Month: July 2023

4. You’re compulsive

You can’t control the hurtful person, but you can control your environment. This can quickly become a negative spiral of compulsive activity. Maybe for you this means keeping your spaces spotless, checking social media repeatedly, or making unnecessary purchases. Maybe it involves comfort eating.

These behaviors give you the impression of being in control, but they will not change the result of your interactions with the person. These activities only distract you from getting to the heart of the problem.

What to do instead: In the midst of compulsive behavior, there is often a moment when you realize what is happening. Choose to pull away. What is important to you? Is it being reflected in the way you spend your time? Is what you’re doing helping you to heal?

Read More

3. You’re desperate to make them understand how you feel

Does your inner monologue sound like this?

“If the person who caused me pain could only see what they’d done, they would want to say they were sorry.”

What to do instead: It’s hard to swallow, but the person may never recognize what they’ve done. Acceptance and letting go are key aspects of forgiveness. A time-tested way to do this is to write them a letter that you do not intend to send. Do this with the ultimate intention of destroying it and letting go of its contents.

Read More

2. You’re petty and impulsive

When interacting with the person who you struggle to forgive, do you make snide remarks? Do you send them passive aggressive texts? Do you engage in mudslinging? And yet you’re still powerless because you have not forgiven them.

What to do instead: Pause before engaging with the person. Sometimes a moment is all you need to let your conscience kick in. Is your contemplated interaction going to improve things, or just take the edge off of your hurt for a moment before the regret comes?

How forgiving are you? Take the forgiveness quiz to see where you stand.

Read More

How can you know whether unforgiveness is eating you alive? Here are some warning signs and some ways you can reverse course:

1. You’re experiencing bursts of anger

 

If you’re struggling with unforgiveness, you’re likely bottling up your anger. Oftentimes, the person who is the recipient of the inevitable outburst is not the person who caused the stress or pain.

What to do instead: Be mindful when you start to feel anger building. Be aware of the source. If you catch yourself in the middle of an outburst, it’s never too late to do an about face. Apologize to the victim of your outburst. Take a deep breath. If you can, spend a few moments alone.

Read More

14 Warning Signs That Unforgiveness Is Eating You Alive (And What to Do About It)

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

You think you’re over it.

You pretend everything is ok.

But something isn’t quite right.

You have trouble sleeping. You can’t stop thinking about what happened. You can’t seem to move on.

We have a hard time forgiving people, some more than others. The reason is because many of us have faulty notions of what forgiveness is in the first place – like receiving an apology or being reconciled with the person.

We may not want to admit it, but sometimes when we’re looking to offer forgiveness, we want it to be because somebody else conceded first. But what you’re waiting for may never happen, especially when dealing with toxic people.

Read More

Study links social isolation with shrinking brain

To the extent that isolation causes chronic stress, that might take a toll on the cardiovascular system and the aging brain, researchers said. Photo by Murray Rudd/Pixabay

Older adults who regularly spend time with family and friends may have bigger brains to show for it, a new study suggests.

Healthy brain aging is a complex matter, and researchers are still trying to understand which factors keep the mind sharp and which ones feed declines in memory and thinking.

But a number of studies have suggested that social life matters. Social stimulation is thought to help support mental acuity; on the other hand, social isolation in the golden years has been linked to an increased risk of dementia.

Exactly why, though, is unclear.

So for the new study, researchers led by Dr. Toshiharu Ninomiya, of Kyushu University in Japan, asked a different question: Is social isolation connected to older adults’ brain volume?

The brain naturally “shrinks” to a degree as people age, reflecting the loss of nerve cells and their connections. But that tissue loss is accelerated during the dementia process.

Read More

Calif. wildlife officials work to safely capture ‘aggressive’ sea otter

“Otter 841” is shown in a photo provided by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is trying to capture the “aggressive” creature which has confronted surfers and kayakers. Photo Courtesy of CDFW

July 15 (UPI) — California and federal wildlife officials have vowed to do everything possible to safely capture a sea otter that has been “aggressively” approaching surfers and kayakers in the Pacific Ocean near Santa Cruz.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday they will do the best they can to capture the 5-year-old female otter, which has been making news by biting surfboards and exhibiting other aggressive behavior.

Known as Otter 841, the animal was born at the Monterey Bay Aquarium but was released into the wild in 2021.

The organizations say a team of capture specialists from the CDFW and the Monterey Bay Aquarium has been trying to catch the otter since July 2, but has been unsuccessful.

Earlier this week, officials used a dummy surfer to try and lure the otter but were unable to do so.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Sea Otter Program Manger Jess Fuji says that “although this otter was born in an animal care facility, she was raised by her mother with minimal human contact.”

“Upon capture, the sea otter will undergo a health assessment and eventually be re-homed in a zoo or aquarium,” state and federal wildlife officials said in a joint statement issued Friday.

Read More

Elon Musk reveals, launches new AI company

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who owns Twitter and acts as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, announced on Wednesday the launch of his new artificial intelligence company xAI.

“Announcing formation of @xAI to understand reality,” Musk tweeted Wednesday afternoon.

According to xAI’s website, the goal of Musk’s new company “is to understand the true nature of the universe.” More details about the project will be revealed during a Twitter Spaces event on Friday, July 14th.

“Our team is led by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. We have previously worked at DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Tesla, and the University of Toronto. Collectively we contributed some of the most widely used methods in the field, in particular the Adam optimizer, Batch Normalization, Layer Normalization, and the discovery of adversarial examples,” xAI’s website states.

Read More

Nevada license plate that’s short for ‘Go back to California’ is revoked by DMV

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A revoked Nevada license plate that was meant to “drive away” Californians is getting one last chance to go back on the streets.

The plate — which reads “GOBK2CA,” short for “Go back to California” — was recalled by the state Department of Motor Vehicles in May after it received a complaint, KOLO-TV first reported. Now the vehicle owner is appealing the recall and will have a hearing on Wednesday, according to the Reno-area news station.

A section of the Nevada Administrative Code applied to the recall prohibits defamatory references to a person or group.

“In this case, the defamed group is Californians,” DMV spokesperson Eli Rohl told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He adding that the department “regularly” turns down license plates that share the same message.

A special license committee meets every Monday to review reported license plates, before determining which ones violate Nevada statute.

The DMV reviewed more than 700 license plates from July 2022 to early March. Denied license plates include the puzzling “GGGGGGG,” the overly rude “U 1D1OT” and many no-so-subtle allusions to profanity, according to KLAS-TV in Las Vegas.

LISTEN, THERE’S NOTHING–NOTHING–THAT CAN SEPARATE YOU FROM GOD’S LOVE.

If you’re feeling confused by what you hear out there in the world, listen to God. He can remind you in his spirit, in his word, in his song. Here’s one for itunes, for example: I am New by Jason Gray.

Verse snippet:

Too long have I lived in the shadows of shame
Believing that there was no way I could change
But the one who is making everything new
Doesn’t see me the way that I do
Who I thought I was
And who I thought I had to be
I had to give them both up
Cause neither were willing
To ever believe

I am not who I was, I’m being remade
I am new
Dead to my sin, I’m coming alive
I am new.

Let’s pray for the spirit to help us walk in the purity of the Lord. He remade us, and we can trust that.

Read More