HONESTY IS CRUCIAL to a healthy relationship with ourselves and others. It can help us resolve longstanding issues, find forgiveness, and deepen our relationships with the people who surround us.
Why do we lie?
It’s clear that without being honest with ourselves we’ll never be honest with others. What are the obstacles to achieving this kind of clarity and how do we overcome them? And once we gain clarity, how do we communicate truthfully in a productive and positive manner? How about those little white lies….if need be and in small doses? Only if really necessary & in order not to hurt anyone.
Condensed from Dr. Habib Sadeghi on Honesty – taken from Goop.
Being Honest About Dishonesty
Feelings buried alive never die, especially fear. Lying comes from fear. It’s born from our traumas, disappointments and betrayals and is always the result of something that’s happened to us. You may be late meeting someone and blame it on the traffic or cover up being fired to avoid embarrassment. The scenarios surrounding why we lie are endless. The fact is that our lies are born from our traumas, both big and small.”
“Dishonesty begins with the self. It starts when we can’t reconcile a difficult experience. The first lie is the one we tell ourselves. It’s usually, ‘It didn’t happen’ or ‘It didn’t happen like that’. We avoid these realizations because we’re terrified of how they will make us feel. We do it because we’d rather live with the long-term consequences of lying to ourselves and others than face the temporary pain of the truth. So, we repress the truth and our feelings about it with a lie to keep the pain at bay.”
“That pain could be a friend’s disappointment or a spouse’s rage. The size of the lie doesn’t matter. We never lie to protect the feelings of others. That’s the part of the lie we tell ourselves to make it easier. We lie to protect ourselves from the pain and repercussions we’ll experience from their feelings or even our own self-judgment. Lying is always self-serving.”
The First Victim
“When we are stung by life’s traumas, especially the big ones like losing a job, relationship, financial security or our health, we become frozen in place like the tarantula. We rarely give ourselves enough time to process the hard lessons (truth) of the situation. We may grieve briefly, but then we anesthetize ourselves and it’s on with life.”
“Dissociating from what really happened is known as ‘splitting’ in psychoanalysis. We either react only with emotion and become irrational about the situation or, we escape to our heads and don’t process any of the feeling. Being honest with ourselves and others requires an ability to think and feel at the same time in order to fully integrate a difficult experience and neutralize any lasting negative energy.”
“Short-circuiting that process creates a second lie, an ‘alternate’ reality or ‘My Side of theStory’. Sadly, we’re always the first victims of our lies because we have to believe them first before we can convince others to do so.”
Avoid & Divert
“Living in our own little world of self-created lies and avoiding the truth of our life experience takes great energy and produces an even greater amount of stress. To deal with it, we often turn to illicit or prescription drugs. The problem here is that drugs only perpetuate our dishonesty because they give us the false impression that everything is ‘fine’.”
“Even yoga can be an addictive diversion. It can provide intense emotional release because we store pent up energy in our bodies. Still, we must be able to think and feel to fully integrate the experience and release it. Without conscious thought providing truth and understanding surrounding the situation, we easily fall back into old habits.”
To Tell the Truth
“Honesty is the capacity to tell yourself the emotional truth in any situation. When you can do this for yourself, you can do it with others. Unfortunately, we can’t give what we don’t have. Dishonesty is always the result of avoiding pain at some level. This leads to lying and its twin sisters: secrets and denial. Healing from lying to others requires that we stop lying to ourselves first. It means clearing up our unconscious anxieties and the survival mechanisms that we’ve put in place to protect us from their pain.”
Truth or Consequences
“As spiritual beings, we’re hard-wired for honesty. We have a natural instinct to search foranswers and make sense of things. Have you ever seen a bad actor on screen? You don’t need to be an actor yourself to recognize the lack of truthfulness in the performance. Why? It’s because we’re all viscerally connected to truth on a fundamental, physical and spiritual level. It’s part of who we are and like a virus, we instinctively reject dishonesty.”
“To override this natural impulse by telling lies, we generate immense amounts of resistantand negative energy in our bodies. This internal stress puts us at war with ourselves, producing cellular damage. Lies create a mind/body that is not at-ease and end up manifesting as the symptoms of our diseases. Like the unsuspecting tarantula (in the full story), the egg we’ve carried for so long eventually erupts in a catastrophic way, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Healing is a choice, so is lying. Our work isn’t to create healing. Healing happens when we find and remove the barriers we’ve created against it by facing the temporary pain we didn’t think we could survive.”
“So how can we find freedom from the lies we tell others and most importantly, ourselves? How do we dissolve limiting beliefs, which is really what lies are? We can begin by facing the truth of our traumas and documenting them with all the raw honesty and emotion that we’ve avoided for years. Clearing out our emotional closet can be terrifying at first, but once we survive what we didn’t think was survivable, we’ll get a taste of our limitless power to heal and change.”
It seems that so many woman, young women especially, are getting THE WRONG IMAGE.
This post came about after hearing Amanda de Cadenet (The Conversation) ask her viewers if they feel that the media affects how they perceive their bodies? Her alternative web based TV series is about women who have stories & experiences to share, for women to empower women. It got me thinking. Is seems unhealthy to constantly compare yourself, your life, etc. to others yet how many times have we done so?
Please do not buy into this.
The physical images presented in media programming and advertising can be unhealthy and difficult, if not impossible, for most women to achieve. They frequently portray young women in a sexual manner. This can lead adolescents to think that their own bodies are not attractive or acceptable and that their value depends on how they look.
Growing numbers of young women risk their health, and life, trying to imitate the body images presented by the media. The wrong media messages also can harm mental self-image and self-esteem.
The media generally show underweight women as the ideal body type. The average model today is 25% thinner than the national average weight and actually only represents 5% of females in the country.
Almost 54% of American young girls and women aged 12–23 years are unhappy with their bodies.
Five to ten million women and girls have eating disorders that harm their health, including anorexia nervosa (starving themselves) and bulimia nervosa (binge eating and purging). Some teens who think they are not pretty enough resort to cosmetic plastic surgery. They also tend to have unrealistic andnegative expectations concerning sexuality.
How do we overcome this short of never looking at another magazine or watching TV?
For starters: try to make yourself aware of the media messages aimed at women and young people. Assess your own use of media and reactions to messages about attractiveness and self-worth. Don’t forget that while we don’t come with an airbrush it’s still worthwhile to eat a healthy diet and exercise to maintain good overall health. Young women as early as possible should be encouraged to participate in positive family, peer & school activities to enhance self-esteem based on their abilities and character rather than their appearance. You will automatically appear more attractive by doing so.
Since when did character not count for anything? What is a pretty face & perfect body without personality? Yes, let’s agree that we would all prefer to have it all Giselle?but why not try to accentuate all the other great attributes we either have or can attain?
And realize that you DO NOT have to drink a certain brand of beer, use a precise product, carry a specific IT bag or “anything” else as the commercials say, to have more fun or be beautiful.
You can use it alone but it’s best to apply before sunscreen for day and nightcream. Is it essential? I’ll let you decide. It’s one more step we may need to follow.
Serums may be the costliest product in many skin care lines but when properly applied, a 1-ounce container should last months. Serums contain more active ingredients than other products so you need just the tiniest amount – those few concentrated drops are super-efficient. Serums are made of very small molecules, so the skin absorbs them quickly and deeply. Thicker, heavier ingredients found in creams form a barrier on your skin that’s great for locking moisture in. The active ingredients in a serum penetrate your skin faster and more effectively.
Serums do not include ingredients such as petrolatum or mineral oil that keep water from evaporating. They also contain fewer lubricating and thickening agents, like nut or seed oils. Most serums are water-based, eliminating oils altogether.
Think of it as faster and lighter – many of the qualities we look for in a car, a laptop, and our bodies when we’re running a marathon. They’re also the prized attributes of skin care serums – light, fast-absorbing liquids used as an alternative or in addition to creams or lotions. This from Web.MD
Like so many things in the skincare department, there are too many brands to list here.
My top picks:
MicaBella Repair Serum
1) Mica Bella’s Skin Repair Serum is an ultra-moisturizing serum, formulated with a unique blend, including Hyaluronic Acid, Vitamins, Botanicals and Proline. The unique formula is designed to promote the natural elasticity of the skin, help reduce skin damage caused by the environment, and help minimize the visible signs of wrinkles – providing a healthy glow and younger looking skin. Price – $175.00 Available online at http://www.intrigueimports.com
MyChelle
2) MyChelle Dermaceuticals – an intensive humectant that replenishes skins moisture content, firms and claims to lift facial contours. Price – approx. $45.00. Available at most health food stores.
How far will we go to be head to TOEnails IN fashion?
As in clothing right now we can experiment with fun colors & styles for our nails as almost anything goes.
from: clutchmagonline
You need patience and time to pull off a full-on monet style set of nails whether you’re the one doing it or leaving it
from: thegirlylooks – going for the GOLD
to a professional.
from: exquisitegirl
While I love these looks I tend to be most daring with bold color and a little design for toes while keeping nails to a mostly bare minimum.
Too boring? I think neutral nails look sophisticated.
If you busy your hands all the time because of using a keyboard and cooking, nails tend to chip a lot which looks really noticeable with darker polish unless it’s a gel. Once I tried a gel mani and loved that it didn’t chip for all of two weeks (a milestone) but when I went back to have it taken off, my nails weakened with the strong chemicals needed to remove the leftover polish. Scrap that. Do only for special occasions like a two week vacation orover the holidays.
I love some *sparkle to top it all off but let’s talk about how easy is it to take off – NOT! It’s as simple as soaking nails in acetone to get polish completely removed. Not to mention the little sparkles that you find on your clothing or bathroom floor. Also if you cook a lot – not so pretty when you notice faded or removed polish right before serving. *The real gold flecks from OPI’s “man with the goldengun” tend not to do this & look great especially over darker polish.
pretty shades by Lancôme
Tried the Sally Hansen stickon nail stickers (an easy way to do leopard & lace) but they lasted all of one hour because I didn’t put a topcoat on. My sister advised me they need a TOPcoat. Once they start to peel it’s so tacky & all the rest must be removed immediately.
Designers are paying more and more attention to nails for the runway trying to cover all the bases.
The BASEics:
When applying light polish, put a milky basecoat on in between coats – it will give the polish an even surface to adhere to as lighter shades can be streaky. Try Seche ridge filling base coat.
Base coats extend the life of your manicure and keep your polish chip-free longer. They’re supposed to make your nails last at least one week – this never happens for me but I wear it anyway.
It will help prevent dark colors from staining your nail beds. We’ve all experienced the yellow nails that often follow dark nail polish – this phenomenon can be prevented with the right base coat. And with deep fall colors coming into season, it’s more important than ever to use one.
Still, I don’t want to put too much effort into nails. How about you? Are you NAILing it?
Orange juice gives pork that unique flavor combo of sweet and sour. Freshly squeezed is best. I’ve made this Caribbean/Asian inspired recipe on several occasions and it never fails to please the palate.
1 cup fresh orangejuice
1 tsp. cornstarch
2 Tbsp. peanut oil
¼ cup finely chopped shallots
2 Tbsp. minced peeled fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ tsp. (or more) red pepper flakes
½ cup chicken broth
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 1-pound pork tenderloins, each cut crosswise into 6 slices
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. freshly ground pepper
1 Tbsp. butter
In a small bowl, stir together 2 Tbsp. orange juice and cornstarch until smooth. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, heat 1 Tbsp. oil. Add shallots, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes; cook, stirring frequently, until shallots are light golden, about 3 minutes. Add remaining orange juice, broth and soy sauce. Bring to a boil; boil until reduced to 1 cup, about 6 minutes. Whisk in cornstarch mixture; boil 1 minute. Remove saucepan from heat and set aside.
Place pork slices cut side down on work surface and flatten slightly with the palm of your hand to make medallions. Sprinkle with salt + pepper.
In a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, melt butter with remaining 1 Tbsp. oil. Add pork and cook in batches until browned and cooked through, 4 to 5 minutes per side. Transfer pork to a platter.
Add sauce to skillet with drippings; place skillet over medium-high heat. Bring sauce to a boil, stirring to scrape up any brown bits. Stir in juices from pork on platter. Remove skillet from heat and add pork slices to skillet, turning to coat with sauce.
Serves six with brown rice and veggies. Taken from The Oprah MagazineCookbook.
Orange juice’s gentle acid adds sweet-tart flavor notes to cooking. Try orange juice concentrate mixed with maple syrup & a bit of stock for basting a turkey. It’s excellent.
The Deighton Cup is probably the most fashionable and social event of the summer.
Vancouverites don’t normally get the opportunity to wear a fancy hat. The usual fare is baseball and straw oriented versions, but this past weekend proved different.
Horse racing has long been synonymous with the elaborate hat designs that trot near the track.
It’s a millinery tradition honed over the decades into a famous and frequently outrageous art form, illustrated most decoratively from the well-heeled meets of the Kentucky Derby to England’s Royal Ascot. A chance to display the
my sis Lisa
bizarre and the beautiful.
Some of the fashionable. I think I know the cool dude on the left. It’s Beau, my sister’s beaufriend.
From the Deighton Cup at Hastings Racecourse to West Vancouver’s Royal Tea-by-the-Sea, there were plenty of opportunities to wear your hat for the scene and be-seen crowd. I can’t believe I didn’t go because I love hats and horses so much however my sister went.
The “Deighton Cup” is a three day Horse Racing Event to liven up the season at a track that already draws plenty of attention.
The Queen of Hearts headpiece, created by The Saucy Milliner for the Deighton Cup event, is made of handrolled sinamay roses. Photo by AbbyeDahl of afoto.ca for the Vancouver Sun.Lauren Hutton for Bazaar Magazine – How cool is the headpiece & this lady?
“If you can’t stop thinking about someone’s update, that’s called “status cling.” ― Jessica Park, Flat-Out Love
“Can we go back to using Facebook for what it was originally intended for – looking up exes to see how fat they got?” – Bill Maher
“All I know is that I carried you for nine months. I fed you, I clothed you, I paid for your college education. Friending me on Facebook seems like a small thing to ask in return.” ― Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home
“Josh will begin disappearing into a future where the only place he and I remain friends is on the Internet.” – Jay Asher, The Future of Us
The world is no longer status quo when the Queen, the President and the Pope have their own Facebook page – dlk
“Little girls think it’s necessary to put all their business on MySpace and Facebook, and I think it’s a shame…I’m all about mystery.” – Stevie Nicks
Lately I’ve been posting a lot about skin care products & methods that work and/or appeal to me and hopefully people who follow this blog. I’m not religious but I religiously follow some kind of skincare regime. For what it’s worth you skincare junkies may want to check out this book which claims to be “more” than a book but make no mistake that “truebeauty” comes from the inside first – think from the INSIDE OUT!
Dr. Nakhla is the author of the best-selling book The Skin Commandments: 10 Rules to Healthy, Beautiful Skin (Reedy Press),which has quickly become known as “the bible for the skin care industry.” More than a book, The Skin Commandments is a doctrine responsible for revolutionizing the way both women and men think about skin care. It is the essential guide and ultimate resource (other than my blog) for anyone seeking healthy and beautifully radiant skin.
Taken from his website:
Known in the media as “America’s Dermatologist™” and having been featured in numerous media outlets including CNN, PBS, MSNBC, E! Entertainment, SELF, Glamour, ELLE, National Public Radio, Better Homes And Gardens, Better Nutrition, Lucky Magazine and many more, Dr. Tony Nakhla is not only a health and beauty expert, he is THE expert and foremost authority when it comes to skin health and beauty.
Warning: Okay, here comes the infomercial…..
Ever wonder about the secret weapons used behind some of the most gorgeous faces in Hollywood? Feeling overwhelmed, misled or confused by the millions of cosmetic products, celebrity endorsed skin-care regimens, websites and infomercials telling you how best to achieve great skin? Look no further because Dr. Tony Nakhla, is here to divulge all the tips and tricks to getting perfect red-carpet worthy skin for life in ten-practical steps that are both easy and fun to understand and implement at any stage of life.
In The Skin Commandments, Dr. Nakhla reveals that the number-one key to outer beauty lies in addressing inner beauty and health first.This book teaches the reader how to view the skin as a window and barometer to the inner body’s overall health. According to Dr. Nakhla, once you understand that everything beneath the skin is what guides its outer appearance, it becomes much easier to adopt healthy behaviors and a holistic approach to your lifestyle in order to achieve gorgeous aesthetic results. When the body is functioning perfectly inside, it will glow with radiance on the outside.
The Skin Commandments demystifies principles of modern dermatological theory and outlines the best of skin care one “commandment” at a time. This book helps everyone from the A-list celebrity to the stay-at-home mom or dad achieve healthy, beautiful skin regardless of age.
In The Skin Commandments, readers will learn about a full spectrum of topics, from reducing signs of aging to preventing and detecting skin cancer to eating foods that benefit your skin. In language that is easy to understand, The Skin Commandmentsguides the reader through all the right steps to optimal skin care and a holistic lifestyle that promotes inner and outer beauty.
Who’s guilty of posting photos on Facebook without first informing the people in the photos beforehand?
Not me! Everyone it seems, at one time or another. Is it necessary to tell people each and every time you post? What do you do when you see a tagged photo of yourself that you don’t approve of? What is the correct etiquette or is there one?
Recently I posted a photo of a friend and myself. Turns out the friend didn’t like the photo and asked me to remove it. While we don’t look like supermodels I thought it was pretty decent. I know how she feels. Anyone can post my photo as long as I’m not making a weird face, no food is stuck in my teeth, my hair looks okay, I’m not wearing a bathing suit unless I’m on the cover of Sports Illustrated (what are the chances?) and I think I look good. There are not too many I’m crazy about. Get the picture? So peopleshould be sensitive to that. However if the photo is relatively okay do we need make a fuss? Sometimes we’re captured in a group setting and one of the people decides to post all of us together – chances are at least one person will not like themselves. What then? Just wondering.
Are we all too vain or should there be a standard procedure? Any thoughts?
Read below & let me know.
the following was taken from the dailymail.co.uk
Be cautious when sharing and think how it will be perceived by all the others who may see it. Although sharing is a great way to better relationships it can also damage them.
According to a new study, sharing photographs on Facebook is a quick way to lose friends, according to a new study.
Researchers found those who repeatedly post pictures risk alienating themselves from many people who view them.
They may damage relationships with friends, relatives and colleagues who do not relate well to those who constantly share photos of themselves.
A survey of more than 500 Facebook users found the quantity and subject matter of the images have an impact on the level of support and intimacy within relationships.
Dr. David Houghton, of the University of Birmingham, said: “Our research found those who frequently post photographs on Facebook risk damaging real life relationships. This is because people, other than very close friends, and relatives, do not seem to relate well to those who constantly share photos of themselves.”
“It is worth remembering the information we post to our “friends” on Facebook, actually gets viewed by lots of different categories of people, partners, friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances and each group seems to take a different view of the information shared.”
The report said partners sharing more photographs of family is positively related to support, whereas those sharing more photographs of friends is related negatively to intimacy.
The researchers also suggest big brand advertising campaigns, which encourage people to post photographs of themselves with the product on Facebook, risk damaging the relationships between their ‘fans’.
The report said: ‘While benefiting brand awareness and critical mass of a Facebook fan page for a brand, organization or cause, sharing photographs may be harmful to those asked to participate.’
‘My advice for people sharing photos or links with a fan site is think twice and share once,’ said co-author Dr. Ben Marder, of the University of Edinburgh.
This was approved by Kira (with stick) & Jia Jia.
In a nutshell getapproval – so you don’t get a phone call saying please take it off your timeline.
Oh; and while on the subject – we really don’t need to know everything you had for breakfast, lunch and dinner!
“That pain could be a friend’s disappointment or a spouse’s rage. The size of the lie doesn’t matter. We never lie to protect the feelings of others. That’s the part of the lie we tell ourselves to make it easier. We lie to protect ourselves from the pain and repercussions we’ll experience from their feelings or even our own self-judgment. Lying is always self-serving.”
Dr. Habib Sadeghi is the Founder of Be Hive of Healing Center for Integrative Medicine in Los Angeles. His book, “Within: A Spiritual Awakening to Love & Weight Loss”, is forthcoming.
As in clothing right now we can experiment with fun colors & styles for our nails as almost anything goes.
“more” than a book but make no mistake that “true beauty” comes from the inside first – think from the INSIDE OUT!
Not me
Girl Who Would be KING on Life, Style and INSPIRATION. 
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