11/17…..A 35 Year-Old Birthday Self Reflection
—–Normally I don’t do birthday reflections but 35 is a very symbolic age for me. Particularly because being someone who used to be paid to play sports it was the age that you’d talk about in the way off future for contemplating retirement! Since giving up on my professional athletic pursuits many years ago, I’ve tried heavily to move in a direction in my life that hasn’t focused primarily on my physicality. I always wanted to be defined more than how my body performs, and my physical whims and desires. I wanted to be smarter, more balanced, and able to grasp emotional and intellectual intelligence, as relying on body just seemed shallow overall. However, you grow up knowing and learning and acting in whatever way was exposed to you, and the process over the years can at times be very slow as it’s hard to change directions where your body and mind naturally go for processing and reaction and maturity. Our lives go in direction of various energetic surges and then one day we wake up and think about where we’re at and how that’s either where we want to be or not. I’m happy that I’ve never sold myself out, even though there were moments when I almost didn’t see a way out and had trouble believing in myself, and gave into darkness. I feel like now I can see the horizon of a new level of existence that’s more honed around the deeper, more authentic aspects of life that I feel drawn to and want to incorporate. Trusting your gut instinct and keeping confidence in the dark valleys are hard but they are more likely to land you in eventual good spaces. And most importantly of all, surrounding yourself with positive people and those you admire and who are healthy is the best thing you could ever do. The people you surround yourself with reflect who you are more than most other things. Thank you to all of my friends for being that presence in my life. You know who you are. So here’s to the next era of life where a more authentic, emotionally processed and capable and mature person is trying to vehemently form. This is just the end of the beginning intro to life and not unlike a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Now let’s swing upside down!
11/17…..The Inevitable Harm of Relationships with Psychopaths, Sociopaths, and Narcissists (Found in Psychopathic, Sociopathic, and Narcissist Behavior at KeatingBodyworks.wordpress.com)
—–This book is a phenomenal resource for helping victims of intense, psychological relationship abuse. It is appropriately titled, as women experience way more often than men the ill effects of these relationships. However, men can easily become victims too and women can just as aggressively display the manipulative traits of the low/no conscience psychopath, sociopath, and narcissist. They estimate that the victims from psychopathic behavior range in the hundreds of millions in the U.S. The traits of the psychopath and their victim create for a truly symbiotic abusive and traumatic disaster. The most common traits of psychopaths include being emotionally unintelligent, juvenile decision making skills, unable to process, being avoidant and devious in communication, using language that is contradictory, lack empathy-conscience-remorse-fear-sadness-disgust. They have manipulative, dysfunctional and aggravating behavior, are impulsivity with extreme highs and lows, are know-it-alls, lie, create drama and anger, change subjects dramatically, blame, irresponsible and parasitic in behavior, has abandonment issues and acts like a victim, projects behavior on others, causes confusion, gas lights. Common traits of victims are extraversion in themselves, high excitement seeking, values for relationship investment and being socially positive, sentimentality, attachment, competitiveness, concern and harm avoidance for all, cooperativeness, empathy, tolerance, friendliness, compassion, and supportiveness, believes in miracles, low impulsiveness. Initially victims were very self-confident, responsible, reliable, resourceful, goal-oriented, un-pretentious, humble, and fulfilled, and self-transcendent. The professionalism associated with the changing nature of the psychopath to use confusion, manipulations, and your vulnerabilities against you is the very nature of why this is so hard to spot. They do everything in a low conscious, reactionary state to manipulate power dynamics that favor them in every way while making it seem like they are doing exactly the opposite!
The Avid Fan 