break.

Five: Far Away

At some point, your thoughts may seem to “melt away”. They may feel far away; you know they’re there, but they don’t seem to touch you, or you don’t really touch them. There is a gulf between you and your thoughts, including your less-than-helpful ones. When they are so far away, their ability to control you is greatly diminished.

Help!

If you need help we recommend you try music. We really like (and recommend) Dr. Harry Henshaw’s relaxation music. (Last year, we interviewed him, here.)

Dr. Henshaw’s audio tracks of free-floating music are really de-stressing. We can best describe them as providing a musical pathway on which your thoughts can flow. His music doesn’t restrain or confine your thoughts as much as gently supports them. We really liked the ones on these pages; so far, we’ve sampled the uplifting music of Clarity, the gentle vibrato of Cosmic Reflection, the sweet tones of Equilibrium and the progressions of Inner Peace.*

If you want more concrete help the techniques of progressive relaxation (and toe tensing) can be very helpful. The University of Maryland Medical Center has clearly outlined them. They recommend the techniques for sleep disorders, but they are also helpful for tension and anxiety. One quibble: they don’t mention that slightly tensing each area of the body (not just the toes) before you relax that part, can be even a more powerful path to relaxation.

We’ve made our own relaxation recordings at home. We record our soft, slow voices giving a step-by-step progressive relaxation session. You might enjoy making your own recordings, too.

Being and Flowing Second Step: Journal

If you are in therapy, or even if you’re not, it’s a good idea to do a Being and Flowing journal. Some people like to share this with their therapist, others don’t. It’s up to you.

You might consider doing an audio or video recording if you don’t like to write. Writing or otherwise recording your general experience with your relaxation session, is a good starting point. Then, if you like, continue to write or otherwise comment on your experience of your thinking process. What were your thoughts? Were you able to let them drift by? Did any thoughts “stick” more than others? Did new thoughts, thoughts you never “thought” before, pop up?

Also, you might explore the self that observed the thoughts. And so on. If you don’t like to write and don’t want to do an audio or video recording, you can try illustrating your experience by drawing, painting, collage (found objects, fabric, and so on), photography, etc.

Once you have a sense of Being and Flowing, you’ll might find yourself being able to step back, even in a non-relaxing session, from your thoughts that are not beneficial. You might find it easier to dispassionately examine your thoughts (and beliefs, which are a type of thought often mingled with emotion) and see if they are really beneficial to you.

In fact, a very important, even central, part of therapy is examining thoughts and beliefs that hamper or are openly damaging to: your personal growth, relationships, mental health, and physical health. Therapy, in part, teaches you how to “rethink” things, even changing your most closely held beliefs, if they don’t serve your growth. Healing your thoughts is central to healing your life.

How do you treat yourself?     How should you treat yourself? What should you think about yourself? How should you feel about yourself? Well..... how do you treat your best friend? What do you think about them? How do you feel about them? Now take that and multiply it by 10, multiply it by 100. Imagine how you would feel about somebody you were completely in love with, that you loved more than life itself, but it was an unconditional, open, free, healthy love, and not a needy, posessive, jealous, conditional love. Your eyes are wide open and you see all their faults and yet you love them despite their faults, perhaps because of them. Now perhaps you are getting close to how you should feel about yourself..........Simon Meadowcroft

Euro 2012 recently began and, for those of you who don’t know, it’s the European football championship. European football is what we Americans call soccer, and it has slowly gained steam over the years, although still not as popular as American football…  Whether you’re into the championship or not (or even sports in general), you’ll probably love these simple, modern posters David Watson ofTrebleseven designed for it.

Each poster represents a particular country that’s playing, and the colors of their flag are incorporated into one of the various circular designs. I love the typographic twist these posters have and how they don’t have blatant sports references in them.

'AWARE2' gigapixel camera by duke university
above: 3 increasing zoom levels of footage taken by the camera

 
engineers at duke university have developed a camera able to take photos with up to one billion pixels of resolution. 
the 'AWARE2' gigapixel camera uses 98 sensors each at 14 megapixels, capable of detecting detail from as far as 1 kilometer away.
the current model weighs in at approximately 100 pounds, and only shoots in black and white.

explore more of the super high-resolution photos on duke's site with these zoomable examples of a lake scene, building atrium and riverside town.

original image shot at .96 gigapixels; explore the full zoomable image here



the 'AWARE2' camera


camera processor render



making of 'AWARE2' gigapixel camera 

They have devised a vaccine that floods the body with an antibody to assault nicotine entering the body.

A study in mice, published in Science Translational Medicine, showed levels of the chemical in the brain were reduced by 85% after vaccination.

Years of research are still needed before it could be tested on people.

However, lead researcher Prof Ronald Crystal is convinced there will be benefits.

"As far as we can see, the best way to treat chronic nicotine addiction from smoking is to have these Pacman-like antibodies on patrol, clearing the blood as needed before nicotine can have any biological effect."

New approach

Other "smoking vaccines" have been developed that train the immune system to produce antibodies that bind to nicotine - it is the same method used to vaccinate against diseases. The challenge has been to produce enough antibodies to stop the drug entering the brain and delivering its pleasurable hit.

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have used a completely different approach, a gene-therapy vaccine, which they say is more promising.

A genetically modified virus containing the instructions for making nicotine antibodies is used to infect the liver. This turns the organ into a factory producing the antibodies.

The research team compared the amount of nicotine in the brains of normal mice with those that had been immunised. After being injected with nicotine, the vaccinated mice had nicotine levels 85% lower.

It is not known if this could be repeated in humans or if this level of reduction would be enough to help people quit.

Prof Crystal said that if such a vaccine could be developed then people "will know if they start smoking again, they will receive no pleasure from it due to the nicotine vaccine, and that can help them kick the habit".

He added: "We are very hopeful that this kind of vaccine strategy can finally help the millions of smokers who have tried to stop, exhausting all the methods on the market today, but find their nicotine addiction to be strong enough to overcome these current approaches."

'Impressive and intriguing'

There are also issues around the safety of gene therapy in humans that will need to be answered.

Professor of genetics at the University of Kent, Darren Griffin, said the findings were "impressive and intriguing with great potential" but cautioned there were still many issues which needed addressing.

He said the main issue "is whether the observed biochemical effects in lab mice genuinely translate to a reduced addiction in humans given that such addictions can be both physical and psychological".

Dr Simon Waddington, from University College London, said: "The technology underpinning gene therapy is improving all the time and it is encouraging to see these preliminary results that indicate it could be used to address nicotine addiction, which is damaging to the nation's health and a drain on the health service economy."

If such a vaccine was developed it could also raise ethical questions about vaccinating people, possibly in childhood, before they even started smoking.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi contain minute traces of alcohol, scientific research published in France has revealed. The revelation will cause concern among those who chose the carbonated soft drink for religious, health or safety reasons. According to tests carried out by the Paris-based National Institute of Consumption (INC) more than half of leading colas contain the traces of alcohol. Can't beat the real thing: The revelation will cause concern among those who chose the carbonated soft drink for religious, health or safety reasons These include the brand leaders Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola, while it is mainly only cheap supermarket versions of the drink which are alcohol-free. ‘60 Million Consumers’, the French magazine, publishes the results of the tests in its latest issue. They suggest that the alcohol levels are as low as 10mg in every litre, and this works out at around 0.001 per cent alcohol.

 Sometimes it's not easy to do that.  You lose your cool -- either dramatically or quietly, outwardly or inwardly -- and you have to find your way back to center.  It's a straight line out but the path back can meander and double back some, I fear.

In fact, for me, one of the things I learned in the sexual inventory of my 4th Step was how I used sex to avoid intimacy -- in other words, to keep people from seeing Me.

And to keep me from seeing Me, too.

In my experience, when it comes to how alcoholism takes good, healthy things and twists them to its own service in a never-ending drive to isolate the alcoholic, physical intimacy is not about closeness or truth -- or even fun, really.  It's about walls or masks.

Humility is nothing else but a right judgement of ourselves. -- William Law

If people are faced by barrier in their recovery they can become stuck. This is a precarious people for people to be in because: When people become stuck in recovery it may mean that their life away from addiction begins to feel unsatisfying. They may be tempted to relapse as a result of this. When people are stuck they may react by turning to other maladaptive behaviors such as workaholism or exercise addiction. Becoming stuck means that the individual is delaying the day when they will know true peace in sobriety. Everyone will have brief periods where they become stuck, but if the individual grinds completely to a halt it may be a long time before they make further progress. When people become stuck in recovery they may develop dry drunk syndrome. This means that they are behaving in much the same way as they did as an addict even though they are no longer drinking or using drugs.

When people give up alcohol or drugs they will not be guaranteed plain sailing from there on in. There are likely to be barriers to recovery and the individual will need to overcome these in order to make progress. If people fail to overcome these barriers they can become stuck and this is considered dangerous. By facing and getting beyond these barriers the individual not only can continue on their path, but they can also gain from the experience. These barriers can be the individual’s friend because they promote development and change.

 Firing a sponsor should not be like a scene from the Apprentice TV show. The goal is not to make this other person feel bad or to accuse them of being bad at their job. Firing a sponsor should be done tactfully and with respect. It is best to keep things simple and there is no need to go into elaborate explanations. Most sponsors will be fine with just hearing that their sponsee wants to try somebody else. Life in recovery is all about honesty so it is not recommended that people make up lies about why they wish to change sponsors – even if these lies are well intentioned. It is best to tell the sponsor face to face. Sending emails, text messages, or leaving a message on an answer machine is cowardly and not a sign of emotional sobriety. It is important to thank the sponsor for their efforts. They will have been providing their services for free. Even if the relationship has been a bumpy one it is best to leave on good terms. The sponsee should not use this as an opportunity to make negative accusations about their sponsor.

Good Reasons to Fire a 12 Step Sponsor The reality is that there are some sponsors out there who barely seem to be hanging on to their own sobriety. There will also be relationships where the sponsor and sponsee just don’t fit well together, and it is causing problems. Valid reasons for firing a sponsor include: They always seem to be busy and are hardly ever available. Some well respected members of Alcoholics Anonymous will have many sponsees, and there will be a limit on how much time they can devote to one person. The sponsor appears to be having problems with their own sobriety. It is a terrible idea to choose a sponsor who is on the verge of relapse – they can take the sponsee down with them. Another good reason to change sponsor is if there is some type of sexual attraction developing – this can prove disastrous. Any attempts at thirteenth stepping are just provocation for instantly ending the relationship. This is when a more experience member of a 12 Step group tries to gain sexual favors from a less experienced member. If the sponsor and sponsee have vastly different views for how the steps should be completed this can be a good reason to end the relationship. For example, if the sponsee wants to do things by the book they can become frustrated with somebody who has a more laid back approach. The sponsor turns out to be hiding some negative or intolerant attitudes. The sponsor is too bossy or too interfering. The sponsee feels unable to develop trust in the relationship. If people are moving to a new location it may be more practical for them to get a new sponsor. Their current sponsor is ill or has too many things going on in their life.

It is recommended that those who are following the 12 Step program do this under the guidance of a sponsor. This is usually a person who has a strong recovery and experience with the steps. Sometimes these relationships don’t work out and one party will decide to break the arrangement. It is not unusual for a sponsee to talk about how they need to fire their sponsor, but this is meant in a good natured way. In reality it is not the type of relationship where one party can fire the other.

It's one of the hardest things in the world to do, probably because it runs so counter to our powerful and primal need to feel safe, loved, and successful. For most of my life, I prided myself on relentless perseverance in the face of obstacles, and a refusal to give up on any goal or client I was pursuing. Letting go felt like failure or rejection, and both were nearly unbearable to me. I have no doubt that pushing so hard has influenced whatever success I've had. Increasingly, though, I've come to believe it exacts a toll that no longer makes sense or feels acceptable. At the most practical level, pushing continuously against resistance burns down our available reservoir of energy, and makes us less capable of doing anything well. Beyond that, pushing too hard can end up getting you what you think you want, only to discover, too late, that there was a good reason it didn't come together in the first place. Resistance is an early warning signal. Several weeks ago, a senior HR executive at a large company invited me to dinner after hearing me speak. He spent much of the dinner explaining why his firm wasn't inclined to create a more flexible work environment for its employees, and how he hoped he could find a way to introduce our work under the radar, and then slowly build interest in it. "You know what," I heard myself saying, "I don't think our work is right for you at this point." He looked slightly stunned. In all honesty, so was I. I couldn't quite believe I'd let go of a potential client who had explicitly expressed interest in our work. But by the end of the evening, I felt lighter, as if I'd done the right thing for both of us. The next week a CEO who had long claimed high interest in our work, but had never moved forward, wrote asking if we could introduce our work to his team in one-third the time we had suggested. Sure, it was possible. But we'd have been eviscerating the heart of what we do, which is grounded in giving leaders sufficient time to truly reflect on the way they're working, and to recharge. I wrote back and declined. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not suggesting the way to build a business is to regularly turn down opportunities. But not every one makes sense. I believe deeply in the value of the work we do, but I also know it only sings in a supportive and nurturing environment. Letting go of half-hearted clients frees up time and energy to invest in clients who passionately share our commitment to reenergizing the workplace in a world of infinite demand. The larger point for me is that foregoing opportunities may be less a sign of failure than of careful prioritizing and intelligent sacrifice. Likewise, learning to let go when it's clear you're not getting what you're after — to accept a "no" without trying to turn it into a "yes" — not only saves energy, but also dignity, which is no small contributor to our well-being. What makes it hardest to let go of anything we want is the assumption that we'll feel an enduring sense of loss. In reality, we're terrible prognosticators of the future. "Negative events do affect us," as psychologist Daniel Gilbert put it in his book, Stumbling on Happiness, "but they generally don't affect us as much or for as long as we expect them to." Nothing is as important as it seems in the heat of the moment. With all that in mind, I've come up with four questions I now ask myself each time I begin to wonder if it's time to ease back on something or someone I've been pursuing. Here they are: 1. Do I have a feeling in my gut that this dog just won't hunt? 2. How important will this seem to me in six months? 3. How important will this seem to me in two years? 4. Is there a more enjoyable and productive way I could be investing my time and energy right now? If the answer to 1 and 4 are "yes," or the answers to 2 and 3 are "not much," it's time to let go.

Giving Things Up Can Make You Happy