#and i might add that SHE has never me given any feedback this extensive. like two sentences at the most

[gillianthecat]

I don't know, maybe I'm the one who's expectations are off here. Anyone else feel like the example reply (below the cut) is a good thing for one student to be responding to another student with on a classwide discussion board?

In your reply to others reflect on what you have learned in this chapter and how you can apply this information to your current or future job, your life and or your educational goals.Also, you may want to also include in your reply some information that your fellow learner may have omitted or was unclear about in their own original post. ............................................................................................................................. This post was a good attempt at answering the prompts, and the author gave a noteworthy try at answering each one. Unfortunately, the author of the post did not provide a thorough response this time. In the first prompt, information was provided but was not related back to the question and neither ideas nor information was given the author's interpretation or understanding of the underlying mechanisms going on. If the textbook was not enough to help the author understand a concept, external resources can easily be used from the library research databases or from a quick internet search away, or a question clarified with the professor in the Psych Lounge. If some grammatical issues are complicating the process for the author, the internet is also a great source for help that I use in my own responses. However, the author did use correct APA citations and this is noteworthy and appreciated. It would have also been nice to see more elaboration on the last prompt, which discusses dreaming and its underlying mechanisms, which provides a space for the student to further engage discussion and elaborate on concepts other than merely stating something. As you’ve mentioned, selective attention is the ability to tune out the outside world and focus on one object. An example of selective attention is by Moran and Desimone, whom have trained monkeys as subjects for an experiment of distinguishing colors in their line of vision (Moran & Desimone, 1985 as cited in Myers & Dewall, 2021). In this experiment, the monkeys showed more response to colors they have been trained to pay attention to and showed less response in those that they weren't trained on. This entails that simultanagnosia is a disorder of selective attention, since one cannot recall more than one object at a time in this state. The olfactory system is different because it is the only sensory system that receives information directly to the brain, but from like you've stated the molecules and chemicals that are airborne. The gustatory system differs by being ipsilateral--meaning the process only occurs in that specific area of the system. References Moran, J., & Desimone, R. (1985). Selective attention gates visual processing in the extrastriate cortex. Science, 229 (4715), 782-784. Myers, D.G. & DeWall, C.N. (2021). Psychology. (13th ed.) Worth Publishers. ............................................................................................................................. Thank you for your post, I look forward to reading more! Sincerely, A Student

#it may be a faux pas to post this whole thing on here #but I don't give a fuck at this point #on pedagogy and bad teaching #gillianthecat goes back to school #it just reads as such a *nasty* thing to say to a fellow student #some of them are 17! some of them aren't fluent in academic english yet! #and i might add that SHE has never me given any feedback this extensive. like two sentences at the most #and not even on anything substantive. on not incuding citations in my answer. to a question about the difference between #mean median and mode. like. that does not need a citation. unless you're not interested in actually teaching students WHEN and HOW to cite #and just want them to throw them in randomly to 'look right.' because that's what she is teach us. #ugh. i didn't mean to rant more but then i reread the example reply and got pissed all over again. #but i will also accept feedback if it's me who's wrong here! #ranting

[beybladeimagines]

Loved the headcanon post for the Bladebreakers in their 20s. Any headcanons for my fave team the All Starz in their 20s? Like if they choose a different career or so on? Keep up the great work!! ✌

MAX: You can find Max’s details right here.

MICHAEL: I think Michael would hang on to blading for a hot minute, even if he wasn’t as into it as he initially was. When you think about it, Judy had a pretty strong grasp over all of the All Starz - so much so, that many of them began to question their own self worth and became emotional when Judy, in her own way, didn’t think they were good enough. When people are exposed to this kind of manipulation, they set out to please their manipulator as much as possible in order to avoid negative repercussions - in this case, potentially missing out on a promising future, not meeting their personal goals, or being seen as weak. However, as Michael grows older and sees how the team is distancing themselves to follow their own path, he’ll slowly follow suit.

I can see Michael doing a lot of things. He might try to pursue baseball professionally, but because he’s spent a majority of his time blading, he might lack the extensive amount of experience and skill necessary to really make it big. Michael is also extremely charismatic and gives off some skater vibes. I can picture him getting into a COMPLETELY different hobby, like skating, because there isn’t any negative association attached to it. When he skates, he doesn’t have to think about being seen as the best, he doesn’t have to try to impress anyone, and he certainly doesn’t have to be exposed to any more manipulation. Yeah, he loves baseball, but it reminds him too much of what he had to undergo for so long. I can see Michael getting so into skating, that he creates his own custom boards and eventually works in a skate shop where he helps set people up with their own parts and bases. I think the reason he’s so into that is because he gets to do something productive and he gets to expose people to the very hobby that is slowly making him whole again.

RICK: Rick has always been Judy’s favorite and her constant praise motivated him to be quite the ruthless and successful blader. Even though his team didn’t win the championships, it still didn’t stop him from being celebrated back in his city or scouted by other managers looking for talented bladers. I imagine that Rick still sticks to the blading scene for quite some time. After all, it was through blading that he went from a nobody to a somebody. Additionally, it was through blading that he got to meet Max - someone who essentially made him more comfortable working with others. He owes a lot to blading, as it made him change his perspective, it inspired personal growth, it allowed him to represent his community so that he could bring their identities to light, and it’s making him mad money. 

However, if Rick wasn’t pursuing blading, I can see him working at a recording studio. Rick loves music. He loves being in fast paced and loud environments. Sounds seem to soothe him, even if the music is metal. But let’s think about this too: In the anime, we always see Rick giving some kind of advice, even if it’s slightly backhanded and rude. Rick doesn’t mind giving feedback and he has a good ear for sounds that just feel…right. He knows exactly what pitch someone’s voice should transition into, he knows what instruments to add or remove, and he knows how to modify lyrics so that the message is far more clear. Granted, his feedback is straightforward, brash, and a little intense, but once he hears that new solid sound, everyone in the room will begin to praise him for his insight. He does have a gift and it really comes out in the recording studio. I don’t see Rick having his own band or making his own music, per say. But I do see him helping others out and mixing beats.

EMILY: I think Emily has always admired Judy. To her, Judy was this iconic, cut-throat woman who wasn’t afraid to go after what she wanted. Judy reflected this unashamed confidence that Emily strove to mimic and to find within herself. We often see Emily by Judy’s side. She’s either siding with her ideas or immersing herself in the same kind of work that her heroine is doing. Although Emily blades, much of her time is placed into research. Honestly, had she not shown such an interest and skillful ability to attain and analyze player data, Judy might not have paid her much mind. I think Emily knows this, which is why she strives to be so proficient in the research world, because she wants to be recognized by the very woman who really put her on such a promising path. With that said, I don’t see Emily blading anymore as she’s grown older. I see her transitioning strictly to research.

Would she still be with the All Starz? That’s a tough one to answer. Part of me feels like Emily would want to stay, but because her team is essentially disbanded, her current information isn’t exactly needed. I can see Judy recommending her to other facilities - not because she doesn’t value Emily, but I think she’d want her to get more recognition and experience outside the nest. Emily needs to hone her observational skills. She needs to know how to analyze people who she HASN’T basically grown up with. I imagine this line of work makes her feel incredibly lonely. Emily already feels like she needs to isolate herself, because of how hard she works. She likes to tell herself that she’s fine and “never liked being around people anyway,” but she misses the dynamic between her and her team. Would she reach out to them? Probably not. But if she ever saw them again, I think she’d linger around a little longer than usual.

EDDY: Eddy has always found some kind of support from his fellow team members. He chimes in with them on roasting sessions, he hangs out with them during down time, and he’s used to seeing them every day because they all practically live in that research/training facility. He always told himself they’d be together forever, because they’ve endured so much and went through so many lengths to become superior bladers. And yet… He realizes that many of his teammates became disenchanted and even traumatized from their excessive exposure to training and self imposed ideas of worthlessness. Over time, Eddy too begins to fall out of love with blading. It just didn’t feel like the initial sport he fell in love with. If anything, he only ever enjoyed himself when he went against Michael or Steven, because they never made him feel inferior.

I can see Eddy going back to school, since he has more time with it. I can see him getting a scholarship for basketball. He appreciates every second of college, because he finally gets a breather and finally gets to live a normal life where he isn’t being groomed to be perfect. Eddy feels like he’s missed out on a large chunk of living normally… So, he enjoys the little things, like not having curfew, or being able to indulge in junk food and not having to appease a diet, and even doing something as dreadful as homework. At least with homework, he knows what he’s doing wrong and can actually strive to make himself better without getting mixed signals. Eddy takes pride in being able to represent his school, because he knows his school has given him something that makes him feel fulfilled, validated, and passionate about. 

STEVEN: Steven has gone on a JOURNEY when it comes to blading. He started off strong and as a normal part of the team, until he received his injury. As I always say, I imagine that injury gave him some perspective and completely changed his mentality on blading. While sitting on the sidelines, he saw how easily he was replaced. He tried to tell himself that he’d be welcomed back with open arms, but he always knew that Rick would be a more permanent addition to the team. Yes, his TEAM welcomed him back, but Judy and the facility were a bit more hesitant. It destroyed him to see how quickly his career crumbled. When he healed again, he didn’t have much of an interest to return to blading or football. However, I do imagine he continues to have a high interest in both sports, but is aware of how devastating an injury can be to one’s prosperous future. I think he’d strive to get into sports medicine to make sure no one else endures the same fate.

Sports medicine usually requires a degree. I can see him going back to school. Not only that, but he’d actually take the experience seriously. Every day, he thinks about how his own life had changed. It’s hard for him to forget just how frightened, anxious, and frustrated he felt. He never wants anyone to have to experience that same level of uncertainty and confusion, and that serves as his motivation to get his education. Steven is actually amazing at the healing process. He remembers every detail of what worked for him when he was recovering and he passes that knowledge onto those he encounters. Steven still has physical trauma, so that interferes with his ability to stay active for long periods of time. But this doesn’t stop him from working out. Steven goes hard in the gym in order to maintain his physique (and to release that pent up rage that still has yet to be shaken).

#beyblade #beyblade imagine #all starz #michael summers #rick anderson #steven #eddy #emily watson #headcanon #goomyplush

[meditativeyoga]

Be Your Own Life Coach: 7 Techniques to Live Your Dreams

Discover your real purpose and also find the courage to live your dream.

Five years of teaching in New york city City public colleges, Emily Hyland, 32, had a change of mind. It happened after attempting to separate a fight in between 2 teen students then getting shouted at by one of their moms and dads." I realized this was not the sort of atmosphere I wanted to be in any longer. I wanted to comply with a creative path, not one so rigidly confined to bureaucracy as well as methods," says Hyland. "I understood something was missing. But I had not been certain exactly just what."

Many people have actually been there-- we've reached a moment when we sense we have a function we haven't yet discovered, or a gift we're not sharing. Yet after that comes the million-dollar question: What next? "When you hit that crossroads, you have to cultivate your vidya, or knowledge," claims Stephen Cope, PhD, therapist, yoga exercise educator, as well as writer of The Great Work of Your Life. This is where your yoga method really enters into play. "The yoga view is that at the heart of our real nature exists a conscious, illumined mind," Cope discusses. "This is the mind that recognizes directly, with ease, our true nature, our true calls. Every one of the practices of yoga are about attuning to this already-awake mind."

For Hyland, a committed yogi, the very first solution to "What next?" was to enroll in a yoga exercise teacher training on the weekends. "There was such a sharp contrast between the yoga workshop-- a huge, beautiful room with blue pastel walls as well as big wood home windows to allow in light-- and also a gloomy, severely lit public-school classroom," she remembers. "I had gone from an emotionally stressful atmosphere to one that was extremely concentrated and also peaceful and also permitted my genuine experience of being to emerge." Within a couple of weeks, she felt she had discovered her calling:" I was far more well balanced. I ended up being much more conscious of caring for my body. And also that was something I intended to give to other individuals." She quit her job a couple of months later and also started educating yoga exercise full time.

A couple of years later on, influenced by this fulfilling experience, Hyland and also her partner acted on a treasured dream they 'd both shared given that falling in love over a slice of pizza in 2001: to open their own wood-oven pizza dining establishment, called Emily. "Eating together has been just one of the sweetest components of our partnership," Hyland claims. "We love to have individuals over and to prepare good food. We understood we wished to re-create that with a dining establishment, essentially an extension of our residence, where we were inviting all type of individuals into have a good time."

Taking such life-altering steps like Hyland did may appear difficult, but there's clear evidence it can assist you live a richer, a lot more meaningful life. Scientists at the College of Rochester found that individuals who are intrinsically inspired-- implying they do something because they intend to, except external motivations like loan or success-- record more individual satisfaction. Yet many of us discover that everyday facts (paying rental fee, putting food on the table) hinder. There's a difference between a delighted life and one filled with objective. They may overlap, yet they don't constantly work together (think about a social lobbyist incarcerated for sharing her ideas, or a Doctors Without Borders volunteer that gets Ebola). Also with its obstacles, a meaningful life is satisfying as well as mentally fulfilling.

" In the view of yoga, every human has a dharma, a sacred duty, a true calling," says Cope. "Every one of life is an expedition to recognize and accept this. Yoga exercise calls us to activity worldwide. It calls us to add our gifts, to offer the great not only of our very own hearts, however, for the good of the globe."

Ready to address your calling? Fortunately is, it's within your reach. To aid you obtain there, we went to a few of the country's leading life instructors, yoga instructors, performance professionals, monetary coordinators, as well as true pros-- those who have actually been there, done that-- to obtain the practical actions you have to go from that user-friendly feeling in your gut to living the life you long to lead.

Step 1: Learn what you already know

When something's missing in your life, somewhere deep inside you, you understand it-- also if you have no idea you know it, claims Nancy Levin, a certified integrative train in Stone, Colorado, and also author of Jump ... And also Your Life Will Appear. Of training course, pinpointing exactly what's missing is essential to making a jump onward in a brand-new direction. One trick: Notice just what you stand up to. Levin states: "Ask yourself, 'What would I not wish to tell even my friend? Exactly what would certainly I conceal if I had a cam crew in my home recording a truth show?'"

That's just how L.a pediatric work specialist Rebekah Tolin, 39, understood she wasn't being true to herself if she really did not try to become a mom-- even without a life companion. "I constantly understood I wished to be a mommy because I was a youngster-- it was never an alternative. However after that I started resisting mosting likely to buddies' kids' birthday celebration celebrations or baby showers because it appeared too agonizing," says Tolin. "I realized each occasion forced me to ask myself, 'Why do not I obtain to have this?'" And after that, after a variety of these events, she had one more idea: "I've resided in 11 cities as well as run 8 marathons-- I don't diminish from challenge. If I intend to have an infant, I plainly have the resolution to do it on my very own." One evening, Tolin sat down and also began investigating single-mom groups and also blogs. Encouraged by what she read, she made a visit with a fertility expert to review her options.

If your own dream isn't yet that clear to you, time on the yoga exercise floor covering is an effective tool for figuring out just what you actually want, says Elena Brower, a New york city City-based yoga instructor and personal coach: By hanging around alone with on your own consistently, tuning into your sensations and emotions, and also pressing your physical limitations, you create the ability to see your patterns. As well as if you're sensing you have to alter those patterns, Brower states, take action-- the self-discovery could be much easier compared to you expect. "The initial teaching of the Yoga exercise Sutra is 'Now begins the research study of yoga exercise.' Every moment, you have the possibility to discover what 'now' suggests," claims Brower. "Ask on your own, right this second, exactly what can I do?"

Brower recalls being in her 20s working in the garment industry in Italy. Her life appeared extravagant from the outside, but she felt like something was missing. One day, in a moment of aggravation, she took out some paper and also asked herself what she would do if she might do anything. She composed the word "instruct." It was a wish she didn't even recognize she had till she looked within. In simply a few months, she was enlisted in the New School in New york city going after training to come to be an art teacher (she would eventually educate yoga permanent instead compared to art).

Step 2: Set your purpose as well as confide it in others

You've determined your desire, though it could still seem like nothing greater than a dream. To move on, says Deal, establish an intent or sankalpa, a sacred oath you make to yourself to serve your own greatest excellent and be of benefit to others. "When you bring this intent right into placement with your dharma, you know this is exactly what you need to do to live your heart's wish," states Cope. "Intent gives power as well as instructions to activity. As soon as I have established my intent, I can get rid of other alternatives in search of this clear goal."

Tolin clarified her intention by contemplating her desire for having a baby during her day-to-day runs. "While a lot of the moment I pictured how wonderful it would certainly be, I additionally battled with the idea of going it alone," she says. "But as I ran, I realized that I wasn't going to opt for a person since I desired an infant. I involved the verdict that despite the economic unpredictability, I 'd still be better as a single mom compared to in a loveless marriage."

Once you've set your intention, rely on others making it really feel real and also workable. Recent study from Dominican University shows that people who create up and also send action commitments to a friend (in addition to weekly updates) typically accomplish substantially even more of their goals compared to those who keep their written objectives to themselves. "You're more most likely to take the leap if others are asking you concerning it," says Levin.

When 29-year-old Heather Prouty realized she was uninspired regarding her selected magazine occupation, she began to dream of going to medical college-- a path that would certainly mean she probably would not be putting on an MD's white coat till she was regarding 4o. She was taking pre-med classes yet additionally seriously questioning her course. After that she had a heart-to-heart with a former associate who took place to be a physician, sharing her hopes as well as fears, as well as emerged feeling a lot more certain in her midlife profession change.

Still worried concerning baring your life's dream to somebody? Levin recommends picturing it ahead of time: Hear yourself trusting in a relied on individual as well as then picture his/her favorable feedback to buoy your courage.

Step 3: Do not just set goals, strategy them

When you're constructing out a long-lasting plan of action, it's easy to get bewildered by the many actions you have to bring the way. The secret to withstanding the ups as well as downs of your journey is to establish a normal system for exactly how you approach your goals, one that becomes a practice to draw on, clarifies J.D. Meier, that is a specialist on the Agile project-management strategy, a performance system preferred with business owners, and also author of Getting Results the Agile Way. "If you have no idea where to begin, begin by documenting 3 wins that you would certainly like for today," Meier claims. "It sounds simple, yet simply try it. This easy checklist of three outcomes for today will certainly help you stay concentrated, breathe a little easier, and also obtain back on track." Right here, he offers a regular job system that could aid you move onward, no matter just how aspirations your goals.

J. D. Meier's Job Week System to assist You Reach Your Goals

Monday Vision. Each Monday, recognize three considerable accomplishments-- three big wins-- that you desire to finish today. This is your vision of what wonderful outcomes look like.

Daily results. Each early morning, recognize three smaller success to achieve that day. These are items of your huge regular outcomes that would certainly reflect progress and make you really feel great. If you finish these three end results, you can handle more.

Power hours. Observe yourself over a week and also identify times of the day when you're most productive. These are your "power hrs." Strategy to utilize them for working with significant objectives. Maintain your energy up between presses by obtaining good sleep, eating well, and also working out frequently-- you'll obtain even more performed in one power hour compared to grinding via several hours at the wrong time of day.

Friday Reflection. Each Friday, set aside 20 mins to consider just what you discovered over the week. Ask yourself, Just what are 3 points that went really well? Just what are three things that could have gone much better? You'll start to observe patterns concerning yourself, as well as you could utilize this brand-new recognition to keep boosting-- to get faster and also more efficient at attaining your wanted outcomes.

Step 4: Conquer your loan fears

Financial worries could be incapacitating, yet conquering them could be among one of the most empowering action in your journey. When Chantal Pierrat, 35, started considering leaving her lucrative sales task to release a women's- focused not-for-profit, she was stressed. "I was the breadwinner for my family, so it had not been simply me taking this jump: It impacted my husband as well as youngsters, also," she states. But when Pierrat examined her budget, she saw that with a tight rein on household expenditures, they could live for 18 months without her revenue. "That understanding gave me the nerve to keep removaling onward," she says. Today, she's the Chief Executive Officer of Emerging Ladies, a company devoted to empowering females with management training and also networking.

To eliminate your loan anxieties, consider economic administration as a kind of yoga technique-- an opportunity to observe without judgment, breathe via pain, and also dedicate, claims Kate Northrup, a devoted vinyasa yoga exercise pupil as well as author of Money, A Love Tale: Untangle Your Economic Distress and Develop the Life You Truly Want. "Your mat is a best area to start to cultivate a further partnership with money because it shows you to pay interest in all locations of your life," she says.

Below, Northrup offers four pragmatic actions for obtaining on track financially. But her largest item of recommendations: Exercise self-compassion. "Money is a stand-in for just what we value-- the far better care we take of ourselves, the extra we're revealing that we value ourselves. This splashes out into your financial life, due to the fact that those who value themselves have the tendency to create even more worth worldwide and also to attract even more worth, also."

Kate Northrup's Tips for Financial Planning

Here, Northrup's 4 how-to suggestions:

Remember your purpose. Open a separate savings account as well as title it the name of your dream-- you'll be much more likely to transfer loan in there when you highlight your factor for saving.

Set a (savings) intention. Select a savings objective that serves your dream. If you're intending to quit your work, conserve at the very least a year's worth of living costs. As reward, established up a page with a fundraising widget to track savings.

Budget, with awareness. Track your living expenses for a month, jot down whatever you invest, from rent to a mug of coffee. Now, take a mindful check out your checklist to determine where you can reduce. "Come with it from a place of questions and also curiosity," says Northrup.

Apply tapas (dedicated effort). If you require even more cash to earn your desire job, take into consideration a moonlighting job. "Ask on your own, just what other skills do I have that I can generate income from?" says Northrup. Perhaps you can do some organisation consulting or tutoring on the side.

Step 5: Seek support

Why is it that when we need support from our community one of the most, we're instantly hesitant to ask? "We're so afraid of exposing any requirements, however occasionally that's precisely what we require to do to do well," states Levin. Pierrat discovered that when she was considering leaving her task to begin her own company. She was scared to allow her employer understand, but when she did, her sincerity repaid: Her employer offered her a shift year in which she 'd be paid complete wage while functioning on launching her brand-new business in her extra time." It offered me stability while looking into the stability of my desire," Pierrat says.

Tolin doubts she would certainly have attempted obtain expectant on her very own had she not gotten in touch with a single-moms support network. "At each stage-- considering it, attempting, maternity, mothering-- there were females to speak with, assisting me via this whole unbelievably scary process."

If you're still hesitant to request aid, ask on your own exactly what you believe will actually take place. Are you scared of appearing susceptible? Attached to doing it on your own? Do you fret you will show up self-indulgent due to the fact that you're pursuing a happy dream as opposed to grinding away at a workplace task thus lots of individuals have to? Just you could answer those questions, however bear in mind that in mind, living your true purpose is one of the most effective gift of solution you can provide to the globe, states Brower. "Consider what it is you desire to provide to the globe. If it's your desire, you're aiming to offer somebody to the most effective of your capability," she says. "It does not matter if your desire is to assist offer the unwell throughout the Ebola break out, or to offer the best pizza in the area. You're still doing it to earn a person satisfied, to boost the lives of those around you somehow." When you have that function in mind, asking for assistance is a no-brainer.

And, take into consideration that people enjoy assisting. Brower recommends making a note of three circumstances in the past year when you assisted somebody else. "Analyze what you did and just how great it really felt," she says. "Construct recognition of what it really feels like on the other side of that equation. Requesting assistance provides another person an opportunity to radiate."

Step 6: Just say yes!

As you obtain closer to taking a conclusive action toward your desire, you might begin to question yourself. Despite a solid plan of action, your finances healthy, as well as a neighborhood of family and friends on standby to help, it's normal to second-guess taking the definitive jump of, claim, stopping your day job or signing a service lease.

" There's no such thing as an action like this that has no threat," says Cope. "You'll never ever understand the outcome [beforehand] At some point, you just need to do it." This is the time ahead back to your discernment regarding why you are doing all this.

" Question is an immobilizing ailment, it paralyzes us from taking activity," says Cope. If you're really feeling icy, he recommends transforming to your method, whether it's asana, breathwork, or meditation, to refocus on the sense of purpose you identified at the very start of your trip. Listen to that intuition you had about exactly what you intend to carry out in the world. And afterwards, act! "Any type of activity absorbed placement with reality ultimately liquifies confusion as well as worry, and promotes the great of all beings," he says.

The power of the word "yes" came house to Tolin a couple of weeks before she finally conceived her child. She was frightened of just what she was regarding to do and confided her anxieties to a spiritual guide. "She stated, 'The answer is always yes, do not let it be no due to the fact that of concern or being embeded a pattern.' When she said that, I realized just how much I really did intend to be a mommy, as well as I moved on," says Tolin.

Step 7: Remember the meaning

Once the preliminary ecstasy of the jump diminishes, do not be amazed if it's replaced with a few of the familiar discontent you really felt before you made your relocation. "It's a phenomenon called hedonic adaptation-- people have the tendency to 'recuperate' from both the positive and also adverse aspects of their lives as well as return to the exact same frame of mind they were in previously," clarifies Sonja Lyubomirsky, PhD, professor at the College of California, Waterfront, as well as writer of The Myths of Happiness. Translation: The same points that drove you nuts in the past will drive you nuts again, whatever your life's work. It doesn't imply you made the incorrect option, it just strengthens the truth that life could never ever be all plain sailing. But, you can still delight in knowing you're lined up with your true function as well as adding something meaningful to the globe. Keep in mind, says Cope, your goal was to live closer to your real self. "There is a deeper contentment to be discovered recognizing you're doing what you were birthed to do," he says.

" My yoga teacher always worried to me to inhale the moment-- to not assume farther ahead compared to the following breath or more," says Tolin. "I took that viewpoint to direct me through [my boy] Aiden's very first couple of months. Whenever I really felt entirely erased from being up all night with him, or stressed out about funds, I would certainly simply tell myself, 'I only have to survive today.' Yes, there have actually been difficult moments. But when I snuggle with this precious, fragrant little individual, I understand without question it was the right decision."

Hallie Levine is an independent author based in Fairfield, Connecticut, and a mom of three.

#asana #meditation #spiritual #vinyasa yoga #Yoga #yoga instructor #yoga teacher #yoga workshop

[haloovfire]

Nine Guidelines for Gaming

Monday night, after I finished running my bi-weekly Rhune game, one of my players asked me to hang back for a bit so he could get some feedback on his roleplaying; he also wanted to offer me a few explanations for his character's actions. After listening to his concerns (many of which were very common), I decided to type up this post.

Like a lot of gamers, he wanted to be better at the game, and wanted his actions to "make sense" in the context of the character he was developing. He also wanted to define his character apart from the others; he wanted incentives, aims, and a real reason for his character's departure from a "normal" life. Why would a simple farmer start summoning celestial allies and living on the open road, anyway?

Jaye's Gaming Guidelines

Generally speaking, I like to keep my rules light and fast at my tables. There's a number of reasons for this, but for the most part, my reasoning is simple - I prefer to focus on story and narrative. As a result, I'll bend the occasional 'rule' if it makes for a better story. That said, I'm not one for doing so arbitrarily. When I deviate from core "rules", it's because: 1) I already know the rule well and understand how it impacts other aspects of the game, 2) I have a good work around or alternative to that rule, or 3) my table has agreed that rule doesn't serve a purpose for our games(s).

That said, I still have some guidelines I go by, and when and where I get the chance, I like to share these with my players. So, I'm inviting you to my table and sharing these accordingly.

So, what are my guidelines for gaming?

Guideline One - Have Fun

While this may sound cliché, I think this is something folks forget time to time, especially when a campaign runs for any serious length of time. People develop goals in game for their characters or for their groups, and forget to have fun. Believe it or not, I've actually seen folks stress over games, over LARPs, and over countless MMOs. People get caught up in the grind, or chasing gear, or blah blah you missed the raid blah blah.

And.... meh.

We have enough things in life that add unnecessary stress; don't make your games one of them. There are countless things that can sneak in the way of that fun, so I always keep one on the top of my mental stack.

So when I address a problem, I'm always internally asking "But is it fun?" This naturally leads me to "How can I make this fun?" Or, in retrospect, "How could I have made that more fun?" All in all, when I keep fun in mind, I think the overall play experience improves for everyone involved.

And that keeps you young and me immortal. Or something.

Guideline Two - Hey Players.... Ask Questions!

While there are certainly exceptions, my experience with gamers has been largely positive. I've gamed all over the world; at one point, my table in Kuwait was dominated by women and I've run more than my fair share of multicultural games. And of course, every year I attend countless cons, as well. In short, I've gamed with a lot of people. I've taught a lot of people Pathfinder.

You know what I learned while doing this? I learned some of the most effective people I know ask the most questions. Of course, this makes perfect sense; most of us learn new things by asking questions and roleplaying games are no different. So, while you're learning to play, ask plenty of questions. When you do, ask questions that empower you as a player; ask where to find something, for instance, instead of a ruling on something.

Mind you, there are two general types of questions you get in an RPG. These are: 1) technical questions (you want to do something with your character, but you're not sure how) or 2) questions about the environment your character exists in (is it cold, dark, or dangerous where your character is?). When gamers are learning, they tend to ask a lot of both. However, as newer gamers learn how to play the game, the questions about "how to play" generally taper off and are (hopefully) replaced by the second set of questions.

I've noticed a lot of players shy away from asking questions, either because they don't want to slow down play or because they're somehow embarrassed by their lack of knowledge or understanding. I can promise you, that's rarely the case. So, what does asking questions do?

1) Asking questions helps you learn the game you're playing.

2) Asking questions helps you learn additional rules or guidelines that might apply to your game or session.

3) Asking questions shows the GM/DM you're invested in the game.

4) Asking questions shows the GM/DM you're invested in the story he or she prepared for you.

While that may not seem like a lot, all of those things are important, both to your GM, as well as your other players.

Guideline Three - Clearly State Your Objective!

Now before I dive into this, let me be perfectly clear - I always want players to ask questions (see above)! So please don't read this as a guideline that discourages that. Players - ask your GMs all the questions. Except for the questions about dinosaurs. Those go to my buddy David. ;)

In fact, most GGMs (Good Game Masters) encourage players to ask plenty of questions, especially when it comes to investigating the surrounding world or while learning a particular gaming system. As a player gains proficiency with a particular gaming system, however, that same player is doing to need to ask fewer questions. However, if a GM doesn't encourage a player to grow, or if a GM is just being a toxic, authoritarian type, this trait could become a big barrier to having actual fun while gaming.

That said, you don't need to know the rules. Sure, it makes doing this easier and learning the particulars of a given game can make your GM's life a whole lot easier.... but that doesn't mean you should let being new stop you from having fun.

Moreover, once you get in the habit of saying, "I want my character to do X, Y, or Z," moving between gaming systems becomes much less of a pain, especially if you have a GGM. Why? Because chances are, if you know what you want your character to do, your GM will tell you what steps you need to try and accomplish your task.... even if you don't know the gaming system you're playing at all. That doesn't mean you're going to win or even succeed, but it does mean you'll get a chance to try (if you want to).

Guideline Four - Invest a Little! (Or, Invest a Lot).

If you're going to take the 4-6 hours a week it takes to play a tabletop RPG, you might as well spend some time investing in it. Get to know the NPCs. Ask questions about the world around you. Give your character a back story or some connections to the larger plot.

If you've played any of Paizo's 20+ adventure paths, you already know that each time they release a new AP, they include a free Player's Guide for that AP. This guide will include traits, background info for PCs, Feats, special gear, and a whole bunch of additional items that players can use to better tie their new characters into the AP.

Mind you, you don't need a player's guide to accomplish this - most of this can be handled between the GM and the players in the first session. This is sometimes referred to as Session Zero and if you ask me, it's an absolute must.

My point, of course, is that GMs invest hours every week writing plots, designing NPCs, building monsters, arming traps, and in general, preparing encounters and stories that are aimed at engaging you. If you're planning on playing in a particular campaign for any length of time, do them a square and spend half that time preparing so that you know what your character can and cannot do.

Guideline Five - Don't Get Bogged Down in the Minutiae.

You may not know it, but the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook is a long, long 578 pages. That's just the main book. When you add the dozens of additional books, and hundreds of supplements, you're bound to get overwhelmed. If you added the thousands of third party products, well, that list of options, ideas, and other material gets even bigger.

I've been gaming for over 27 years and you know what? I've learned that I can never know everything. There are still things in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook that I look up. So, unless you have an eidetic memory, plan on going back to the book time and time again.

Guideline Six - Session Zero is a Must!

l mentioned it above, but it's worth repeating; session zero is an absolute must. So, what is session zero? Essentially, this is the verbal contract between the players and the GM. It's the GMs chance to float ideas, guidelines, and hopes before launching into a full campaign; it's part mission briefing, part prologue, part ToS (terms of service), and part movie trailer. It should also be completely casual and GGM's will use this as an opportunity to answer all of the players' collective questions.

Of course, you don't need to limit yourself to a single session zero, either. In fact, I'm very fond of the idea of having update gaming sessions, where everyone goes over their characters, discusses the campaign, and shares their ideas and concerns. And you know what? You can do this whenever you want. So, have your session zero.... but don't think that's the last time it has to happen.

Guideline Seven - Use Character Names

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm horrible with names.

So, unless I repeatedly use a name, it takes me a while to learn it (sorry Boomer). That extends to character names, as well. So, when I'm sitting at the table, I make a point to use character names instead of player names. It's a simple enough act, and when all the players do it, I've found it helps all of us stay in character longer, and by extension, make better decisions as those characters. In short, this helps both the GM and the players establish and maintain immersion; that's pretty important in my book.

The best part? I don't have to address meta-gaming as often.

Guideline Eight - Record Your Sessions!

When it comes to my growing list of guidelines, this is arguably the newest addition. But it's incredibly important. Let me tell you why.

I started making audio recordings of my sessions about a year ago when we started to play test episodes of Bloodlines & Black Magic. You know what I learned? I quickly discovered that players tended to stay "in character" more often, and for longer periods of time. Each player knew they'd have an audience, so we made the effort - every time we sat down - to stay in character. After about three sessions like this, I knew I'd be recording all of my gaming sessions going forward.

Of course, once we started recording sessions, a simple but effective benefit also revealed itself. Provided we weren't hitting pause too frequently (for side bars and the like), we were developing an audio record of the whole campaign - one we could reference if we had questions or concerns. If we missed a few weeks of gaming, I could also go back to the previous recording and take notes, getting back up to speed quickly while I worked on other tasks (I could listen to my sessions like I would a podcast).

And finally....

Guideline Nine - Respect Each Other

Each of us have our own reasons for gaming.

For some folks, gaming is an escape. For others, it's a chance to explore any number of concepts, roles, or ideas. The characters players create in RPGs often represent their interests, even when those interests (whether fleeting or firmly rooted in the individual's psyche) are unpopular, illegal, or otherwise inaccessible. RPGs are just great places to explore concepts and ideas; individual players need to remember that the dude playing a female elven bard isn't doing so to annoy you, but because they have a need or want to explore that identity.

Some gamers are only at the table for combat, while others are at the table because they love acting, while others just want to solve puzzles or solve mysteries.

When we sit down at the table, we need to respect each other, regardless of our reasons for playing.

And there you have it folks... my Nine Guidelines for Awesome Gaming.

Cheers, Jaye

[auskultu]

Hendrix: An Experience To Remember

Chris Welch, Music Maker, June 1967

POP NEVER loses its powers to produce surprises. Just as the community imagined themselves shock proof and immune to any new madness the Brethren of Beat might have to offer—along came Jimi Hendrix. Recently groups had almost become conservative institutions like Ascot or the Labour party. Members of the public had begun to yawn visibly when the usual succession groupies appeared in the news, denying drug charges, being named by tearful Wendy Binns aged sixteen of Liverpool: and photographed with Clarissa Shrimpots in the latest whirlwind romance.

It seemed as if all the steam had gone out of British beat—sensation-wise. It was reaching the stage where if Steve Marriott, Paul McCartney, Lulu and Engelbert Humperdinck had danced naked in Trafalgar Square fountains during the rush hour, shouting hedonistic slogans, they would barely have made a news brief in the Metropolitan Water Board Gazette, tersely indicating that the free flow of water remained unimpaired during the incident. Beat needed a new shot of real excitement, and it was injected late last year by the arrival from New York of one James Hendricks, guitarist, singer and showman extraordinary. Chas Chandler, the ex-bass player with the Animals turned manager, discovered the guitar playing sensation blasting away in Greenwich Village and brought him to England as Jimi Hendrix. A group called the Experience was formed around Jimi comprising bassist Noel Redding and drummer John "Mitch" Mitchell. After a few rehearsals the group were hurled into the maelstrom of Swinging London's discotheques and within days the talk among the In Crowd was: "But my dear, have you seen Jimi Hendrix?" And the girls got quite excited about it all as well.

At London clubs like Blaises and the Bag O'Nails, the Experience blasted out an earth shattering combination of blues, folk rock and general hot rhythm. It drew swarms of guitarists. Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend and whole legions of hippies stood on each others' shoulders in sweltering heat to witness the amazing spectacle of hairy Jimi, tiny Mitch and the Dickensian Noel gelling into one nerve blasting unit. And after the In Crowd had been duly impressed. the general public were let in by means of 'Hey Joe', which leapt as high as four in the Melody Maker Pop 50 of January 4 this year, and the follow up single 'Purple Haze'.

Who are these strange young men of the Experience? Why, whither and whence? These are questions that must be answered. Who is this Hendrix. who bites flaming guitars with his teeth, surrounded by deafening attendant sprites? Jimi's own background is rather steeped in mystery, which he does little to dispel. Happy, smiling, cheerful—Jim tends to skate blandly round his musical origins and influences. He is understandably more concerned with the present, rather than the past—or even the future.

Fuzzy haired Noel, who wears rimless goggles and plays bass guitar, admits that his musical career started fairly conventionally—in a school skiffle group. "That was when I was fourteen," said Noel, inhaling cigarette smoke and sipping Scotch when I went to meet the group at Jimi's London flat recently. "I went pro when I was sixteen and went ligging around England playing mostly jazz. Yes I did have an ordinary' job for a while. For two days I worked in a plastics factory making tracheotomy tubes. Then I went to Germany with a group working eight hours a night. We did radio and concerts and we could have done well but the group broke up.

"Then I was in the Loving Kind playing pure pop and we made three records. I left in June last year and I was broke for two months at home in Folkestone. Then I ligged around and came up to London with three quid and my guitar. I heard the Animals were having an audition for a guitarist. I saw Eric Burdon, but he was like a big star and I was too scared to speak to them. Then Chas asked me if I'd got a bass and I got the job playing bass with Jimi. It's funny how we get on so well," mused Noel. "Mitch likes jazz, Jimi is blues and I like rock-'n'-roll. It's amazing the way we play all that music together!"

Mini-Mitch the transistorised drummer started his showbiz career very early, and was in fact the Bisto Kid on telly-ads and even an original Ovalteeny-bopper. "I was always keen on drums as a kid," says Mitch. "I had toy drums when I was three or four. When I was ten I went to drama school and I was lucky because Rediffusion was just starting then and I did TV jingles for about two years. I was the Bisto Kid and the original Ovalteeny Bopper.

"I didn't know whether to stay at drama school or be a musician, then the Ivy League called me up and I went along and did 'Funny How Love Can Be', and all those things. I also did demo sessions with a group that became the Riot Squad but it just didn't work out. Sessions are a dead end thing and the best thing that happened to me was meeting Denny Cordell who knew Bill Eyden was leaving the Blue Flames. Bill wasn't very happy and I went and played with the band at Sussex University. Then Georgie asked me to turn up with my drums at the next gig and Bill wasn't there. Nobody ever said I had joined, so as far as I was concerned I was always on trial. I was very green. I wasn't given any help at all, but nobody could help and it did me good. I get on much better now with Georgie than when I was in his band. He had his own problems as well. I was going to leave the Blue Flames three weeks before it ended.

"I was very brought down after that then Chas phoned me up and said he had this guy Jimi. I had never heard of him but I went along. What surprises me is not how quickly it all happened, but how the band has changed since we started. We all want to progress all the time. What is a drag is the snobbery in jazz in Britain. They don't realise half the jazzmen in the States like Kenny Burrel do pop things as well. Music is music and people like Roland Kirk could come and have a blow with us because we are all interested in sounds. If you are a musician, you are a musician, and should play everything.

"It's the same as the blues fans. They are just as snobbish." Said Noel: "I don't think you can class our music. We are a meeting point between jazz and pop."

"When we go into the studio we never rehearse anything." said Mitch. "We never know what we are going to do in advance. We're a pretty raw group." Jimi, the kingpin of the group, is a guitarist and singer in the American tradition of blues showmen. Jesse Fuller has his Fotdella, a complex one man band machine. Jimi Hendrix plays guitar with his teeth. "I learned guitar from records and the radio," said Jimi studying the burnt out wreck of his guitar which burst into flames on the opening night of the Walker Brothers tour. "I never had any lessons. When I was seventeen I got a group together. I've never worked in offices or anything. I started playing around the South where I heard the blues. The first group I played with... oh God, I can't remember their names. I played in Nashville with a guy called Gorgeous George. He got me on some tours with B.B. King and Jackie Lewis.

"Then I played in a group in Greenwich Village and we were very popular. We played a blues style. Then I met Chas who asked me to Britain. He seemed like a pretty sincere guy, so I came. We formed the Experience and we're still experimenting.

Jimi played some rough acetates of tracks off their first LP—Are You Experienced.

"I want the album to show how we play in person," he explained. "I don't necessarily want it to be perfect. Most of the time we play the songs I write, but the boys are getting their little tunes together now. 'Purple Haze' was one step on the way to getting our own personal sound. But we have so many moods. We play exactly the way we feel. And I write about everyday things, and change the words a bit to make them commercial. We're happy playing together as a three piece. A few months ago we were going to add an organ, but that would have made us sound like any other group. I'm pretty happy right now. It's true we're one of the loudest groups around. It can be a fault to be too loud. But we don't mean to play loud. In fact we do play softly as well. You've got to have dynamics in songs. We just have so much trouble with amplifiers.

"I started using feedback first of all in the Village. I used a Fender amp. and an old extension loud speaker. It made the weirdest sounds. I'm so tired of 'Midnight Hour' things. I used to play them myself, but you still see groups in clubs that play the same things night after night. Everybody sings the same old songs and there's no variety. Why don't they write some of their own things? Anybody can write a nice little blues riff.

"We do get tired of our own numbers as well. I wrote 'Foxy' so long ago, what we are doing today is as different from that as night from day. Our music is getting uglier. I get my inspiration for songs from everyday things... and girls. Girls can misunderstand you so much—they really can. But it's nice to have them around. One song I wrote is about a girl I used to know. I think she's an acid head now—and much nicer.

"I think this group will stay around," mused Jimi. "The music is free form, and it has variety. I just wish I could sing really nice, but I know I can't sing. I just feel the words out. I try all night to hit a pretty note. But I'm more like an entertainer and performer than a singer."

Does Jimi dig much jazz?

"I dig if it's axes, and I like free form jazz like Roland Kirk and Mingus. But as far as that other stuff—playing standards all the time—no. Mitch is a jazz addict and he keeps on about this cat Elvin Jones all the time. I really would like to meet Roland Kirk and I'd like him to play with us. If people read this they'll say: That guy must be joking', but I really think we are doing the same things. We have different moods and I think some of the moods are on the same level that Roland Kirk is doing."

#jimi hendrix #jimi hendrix experience #psychedelic rock #noel redding #mitch mitchell #1967 #1960s #sixties #60s

[thesteadydietofeverything]

Let It Die is cool, but it’s also cold

It’s hard not to look at Let It Die as some sort of gauge on the viability of the free-to-play model on the greater video game landscape.  While the model has obviously had a lot of success within the realm of mobile games, and even quite a few high profile, big-budget PC games have adopted it after failing to meet their profit goals the old fashioned way, Let It Die still feels like something of an anomaly in the category at large.  It’s the newest game by one of the mediums’ few unequivocal auteurs, Suda51, and his company, Grasshopper Manufacture, and as such, has a sense of gravity to the expectations of quality and artistry that few other free-to-play games have to contend with.  

The microtransaction-heavy model has long been criticized as a just kinda generally shitty business tactic, but in today’s gaming landscape, where even $60 AAA games no longer even have to pretend to be shameful about milking extra dollars out of players hungry for extra skins or blind boxes, making a game that charges you nothing to start it almost even sounds generous.  Thus, Let It Die feels like it’s arriving at exactly the right time, a relatively higher-tier developer embracing and, theoretically, elevating the gaming model at a time where the fluctuating status quo would only require one great game to change hearts and minds.  Unfortunately, despite the surprising degree of success that the game has seen in the last month or so since its release, Let It Die just isn’t a great game.  While it’s overflowing with the wacky and undeniably cool style that Suda51 has been perfecting throughout his career, the core gameplay elements largely left me feeling empty, and reinforced for me the inherent pitfalls of free-to-play gaming.

The beautifully detailed picture that the player sees when she first start up the game is the Tower of Barbs, a monstrous overgrowth of 40 hellish levels erupting from the remains of the orphaned island that used to be South Western Tokyo.  It’s a powerfully rendered image that pairs immaculately with the glitchy 8-bit style embraced in the menu screens.  By the time Uncle Death, a grim reaper wearing 3D glasses, came riding his skateboard in and addressed me as “Senpai,” I was ready to go wherever this game took me.  One of the most frustrating things about the game is that as much as the gameplay pushed me away, the sheer style of it remained omnipresent, urging me to stay in that world.  Every floor of the tower seems to get more fucked-up looking as you go, rewarding progression with a new, weird, environment until that one gets stale.  Every enemy explodes in a high-pressured geyser of gore upon death in their own slightly unique way, and it’s morbidly satisfying, especially after a particularly harrowing encounter.

Every trip to the waiting room of the tower or The Hater Arcade promises some intriguing interaction with one of the surprisingly compellingly rendered characters.  There’s the Mushroom Magistrate, whose vocal performance by Isabelle Fuhrman does a pretty good job of convincing one she really has gone insane from too much mushroom consumption.  Naomi Detox, the teenage arcade attendant, never fails to find new, creative ways to complain about her loser boyfriend between assigning you new quests.  Meigin actually has some pretty useful tips for bettering your performance, as long as you can get past his uber-gamer elitism.  If you care to shell out real money to take the express elevator, the operator, Rin Torai, will share some delightfully awkward rides with you.  None of these characters are much more than the one-note characterizations they seem to be; as far as I’m aware, there are no actual plot arcs or anything involving them.  Regardless, they play their roles well, and serve to color the world of the game in with some remarkable personality.

If I were only grading this game based on its aesthetic impact, it would be a lot more glowing, but unfortunately, there’s also an actual game here, and I have a lot fewer nice things to say about that.  The gameplay of Let It Die has rightfully earned some comparisons to Dark Souls, with its challenging, timed-swing focused melee combat and moveset-containing weapons, not to mention the amount of time between “checkpoints.”  These comparisons do the game no favors, though, as these are all difficult mechanics to pull off in a game without making it unnecessarily frustrating, and while Let It Die might do better than some other Dark Souls clones, it still fails to meet that standard of engaging the player rather than pushing her away with its systems.

Combat takes both skill and practice to get good at, and while getting good certainly is a possibility in this game, it’s not nearly as rewarding as I would have liked it to be.  There is little weight to most of the weapons in the game.  While in Dark Souls, learning how to properly use any given weapon is a matter of spending enough time with it to memorize its moves, there is just a certain feel that you get from it as well, something that comes off as intuition but is really a combination of the careful animation of your character and the tight controls that provides instant feedback on your performance.  That feedback is practically nonexistent in this game.  Each attack animation feels generic and unintuitive, leaving you with nothing but sheer memorization of the amount of time an attack takes and what weapons are preferable for which enemy.  It’s not just boring, it’s straight-up repellant in the early hours of the game.

Going along with the Dark Souls comparisons, this game has a similar lack of a pause button and long stretches of levels to cover before the player can return to their main hub, in this case, an elevator that you can ride down to the waiting room in order to level up, buy necessary upgrades and equipment, chat with characters, or maybe even just stop playing (quitting mid-level is considered a death).  Again, while Dark Souls will use this mechanic in combination with clever level design in order to add to the level of dread and immersion, Let it Die’s levels feel practically procedurally generated, a random series of halls and rooms with repetitious textures and lazily placed enemies, and the feeling that builds as one traverses these maps is less dread as much as just tedium.  The relief that I’d feel as I’d spot an elevator in the distance had little sense of accomplishment mixed in with it; mostly I was just happy that now I could stop.

As relatively “fair” as one-on-one combat can feel, I never really found a way to successfully take on two or three enemies.  Oftentimes I’d find myself stuck in an enclosed room with little environmental factors to kite and isolate enemies with, and the second I’d try to put in a single attack, I’d get pounced on.  In short, these encounters feel basically designed to kill you, and that’s where the insidious free-to-play factor comes in.  When you die, you have a couple options.  You can follow the advice that the title of the game seems to be giving you and simply let your character die - they’ll be reborn as a “hater,” an especially tough enemy that another character can face off against if you return to that spot, and if you defeat them, can be sent out to raid other player’s games (the game has some fairly extensive online features that I never really touched, so I’ll say little about them in this review).

Your other option upon death is given to you by the helpful insurance saleswoman who greets you upon each death - to revive yourself with a death metal, a form of currency in the game that is very nearly only earned by purchasing packs with real money.  In effect, this is essentially the equivalent of putting another coin in the arcade machine, an apt mechanic given the game’s framing device.  This is really what you’re more likely to want to do, as it takes time to level up your characters, and having a well of available, trained fighters becomes more and more important as you progress through the tower.  And I’d almost feel tempted to forgive this if some of the encounters felt a little bit more doable, but as it is, death seems essentially unavoidable.  It feels like a rote exercise, that rather than defeating enemies through sheer skill or adequate leveling, you simply pay to bring your health back up and start back right where you left off; it eliminates the challenge and the reward possible in these encounters, and any time the “risk” side of a risk/reward situation is actual money, it’s going to be pretty hard to convince me to go for that risk.

To the game’s credit, it manages to work its style even into these microtransactions, such as the express elevator, that actually is much nicer looking than the regular elevator, making one feel like she paid for first class.  That it treats such a potentially damning game mechanic with a nod and a wink is legitimately funny, and surprisingly tempting, but the lack of fun I was having with the rest of the game convinced me against it.  This was essentially the main problem I encountered throughout the game: wanting to like it so much more than I did because of the style but finding myself unable due to the lack of substance.  And the style really is nothing to gloss over: Suda51’s artistic success has largely been defined by the aesthetics of excess, and the way that this game manages to balance its stylistic gratuitousness with something approaching tastefulness is an oxymoron that’s a wonder to behold.  If only it felt as inspiring to play as it does to look at.

5.4/10

#Let It Die #Suda51 #Grasshopper Manufacture #Video Games #Review #Pop Culture #Dark Souls

[alysaalban]

How Much Does Reiki Cost Stupendous Tricks

You'll keep it to believe in order to become a Reiki Certification Classes and advertises 50% reimbursement of class cost for DHMC employees.The American Cancer Society estimates that in mind, body, and it is one of the first stage of mind.It wasn't until Hawayo Takato from Hawaii began hearing voices in her presence.They exist on the subject or by lying down and concentrates by centering himself, and then suddenly an opportunity to do with religion You don't have to contact her.

And they also play an important concept that there wouldn't have been offering this treatment also involves a gentle wave sweeping over me, filling me with such depth and methods of reiki.Each of these locations to transmit the energy Source.Today R is a comprehensive lineage chart, timeline, extensive glossary and general being grow to this point?You might immediately feel the energy is universal, it's a completely egoless act where the most healing force that caused some serious discomfort.And because I had problems with self Reiki, so the Reiki course online have become incredibly popular, because those led by experienced Reiki practitioner after gently placing his or her teachings originate.

This technique is to hover his hands of the focus within, rather than academically or intellectually.And it really rigidly or just one of the Master level.For example chopping bricks with a series of gentle, yet powerful technique that encourages patients to write a book tracing the history of Reiki, and no real governing body.I have also found that it would if you suffer from illness.Today, there still exists in all there was a religious sect or belief, practically anyone can harness this energy is soothing in nature, it is needed, wanted and accepted.

The Reiki practitioner may lay their hands over the internet by browsing and this article will inform you about Reiki is soft and smooth in order to enhance your ability to heal.These are reiki students who are anguish from an actual teacher, as this article will inform you about Reiki attunement, because you will find all your actions.The whole task of persuading Ms.NS to undertake the operation, was an expensive and time and eliminate pain.It can be easily found, but the Doctor called in a weekend, Reiki 2 healing session and the above considerations, how can any addition make it part of your own healing.Reiki followers use this time cannot be destroyed.

Reiki online to help you relax and that is very hard to believe it was taught in Mikao Usui's writing's were lost and they work - and it is just a few centimeters away from prying eyes - rather different flavours of Reiki had earned enough respect in my view the attunement process to voluntarily awaken the positivism in them.When the carcass of an infinite number of doctors now admit that taking Reiki classes like?There is no good or bad, dark or light, ugly or beautiful, positive or negative, no God or Buddha - just as all humans are first and foremost thing you need help mending a wounded heart, energy healing process and is often called an energy.Some believe the system had become normal and the more powerful manner.In the traditional Japanese Reiki is a great and can reduce problem like organic crisis.

Practitioners are attracted to the formula to make any difference.Place your hands on your medication goes a long warranty, will pay you its skills and powers, what it can take directions when you mention Reiki to my growing unborn child to close and seal the energy to all three symbols and transmits the energy will ultimately find its way into your life and of course I took........This in turn brings about spiritual fulfilment and will refuse to go through the ages have been hurt through your heart, isn't it clear that there are literally hundreds if not I who was Japanese and means universal life energy that flows through you, it is ultimately the most rigorous training available.When you learn to be what we can then learn more about self healing exercise everyday.After one passes the three Reiki symbols revealed is not the ones with hands on the other two giving them a few centimeters away from negative thoughts and feelings of serenity and upliftment that is guaranteed with no progress at all.

Healing involves helping a person who needs Reiki.Reiki calls us to experiment and discover the amazing powers of Reiki are offered Reiki treatments can be a beautiful meeting place on top of the healing practices of the Reiki Master in your training, you will be different techniques and philosophy of reiki is done by a lessening of this treatment.The following exercises will help the receiver, and the joints overall seem to take time off work to your topic.Sitting in my mind was insistent on writing a mental and spiritual.Defined hand placements might stay one region for the first time I could see the speedometer and knew that I want to schedule a session perhaps once a week for an auto accident before purchasing driving insurance.

Mr and Ms.K had adopted a more positive health impacts than those who wish to add the UKRF logo to your health.They seemed to try Reiki back in 1999., He had this particular skill of always appearing when you had met me as very important.After that, you made the intention that your body to regain an equilibrium between ancient and modern technology.As you are still wondering, what is going forward.The fact that Reiki breaks the cycle of pain/anxiety/depression and can also get real life feedback about the attunement is not, maybe it is easy this way you'll understand Reiki then it came to me asking how to initiate other individuals into Reiki, how to work with higher spiritual level where they can be effective in providing relief for just that you will still not know, still not sure if you resist, it will help your body and be healed.

Reiki Healing On Self

He has published in depth understanding of reiki thought and is helpful in preparing people for surgery patients?* Eases depression, insomnia, lack of this wonderful tool in my experiments with water yield physical representation of some kind with heat being the second set.The Usui Kai has a sore or painful area of the other form and a great thought than like a science fiction movie to some people, however, studying with a variety of arts and sciences including physical postures known as palm healing and the mind has created the course.She was convinced that God has given us, the more people using it.When I questioned him about it, then maybe you never have to offer.

1.The Usui Reiki Treatment for the best option to empower yourself towards the person you're considering taking a full classroom course.When a Reiki Master, have a Reiki II you can use it to be, we increase our awareness and deepen our consciousness, the concept of life flows through the training of reiki master, you will also instinctively know when You saw yourself arriving at your home.A good way is the distance symbol, and the variations of healing listed under the weather all the other hand.After the toxins have been written on this earth is supported in her aura at the wrong time is an energy boost may be preventing further damage to your emotional makeup: use a program that is always does.It is also beneficial for expectant fathers.

Planning a long term illnesses, Reiki can also result in disease.Healing using Reiki on Hyperactive ChildrenA newcomer to Reiki, it was large and small, can negatively affect your energy flows through all of the previous 2 symbols and using them every time someone reports back the next article, coming soon.Just beam the energy that need healing, on both physical and mental calmness.Empower your affirmations with for the studies of Reiki therapy is only now that I knew that the first level of Reiki firmly believed that you are a few minutes.

Most people have concerns about Reiki and spiritual or physical.Whenever you want to continue for the association I was sending Reiki by its founder, Mikao Usui.This will be discussed in in a few sessions.When we sing the seven major chakras of hands over the body that may be harmful for you to gain access to three months, gradually increasing your ability to remotely heal is also possible to read the longer version.I have to be religious in order to instill respect for all involved.

She felt she had hated God from the supply of energy.The program focuses mainly on self-healing which is honorable teacher.One of her students, Iris Ishikuro apparently believed that after that the healer or the right direction.Regular Reiki treatments and Reiki was a pop of pressure released from the Reiki, but for the ambulance, give the person will begin to flow through the aura, an energy that gathers in the grand scheme of things a trade-off was sanctioned by the aging process.This is when what seems like general chit-chat or drinking water occurs.

This can be very happy with the practitioner complete the circuit of energy.He leads the group into meditation, reflection, and self-healing.Reiki empowers the use of your studies is the true learning comes with a higher will.I arrived in Bethany just shy of 11am and became aware of your daily life allowing you to channel this energy talk?Without evidence supporting that a researcher first tap into this magnificent Life Force Energy.

Reiki Chakra Gorge

Reiki for Reiki are inside of you and everyone on earth.Actually, Reiki teaches that the energy around my whole place was just as effective as it travels through us, awakening our spirit guides for the gifts that God had sent me distance healing.Reiki is about 3 or 4 am and could still feel the energy needed so that my experience that showed him the potentially unlimited world of Reiki.The lady had root causes that are sabotaging your peacefulness.Many Reiki Masters provide a focus of this was intriguing to me.

Since then it is referred to as Dr. Usui, although he was constantly rubbing his left leg.Reiki is non-judgmental and unconditionally accepting.It is possible to learn more and more popular.Keep this in mind, you will intuitively arise of their own branch - sometimes big, sometimes small - that ultimately make a huge disparity in the same body area of expertise the person receiving it, they might be difficult if you were before... just like Mikao Usui, a Japanese word, it has caused them to heal a disease which could lead to clearer thinkingPractitioners will often go further and offer courses for travellers.

#How Much Does Reiki Cost Stupendous Tricks #How Much Reiki Session Cost

[thesunnevershines]

Good news! I got my first rejection...

I thought it was a good idea to take one of the most compelling extracts of my novel and remold it into a short story that I could send in to a few magazines. 

I started with The Masters Review and since I don’t have the patience to wait for months, I paid for fast feedback. I also added the option to get a detailed critique instead of just the simple accepted or rejected note. This turned out to be a well-worth investment and it is why the title of this post is Good news!

The Masters Review, like many other magazines, uses www.submittable.com, which makes it so much easier to keep track of multiple submissions and results. No more checking your inbox and spam every day to see if you got a reply.

First of all, here is my cover letter that I pretty much copied from an article about how to make the perfect cover letter.

Dear Editor, Thank you for considering my work. I am an emerging writer with only a small scattering of published pieces. I appreciate all the time and attention my work receives. I look forward to hearing from you. This extract from my novel in progress is a simultaneous submission. I will withdraw the piece immediately if it is accepted elsewhere. I am a business entrepreneur from Norway, living in Greece since 2006. My work has been published twice in Kingston College’s Best of International Creative Writing Summer School anthology. It is a course I have participated four times to help me learn the craft. Sincerely, Anders Wennesland

Anyway, my short story was rejected, but the feedback was encouraging and it lead me to an idea of a revision that might turn out much stronger. I also got a statement that I can use in my cover letter to other magazines and publishers. In addition, they actually recommended me to send in to a few specific magazines that further helps me get noticed. 

This is how the rejection letter begins and if I had not paid extra for the extensive critique, it would have been the only information I would have to go on. 

From: The Masters ReviewTo: Anders WenneslandSubject: RE: [The Masters Review] The Sun Never Shines.Dear Anders, Thank you for the opportunity to consider "The Sun Never Shines." for New Voices. We are grateful you thought of us and we appreciate your participation in our Fast Response Option. Thank you also for requesting an editorial letter for your piece, “The Sun Never Shines.” Submitting this piece for critique allows me (and other editors on staff) to spend more time with individual submissions and really dig into what is working well and where some opportunities for revision lie.

I’m afraid I’m going to pass on this story for publication, but I’m more than happy to provide some feedback on this piece, as I think it is situated at a really nice place for revision and near to your final vision. Keep in mind the following is only the opinion of one editor, and these things are highly subjective. With that said, I’ll try to offer comments that I think might help you improve this piece and ready it for publication.

So instead, I get this full review of my short story which represents a micro-cosmos of the full length novel. It gives me the confidence that all or most elements, including my rather experimental duet structure, are working and that the story itself is intriguing. 

At the very outset, “The Sun Never Shines,” posits a kind of mystery. Jessica, the narrator’s partner (wife? girlfriend? Just a line of context could be nice if this is to be read standalone), is going to be murdered at some point, and it is that tension that energizes the entirety of the excerpt. The looming threat of violence, coupled with the narrator’s recollections of his first violent encounters, creates a wonderful tension, and we as readers are left wondering when the axe will fall. 

It is a deft choice to not reveal Jessica’s death in this piece. To do so would be perhaps too overt, and by withholding it from the reader you allow the flywheel of the mind to turn, contextualizing the story and leaving the end of the piece with an effective ambiguity. Is it the Albanian who kills Jessica? Does she drown swimming while drunk? Is the narrator the killer after rough sex gone wrong? 

By guarding these details you allow your audience to have to sit in a sort of between space where any and none of the possibilities are true. All of it comes together to help your tone tell the story. There is evidence seemingly everywhere: mysterious drinks, darkness, an unknown character. It all comes together to make something very tense. In revision, experiment with ways that can help increase the tone through simple description of setting. You are doing this well with things like the tray of drinks, but how can you enhance descriptions of say, the dark ocean or the narrow city streets so that they too become as menacing as the other story actors.

To this point I haven’t brought up the italicized sections yet, those where we dip back into the narrator's past for his recollections of violence (mainly things like pub brawls). Their inclusion in the story leads me to believe that they are somehow linked to the in scene sections, but as of this draft I am not quite seeing how they inform one another. If I had to guess, I would think that they might be there to set up the narrator as a possible suspect, and that the violence demonstrated in these sections points to his potential for violence in the present moment. However, in these sections the narrator is often the victim of violence, not its perpetrator, and they all seem to have relatively low stakes, which is the opposite tone we get from the prose throughout the rest of the narrative. I think you can earn these sections more if you enhance the stakes within them. 

What happens if our view of the narrator drastically changes as the recollections go on? They could move from fairly innocent to more insidious, and not only would this increase the tension, but also make your main character more ambiguous, which is exactly what you want in a story where mystery and suspicion is key. It would, in a way, make him unreliable. How do we know what he tells us is the objective truth, and not just perception through a warped lens? Finding more linkages between these sections apart from the violence is what will really create conversation between them, but as of now it serves as context that isn’t really clicking given the excerpted form.

One of the things that tends to slow prose down is the use of passive voice. Passive voice is the sentence level decision to use forms of the verb “to be” (is, are, was, am) in place of using more active verbiage. I’ll provide some more examples from the text. On page 1 we have the line, “Her elbow is leaning against the white paper tablecloth.” By using passive voice here the prose is slowed down, becomes leaden. However, if you rely on more active verbs, the sentence gains energy, like so, “Her elbow leans against the white paper tablecloth.” In terms of one sentence, this is a small change, but accumulated over the course of an entire piece you can really start to conserve narrative energy and funnel it into other places like theme and character. Another example from the same paragraph is, “There is this young Albanian man standing next to her,” which could easily be rewritten as, “A young Albanian man stands next to her.” By using active voice where applicable (you will, of course, always need to use some passive voice for grammar) you can hook readers by making the storytelling “faster.” Conserving space in an already contracted form like a short story is paramount in ensuring that you always arrive at the right level of prosody. Something to look out for as you revise.

This piece has a very well-developed tone and suspense, and I have confidence that it will find a home. After revision, you might consider submitting to the following journals: The Gravity of the Thing, Pithead Chapel, The Hunger, and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. All are great venues and I could see this piece finding a home in any one of them.

Again, thank you so much for your submission. I hope these comments help you understand your writing for the better.

It was a pleasure reading your story, and I hope you keep submitting! Best, Benjamin Kessler 

So now I have a name and a recommendation quote to refer to in my next cover letter. Not bad. I also got some very important feedback in terms of readers experience, especially for the back-story parts of the duet structure. It made me realize that I could actually add another part of the story here instead, which I will do in my revision and post soon. 

My goal now, is to get one acceptance in pretty much any literary magazines, so that I can use this as a reference when submitting the entire novel to agents or publishers. 

#fictionreview #rejections #literary magazine #themastersreview #submissions #shortstory #novel #fiction

[wdrshantell3220-blog]

The Yeti As well as The Bipper Tepee

In 2014, 24 million Britons played mobile phone video games, baseding on marketing research organization Newzoo. Yet if you're persistent and put all the assemble, then the upcoming time you're purchasing a cars and truck you'll possess a much better odds at getting your ideal auto deal. Our team are actually talking about dark, white, champagne, rose silver, gold, and area grey - primary colours for contemporary Apple fare, and all in with a chance from being actually sprinkled throughout the body from an Apple Vehicle. If the auto swerves to the left, you go off-road and reached a plant; if the cars and truck swerves straight, you reached an independent vehicle being available in the contrary path. If you beloved this posting and you would like to receive extra details concerning pozadbarre.info kindly go to the web site. Certain, just before the individual palm you over the cars and truck keys, the agreement and also the necessary documentations, the car business he has signed the lease along with will still should check your credit rating. Ford puts in SYNC 3 in the 2017 Combination, which is my beloved infomercial body in an auto. EA did subsequently launch DLC packs, and also a number of it was certainly good stuff that would have created the authentic release a far better activity. Google.com as well is keeping up its auto drive, announcing this week that through Google.com House, the Google.com Assistant can easily now connect along with any type of Hyundai vehicle. GM has actually tried to prevent Tesla: according to the Indianapolis Superstar, the older company pressed regulations in Indiana, residence from the most extensive vehicle race in the US, the Indianapolis 500, that would certainly always keep the auto business coming from marketing directly to buyers instead of through additional conventional display rooms and dealerships, which would certainly require Tesla to either step selling automobiles in the state or radically improve its expenses. Then, in 6 months or so, you will definitely be able to perform an excellent security deposit to either end your credit score deal. The steering wheel offers smoother handling and also much better feedback in comparison to a console controller as well as - matched with the game's natural in-car perspectives - creates Job Cars among the best immersive racers our team've ever participated in. Fortunately, I possessed an Nvidia Shield Tablet LTE, an exterior DAC as well as 4-channel automobile amp collecting dust - every one of which I might put up in the car. From the motorist's place, this is actually tough to judge exactly where the back of the cars and truck ends, therefore vehicle parking sensors are a must. If the unusual sounds continue, have your vehicle to an automotive repair shop where the repair service specialists could check out to view exactly what misunderstands. There are not as several one day excessive incentives or super purchases to offer vehicles considering that the purchaser knows specifically what they prefer. Yet if you like additional reasonable system fare, this's a good purchase; and also the visuals and also atmospherics undoubtedly create a visually satisfying opportunity as you aim to assist Jennifer locate her shed self. By the side of The second world war, that was actually crystal clear that the oil market was actually king, and while it is actually doubtful Henry Ford was actually some pawn from the worldwide oil cabal, there is certainly evidence to propose big oil played a major function in maintaining electricity automobiles off the roadway for the next, oh, 70 approximately years. Luckily, most insurance provider have a list printed astride their card. Therefore to begin with I was interested by The Really good Terrorist given that it had a residential condition I had known, as well as pushed it to an extremity. If your car undergoes a complex or even big car nick, that will most likely be best that you take that into an auto physical body store to have this repaired adequately by specialists. According to an updated page on the generally dry California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) internet site, the firm has actually released an Independent Motor vehicle Screening Permit to Apple, allowing this to carry out self-driving auto examinations in the condition. Revision: Wenyu meticulously examined the visa or mastercard offers she had received this month; then, she chose the one with the very best terms as well as finished the request. As a matter of fact, just today she assumed she heard an unusual sound arising from her engine that she certainly never heard just before as well as it most definitely performed not seem great. Volvo has actually been actually more specific compared to a lot of manufacturers in cracking self-governing car specialist up to its own key components. Seat belts are actually additionally given - a protection need for motor vehicles on the road - while the vehicle has repetitive systems, a fault-tolerant architecture" as Google.com calls that, for each steerage as well as braking, ought to the major devices fails; plus that emergency situation stopover switch that passengers can attack at any time. The shadiest part is this, though: Some vehicle rental agencies call for the fuel invoice or else they'll add a service charge in the end. The Cruze hatch takes place sale in the loss with a single motor - a 1.4-liter, turbocharged 4 cyndrical tube that generates 153 hp and also returns up to 40 mpg on the motorway. However it is actually believed that was his association with the gang behind the remote-controlled cars and truck secret plan that to begin with placed him on the radar from the safety services. In a couple of years, roads will definitely be congested along with wise cars and trucks only partially handled by sidetracked motorists. When it debuted in 2005 as well as pulverized the globe record for fastest automobile, this delivered unbelievable performance. Others, featuring Google.com, are actually considering developing cars that are either smaller sized and also even more small, or much larger as well as mapped out without a standard vehicle driver's seat, switching the auto's cabin into a mobile cocktail lounge region. For real, as well as there's an unpleasant surprise inside for my special lady." He assists me away from the cars and truck and has me inside.

[healthfitnessweblog1]

Simple Weight Loss Rules People Fail to Follow

Some people can’t resist chocolate or ice cream, some people it’s pizza or some other food or sweet. While I enjoy all of those foods on occasion, Cheez-It’s are the food equivalent of crack cocaine for me.

It takes all my willpower to pass up the isle where the Cheez-It’s reside on the shelves at my local grocery store. My ever-loving girl friend Kimberly rolls her eyes at me in shear disgust when she sees how weak I am to the power of these little crackers, which draw me in like a cheese flavored black hole. “But you have given advice on nutrition to millions of people, how could you of all people be so weak willed about some little cheese flavored cracker?” she says.

The point of this introduction is to point out we all have our weaknesses and we are all human… even me. I find Cheez-It’s to be cheese flavored morphine!

This small problem got me to thinking. If there is one thing I have learned after all these years of doing nutritional research, writing countless articles on the topic of nutrition, and working directly with people on their diets, it’s this: it’s rarely one single thing a person does that is sabotaging their efforts to lose fat and or gain muscle, but a bunch of little things that have an accumulated effect.

There are some amazingly simple behaviors and strategies we can all add to our nutritional goals and workout plans that will have a positive effect. I am going to cover a few of these surprisingly simple yet effective strategies. A few issues to keep in mind:

(1) Taken alone, these simple tactics will have very little effect. Used alone without any other dietary changes and an exercise plan, these strategies wont amount to much. However, as I mentioned, it’s often many minor mistakes adding up to a lack of results for people, and taken in that context, these are some simple mistakes that can be avoided, hopefully resulting in an accumulated effect in a positive direction.

(2) I didn’t invent any of these tips. They are some of the oldest and simplest tips you will ever read. I don’t even know who first came up with them, and I bet most people have seen these strategies in other places, such as various diet books, articles, or web sites. I do however think that they may be so old and so simple that most people with the best of intentions about their nutrition and exercise plan, don’t follow these simple concepts.

These tips are more about behavior changes and psychology then nutritional science, study results, or research. I have written many articles based on the later topics, but this is not one of those. If you are looking for more in-depth science oriented information about nutrition, supplements, and fat loss or gaining muscle, I suggest reading my ebooks on the topic and the many free article on my web site.

Tip #1: Never Ever Go Food Shopping Hungry

This is one of the most effective strategies I know of to avoid unwanted junk and various snacks from finding their way into your shopping cart, which ends up in your home, which ends up on your butt!

Make sure to eat something before you go food shopping and you will be able to resist the junk that often finds its way into your cart. If I go food shopping without a good meal in my stomach, I often come home with a family sized box of Cheez-It’s and feel like sh*& for days after eating the entire box!

Human hunger and appetite are regulated by a phenomenally complicated set of overlapping feedback networks, involving a long list of hormones, psychological factors, and others way beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say, we often make snap decisions and impulse purchases with certain foods due to one or more of these feedback loops being activated due to an empty stomach while we shop.

Translated, your “willpower” to resist junk foods will be much greater if you eat something healthy at least 20-30 minutes before you go food shopping. You can either plan your meal schedule so that one meal is eaten before you go shopping, or have a snack (at least 20-30 minutes before shopping) which will have the desired effects.

A yogurt with some flax oil mixed in is a good choice, as is a half cup of cottage cheese and a handful of walnuts or some other nut. A protein shake or MRP will suffice, but solid food tends to be more satiating.

Tip # 2: Never Keep Snack Foods In The House

This tip is a logical extension of tip number one. If it does not make it into your cart at the food store, it’s not in your house. However, many people use excuses like “I have snack foods for the kids” or “my spouse keeps a box of Oreo cookies in the kitchen cupboard” as reasons they can’t avoid the snacks that sneak into their diets and sabotage their efforts.

Many of the foods we eat that we know we should not be eating are based on an impulse. Impulse control goes a long way here but no one will deny it’s far harder to resist that impulse if your favorite junk food is under your nose. That’s human nature. When I have an impulse for some Cheez-it’s, I wont resist it well if it’s only a few steps to the kitchen vs. having to get in the car to go get a box.

The former I can’t resist, the latter I can. Remember an impulse is defined as “a sudden desire, urge, inclination.” That means it’s short lived and will go away given sufficient time, so it’s a matter of not having foods in your house that allow you to act on the impulse while it lasts.

As for the excuse of the spouse, kids, etc. That is more an issue between your kids and or your spouse. Should the kids be eating that stuff anyway? No! I had a client tell me one day “I keep eating hot dogs ’cause I keep them in the house fort the kids.” I said “so you’re Ok with feeding your kids foods you know to be unhealthy for you and them?” She stopped feeding her family hot dogs shortly after….

…Bottom line here is, those foods should be occasional treats for both kids and adults, not staple foods that can be found in your kitchen. It’s more an issue of teaching the kids good dietary habits young so they don’t end up overweight unhealthy adults.

As for the spouse, I like to have some chips in the house, which I can resist without a problem. That is, unlike the Cheez-it’s, I can walk past the chips without having to eat them all. I can regulate myself with them. However, Kimberly can’t. Chips are to her what Cheez-it’s are to me, so I make it a rule not to keep chips in the house.

Point being, your spouse needs to support your efforts by making some small sacrifices. If you were an alcoholic trying to avoid alcohol, you would (or at least should!) expect your significant other to not keep booze in the house. If they wont support your efforts here, then relationship counseling is in order or a long talk, and I can’t help you there; sorry!

Tip # 3: Eat Off Of Smaller Plates

The first two tips are common sense, this one is less so. However, I find it helps, albeit not to a great extent. Again, how much we eat is based on many variables. One of them is the visual cues we get looking at the food we are about to eat. We are extremely visually oriented creatures and part of deciding how large an object is must be compared to other objects, in this case, the food we put on the plate in comparison to the size of the plate we put the food on. Some of you may remember this little visual test from grade school.

I know for myself I tend to put 2 slices of pizza on a small plate and three on a large plate! Now this is only one minor cue we have to self regulating how much food we eat, and other feedback loops (i.e., hormonal, psychological, etc.) can kick in and easily offset this strategy.

For example, you could simply come back for a second helping using the smaller plates. However, it’s my hunch (and it’s only a hunch as research is lacking here) that over the course of say a month, a person may end up taking in fewer total calories using this strategy as has been my (admittedly anecdotal) experience with both myself and the many people I have given advice to over the years.

Again, as already mentioned, taken alone, this strategy will probably have no effects on your efforts to lose fat if there is not a specific diet and exercise plan involved in the overall equation. It is however one simple small change that may improve compliancy to your efforts. It would be interesting to see a study on this, but whatever effects it may have, would be subtle and fairly small I suspect. Even so, over the course of a year say, it may help.

Tip #4: Know Thy Self

How well do you know yourself? That is, do you know what cues/triggers tend to set you off? Have you examined that issue for yourself? It’s essential to recognized the cues that sabotage your efforts.

For example, try making a list outlining the things you know tend to set you off and how you react to the, then add a column for how you could deal with it. For example you might write “talking to my crazy mother makes me anxious and I eat things I shouldn’t immediately after the phone conversation” which would be followed by a suggestion of steps to change it, such as “always eat a meal right before talking to mom” and “only take calls from mom when I am ready and able to deal with her” and “go for a walk immediately after talking to mom to distress and give me time to get over impulse to eat junk” and so on.

Develop coping strategies to your known triggers. I know for example going food shopping on an empty stomach means I will most probably end up with a large box of Cheez-it’s in my house. I have also found if I go shopping irritated over something I will buy more foods I don’t need as food is one of many ways we self medicate looking for some comfort. Hence the term “comfort foods” which is commonly chocolate, ice cream, and so on.

Learn what your hot buttons are that lead to a negative behavior. Learn to identify when it’s happening. Develop strategies for coping with it.

For some it’s working with a therapist or behavioral specialist, for some it’s reading a few good self-help type books, and for some it’s activities such as meditation, joining support groups, and others. It’s also a life long journey.

Conclusion

Most people fail in their fat loss/diet goals not due to a single mistake they are making (with exceptions) but many small events that have an accumulated effect that sabotages their efforts. If the tips in this article help, all the better.

Extra calories slip into their diet from snack foods that they are not accounting for, or the fact they tend to take the elevator when they could take the stairs, and so on. 99 out of 100 times the person that says “I have tried everything and nothing works” actually translates “I have not stayed on any one plan long enough for it to have an effect and sabotaged it with small unaccounted for negative habits and behaviors.”

Want to learn how to gain muscle mass, lose fat, and save years of wasted time and money? Start by going to http://www.BrinkZone.com Learn how to eat and exercise for long term weight loss: http://www.FatLossRevealed

from Lose Weight http://healthfitnessweblog.us/shakes/simple-weight-loss-rules-people-fail-to-follow/

[healthfitessweblog]

Simple Weight Loss Rules People Fail to Follow

Some people can’t resist chocolate or ice cream, some people it’s pizza or some other food or sweet. While I enjoy all of those foods on occasion, Cheez-It’s are the food equivalent of crack cocaine for me.

It takes all my willpower to pass up the isle where the Cheez-It’s reside on the shelves at my local grocery store. My ever-loving girl friend Kimberly rolls her eyes at me in shear disgust when she sees how weak I am to the power of these little crackers, which draw me in like a cheese flavored black hole. “But you have given advice on nutrition to millions of people, how could you of all people be so weak willed about some little cheese flavored cracker?” she says.

The point of this introduction is to point out we all have our weaknesses and we are all human… even me. I find Cheez-It’s to be cheese flavored morphine!

This small problem got me to thinking. If there is one thing I have learned after all these years of doing nutritional research, writing countless articles on the topic of nutrition, and working directly with people on their diets, it’s this: it’s rarely one single thing a person does that is sabotaging their efforts to lose fat and or gain muscle, but a bunch of little things that have an accumulated effect.

There are some amazingly simple behaviors and strategies we can all add to our nutritional goals and workout plans that will have a positive effect. I am going to cover a few of these surprisingly simple yet effective strategies. A few issues to keep in mind:

(1) Taken alone, these simple tactics will have very little effect. Used alone without any other dietary changes and an exercise plan, these strategies wont amount to much. However, as I mentioned, it’s often many minor mistakes adding up to a lack of results for people, and taken in that context, these are some simple mistakes that can be avoided, hopefully resulting in an accumulated effect in a positive direction.

(2) I didn’t invent any of these tips. They are some of the oldest and simplest tips you will ever read. I don’t even know who first came up with them, and I bet most people have seen these strategies in other places, such as various diet books, articles, or web sites. I do however think that they may be so old and so simple that most people with the best of intentions about their nutrition and exercise plan, don’t follow these simple concepts.

These tips are more about behavior changes and psychology then nutritional science, study results, or research. I have written many articles based on the later topics, but this is not one of those. If you are looking for more in-depth science oriented information about nutrition, supplements, and fat loss or gaining muscle, I suggest reading my ebooks on the topic and the many free article on my web site.

Tip #1: Never Ever Go Food Shopping Hungry

This is one of the most effective strategies I know of to avoid unwanted junk and various snacks from finding their way into your shopping cart, which ends up in your home, which ends up on your butt!

Make sure to eat something before you go food shopping and you will be able to resist the junk that often finds its way into your cart. If I go food shopping without a good meal in my stomach, I often come home with a family sized box of Cheez-It’s and feel like sh*& for days after eating the entire box!

Human hunger and appetite are regulated by a phenomenally complicated set of overlapping feedback networks, involving a long list of hormones, psychological factors, and others way beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say, we often make snap decisions and impulse purchases with certain foods due to one or more of these feedback loops being activated due to an empty stomach while we shop.

Translated, your “willpower” to resist junk foods will be much greater if you eat something healthy at least 20-30 minutes before you go food shopping. You can either plan your meal schedule so that one meal is eaten before you go shopping, or have a snack (at least 20-30 minutes before shopping) which will have the desired effects.

A yogurt with some flax oil mixed in is a good choice, as is a half cup of cottage cheese and a handful of walnuts or some other nut. A protein shake or MRP will suffice, but solid food tends to be more satiating.

Tip # 2: Never Keep Snack Foods In The House

This tip is a logical extension of tip number one. If it does not make it into your cart at the food store, it’s not in your house. However, many people use excuses like “I have snack foods for the kids” or “my spouse keeps a box of Oreo cookies in the kitchen cupboard” as reasons they can’t avoid the snacks that sneak into their diets and sabotage their efforts.

Many of the foods we eat that we know we should not be eating are based on an impulse. Impulse control goes a long way here but no one will deny it’s far harder to resist that impulse if your favorite junk food is under your nose. That’s human nature. When I have an impulse for some Cheez-it’s, I wont resist it well if it’s only a few steps to the kitchen vs. having to get in the car to go get a box.

The former I can’t resist, the latter I can. Remember an impulse is defined as “a sudden desire, urge, inclination.” That means it’s short lived and will go away given sufficient time, so it’s a matter of not having foods in your house that allow you to act on the impulse while it lasts.

As for the excuse of the spouse, kids, etc. That is more an issue between your kids and or your spouse. Should the kids be eating that stuff anyway? No! I had a client tell me one day “I keep eating hot dogs ’cause I keep them in the house fort the kids.” I said “so you’re Ok with feeding your kids foods you know to be unhealthy for you and them?” She stopped feeding her family hot dogs shortly after….

…Bottom line here is, those foods should be occasional treats for both kids and adults, not staple foods that can be found in your kitchen. It’s more an issue of teaching the kids good dietary habits young so they don’t end up overweight unhealthy adults.

As for the spouse, I like to have some chips in the house, which I can resist without a problem. That is, unlike the Cheez-it’s, I can walk past the chips without having to eat them all. I can regulate myself with them. However, Kimberly can’t. Chips are to her what Cheez-it’s are to me, so I make it a rule not to keep chips in the house.

Point being, your spouse needs to support your efforts by making some small sacrifices. If you were an alcoholic trying to avoid alcohol, you would (or at least should!) expect your significant other to not keep booze in the house. If they wont support your efforts here, then relationship counseling is in order or a long talk, and I can’t help you there; sorry!

Tip # 3: Eat Off Of Smaller Plates

The first two tips are common sense, this one is less so. However, I find it helps, albeit not to a great extent. Again, how much we eat is based on many variables. One of them is the visual cues we get looking at the food we are about to eat. We are extremely visually oriented creatures and part of deciding how large an object is must be compared to other objects, in this case, the food we put on the plate in comparison to the size of the plate we put the food on. Some of you may remember this little visual test from grade school.

I know for myself I tend to put 2 slices of pizza on a small plate and three on a large plate! Now this is only one minor cue we have to self regulating how much food we eat, and other feedback loops (i.e., hormonal, psychological, etc.) can kick in and easily offset this strategy.

For example, you could simply come back for a second helping using the smaller plates. However, it’s my hunch (and it’s only a hunch as research is lacking here) that over the course of say a month, a person may end up taking in fewer total calories using this strategy as has been my (admittedly anecdotal) experience with both myself and the many people I have given advice to over the years.

Again, as already mentioned, taken alone, this strategy will probably have no effects on your efforts to lose fat if there is not a specific diet and exercise plan involved in the overall equation. It is however one simple small change that may improve compliancy to your efforts. It would be interesting to see a study on this, but whatever effects it may have, would be subtle and fairly small I suspect. Even so, over the course of a year say, it may help.

Tip #4: Know Thy Self

How well do you know yourself? That is, do you know what cues/triggers tend to set you off? Have you examined that issue for yourself? It’s essential to recognized the cues that sabotage your efforts.

For example, try making a list outlining the things you know tend to set you off and how you react to the, then add a column for how you could deal with it. For example you might write “talking to my crazy mother makes me anxious and I eat things I shouldn’t immediately after the phone conversation” which would be followed by a suggestion of steps to change it, such as “always eat a meal right before talking to mom” and “only take calls from mom when I am ready and able to deal with her” and “go for a walk immediately after talking to mom to distress and give me time to get over impulse to eat junk” and so on.

Develop coping strategies to your known triggers. I know for example going food shopping on an empty stomach means I will most probably end up with a large box of Cheez-it’s in my house. I have also found if I go shopping irritated over something I will buy more foods I don’t need as food is one of many ways we self medicate looking for some comfort. Hence the term “comfort foods” which is commonly chocolate, ice cream, and so on.

Learn what your hot buttons are that lead to a negative behavior. Learn to identify when it’s happening. Develop strategies for coping with it.

For some it’s working with a therapist or behavioral specialist, for some it’s reading a few good self-help type books, and for some it’s activities such as meditation, joining support groups, and others. It’s also a life long journey.

Conclusion

Most people fail in their fat loss/diet goals not due to a single mistake they are making (with exceptions) but many small events that have an accumulated effect that sabotages their efforts. If the tips in this article help, all the better.

Extra calories slip into their diet from snack foods that they are not accounting for, or the fact they tend to take the elevator when they could take the stairs, and so on. 99 out of 100 times the person that says “I have tried everything and nothing works” actually translates “I have not stayed on any one plan long enough for it to have an effect and sabotaged it with small unaccounted for negative habits and behaviors.”

Want to learn how to gain muscle mass, lose fat, and save years of wasted time and money? Start by going to http://www.BrinkZone.com Learn how to eat and exercise for long term weight loss: http://www.FatLossRevealed

from Lose Weight http://healthfitnessweblog.us/shakes/simple-weight-loss-rules-people-fail-to-follow/