Like many career decisions, the answer isnt straightforward. As we discuss in this weeks episode of Secrets Of The Most Productive People, some signs are more obvious than others. For starters, a toxic workplace is almost always never worth staying in (there are exceptions, but not many). When a role or company no longer offers you the opportunities to grow, it might be time to look elsewhere. And when your job starts to impact other areas of your life in a negative way, you should, at minimum, assess the possibility of change.

Its not an easy decision to make, and what makes sense for one person may not necessarily be the right course of action for another. As with anything, the key lies in self-awareness and honesty with yourself. Start by asking yourself these three questions:

1. Why do I feel the need to quit? You accepted your job for a reason, so its worth examining why you feel the need to move on. We tend to quit something when something makes us unhappy and uncomfortable, but to ensure that quitting will really make you happier, you need to look closely at your reasons. If its pride and ego, think twice. But if you find that you want to quit because your motivations no longer align with your job, then thats a valid reason to leave.

2. Have I done everything to make this work for me? Sometimes, your frustration with a job may be because of a major change. It might be to your benefit to try and embrace it first. Sometimes it requires you to try different things to get different results. Of course, there is a point when no amount of change is going to give you the results you want. So when that happens, it might be best to move on.

3. What do I have to gain by quitting? Everything has an opportunity cost. And sometimes, quitting something means you gain more resources to do something thats more important to you. If you have a lot more to gain by quitting than you do to lose, then thats a sign that you should at least seriously consider leaving.

This will be the last regular episode for season 3 of Secrets Of The Most Productive People,but well have several special bonus episodes during November and December (including a live episode at the Fast Company Innovation Festival), and well be back with Season 4 in 2020.You can findSecrets of the Most Productive PeopleonApple Podcasts,Google Play,Stitcher,Spotify,RadioPublic, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Work Life When is it the right time to quit your job? - Fast Company

"The more you know about Donald Trump, the less likely you are to vote for him. The more you know about his business enterprises, the less successful he looks. The more you know about his political giving, the less Republican he looks."

-- Lindsey Graham, March 7, 2016

We used to know who Republicans were.

They were squares, fuddy-duddies, in suits and ties and good cloth coats, overdressed on parent-teacher night. They knew about mortgage rates and not only kept their lawns mowed but maintained clean edges along the sidewalk. They were the bankers and the business owners, the ones who understood amortization and worried about the government just printing money to pay its debts. They were the ones who worried about governmental over-reach, who thought taxes to be unpleasant but necessary.

They were the ones who counseled you to never quit a job until you had another job in hand. They warned you about getting into trouble with credit cards. They were advocates of taking things slow and steady and accepting responsibility. They believed in the chain of command, in the wisdom of working hard and waiting your turn.

They weren't always right or much fun, but they weren't monolithic either. There was a time when "liberal Republican" wasn't an oxymoron. There was a time when Republicans stood for "good government," by which they meant government that wasn't corrupt or machine-run. There was a time when they could claim as a hero Benjamin Disraeli, the conservative prime minister who held that the "one duty" of those in power was "to secure the social welfare of the People."

("Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke," is something else Disraeli said.)

When people bring up "liberal Republicans" these days, they often call them Rockefeller Republicans, which alludes to Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York throughout the '60s and vice president under Gerald Ford.

But while Rockefeller was widely seen as the archetype, in fact Richard Nixon--who considered himself a conservative reformer in the mold of Disraeli (to the point of evoking Disraeli's "One Nation" in his first inaugural speech)--was arguably more liberal than Rockefeller on some domestic issues. And Spiro Agnew wrote that Rockefeller "was harder than Nixon, and a lot more hawkish about the mission of America in the world."

When the term Rockefeller Republican is brought up locally, Arkansans are more inclined to remember Nelson's little brother Winthrop, who was elected governor in 1966 when only 11 percent of Arkansans identified as Republican. You could argue that Nelson was actually elected by an ad hoc coalition of the decent, because the Democratic candidate in 1967 was Justice Jim Johnson, a diehard segregationist and rabble-rouser.

While perfidy knows no party, Democrats tended to run hotter, with more fire, bluster and color than Republicans. Democrats were the ones who looked to drive the country in one direction or another, while the GOP was more deeply invested in the status quo. The Republicans were the establishment, who understood how things worked and could summon great gravity and condescension.

They were not the party of the flashy and the fly-by-night; they were not so egalitarian as to admit pikers, grifters and arrivistes. You got the sense that the best of them didn't need the sort of low-grade celebrity and public attention that attaches to politics, that they were, by their lights, actually serving. Noblesse oblige, they called it.

On the other hand, the Democrats by necessity collected misfits and firestarters. They were the party of dreamers and scrappers, nominally interested in social justice, sometimes pandering, almost always defining themselves in opposition to the continued hegemony of the rich and powerful, even as they became or remained the rich and powerful. Anyone could join the Democratic Party; one was born a Republican.

That's how it felt at least; in any given election one could vote for the Republican or the Democrat in the race without really identifying with either tribe. Some people liked to pride themselves on voting for the individual, on making an electoral decision based on the perceived character and ability of the candidate rather than the colors they flew.

It's an over-simplification, I know. But there once was a time when Republicans stood for things other than servicing their richest and most powerful clients and consolidating their power by any means necessary. There was a time when they were the adults.

Now we have the spectacle of a party rallying behind a president desperately clinging to power to keep himself out of jail.

"We're on the verge of having someone take over the conservative movement who is a con artist," Marco Rubio said in 2016.

That same year Ted Cruz said Donald Trump was "utterly amoral," a "serial philanderer" and "narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen." Mick Mulvaney said he was a "terrible human being." Rick Perry called him a "cancer."

They were right. Trump may or may not be deranged, but it's clear he's intellectually and, more importantly, temperamentally unfit to be president. He's a nightmare boss whose only discernible talent is a certain brash ruthlessness from which TV-dazzled mooks can't look away. He accidentally attained high office as much through the incompetence of certain Democrats (another thing the Republicans used to be was "the competent party") as by building a coalition of the aggrieved and fearful, people angry with what they perceive as the erosion of their personal prerogatives.

Trump is a manifestation of white male rage, an incoherent, petulant and blind lashing out at the way America is evolving. He is a national tantrum, the personification of American brattiness, devoid of all grace, wit and self-awareness. He is a vain and petty man who now, finding himself out of his depth and deeply in trouble, has become genuinely dangerous.

He is exactly the sort of phenomenon I imagined the Republicans might be a firewall against.

This is not the first time I've been wrong.

pmartin@arkansasonline.com

http://www.blooddirtangels.com

Editorial on 10/20/2019

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Where has the GOP gone? - NWAOnline

Earlier this summer, after seeing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I posed an important question for which we all demand an answer: Is Quentin Tarantino a Justified superfan? The film is littered with actors from that franchise, except for one notable exception: Walton Goggins, who has even worked with Tarantino before in both Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight. WHY WERE WE BEING PUNISHED?

Now, the rest of the year has shaped up to be a veritable smorgasbord of Goggins content, and for that, I am very grateful. And while The Unicorn on CBS is fine and probably will, as Dustin anticipates, be renewed for a second season, Im here to praise something else: The extreme self-awareness The Righteous Gemstones exhibits about Gogginss own mythology as an actor, and how much that cements our interest as viewers.

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Did you read Mikes pieces about The Righteous Gemstones when Danny McBrides show launched back in August to the highest comedy-premiere numbers HBO had seen in three years? The first season of the show wrapped on Sundayand HBO had already announced a second-season renewal weeks agoand much like McBride did on his previous show, Vice Principals, he employs Goggins like the secret weapon he is.

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To be fair, the characters of Uncle Baby Billy Freeman in The Righteous Gemstones and Lee Russell in Vice Principals are very different. In the latter show, Goggins played Lee as a conniving, manipulative, foppish asshole whose dandyisms were in stark contrast to his increasing embrace of toxic masculinity. Lee was thoroughly reprehensible, but you low-key rooted for him anyway because Goggins imbued him with brief glimpses of sensitivity and humanity. The character would then do something tinged by racism and over-the-top self-assurednesshonestly, a lot like Boyd Crowder in the early seasons of Justifiedbut Goggins never half-asses anything, and his dedication sold the bizarre layers of Lee Russell. McBrides writing style, which often veers between extremes of hyper-aggressive immaturity and brusque fragility, worked perfectly when paired with Gogginss commitment.

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Did you see those dance moves? And those teeth? Good, because both of those aspects of Gogginss persona come up again in The Righteous Gemstones, in which Goggins plays Uncle Baby Billy Freeman, the brother-in-law of Gemstone patriarch Eli (John Goodman), brother of the deceased Aimee-Leigh (Jennifer Nettles), and uncle of the adult Gemstone children Jesse (McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson), and Kelvin (Adam DeVine).

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The Gemstones are all outrageous, blissfully surrounded in ostentatious wealth and varyingly concerned about losing access to power (you could write a whole think piece, in fact, about how Judy and Shiv from Succession are spiritual sisters in stifled ambition and questionable morality, and dammit, I might), but Uncle Baby Billy Freeman isnt on the inside of that circle. Hes far on the outskirts, living in a rundown shack on his familial land of Freemans Gap, and married to a 20something he treats as a servant, Tiffany (Valyn Hall), whom he insists that Jesse, Judy, and Kelvinall older than hercall Aunt Tiffany. Hes a former child star who has never been as popular as he was when Aimee-Leigh was by his side, and hes alternately charming, suave, and devilishly mischievous, while also being petty, juvenile, condescending, and crass. Which is to say: He is a perfect character to be played by Walton Goggins.

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The Gemstones arent good people, but Baby Billynever just Billy; you must call him by his old stage name, even though the man is clearly past AARP agein particular is an embodiment of what happens when you internalize all the worst aspects of Southern traditionalism and megachurch Christianity. Tiffany could be his granddaughter, but well, shes his wife, and we see her act consistently subservient to him at all times. Were introduced to Baby Billy as Tiffany is bathing him, and she serves as his counterpart in increasingly violent hijinks as the season progresses.

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Oh yeah! And they do a lot of sex stuff!

That unerring patriarchy defines his relationship with Judy, too, whom he tries to mold into a new Aimee-Leighnot because shes as talented as her mother was, but because Uncle Baby Billy knows he can make money off her name. And when Judy tries to stand up for herself? Her slightest attempt at individuality earns her a devastating rejection from Uncle Baby Billyharsher in tone, but no different in content, from how her father Eli also underestimates her.

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All of this is to say that Uncle Baby Billy is quite profoundly an asshole, but the show pulled off two impressive things with the character in the first season. The first is that although Sundays season finale, Better Is the End of a Thing Than Its Beginning, offers a somewhat surprising redemption arc for nearly every GemstoneEli makes amends with a preacher (Dermot Mulroney) the family fucked over; Jesse joins his son Gideon (Skyler Gisondo) doing mission work in Haiti; Judy apologizes to former fianc BJ (Tim Baltz), whom she had abused during their relationship; and Kelvin saves his sort-of boyfriend Keefe (Tony Cavalero)and steps backward from the gung-ho anti-megachurch vibe of the preceding episodes, it does not change who Uncle Baby Billy is. The man is a schemer and a charlatan, and after being struck by lightning, hes still that guy. Hes out here calling himself the Electric Preacher, selling hand-drawn milieus of what he claims he saw in Heaven, and attracting a tent-revival following of people devoted to his word.

All Uncle Baby Billy has ever wanted is a breathless (and mindless) fanbase, and he gets itand Tiffany is right by his side, helping in her husbands con. Not everyone is going to become a better person overnightand a valid compliant about the finale could be that the Gemstones sure do grow consciences quite quicklyso Im glad The Righteous Gemstones thankfully doesnt walk away from the very captivatingly awful person theyve built in Uncle Baby Billy.

And whether or not Goggins is back for the shows second season, I remain fascinated by the other thing The Righteous Gemstones does well: Make the Uncle Baby Billy character itself a composite of so many other characteristics we love about Goggins, both as an actor and as a person.

Exhibit A: Those dance moves we see in Vice Principals come up again as Uncle Baby Billy is a prolific clogger, even in his older age.

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Exhibit B: A nod to Gogginss extensive work playing overzealous preachers, from Justified to the indie Them That Follow.

from Cash GIFs via Gfycat

And, most importantly, Exhibit C: THOSE DAMN TEETH. What is the Righteous Gemstones subplot about Tiffanys teethvery uneven at first, and then replaced with veneers once the couple steals millions from the Gemstonesif not an acknowledgement of our cultural fascination with Gogginss own chompers?

Gogginss teeth are very well-searched on Google, and if you didnt know about his harrowing tale of losing his front teeth twice, here you go.

Im convinced that McBride and frequent collaborators Hill and David Gordon Green know all this, know about Gogginss cult appeal, know which elements of his public persona and acting style appeal to us so much, and leaned into those elements hard to make Uncle Baby Billy a riveting character repellent because of his egoism and empathetic because of his familiarity. The Righteous Gemstones used Goggins perfectly, and I genuinely hope he sticks around on the show because no one else in the world can deliver a song lyric like Running through the house with a pickle in my mouth (added by Hill to the song that McBride wrote with costar Patterson and composer Joseph Stephens) as perfectly as he does. No one! The man was born to misbehave.

Roxana Hadadi is a Staff Contributor for Pajiba. You can follow her on Twitter.

Header Image Source: HBO/The Righteous Gemstones

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What Happened to Walton Goggins's Uncle Baby Billy on 'The Righteous Gemstones' Finale? - Pajiba

The Apple Card offers immediate gratification when it comes to rewards. (Photo Illustration by ... [+] Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

In addition to being made out of titanium and arriving in laptop-like packaging, the new Apple Card stands out for letting cardholders earn immediate rewards, dubbed Daily Cash.

Unlike many other credit cards, where rewards typically post after one or two billing cycles, the Apple Card lets you see and access your accumulating rewards daily via your iPhone.

While it sounds convenient, that immediate gratification also comes with a downside: It could lead you to spend more, according to behavioral economists.

It can be very easy to go overboard [with rewards], says Lisa Kramer, a finance professor specializing in behavioral economics at the University of Toronto. Of the Apple Card rewards and their immediacy, she says: Its so much more salient and easy to respond in a way thats impulsive, but that may not be in your best financial interest.

Ted Mann, chief executive of Slyce, a tech startup focused on visual search and image recognition, certainly noticed the immediacy when he started using the Apple Card shortly after it came out.

I started to see the cash show up in the Wallet every day, you get a buck or two. Thats definitely gotten me to want to use Apple Pay more for just about anything, he says.

Apple Pay is the mobile wallet on your iPhone, and indeed the Apple Card incentivizes the use of that wallet, offering 2% to 3% back on purchases made via Apple Pay. (Theres a physical version of the card, too, but it earns only 1% back.)

While Mann says he isnt necessarily spending more because of the Daily Cash accumulations, he is using Apple Pay more to get those elevated rewards.

Manns other credit cards also earn rewards, he says, but I never see the rewards. My wife redeems them a couple times a year to book a family vacation, but otherwise, Im never aware of them, so the Apple Cash ones seem far more effective, he says.

Seeing rewards accumulate daily on your phone makes them more visible compared with seeing them on a monthly statement, says David Gal, professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

People like the immediate feeling of reward, he notes.

But Gal cautions that such a feature can potentially lead to more spending than you initially intended. And this can be problematic given that credit card rewards in general are relatively small compared with the spending required to earn them.

For example, in the case of the Apple Cards highest rewards tier, youd have to spend $1,000 just to earn $30 back in rewards. The cards ongoing APR is variable but can range as high as 20% or more. So if youre routinely blowing your budget just to see your rewards tick higher and youre unable to pay your balance in full each month, it can cost you more in interest than youre collecting in rewards.

If youre not currently setting budgets ahead of your shopping trips, its a good habit to develop.

If we operate in a world where we dont set budgetary limits, then its easy to spend more than we intend, Kramer says. But if were explicit in advance about what those spending limits are, it can be helpful, she says.

For those who have trouble sticking with those budgets? Signing up for spending alerts or notifications when you reach a certain limit can also temper spending, she adds.

But prevention can start even earlier. Kramer suggests self-awareness as a first defense. Understanding how your brain is responding to rewards can help you step back and make a different, more informed choice. With the Apple Card, for instance, you could choose to ignore the accumulating Daily Cash and check in just once a month, as you might with a typical rewards card.

Ultimately, if you know the allure of such instant rewards will tempt you to overspend, you may want to turn off your phone when you enter a store or leave it behind entirely and stick with cash or a debit card.

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Why The Apple Card Could Make You Spend More - Forbes

A "high-risk" prisoner slashed another inmate's throat with an improvised knife, a court has heard.

Daniel Illingworth, 28, was serving a sentence at Prison Holme House in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, when he attacked fellow prisoner Stephen Holman.

He hid a blade melted into the handle of a toothbrush and launched the assault when the men left their cells for their evening meal at the jail.

Illingworth walked from his cell wearing shorts, which is not allowed in the prison during mealtimes, and refused to go back to change when an officer instructed him to do so.

He walked towards Holman, jumped on his back and appeared to push him, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Rachel Masters said a prison officer saw at least two blows as she shouted at him to stop and activated alarm bells, Teesside Live reports.

Ms Masters said: "As she got closer, she could see in his hand what looked like a white plastic handled implement, something like a toothbrush or cutlery handle.

"Distinctively it had a blade on the end of it."

The officer backed off and asked Illingworth to go back to his cell to drop the weapon, which he did.

Holman suffered three wounds across his throat, to the lower right of his chin and behind his ear, which were treated with glue and strips.

He said he did not know why the attack happened.

The assault, just before 5pm on July 13 last year, was captured on CCTV footage which was played to a judge.

Illingworth, whose address was listed in court as Holme House Prison, initially said he did not know anything about the violence.

He said he had severe mental health problems and claimed Holman injured himself.

He later admitted wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Illingworth was given a 10-year sentence for robbery in 2011 and for wounding with intent, wounding and unauthorised possession of a knife in prison in 2018.

He committed the latest assault just three months after receiving the 2018 sentence.

David Comb, mitigating, said Illingworth had a "complex psychiatric and social background".

He said a report referred to Illingworth's mobility in prison and his "sense of humiliation, compounded by his personality and hypersensitivity as well as paranoid misinterpretation".

A psychiatrist suggested Illingworth posed a high risk of future violence.

Judge Stephen Ashurst told Illingworth: "You took the blade to his face and neck.

"In the event the injury sustained by Stephen Holman were a good deal less serious than it might otherwise have been.

"But your position, I'm afraid, is made serious by your dreadful record of offending.

"You have very little self-awareness of your problems and the capacity to try and deal with them in the future."

He ruled Illingworth was a dangerous offender posing risk of serious harm to the public "and to serving prisoners in particular".

He said the prisoner did not currently meet the criteria for a life sentence but warned him that he could be given once if he carried on offending.

Illingworth was given a 13-year extended sentence.

This will be an eight-year custodial term, of which he must serve two thirds before the Parole Board decide whether he can be released early, plus five years' extended licence.

Continue reading here:
'High-risk' prisoner stabbed fellow inmate in the throat with makeshift knife - Mirror Online

The Western world has largely been shaped by an admiration of logicversus emotion. Yet as humans, it's impossible to operate with just one or the other. In todays world, where artificial intelligence and digitization rule, many leaders and organizations are expected to adhere to a new social and environmental way of thinking, a more human way of thinking. Qualities like empathy and sensitivity, which used to be viewed by many as weaknesses, are now often seen as strengths. Emotional intelligence (EQ) has become more than a buzz phrase it's now a widely practiced tool embraced by progressive executives to increase their companies bottom lines and improve corporate culture.

I see the benefits of EQ every day in my work with executives and teams. Over the course of my career as a therapist, Ive learned that many of the interpersonal skills we use to strengthen our personal relationships are the same skills needed to fuel success in the workplace.

However, the questions remain: How did we get here, and are we prepared for what's to come?

The Origins Of EQ

Great philosophers like Aristotle studied the effects of emotions, what triggers them and how to deal with them. Aristotle is believed to have once said, Anyone can become angry that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way that is not within everybodys power and is not easy." This statement demonstrates an early understanding of EQ, yet this way of thinking didnt take off until much later. In fact, it wasnt until around the 1980s that companies started to take notice of the effects of a positive work culture on employees. During this time, Reuven Bar-On, a clinical psychologist whose assessment tool I'm certified to use, began studying the answers to two questions: What makes people successful, and what makes people happy? The results of those studies started a journey of conceptualizing, researching and applying EQ.

Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer coined the term "emotional intelligence" in 1990, defining it as "the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions. Salovey and Mayer worked together to clearly define and measure the effects of EQ, which piqued the interest of larger corporations concerned with hiring and retaining top talent.

Clinical psychologist and author Steven Stein, who co-founded a business that publishes computerized psychological assessments, also contributed to the study and spread of EQ. In 1994, he met Bar-On, who asked him to publish his EQ assessment tool. Today, many coaches (myself included) use this tool in their work with clients.

Later,Daniel Goleman popularized the concept of EQ and helped spread the idea throughout mainstream culture.

The Modern And Future Leader

Today, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a leading company that doesnt have a focus on EQ. Organizations all over the world have turned to EQ to help them hire, promote and develop their employees. They recognize that a positive work environment can help attract top talent, drive employee engagement and affect profitability and performance and the right leaders understand this too.

Leveraging EQ

The modern and future leader integrates the realms of both logic and emotion. They leverage EQ in a way that goes beyond gauging how employees are feeling and toward successfully navigating complex business situations. They can nurture our strengths rather than pick apart our weaknesses. They create and foster meaningful relationships with a multigenerational and diverse workforce. And while theyre no less focused on strategy and competition, the modern leader operates with adaptiveness, compassion and mindfulness.

Here are some tips for how to leverage EQ as a leader.

Practice self-awareness. Take stock of how you feel and react to certain stressors throughout the day. Notice how your emotions contribute to your actions. In order to understand the emotions of others, you first have to be in tune with yourself.

Listen carefully. This is surprisingly difficult for some leaders. It can be tempting to think that listening is merely following rather than leading. However, in order to make and sustain more meaningful connections and tailor communication styles to the right people, learn to become a better listener.

Be open and embrace conflict. A good leader is willing to problem-solve and dive into disagreements rather than run away from conflict. A leader with a high EQ level is much more likely to problem-solve effectively, rationally and with a certain level of poise and composure.

Make culture a priority. Purpose-driven leaders understand what engages and excites employees and work to cultivate an environment that fosters their creativity and engagement.

Living In The Present And Learning From The Past

Today, smart leaders are driven by opportunities and the future rather than by the past or their egos. They might learn valuable lessons from past triumphs, but they dont attempt to preserve the status quo. Instead of worrying about looking good or staying consistent, stay vigilant and on top of future trends, and don't be afraid to embrace the flow of new ideas.

More:
Emotional Intelligence At Work: Becoming The Leader Of The Future - Forbes

Its never easy to cut someone out of your life. And when it comes to family, its especially hard to accept that a family member is creating so much stress, anxiety, and pain that you cant continue to have a relationship with them.

This post is for all of you who are struggling to decide whether to continue a relationship with a difficult or toxic family member. Youre repeatedly hurt by this person, have tried tirelessly to repair the relationship, feel frustrated that nothing seems to change (at least for very long), you dont want to give up, but you dont know how to move forward in a way that respects and nurtures yourself.

This is a tough question and I dont have a one-size-fits-all answer. Consider the list of toxic behaviors below and how often you experience these issues with the family member in question.

Toxic people disrupt your life and other relationships with behaviors such as these:

People can change, but toxic people rarely do. They lack self-awareness and dont take responsibility for their actions. And since they dont see how their behavior hurts you, they refuse to change. Instead, they blame you and expect you to cater to their demands.

I think we can all agree that no one deserves to be abused. So, why do we give our family members a free pass? Why do we think we should tolerate such hurtful behavior from them?

It sucks to have to choose between yourself and your family members. It really does. But this is the reality. Remaining in a relationship with a toxic person is potentially harmful to your emotional and physical health and relationships (and may negatively affect your spouse and children, too).

The bottom line is that for many people, the only way to heal is to remove yourself from the abusive relationship. How can you heal if you continue to be abused?

Its okay to not be ready. You shouldnt be pressured into making a decision. Most people who cut ties, do so as the last resort. They come to this decision gradually over years of fits and starts. They cut off ties and then reconnect. They set boundaries and make themselves less available. Things calm down and they feel better, only to have problems escalate again. This is common!

There is no right way to deal with a toxic family member. Only you can decide how much contact is right for you. And you will know if and when you need to walk away in order to save yourself. Just know that its okay to end a toxic relationship even with a family member.

2019 Sharon Martin, LCSW. All rights reserved. Originally published on the authors website.Photo byMarc SchaeferonUnsplash

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It's Okay to Cut Ties with Toxic Family Members - PsychCentral.com

You just ran into two people from New York, kiddo, and were not putting up with your Republican bullst

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was trying to enjoy his lunch with his deputy chief of staff Sergio Gor when he was accosted by lefties concerned about incivility.

The incident occurred in California, but the woman screamed that Paul and Gor had just ran into two people from New York, kiddo, and were not putting up with your Republican bullst. At one point, she circles around and flips Paul and/or Gor the bird. Charming.

Fox News reports:

Republican Sen.Rand Paulwas confrontedby two people while eatinglunch Friday with his staff at a California restaurant.

Pauls deputy chief of staff, Sergio Gor, captured the moment in a video he posted to Twitter.While having lunch with @RandPaul in California, we got verbally assaulted by these aggressive libs complaining about incivility, Gor wrote. Check out the vid! #unhinged

You just ran into two people from New York, kiddo, and were not putting up with your Republican bullst, the woman in the video shoutsat Gor.

. . . . Paul retweeted the video and said that while the left blames incivility on the president, he urges voters to watch this video and decide who the rude ones are.

Watch:

Heres Pauls tweet:

Needless to say, people have thoughts.

Continue reading here:
Rand Paul verbally assaulted by aggressive libs complaining about incivility - legal Insurrection

Psychotherapy is a psychological method used to address and treat emotional and mental health problems and its impact on life, family and relationships

Talking has enormous therapeutic benefits, It strengthens your ties with others and having someone listen to you, promotes the feeling that others care and are interested in what you have to say.

You mull and worry about many things, often without conscious awareness of its pattern and purpose. When these worries are left unattended they can take a pathological form and contribute to difficulties. When you verbalise and hear your thoughts then you experience a sense of relief from quiet suffering. It is after the catharsis, that the process of self-awareness and change takes root.

You benefit from talking to friends and family, but sometimes it isnt enough, as they may not be attentive, offer advice before listening and offer untimely advice and assurance. Therefore, it is sometimes easier to talk to someone (a trained professional) who has no prior knowledge or expectation from you and to whom you can disclose your deepest fears and emotions without the worry of being judged.

However, something holds us back from see king psychotherapy (also known as talk therapy). It is perhaps the misconception that you have to be little mad or harbour some strange and odd ideas to see a therapist.

This is a myth that psychotherapy is only for mental illness and associated disturbances. However, isnt it entirely normal and human to be confused and nervous and become overwhelmed by work stress, career angst and relationship challenges? In fact, those who seek early help and therapy to unravel their inner-self are more mature than those who wait until lifes issues trigger breakdown and illnesses.

What Is Psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy is a psychological method used to address and treat emotional and mental health problems and its impact on life, family and relationships. Its also for self improvement and to do what one does, better.

Psychotherapy is not a therapy that is done to you by someone else, but is done by you. You play an active part with the therapist as a facilitator and the process is empowering.

The process involves talking to a professional, either on a one-to-one basis or in groups, to get a deeper understanding of thoughts, feeling, worries and troublesome behaviour, with a view to raise awareness and bring about changes from a less adaptive to more adaptive state, as deemed desirable by the participant or client.

Psychotherapy is much more than just listening and guiding and change. Its about building trust and rekindling hope that life is fluid (and ever changing) and that problems are an opportunity for transformation and psychological growth rather than a hindrance.

Directive Or Non-Directive Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy can be directive or non-directive. In directive therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy or CGT, one can learn to identity and change unhelpful negative and pessimistic patterns of thinking, take note of and build on positive events, or apply relaxation techniques. Equally, develop skill sets to address social anxiety, low self-esteem and damaging anger problems. Here, the emphasis is on the present rather than past.

In non-directive therapies like psychoanalysis or psychodynamic psychotherapy, emphasises on exploring the past, including early family and other important relationships and how it may impact the present, reactions, behaviour and relationships.

Systemic Therapy

Then there is systemic therapy, which looks at the relationships between individuals as part of a unit and how systems and interpersonal dynamics work together. Examples of this approach include group and family therapy.

Involvement in psychotherapy should provide confidential physical and emotional space where conversation can flow and deep recesses of the mind can be accessed more readily. Its about enabling the participant to describe difficult issues and exploring a deeper meaning that he/she is unaware of.

It takes a holistic approach and sees the person as a whole, rather than from a narrow perspective of reported problems. The body, mind and conscious (and unconscious) thought, feelings and emotional reactions, interconnectedness to their world, are all taken into consideration.

Each person has a unique personality, perspective and preferences. And a good therapist removes himself/herself (biases and opinion) from the therapy sessions and speaks from the clients point of view.

The sessions enhance participation by reflecting and paraphrasing. Reflecting is a method where an attempt is made to reconstruct the clients thinking and associated feeling and conveying that back in an understandable manner, whereas paraphrasing Is simply repeating parts of the story to let the client know that he/she is being heard.

Continually assess readiness for change and/or resistance In form of un-cooperativeness or sabotaging progress by erratic attendance; the therapist must be attentive to these factors and provide timely guidance.

A therapists manner is ideally curious, honest and deeply interested in exploring human behaviour and feelings with an unconditional positive regard and also a belief that everyone has an inherent ability to heal themselves plus are capable of recovery from difficulties, provided they are treated with respect, compassion and warmth.

We all need to look inward at some point in life, in order to make more coherent sense of the world outside. And when there is conflict, collaborative approach with a therapist can be a great advantage.

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Understanding Psychotherapy And Its Effectiveness - Version Weekly

John Hodgman's last book, Vacationland, was a kind of absurdist memoir of a weird kid who'd grown up to the kind of self-aware grownup who really wanted to dig into how he got to where he was, with bone-dry wit and real heart (I compared it to Steve Martin's Cruel Shoes, but for adults who'd outgrown it); in his new book, Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms, Hodgman offers something much more uncomfortable (if no less funny), a series of vignettes that explore the hollowness of privilege, the toxicity of comparison, and the melancholy of accomplishment.

Medallion Status tells the story of Hodgman's post-TV life. After lucking into a role in a series of Apple TV ads, Hodgman went on to semi-regular stints on The Daily Show under Jon Stewart and a series of medium-sized parts on well-regarded sitcoms, but these have dwindled, and while Hodgman has many other claims to accomplishment and fame, they're not TV fame (and arguably, as Hodgman points out, even TV fame isn't TV fame anymore in our fractured world of streaming services). TV fame is a weird kind of fame, a stopped-in-the-street kind of fame, a fly from New York to LA every week and stay at the Chateau Marmont kind of fame. It's the kind of fame that gets you invited into the swag room at awards-shows where you can be measured for complementary custom-made leather shoes or take home a really amazing pair of jeans.

For Hodgman, as riven with insecurity as the next person (especially if the next person is a white, straight dude from a middle-class background who has a keen appreciation that he's living life on the lowest difficulty setting and is likely being serviced and fawned over by people who work harder and are more talented than he is), the gradual withdrawal of the trappings of privilege are a constant, nagging confirmation that every jolt of impostor syndrome you've ever felt was fully deserved.

This becomes the basis for an extended meditation on the many ways in which privilege feels gross and upsetting for the privileged: the systems around you are designed to tempt you to strive harder to attain the next level of privilege, where, you are assured, you can rest up from your anxious climb and enjoy the summit. But each summit reveals another summit, and higher, more promising, more tantalizing summits you can attain.

This is both the literal and metaphorical life of a frequent flier, of course: each tier in the airlines' customer loyalty program is designed to remind you of how terrible things are on the tier below you and how marvellous things would be if you could only rise up by one more level. And each tier is designed to panic you as the year progresses and you realize that you might not re-establish your status. And it is status, exclusivity, a secret society for one percenters, celebs and looters, all rubbing shoulders and eating chef-prepared meals and drinking free whiskey at 30,000 feet in a lie-flat bed.

At this point, you might be thinking that if being privileged is such a burden, you should try having no privilege at all. Hodgman agrees with you: indeed, the story of Medallion Status is about how badly this works out for everyone.

From his perch on the middle tiers of celebrity, Hodgman is able to compare himself to people who are in much smaller cohorts than his own: if he's in the 15% of people-on-TV, he's comparing himself to people in the 5% or even 1%, and yet, whenever he comes close enough to tug at those tailored and exclusive shirt-tails, he realizes that those people are every bit as miserable and insecure as he is.

And therein lies the message of Medallion Status, latent amidst the very funny jokes and the charming asides and the disarming honesty: that the whole system of privilege and inequality isn't serving anyone: it makes you miserable to be at the bottom, sure, but it also makes you miserable to be at the top.

And worse: as Hodgman travels through, and finds some accomodation within, these rarified heights, he sees how privilege turns the privileged into monsters, including Hodgman himself, whose impulses are warped and stunted under its ferocious gravity. As funny as Hodgman is -- and he's very, very funny -- there is a kind of horror in this book, something appropriately Lovecraftian (given both Hodgman's dedication to New England and Lovecraft's revolting worship of elitism). What Hodgman describes is a horror-movie form of compartmentalization, in which the protagonist finds themself committing terrible acts, knowing that they are terrible, unable to stop themselves.

My absolute favorite mode of humor is "ha ha only serious." One of Hodgman's anxieties is that he's not serious enough to be a comedian: that making a career out of inventing untrue facts about orchestral instruments or being the straight man on The Daily Show makes you funny, but not a comedian -- not someone using humor to disarm power so that it can have truth spoken to it.

But Hodgman is speaking truth to power here: he's spilling the rich, white guy tea, which is that they're absolutely miserable. Not that the wealthy and powerful deserve our sympathy -- but it's important to understand that the system is frailer than you think, because the only reason its supporters defend it is because they're afraid that if they're not defending the hierarchy, they'll end up on the bottom of the pyramid.

This is the moment for that message, with an election only days away and the most egregious example of self-parodying, useless and overprivileged whiteness in the White House. Trump's whole "poor person's idea of a rich person" schtick is the living embodiment of the idea that comparison is the thief of joy. Trump is insecurity manifest, a would-be dictator whose manifesto could easily be titled Mein Angst.

The difference between a monster and a mensch is self-awareness. Hodgman's Medallion Status is the opposite of narcissism: it's an honest and terribly funny peek into a world that very few of us will get to see, one that is frank enough to admit that the only thing the people in that world enjoy about it is that we're not allowed in it.

Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms [John Hodgman/Viking]

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Medallion Status: comparison is the thief of joy, and John Hodgman is the thief-taker - Boing Boing