Author: signordal

Unlocking Japan’s Secrets to Healthy Skin

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If there’s one trait all Japanese women share, it’s their fresh, glowing skin. It doesn’t matter if she is 20 or 60 years old, every Japanese woman seems to have a flawless, radiant complexion.

This begs the question, what is their beauty secrets to having porcelain-like skin? How do they manage to look younger and more graceful as they age?

While there’s no magic formula for youthful skin, these lovely ladies do have certain beauty secrets that help them maintain their fair complexions.

Here are some of Japan’s most treasured beauty ingredients, which are used in most of their makeup and skin products:

  • Tsubaki flower

tsubaki flower

Tsubaki, also known as camellia, is a flowering plant found in southern and eastern Asia. The tsubaki flower offers a range of benefits for the skin.

The oil extracted from camellia seeds is rich in omega-6 fatty acids and numerous polyphenol antioxidants. Its creamy, non-greasy nature makes it a great moisturizer for rough skin. The oil also has many properties that keep your skin fresh, supple and moist.

Tsubaki flower oil contains vast amounts of omega-9 oleic fatty acid, which increases the skin’s ability to retain moisture. It is absorbed into the skin as easily as water and it boosts cell growth. It lends flexibility and support to the skin, too.

The oil permeates right down to the inner layers of the skin, nourishing it from the inside and hydrating any dry patches. It is a natural transdermal carrier that transports essential proteins (elastin and collagen) and nutrients, replenishing skin cells and repairing damage caused by heat, dryness and aging.

Camellia oil is free from irritants and is suitable for use on sensitive skin. It opens up the pores and allows the body to remove harmful toxins naturally through sweat glands.

  • Yuzu

yuzu

Yuzu is an aromatic citrus fruit of Chinese and Tibetan origin. It was first introduced in Japan during the Tang dynasty. Both the pulp and the seeds are beneficial for your skin.

The fruit is known for its potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It has vast stores of vitamin C and flavonoids. Because of that, this fruit can help combat the harmful radicals that can cause premature aging.

Yuzu fruit is a popular skin revitalizing and nourishing agent. It tones the skin naturally and adds to its firmness and vitality.

Regular use of yuzu moistens and refreshes the skin layers. The oil extracted from yuzu softens and nourishes the skin, giving it a supple and radiant appearance. During winter solstice, it is an ancient practice to take relaxing and rejuvenating yuzu baths at home or in onsens.

  • Sakura

sakura

Sakura, also known as cherry blossom, is one of the two national flowers of Japan (the other is chrysanthemum). It is one of Japan’s best-kept beauty secrets and is used extensively in skin creams and perfumes.

The sakura flower is rich in antioxidants and helps cleanse the body of impurities and pollutants that damage the skin. Its store of essential fatty acids fortifies the skin’s natural barriers, making it smooth and supple.

Sakura extract promotes a firm, mature complexion, regenerating the skin from the inside out. Its anti-glycation properties promote collagen formation in fibroblast cells.

Sakura extract cleans and whitens the skin and combats signs of anti-aging. It inhibits the production of melanin, a dark-brown or black pigment, thereby restoring uneven skin pigmentation. The extract also promotes skin cell growth and combats cell death caused by advanced glycation-end products (AGE).

It has powerful anti-inflammatory properties that help to soothe and heal irritated skin. Furthermore, sakura flower reduces the oxidative damage that causes signs of anti-aging.

  • Ume

ume

Ume is a flowering plant used in Japan for its medicinal and cosmetic properties. The common name for ume is plum blossom. The fruit is a rich source of natural antioxidants called phytochemicals. These substances help to combat the effects of oxygen radicals in the body, keeping the internal systems functioning smoothly. It prevents signs of premature aging, including wrinkles and fine lines.

The ume fruit has abundant stores of vitamin C, which detoxifies the body of impure chemicals. This property helps promote a radiant and healthy skin complexion. Ume contains anti-aging nutrients that help to reduce wrinkles and dark spots. You can find it in various Japanese face masks and creams that can help soothe, hydrate and rejuvenate the skin.

  • Rice bran

Rice bran is a byproduct of rice milling. It contains vast reserves of antioxidants, vitamins B and E and essential fatty acids that combat harmful radicals in the body. It is rich in tocotrienols, which are absorbed into the inner layers of the skin. They form the first line of defense against free radicals. Tocotrienols also restore damage caused by oxidative rays, repairing the skin and slowing the skin aging process.

Rice bran cleans the skin from the inside out, causing it to appear fresh and healthy. The phytonutrient and oryzanol in rice bran acts as an effective sunscreen, protecting the skin against lipid peroxidation caused by UV light. Gamma oryzanol contains ferulic acid, which has anti-aging properties.

See Also: 10 Best Skin Foods For Healthy Glowing Skin

  • Algae

Algae refers to a diverse range of photosynthetic organisms known for their nutritive and medicinal value. They are rich in anti-inflammatory compounds, such as chlorophyll and omega-3 fatty acids. This makes them ideal for treating irritated skin. They have potent antioxidant properties that help to eradicate free radicals and pollutants from the body.

Algae also combat the effects of oxidative damage to plasma and red blood cells. They support skin cell repair and growth, healing your skin from the inside out and cancelling signs of aging caused by dead skin cells.

  • Green tea

green tea

Green tea is an herbal drink made from steaming or roasting fresh Camellia sinensis leaves. It’s a popular component of traditional Japanese medicine. Today, you can find it in skin creams and beauty masks.

Green tea is very beneficial for skincare. It contains a store of antioxidants that help in flushing out toxins from the skin. It has strong anti-inflammatory properties, making it ideal for soothing itchy skin and healing blemishes and scars.

Green tea is rich in tannin, an astringent that works really well in treating dark circles and puffy eyes. Its reserves of antioxidants and astringents help to soothe inflamed blood vessels under the eyes, thereby reducing swelling or ‘bags’.

The free radicals floating in the body cause the skin to sag, wrinkle and age prematurely. Green tea contains powerful antioxidants, such as vitamin C and catechins, which combat the dermal damage caused by these radicals.

The catechins present in green tea act as a defense against acne-causing bacteria. They also regulate hormonal imbalance in the body, one of the main causes of acne.

Furthermore, green tea acts as a natural skin toner that cleanses impurities, reduces large pores and hydrates the skin. Using it regularly can give the skin a fresh and healthy appearance.

See Also: How To Reduce Caffeine In Green Tea

These ingredients are some of Japan’s biggest beauty secrets. Using them regularly will keep your skin healthy and radiant as you age.

The post Unlocking Japan’s Secrets to Healthy Skin appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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Restaurant Interior design by YOD Design Lab in the Ukraine

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The restaurant’s building, as well as the whole architectural ensemble that is the street where it is located, is a clear example of Soviet Constructivism. It was designed by architects Maxim Netreba, Dmitro Chukhleb and Sergiy Andriyenko who make up the team of the architectural firm YOD design lab. It is located in Kharkivs’ka Street, in Sums’ka oblast, Ukraine and covers an area of 330 square meters. This project was..

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When the Doctor is Away, Incident-To Billing is Out of Play

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You’re reading When the Doctor is Away, Incident-To Billing is Out of Play, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

When your physicians are out of the office, it’s easy to forget taking incident-to billing out of the lineup. Failure to do so, however, is a violation that can land your medical practice in hot water.

What is Incident-To Billing?

Incident-to billing refers to billing services provided by a nonphysician practitioner (NPP), such as a physician assistant, nurse practitioner, midwife, therapist, etc. Qualified NPPs can perform services under the name and National Provider Identifier (NPI) of the supervising physician—providing that the supervising physician is in the office. In this sense, the patient is under the physician’s care, with the NPP serving as a physician extender.

With the supervising physician in the office suite—and immediately available if called upon—medical practices can claim incident-to services performed by a NPP, code the services under the supervising physician’s NPI, and receive maximum allowed payout. The NPP, of course, must have an employment relationship with the physician or the physician’s employing agency.

When the physician is out of the office, services provided by the NPP must be reported under the NPP’s NPI. In this instance, the medical practice will receive only 85% of the allowed payout—which, tongue-in-cheek, is why it’s easy to forget to adjust NPP billing when the physician is away. It is definitely why the OIG, armed with penalties, is vigilant.

New Patient, New Problem

Other stipulations that limit NPP billing involve seeing a patient for the first time, which includes seeing an established patient with a new problem. Incident-to guidelines do not allow a NPP to file incident-to services under a physician’s NPI when a new patient or new problem is addressed. The NPP may see the new patient or attend to the new problem, but the visit must be filed under his or her NPI. Only after a supervising physician has establish a plan of care from a prior visit can the NPP serve as a physician extender.

NPP Services

Is the NPP limited in terms of the incident-to services he or she can provide? No, not if the NPP is qualified to perform the services. NPPs aren’t constrained to taking vitals and medical histories. As physician extenders, they can provide and bill incident-to services ordinarily performed by the supervising physician, so long as the supervising physician is on site. Some examples from Medicare’s Internet-Only-Manual (IOM) include reading X-rays, setting casts, minor surgeries… activities required for effective evaluation and/ or treatment of a patient’s condition.

A Final Caveat

Incident-to guidelines were developed by Medicare. Though Medicare tends to set the standard in the billing and reimbursement realm, not all payers follow suite. Some payers have state by state policies, as well, and may require all providers, NPPs included, to bill under their own NPI.

Always check with your insurance carriers before billing incident-to services.

Author bio: Deborah Marsh, JD, MA, CPC, CHONC, is a senior content specialist for TCI SuperCoder, working on everything from online tool enhancements and data updates to social media and blog posts. Deborah joined TCI in 2004 as a member of TCI’s respected Coding Alert editorial team.

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A List of Fears: Megan Stielstra and “The Wrong Way to Save Your Life”

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Talk with Megan Stielstra about the art of writing essays and you’ll end up in a conversation about the art of living instead. It’s not a change of subject, just recognition that, in many ways, the activities are interwoven on the most intimate of terms. “The thing about creative nonfiction,” she says over the phone from Chicago, where she lives with her husband and young son and teaches writing at Northwestern, “is that our experience runs parallel to our pages.” I know exactly what she means. How do we make art out of a life we are in the midst of living? “The biggest question,” she acknowledges, “is the stopping point.”

Stielstra is referring to her new book, The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, a collection of loosely linked essays that add up — bit by bit — to a memoir. The title comes from a reader’s comment on a piece she wrote for the New York Times about a fire in her building; the implication is that she somehow responded incorrectly. But who’s to say, Stielstra wants to know, what’s right or wrong? And how can we help doing it our way when we have no choice but to make it up as we go? This, of course, is what the essayist does. “We have to get into it,” she writes in the introductory pastiche that opens the book. “Throw it against the wall, stand back and take a good close look. It’s ugly: heavy, dark, and centuries in the making. You might want to move on, to turn it off, watch something else, but wait — look again. Look closer. How was it made? When was it made? What was happening when it was made? What are you going to do about it? And when are you going to start?”

The Wrong Way to Save Your Life covers material that will be familiar to anyone who has read Stielstra’s 2014 volume of essays, Once I Was Cool. (She’s also the author of the 2013 short story collection Everyone Remain Calm.) Both of her nonfiction books revolve around the rigors of work and family, the question of identity, the challenges of being an adult when there are no road maps, and we slip from one moment to the next without any clear demarcation between where we’re going and where we’ve been. The echoing, she says, is “absolutely intentional; I wanted the essays in this book to talk to one another, which led me to think about how this book might talk to the last one, or to other essays I have written.” To highlight that intention — while also developing a kind of narrative spine for the project — Stielstra divides The Wrong Way to Save Your Life into four parts, each of which begins with a fragmentary meditation on a decade (ten, twenty, thirty, forty) of her life. “It was a happy accident,” she says about the structure. “When I started, I didn’t expect the book to be connected.” At the same time, the device allows for what she sees as a necessary double vision, a tension between present and past. “I’m interested,” Stielstra explains, “in narrative distance, in tracing how, as I age and live, my experience changes my perception. I’m interested in always telling the truth but also in telling you how I am telling you, in trying to be honest to who I am as I am writing, but also to who I was.”

As an example, look at the stunning “Here Is My Heart,” which anchors the opening section of The Wrong Way to Save Your Life. After her father has heart surgery, she starts dissecting deer hearts in her kitchen, as if by exposing the mechanics, some sort of deeper meaning will be revealed. “I tried to explain: blah blah metaphor blah,” she writes, when a friend asks what she is doing. “Randy waited patiently as I talked myself in circles, finally arriving tipsy at the truth: I’m afraid he will die. I’m afraid of the truth. I’m afraid for his heart.” The condition of his heart, as it turns out, proves less of a threat than Stielstra has anticipated; but the fear, once summoned, never goes away. Indeed, fear is a central motif of the collection, its métier, we might say. The book begins with an epigraph from Ben Okri: “Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.” There it is, love and terror, the conflict we cannot resolve. “The book began,” Stielstra recalls, “as a list of fears. I thought it would be five pages long. Sixty thousand words later, I called my agent.”

This is hardly new territory for her; “Channel B,” selected for The Best American Essays 2013 and republished in Once I Was Cool, highlights Stielstra’s fear of becoming a mother and her experience with postpartum depression, material that emerges in the new collection as well. “I hadn’t been aware of the constant buzzing,” she says, “until my son was born, but once I became aware, it was everywhere. I was unhappy at my job, but I was scared to leave. And when the building caught on fire, it was the greatest moment of fear ever. I wanted to write about it. I still want to write about it.” The trick, the transference, is that in addressing her own most vivid fears and emotions, she gives voice to everyone’s. “This is what happens,” Stielstra points out, “when we write personal essays. The works connects to others through ourselves.”

Such a process has to do with empathy, which is, as it has ever been, a key factor in how narrative engages us. At the same time, she wants to push it further, beyond mere identification into proximity. One word that comes up often for her is shame, not as an impediment, but rather as something that must be faced, and to the extent that we are able, overcome. “Enough,” she writes, “of shame — I’m done with it.” Another is privilege, which she explores throughout The Wrong Way to Save Your Life, invoking her students, family, and friends. In one of the book’s most powerful sequences, she remembers being asked, during a college writing class, to define her attitude toward her work. “If your writing is political,” her teacher told the students, “stand against that wall . . . If it doesn’t have anything to do with politics, stand against the other wall.” Stielstra opted for the latter, explaining, “I write love stories.” A gay student and a woman of color, standing at the opposing wall, responded that they did the same. “To this day,” Stielstra writes, “I struggle to explain what happened in that moment. All of the clichés apply: lightbulb, lightning, ton of bricks . . . It was the first time I’d considered how a person could be perceived differently based on their identity.”

This is not about guilt and it’s not about lip service, but consciousness instead. Art, Stielstra wants us to understand, can alter us, yet we must be open to the process, not only as observers but also as participants. “It’s interesting,” she suggests, “how hard it is to talk about privilege when, really, it’s responsibility. It’s overwhelming when you first discover systemic discrimination, systemic racism. There was so much I didn’t know. But in learning about it, it’s not possible not to be fundamentally changed.” Again, Stielstra cites her audience: “I have to earn it,” she says of their trust. On the one hand, this refers to her roots in spoken word; she has been affiliated for many years with the Chicago storytelling collective 2nd Story and debuted many of her essays from a stage. More to the point, though, is that notion of conversation, of collaboration — literature as an endeavor shared by author and reader, the art of writing essays and the art of living once again. “How does how we’re telling play into what we’re telling?” Stielstra wonders. “I have to be transparent in how I interrogate these issues. So much of writing personal essays means making space for someone else.”

Photo of Megan Stielstra by Joe Mazza – Brave Lux

The post A List of Fears: Megan Stielstra and “The Wrong Way to Save Your Life” appeared first on The Barnes & Noble Review.

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7 Ways of Thinking That Perpetuate Your Social Anxiety

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You’re reading 7 Ways of Thinking That Perpetuate Your Social Anxiety, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

If you suffer from social anxiety you probably have a lot of negative thoughts and beliefs going through your mind on a daily basis and especially in social situations. You may not even be aware of those beliefs most of the time. Anxiety also makes it more difficult to stay mindful and be aware of your thoughts. However those thoughts and beliefs are what your social anxiety ‘survives on’. Once you become aware of those false beliefs and cognitive distortions and replace them with more realistic ones the social anxiety will decrease. However that may take some time and practice because our brains need time to get used to new thought patterns.

Here are a few distorted ways of thinking you probably engage in if you suffer from social anxiety :

1.You Believe You Can Guess What Other People Think of You

People with social anxiety have a tendency to try to ‘read other people’s minds’. They jump to conclusions about what other people think of them without having any evidence. And those conclusions are almost always negative.  You cannot possibly know what other people think of you. Most of us don’t know. You can assume but not without any evidence. So as long you don’t have any real evidence someone doesn’t like you, you can relax and stop jumping to negative conclusions.

2.You Feel as If People Are Constantly Paying Close Attention to You

You are aware of every move and facial expression you make and feel like it’s being closely monitored by everyone while in reality most people don’t even notice what you are doing. And even if they do pay attention to you, it isn’t necessary for the purpose of judging you.

3.You Tend to Interpret Every Behavior as a Judgment Towards You

Whenever someone does or says something you are wondering if that is somehow directed to you. That paranoia is a side effect of your social anxiety. You are hyper vigilant to any form of judgment, and you see it where it doesn’t exist. That unfortunately perpetuates your low self-confidence. For example if someone is naturally sarcastic to everyone, you make take their sarcasm personally and think they act that way because they think you are stupid.

 4.You View Other People as Super Social and Super Confident

You think that everyone has perfect social skills and you are the only one who can’t get it right. You may find yourself wondering how other people can act so carefree and be so confident. In reality other people also have insecurities about social interactions, just maybe not at a high level. Instead of thinking everyone is constantly evaluating and judging you remember that other people are also worried about being liked and accepted by you.

5. You Set Perfect Standards for Yourself

You want to be able to make a good impression on everyone, and even if just one person doesn’t like you, you feel disappointed with yourself. No one in this world is liked by everyone they meet, and the more people you know, the more likely it is you will find ones that don’t like you. In fact those people that are outgoing and social, and that you think have perfect social lives, they are probably disliked by many people they know. People dislike other people for many reasons. They may be jealous of you, they may not like your friends, they may have different ideological beliefs etc. As long as you are a respectful person and don’t give anyone a good reason to not like you, you shouldn’t worry too much about some people disliking you.

6. You Focus on the Negative Parts of Social Interactions

Even if the whole social interaction was going well, but there was just one moment where things got awkward, you will still ruminate about those awkward moments and feel like the whole interaction was unsuccessful. For example if you held a presentation successfully but forgot your speech once or twice you will mostly likely spend the rest of your day thinking about those moments and feel bad about yourself. So instead of focusing on the negative parts of your social interactions, try to focus on the general picture.

 

7. You Underestimate Your Social Skills

People with social anxiety underestimate their social skills and believe themselves to be socially incompetent. You may believe that everyone has better social skills than you.  Other people probably don’t have any better social skills than you. You just falsely believe it and inhibit yourself from interacting and proving to yourself that you do have good social skills.

Photo credit: Nicholas Green

You’ve read 7 Ways of Thinking That Perpetuate Your Social Anxiety, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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7 Ways of Thinking That Perpetuate Your Social Anxiety

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You’re reading 7 Ways of Thinking That Perpetuate Your Social Anxiety, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

If you suffer from social anxiety you probably have a lot of negative thoughts and beliefs going through your mind on a daily basis and especially in social situations. You may not even be aware of those beliefs most of the time. Anxiety also makes it more difficult to stay mindful and be aware of your thoughts. However those thoughts and beliefs are what your social anxiety ‘survives on’. Once you become aware of those false beliefs and cognitive distortions and replace them with more realistic ones the social anxiety will decrease. However that may take some time and practice because our brains need time to get used to new thought patterns.

Here are a few distorted ways of thinking you probably engage in if you suffer from social anxiety :

1.You Believe You Can Guess What Other People Think of You

People with social anxiety have a tendency to try to ‘read other people’s minds’. They jump to conclusions about what other people think of them without having any evidence. And those conclusions are almost always negative.  You cannot possibly know what other people think of you. Most of us don’t know. You can assume but not without any evidence. So as long you don’t have any real evidence someone doesn’t like you, you can relax and stop jumping to negative conclusions.

2.You Feel as If People Are Constantly Paying Close Attention to You

You are aware of every move and facial expression you make and feel like it’s being closely monitored by everyone while in reality most people don’t even notice what you are doing. And even if they do pay attention to you, it isn’t necessary for the purpose of judging you.

3.You Tend to Interpret Every Behavior as a Judgment Towards You

Whenever someone does or says something you are wondering if that is somehow directed to you. That paranoia is a side effect of your social anxiety. You are hyper vigilant to any form of judgment, and you see it where it doesn’t exist. That unfortunately perpetuates your low self-confidence. For example if someone is naturally sarcastic to everyone, you make take their sarcasm personally and think they act that way because they think you are stupid.

 4.You View Other People as Super Social and Super Confident

You think that everyone has perfect social skills and you are the only one who can’t get it right. You may find yourself wondering how other people can act so carefree and be so confident. In reality other people also have insecurities about social interactions, just maybe not at a high level. Instead of thinking everyone is constantly evaluating and judging you remember that other people are also worried about being liked and accepted by you.

5. You Set Perfect Standards for Yourself

You want to be able to make a good impression on everyone, and even if just one person doesn’t like you, you feel disappointed with yourself. No one in this world is liked by everyone they meet, and the more people you know, the more likely it is you will find ones that don’t like you. In fact those people that are outgoing and social, and that you think have perfect social lives, they are probably disliked by many people they know. People dislike other people for many reasons. They may be jealous of you, they may not like your friends, they may have different ideological beliefs etc. As long as you are a respectful person and don’t give anyone a good reason to not like you, you shouldn’t worry too much about some people disliking you.

6. You Focus on the Negative Parts of Social Interactions

Even if the whole social interaction was going well, but there was just one moment where things got awkward, you will still ruminate about those awkward moments and feel like the whole interaction was unsuccessful. For example if you held a presentation successfully but forgot your speech once or twice you will mostly likely spend the rest of your day thinking about those moments and feel bad about yourself. So instead of focusing on the negative parts of your social interactions, try to focus on the general picture.

 

7. You Underestimate Your Social Skills

People with social anxiety underestimate their social skills and believe themselves to be socially incompetent. You may believe that everyone has better social skills than you.  Other people probably don’t have any better social skills than you. You just falsely believe it and inhibit yourself from interacting and proving to yourself that you do have good social skills.

Photo credit: Nicholas Green

You’ve read 7 Ways of Thinking That Perpetuate Your Social Anxiety, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.

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Why We Must Still Defend Free Speech

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Does the First Amendment need a rewrite in the era of Donald Trump? Should the rise of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups lead us to cut back the protection afforded to speech that expresses hatred and advocates violence, or otherwise undermines equality? If free speech exacerbates inequality, why doesn’t equality, also protected by the Constitution, take precedence?

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How to Create and Maintain Personal Boundaries

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Personal boundaries are limits we set for other people regarding their behavior towards us. Establishing personal boundaries means stopping other people from pressuring us to do what we don’t want to do or put up with things we don’t want.

There are people in our lives that can violate our personal boundaries and make us feel uncomfortable, used and emotionally drained. Many of us put up with poor treatment by others because we are afraid to make them feel angry or lose their friendship. We might also feel guilty for standing up to other people and telling them no.

If you often feel like that and have difficulties building and keeping personal boundaries, there are a few things you need to practice.

Get Comfortable with Negative Emotions

Standing up for yourself and saying no to people very often gets a negative reaction from them. That is something to be expected and you need to realize that them getting mad is not your problem and that you cannot allow your boundaries to be violated just for the sake of avoiding negative emotions.

Even though people may get angry at first, they will soon realize they were asking too much from you. And if they don’t realize that and still hold resentment, that is not your fault. You should feel free to let them go.

Don’t Reward Poor Treatment by Giving People What They Want

When people learn that they get what they want from you even when they treat you poorly, they will be encouraged to continue doing that. By standing up for yourself and not giving them what they want, you’ll be teaching them that their behavior is not only unacceptable but also doesn’t get them anything positive. We have the power to guide how other people treat us by our reactions to their behavior.

Feel Free to Say No

say no

You may be afraid to hurt someone’s feelings or appear selfish by saying no. However, you need to realize that saying yes when you mean to say no causes you to hold unnecessary resentment towards other people. That isn’t healthy for you and your relationships.

Saying no to someone doesn’t mean you are a bad or a selfish person. It means you are being honest about your feelings and desires.

See Also: The Courage To Say No

Make Yourself Unavailable

You can stop other people from violating your boundaries by making yourself unavailable physically or emotionally. Don’t answer their calls and messages or tell them you are busy. Don’t react when they try to get something out of you and don’t participate in conversations that make you feel bad about yourself. Often, the best thing you can do is remove yourself from a situation that makes you uncomfortable.

Know What You Want

To be assertive and to establish clear boundaries, you need to know what you want from people and what your values are. You need to be in touch with your own wants and feelings to be able to communicate them and recognize when they are being hurt or violated. Be introspective and ask yourself if there are things that make you feel bad or uncomfortable but you do them anyway because you feel pressured by other people.

Don’t Try to Change People

People who violate other people’s boundaries usually lack self–awareness and that’s why it’s difficult to make them change their behavior. They see nothing wrong with it.

If someone can’t understand that their behavior is unacceptable even when you explain why, there’s nothing you can do about it. Trying to make them change is a waste of time and energy.

Practice Self-Care

practice self care

Practicing self-care involves taking care of your health and body, taking alone time to relax and pursuing activities that make you feel happy.

When you practice self-care, you become more tuned with your own feelings. You learn to value and cultivate your own well-being. The more you practice self-care, the less likely you are to put up with people and behaviors that are not healthy for you.

See Also: Neglecting Self Care: The Biggest Mistake I Made (And How You Can Avoid It)

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Alice Coltrane’s Songs of Bliss

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Alice Coltrane played piano in her husband’s groups from 1966 until his death the following year. Alice recorded a dozen albums under her own name, ranging from straight-ahead jazz to experimental mixtures of orchestral music and improvisation to Hindu chants performed in gospel arrangements. Her corpus remains one of the most varied and underappreciated in jazz.

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Home in Aspen, Colorado with Wonderful Views Over the Rocky Mountains

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Located in Aspen, Colorado, United States, at the edge of a nature preserve, this wonderful building has spectacular sweeping views across an alpine meadow to the Roaring Fork River and the Rocky Mountains beyond. But its interior is not less impressive. Wide spaces with wonderful wooden ceilings and glass walls, which allow us to enjoy the views even in the comfort of the interior and protect us from the cold..

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