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100 Men Who Care Los Alamos, a group of men dedicated to providing immediate and meaningful financial support to local organizations, will be holding its next quarterly event Thursday, October 10 at the Sheriffs Posse Lodge from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Organized like a Shark Tank for nonprofits, the event is only 90 minutes long and in that time the group votes on one of three organizations to support based on short presentations by each. Each group member then writes a check for $100 directly to the winning organization. In prior events, LA Cares received $4000 to purchase fresh vegetables for their food bank, and Self-Help received $4700 to support victims of domestic violence.

The event is modeled after the successful Los Alamos group for women. The two organizations coordinate events and nonprofits eligible to apply in order to spread the wealth.

The 100 Men Who Care Los Alamos group is open to all men interested in participating. Each member commits to contributing $100 once a quarter. In addition, members may nominate their favorite local charity. For more information and to sign up, visit http://www.100menwhocarelosalamos.org.

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100 Men Who Care Quarterly Meeting Is Thursday At Sheriffs Posse Lodge - Los Alamos Reporter

The increase in the importance of self-care has given rise to a variety of Instagram influencers, self-help gurus, and trendy hashtags, shows and songs,making a mental health journey seem like the greatest thing to ever happen to your life. And it can be! But it can take lot of self-work to get to the point of a life-changing breakthrough.

Everyone loves thinking about the sort of a-ha moment, Natalie Burns, a clinical social worker in the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Social Work at the University of Michigan, told HuffPost.

I dont necessarily believe that its one a-ha moment that sort of says, now everythings fine. I think its more common that its the product of a lot of hard work, a lot of self-reflection, a lot of curiosity as to why we do the things we do.

What people dont often tell you is that therapy, while transformative, can be really hard. Healing is not going to happen overnight and the life-changing lessons and breakthroughs that were looking for arent always going to feel good. In fact, sometimes things are going to feel worse before they feel better.

Lucy Lambriex via Getty ImagesWhat people dont often tell you is that therapy, while transformative, can be really hard.

People engage in habit; life and habits are hard to change, Burns said. Therapists offer and suggest trying new ways of coping, but the reality is that theyre not going to feel as good or work as well in the beginning. We have to give it time to work.

However, if you have just entered therapy or youve been on your journey for a while yet you arent seeing any progress dont get discouraged.HuffPost asked peopleto share their therapy breakthroughs to show how varied they can be over the course of several months (in some cases years!) in therapy.

Below, seven people share the best advice and most important lessons theyve learned in therapy and how they try to continuously apply it to their lives. If youre feeling discouraged or unmotivated, their stories may help you stay the course and keep doing the work. Because the work to manage your mental health will not always be easy, but itll be worth it.

laflor via Getty Images"For any type of therapeutic journey, it requires quite a bit of courage and bravery. At times thats hard," said therapist Natalie Burns.

During one of our sessions I was discussing how a situation made me very upset, and she was able to lead me to understand that it was my anxiety that made me upset.

She gave me two sheets of papers on how I can 1) deal with the situation and 2) how to take myself out of that feeling so I can work on myself and then come back stronger.

I noticed I wasnt getting angry as often, and it really helped my anxiety. I would get so anxious about school, but now I noticed that my anxiety has decreased because of those sheets. I read them over and was able to apply them to stuff I do in my daily life.

Also, its nice to just have someone to talk to. Of course, I have great friends and a wonderful boyfriend, but sometimes you need an unbiased person to just hear you out. Thats what I like the most about having a therapist. I can really see improvements and when I see it, its such a great feeling. -Kenosha from Maryland, in therapy for one year

The therapist told us this little tidbit that gave us the courage to make a life together.

Early in my relationship with my husband, I went to his therapist with him. He was worried about starting a new relationship with me because hed been divorced and didnt want to make the same mistakes.

We were (and are) very much in love and showed up holding hands and giddy with our delight in each other. The therapist told us this little tidbit that gave us the courage to make a life together: Love is liberating. It frees each of you to be your authentic selves.

And so, 27 years later we find ourselves still holding hands and free to be exactly who we were meant to be. We have both blossomed. -Katie from New Mexico, in therapy for one year at the time

One of the most significant lessons I learned was that my mom being emotionally abusive and neglectful wasnt because she didnt love me, but rather due to the emotional abuse she endured by her Holocaust-survivor parents during her own childhood, which led her to the toxic, verbally, emotionally and physically abusive relationship with my dad.

Ive learned a lot through therapy that has really helped me process the trauma that I endured my whole life, and those lessons have really allowed me to actually live and be OK with being my own person. -Rebecca from Philadelphia, in therapy for six years

Lucy Lambriex via Getty Images"Therapists offer and suggest trying new ways of coping, but the reality is that theyre not going to feel as good or work as well in the beginning. We have to give it time to work."

I learned that anger is a useful tool.It moves you to action. It shows whats important to you: You dont get angry about things you dont care about. And righteous anger can be very helpful to create real change.

I lose my temper fast and hard. I used to complain to my therapist all the time about this until she pointed a few things out. I almost always lose my temper standing up to a man who has treated me or women in general badly.

My anger has done a few things. Firstly, it challenged the man on his point of view (luckily Im articulate even in anger). Second: It made me stand up on behalf of women who dont feel as entitled to speak up as I do.

Lastly, it shows women who have been thoroughly gaslit and may not believe their own feelings that Im thinking the same thing as them and shouting it loudly. So, while I do need to work on my anger issues, I can recognize the positive aspects of it and be less angry with myself for my anger. -Mimi from South Africa, in therapy for 10 years

My biggest lightbulb moment was learning to never tell myself anything I wouldnt tell my best friend. I replaced negative self-talk and self-deprecation with positive self-talk and gratitude and my life hasnt been the same in the best way possible! -Cassandra from Maryland, in therapy for eight months

I struggle with anxiety and depression, and I dont know what other issues I have. I take rejection very hard, and I cant often get out of bed with the depression. I tended to see [things] from my perspective only. I learned not to take things personally. Often its not about you, but a whole lot of other factors. -Sonia from New York, in therapy for 15 years

Big_and_serious via Getty Images"My biggest lightbulb moment was learning to never tell myself anything I wouldnt tell my best friend."

When I met the Black woman therapist Im seeing now I asked her, Can you tell me what your definition of intersectionality is? She said, I cant quote the exact definitions, but what I do know is youre Black and youre queer and youre oppressed on both fronts, and my job is, how do I help you heal through both sides where youre oppressed? And she does, she just gets me.

For the past few years, Ive been dealing with imposter syndrome. Feeling that even when I make a huge accomplishment, I have to do something else to top that. And she challenged me asking: Do you think youre operating out of fear or operating out of faith? Do you believe that something good can happen to you, and you dont have to fear that it will be taken away?

The way I saw the world was jaded because of trauma, because of the unique family history that I have as a Black person in this world. She understands; she never shuts me down and she always gives me a new perspective. -Jon from California, in therapy for 14 years

Quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity.

Taking care of your mental health is critical but theres still a stigma about seeking therapy to manage your own wellbeing. In our series, This Could Help, well explore how to get started with therapy and fit it in to your life and your budget. Well answer the questions youve been wondering, and show you the ways therapy can benefit you and the people you love. Whether youre struggling or just want to make sure youre on the right track, support is available, and it really can help.

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7 People Share The Best Advice They Learned In Therapy - HuffPost Canada

HONG KONG From afar, the red brick sidewalk along Kings Road in Hong Kong appears to be covered with a mottled white carpet that stretches for dozens of yards. Closer up, the white reveals itself to be a mosaic made up of sheets of paper glued to the pavement, each featuring a bespectacled man with a self-confident smile.

The faces belong to Junius Ho, a local legislator, and this is not an election campaign gambit. It is a very public gesture of disdain.

In recent weeks, Mr. Hos image has been plastered on sidewalks and footbridges across the city, and its purpose is immediately apparent: to force pedestrians to walk on his face.

Hes human trash, said Stella Wong, 57, a school administrator as she gleefully tromped on Mr. Hos nose one recent afternoon. A teenage boy, dancing on his brow, spit out an expletive.

In a city roiled by months of protest and increasingly riven by political animus, Mr. Ho, 57, has emerged as one of its most polarizing public figures. A pro-China lawmaker whose rural constituency leans right, Mr. Ho gleefully antagonizes democracy advocates while emboldening those who favor a more hard-line government approach to the ongoing unrest.

His growing stature as a provocateur coincides with a new and potentially perilous chapter in Hong Kongs increasingly fraught political drama. The leadership invoked emergency powers for the first time on Friday by imposing a ban on face masks, standard gear for the protesters. After another round of violent clashes overnight, the city settled into an eerie quiet on Saturday, belying the undercurrent of anger over the governments decision.

Though Mr. Hos extreme positions are not shared by most pro-Beijing leaders in the city, he has become the standard-bearer of an incendiary brand of politics that has been gaining traction as the protests grow ever more violent. Such views could help reinforce the thinking of Chinese leaders who have largely misread the source of protesters anger, repeatedly underestimating the yearning for genuine democracy and the broader publics support for the movement.

Mr. Ho, who spent the politically important National Day last week celebrating with top leaders in the Chinese capital, has demonized the protesters as thugs, generously praised the citys embattled police force and openly advocates closer relations between Beijing and this semiautonomous city-state, which enjoys liberties unknown in mainland China.

He was also one of the earliest advocates of criminalizing the wearing of face masks during protests.

Why have so many young people forgotten their roots and ancestry and disavowed their Chinese identity? he asked during a recent interview with Global Times, a nationalistic, government-backed newspaper on the mainland. I hope people from both sides stop now and behave the way Chinese people should behave.

Mr. Ho certainly knows how to shock. He has called for advocates of Hong Kong independence to be killed without mercy, merrily welcomed intervention by Chinese troops to quell the unrest and uttered profanities against his political opponents in the Legislative Council.

Public rage against him mounted in late July, after a mob of men swinging wooden poles rampaged through a train station in Mr. Hos district, indiscriminately beating protesters, passengers and journalists, and leaving 45 injured. As the city was processing the spasm of violence, a video emerged of Mr. Ho glad-handing with the thugs and calling them heroes.

Mr. Ho said he was simply greeting his constituents, but he also suggested the perpetrators were trying only to protect their community from the maelstrom of political protest.

Guarding your homeland is a very basic thing, he said at a news conference he organized the next day, during which he pushed back against those who accused him of having a hand in the attack.

The demonstrations, prompted by a now-abandoned bill that would have allowed the extradition of criminal suspects to the mainland, have morphed into a cri de coeur against Beijing and its efforts to chip away at Hong Kongs hallowed freedoms. The leaderships decision to invoke emergency powers for its mask ban only heightened fears about the erosion of civil liberties, prompting more violent protests and clashes with the police on Friday night.

Though Hong Kongs chief executive, Carrie Lam, has refused to concede to demands of free elections and amnesty for detained protesters, she and other pro-Beijing moderates have nonetheless tried to soothe tensions by avoiding strident rhetoric and appealing for dialogue.

Mr. Ho does not seem to be interested in kumbayas.

The mainstream parties in the pro-Beijing camp still value civilized behavior, but Junius Ho doesnt care if he alienates people in the middle, said Ivan Choy, a political scientist at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

His political opponents are more blunt.

This is how Mao started the Cultural Revolution, said Claudia Mo, a pro-democracy lawmaker. Junius Ho is fanning the fires, which is unconscionable, but he seems to be seriously enjoying himself.

Eddie Chu, a liberal legislator, echoed the sentiments of those who view Mr. Ho as a local proxy for Chinas Communist Party, which regularly lionizes him in the state media as a defender of social harmony and Chinese dignity.

I wouldnt be surprised if we see more militant figures like Junius Ho in the next legislative council elections, he said.

Mr. Chu has had a firsthand taste of that militancy. Two days after the train station attack, he and Mr. Ho sat side by side on a television news program to discuss the incident. It did not go well.

The two men shouted over one another and Mr. Ho became especially enraged by Mr. Chus refusal to support a ban on future protests. The show ended abruptly after Mr. Ho pounded the table, ripped off his microphone and stormed away while calling his legislative colleague a profanity. Later that day, Mr. Ho issued what sounded to many like a death threat on Facebook.

Mr. Ho did not respond to interview requests by phone, email and text message. But since his election in 2016, he has avidly courted media attention, often by staking out contrarian positions on social issues like gay marriage (opposed) or by organizing rallies to support the adoption of patriotic loyalty tests for Hong Kong judges.

Mr. Ho has his defenders, especially among those of an older generation who tend to be more conservative. And he can reliably count on voters in so-called indigenous villages whose residents trace their roots back generations. Robert Chow, a former journalist who leads the group Silent Majority, said Mr. Ho gave voice to those too afraid to openly express their love for China.

Junius is a patriot who gives people hope, he said.

The son of a police officer who became wealthy off land deals, Mr. Ho grew up in the New Territories, a large, lush expanse adjacent to the mainland that has faced issues with organized crime. After earning a law degree in the United Kingdom, he returned home to join his brothers law firm. He says he is a Christian, and the part owner of an Australian-bred racehorse named Hong Kong Bet.

Mr. Ho is wildly popular across the border, with nearly 800,000 followers on Sina Weibo, Chinas equivalent of Twitter. His followers on Twitter, which is blocked in China, number fewer than 300.

Mr. Hos ascension to the Hong Kong legislature was not without intrigue; he won his seat three years ago after a rival candidate dropped out at the last minute, claiming he had received death threats from men he described as mainlanders.

Among those Mr. Ho thanked after his victory was the central liaison office, the Chinese government headquarters in Hong Kong.

During a recent visit to Tai Wan Tsuen, an indigenous village adjacent to the station where the July attacks took place, many people were uninterested in talking about politics or Mr. Ho. Several claimed they were out of town or sick in bed the night of the bloodshed, though a few defended the attackers. One man, stepping out of his house for a cigarette, quietly praised Mr. Ho.

He represents those who stay silent, he said.

Mr. Hos antagonists have been anything but silent. In the days after the train station violence, attackers ransacked his district office and vandalized his parents graves. A few days later, the citys Lands Department said the tombs violated zoning rules and suggested that Mr. Ho could be forced to excavate his parents remains and reinter them in a smaller plot.

Two weeks ago, the Hong Kong Jockey Club canceled Wednesday night races after word spread that Mr. Hos horse was set to run and protesters threatened to besiege the iconic racetrack. Mr. Hos response, perhaps tongue in cheek, framed the cancellation as a violation of his horses right to gallop. Animals have their basic rights too, he told reporters.

Still, the recent blowbacks appear to have left him undaunted. Late last month, Mr. Ho organized volunteers to clean up some of the citys so-called Lennon Walls, the agglomeration of Post-it notes and posters that are a hallmark of Hong Kongs pro-democracy movement.

And earlier this week, amid public outrage over the police shooting of an 18-year-old protester, Mr. Ho made it clear that he not sympathetic. We dont know whether those madmen are students or just thugs, he said of the young protesters during a Facebook live video he broadcast from Beijing, but all of them have been seriously brainwashed.

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A Provocateur of the Hong Kong Protests Gains Growing Stature - The New York Times

SCOTTISH artists are being given the freedom to fail in a unique new project. The initiative is allowing them to work with others from four different countries on the topic of failure.

Called Push+, it is funded by Creative-Europe, the European Unions programme supporting the cultural, creative and audiovisual sectors.

The project is being led by Imaginate, the national organisation in Scotland for the promotion, development and celebration of theatre and dance for children and young people.

Our society, including the arts sector, is not usually very supportive of failure yet to be successful at anything you need the right to fail, said Imaginates creative development director Fiona Ferguson.

A year of activity around the initiative has begun with a Failure Lab in Belgium where three artists who are based in Scotland, have been working with 12 artists from Belgium, Norway, Ireland and Denmark during a 10-day residency.

READ MORE:The Monster and Mary Shelly tours Scotland to mark 200 years

The Scots include dancer and theatre maker Emma Jayne Park, from Gretna, who told the National she felt the topic was particularly important at the moment.

Society is failing more visibly than I have ever experienced and we are living in a capitalist system where people now seek to profit from our feelings of failure just look at the self-help and mindfulness industry, she said. Very few people are managing to get by with the impact of austerity and current political chaos.

I feel the topic is experiencing a bit of a zeitgeist moment because a lot of people feel like they are failing chronically which is exacerbating the current mental health crisis.

Park said she had always had a strong relationship with failure and had unknowingly been exploring it in her work for years from her failing body in Its Not Over Yet, which documents her remission from Hodgkins Lymphoma, to Experts In Short Trousers which gave five-year-olds the opportunity to show they are experts in their world who should maybe be listened to more.

Now, she said, she wants to use failure explicitly as a subject matter.

As a freelancer, there is a lot of scope to feel like you are failing the whole time, said Park.

The arts are under resourced and, in order to survive, gatekeepers often try to move with trends, find the next big thing, or squeeze budgets which perpetuates the narrative that working in the arts should be competitive. You have to work quickly, self-promote and self-sustain.

Without potential for a regular income, there is ongoing pressure to make ends meet whilst aspiring to a work/life balance. You can also be subjected to a lot of criticism that does not recognise the different constraints being juggled you can pour your heart and soul into something on a very small budget and it will be reviewed to the same standard as a work with a budget of 100,000.

Park added: Unfortunately, I believe the greatest currency in society and the arts at present is the ability to overwork. Those who cant work excessively struggle to move forward unless they are privileged in other ways such as financially or through being part of pre-established networks. If you are from a working class background or have health care needs, it is very difficult to keep up.

I am interested in how we create our own expectations, work to avoid imposing failure on others and recognise that being average is a pretty good place to be because it is the seemingly small things that add up to a quality of a life.

Park said her participation in the Failure Lab would contribute to research for three pieces of performance she hopes to make in 2021.

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European theatre and dance combine in project to tackle the fear of failure - The National

Joaquin Phoenix attends the premiere of Joker in Los Angeles, Calif., September 28, 2019.(Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)The moralistic busybodies were wrong in the Eighties. Theyre wrong today.

When it comes to bad ideas, theres always room at the bottom.

Conservatives used to exasperatedly observe of gun-grabbing Democrats, Imagine how theyd complain if someone tried to treat the First Amendment the way they treat the Second Amendment!

Hold my cappuccino, says Andrew Marantz of The New Yorker. Writing in the New York Times under the headline Free Speech Is Killing Us and Marantz argues that is literally true he argues that the gun-control program should be taken as a template for a speech-control program. He has come to this conclusion, he writes, after having spent the past few years embedding as a reporter with the trolls and bigots and propagandists. Some reporters are embedded in Afghanistan, and some are embedded on Twitter, which is a great place to be embedded in that you can do it while you are literally embedded, at home, in bed. The thing to understand, I suppose, is that this is a war story.

Marantzs argument is drearily predictable. He writes that he does not want to repeal the First Amendment and then makes a case for gutting it, mired in vagueness (foreswearing the position of the free-speech absolutist but offering no controlling principle) with a great deal of not obviously plausible dot-connecting, and then moves on to what this is really about: an enemies list, in this case beginning with Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos, a couple of attention-hungry entrepreneurial charlatans who always have been and always will be found at the margins of public life. He offers many infinitely plastic pretexts under which speech to which he objects might be suppressed, among them equality, safety, and robust democratic participation. He also proposes government subsidies for the kind of speech of which he approves, having discovered that the Constitution prevents the government from using sticks, but it says nothing about carrots, which surely would be news to the nations religiously affiliated schools, among others.

Marantz is the author of a book about online extremists, because the guy who proposes gutting the Bill of Rights is worried about extremism.

The x might plausibly encourage y argument against free speech has been with us for a very long time. It was the basis for the persecution of heretics in the Christian world, the censorship that John Milton criticized in the 17th century, the suppression of war protesters in the United States (the legal justification of which is the origin of the ubiquitous fire in a crowded theater trope), and the effort to censor and marginalize rap music in the 1980s, a project that brought to public prominence a woman called Tipper Gore, at the time Mrs. Al. Mrs. Gores name became, for a generation, the national shorthand for prudish blue-rinsed tight-assery allied to scheming political opportunism. She was a figure of fun, loathed by all right-thinking people.

But Tipper Goreism, like the poor, syphilis, and usury, we shall always have with us.

Director Todd Phillips has made a kind of superhero movie, Joker, which forgoes the usual tights-and-tights comic-book formula to tell a different kind of story, a psychologically realistic account of the interaction of loneliness, despair, poverty, and cruelty. Surprisingly for what is, at after, a species of Batman film, it was awarded the Leone dOro for best film at the Venice Film Festival,and Joaquin Phoenixs nomination for an Academy Award for his performance already is generally assumed.

But we live in philistine times, and the mob demands that art serve them. For that reason, film, television, literature, music, and much else is subjected to a standard of social utilitarianism, meaning that they are not judged on aesthetic criteria but for their value as propaganda, moral instruction, or therapy. Therapeutic notions are at the moment especially prevalent; that is why press criticism of Game of Thrones, to take one example, dealt with questions of demographic representation to the exclusion of almost everything else.

And so Joker is challenged on its fitness for the present political moment, as Sam Adams puts it in Slate. Is this really the time for a story about a frustrated, alienated white man who turns to violence? he asks. Of course it is, which is why there are at least five productions of Coriolanus under way, and the bestsellers lists are full of worked about frustrated, alienated white men who turn to violence strangely, no one criticizes Margaret Atwood on those grounds. (What, The Handmaids Tale and The Testaments arent about frustrated, violent white guys?) Joker is in fact now criticized on the grounds of empathy, or at least suspicion of empathy. Because our point of empathy in the film is Phoenixs troubled Arthur,Jokerbasically dodges the question of whether were supposed to read his acts of violence as redemptive or abhorrent, three (!) authors write in the Hollywood Reporter. The filmmakers, in this view, leave themselves open to such charges of irresponsibility. The New York Times complains:

Joker is also causing deep unease. Some people, including a few rank-and-file employees on the Warner Bros. lot, worry that the violent, hyper-realistic movie is potentially dangerous that rather than critiquing the societal failings that have given rise to Americas mass-shooter crisis, the film legitimizes such atrocities and could provoke more of them.

In much the same way that the left-wing cultural vanguard that once presented itself as the check on and alternative to corporate power immediately embraced corporate power upon getting its first real taste of it (the Left now is quite satisfied to deputize the HR departments of the Fortune 500 as guardians of political discipline), its members have grown friendlier to suppression of many kinds and more hostile to heterodoxy as their power has grown. Conservative critics of the National Endowment for the Arts once were treated to smug little homilies about how art is supposed to be transgressive, to challenge us, to make us uncomfortable, etc., and now we are treated to smug little sermonettes about the dangerous creation of films that cause deep unease among certain people who work at Warner Bros. or write for Slate or teach at Oberlin. (Arent those exactly the powerful people were supposed to want our art to make uncomfortable?) Reagan-era progressives scoffed when Tipper Gore and her allied church ladies panicked that the rise of rap music would turn Americas streets into a blood-drenched warzone (hip-hop cultures eventual triumphant occupation of the commanding heights of pop in fact coincided with a dramatic decline in violent crime in the United States) or that Ozzy Osbourne songs were turning sweet towheaded kids in the suburbs into dope fiends and satanic little cannibals, or that violent video games were going to leave the real world looking like Grand Theft Auto. (It was enjoyable to remember the video-game panic when watching Ralph Breaks the Internet, in which the GTA ethos is revealed as being so neutered and rehabilitated that it is embodied by Gal Gadot, whose lines might well have been cribbed from self-help manuals.) Power changes everything.

The moralistic busybodies were wrong in the Eighties. Theyre wrong today. They deserved the contempt they received then. They deserve it now. The difference is that free speech and heterodoxy used to have allies in such venues as The New Yorker and the New York Times, where both political and artistic freedom now have so many enemies. But I understand that retro-Eighties nostalgia is hot right now. If were going to bring back big hair and shoulder pads, we may as well resuscitate the public career of Tipper Gore, last seen skulking around Democratic fundraising circles at the junior-varsity level. Perhaps we could bring back Johnny Carson and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation while were at it.

And maybe we can find someone to speak for the cause of art that declines to be subordinated to anybodys political agenda, current social-improvement projects, the tender sensibilities of critics at the New York Times, or the increasingly baroque rules of etiquette that organizes the lives of New Yorker readers as they sway in the wind like a field of ripe corn.

Nuclear annihilation remains the safer bet, but one may still dream.

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Everybody Is Tipper Gore Now - National Review

CultureTVThe BBC2 sitcom expertly deconstructs traditional representations of motherhood, only to lazily cast its characters as school-run Mean Girls

Saturday, 5th October 2019, 07:00 am

Child-rearing has long been irresistible to comedy writers who like to use vomit-stained clothing and curdled sex lives as shorthand for the daily grind. But lately we have seen comedy dramas setting aside gentle farce in favour of something grittier, with the focus shifting towards mothers.

The series gleefully washes its hands of the stereotypes peddled by ye olde sitcoms such as 2point4 Children and My Family, in which the mother is the fulcrum of the family, consigned to standing serenely over a cooker.

It takes a similarly dim view of the concept of having it all a fallacy dreamt up by self-help gurus and glossy magazines that serves to make women, and in particular working mothers, feel as if they are failing.

Instead, it follows the seat-of-the-pants existence of Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin) as she juggles two children, a job in PR and events, and a largely absent partner. For Julia, being a parent is less the pinnacle of female achievement than a test of endurance, during which just getting through the day without anyone dying is a victory.

Thus, in the opening episode, we see Julia racing to buy school shoes on the last day of the holidays, only to find the shelves empty save for a pair of baby shoes and some kitten heels. At the school gate, Julia listens in to fellow parents summer holiday adventures, noting that she had to send her kids to seven different sports clubs, which they absolutely hated. But on a positive, theyre now county level at badminton.

'Motherlands masterstroke lies in skewering the myth of the saintly mother'

We also see her scowl at newcomer Meg (Tanya Moodie), who has just moved into the house opposite. With her brace of children, successful career and sunny disposition, Meg appears to have it all worked out. She cant be a high-flyer and have five kids, Julia carps. Ive got two children and a job I phone in and I already have incredibly low self-esteem. Who does she think she is? Nicola Horlick?

It is here, in addressing competitive middle-class parenting, that Motherland falls down slightly. While the series expertly captures the cycle of panic that balancing kids and work can entail, less edifying is the way it pits women against one another. If its not Julia taking potshots at strangers, its Lucy Punchs cartoonishly coiffed mega-mum looking down her nose at her less glamorous acolytes.

While its one thing to draw attention to the divisions at the school gates related to class and differing family set-ups (among the social outcasts is blunt-talking single mum Liz, played by Diane Morgan), its another to lazily cast them as school-run Mean Girls.

More heartening is that Horgan and co clearly feel no compulsion to make their protagonists likeable. While the popular girls versus scruffy outsider tropes are tiresome, all the characters scheme and manipulate to make their lives easier, or themselves look good.

Motherlands masterstroke lies in skewering the myth of the saintly mother and showing us that atrocious behaviour is by no means the preserve of children.

'Motherland' returns to BBC2 on Monday 7 October at 10pm

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Motherland brilliantly skewers the myth of the perfect parent but does it need to pit women against each other? - iNews

Its officially fall. And as a psychiatrist on a college campus, I find that Im only getting busier this time of year. It makes sense that fall brings up a lot of feelings like stress and anticipation of new beginnings for a lot of peoplewhether or not its their first year of college. Adjusting from summer back to the grind of college life can be hard, to say the least.

College, in general, can be a baffling emotional roller coaster, but these years also hold so much opportunity for exploring, accepting, and loving who you are and where youre headedeven when it doesnt feel like it. To help you through those moments, heres a list of seemingly small things you can do to feel a little better when youre in school. I recommend these tips often in my conversations with patients. I hope they help you just the same.

Heres something I see all the time: Someone comes into my office feeling anxious because they definitely failed the test they just took while everyone else looked like it was so easy. This is an example of what experts call a cognitive distortion, or basically jumping to a (usually negative) conclusion without sufficient evidence. A lot of people think theyre the only ones struggling while everyone else sails through life. This can make it feel like you need to pretend everything is perfect even when its not.

In my ideal world, everyone would admit when things are hard so it would be clear that we all struggle sometimes. But that doesnt help you right now, so Ill instead suggest that you challenge thoughts like I definitely failed that test and everyone else clearly aced it so easily. It may seem obvious, but stopping to really analyze a thought like this can help you believe it less.

First, write down whatever thought is stressing you out, like that you failed an exam while everyone else got an A. Then try to come up with a list of evidence supporting the thought (I skipped a bunch of questions, I didnt study that last chapter) and evidence against that thought (I did study for hours, though, I actually cant know how well anyone else did). Then ask yourself again how likely it is that your original thought holds water.

As an extra step, try being vulnerable enough to run these stressful thoughts past people you trust (friends, family, a significant other, your therapist). This will usually reinforce that your original thought isnt true, or even if it is, remind you that youll be okay.

Have you ever scrolled through your exs Instagram at 1 a.m. and felt...a lot of things that you couldnt quite name? Maybe a confusing mix of anger, sadness, grief, and even a little gratitude that you no longer have to workshop their hilarious punny captions?

Not having the words to name your emotions is more common than you might think. It can be particularly hard to figure this out in college when youre feeling a lot of things you might not have felt before thanks to your new, probably pretty stressful situation. This is why some therapists teach patients how to name their feelings using emotion wheels, which depict core feelings like happy and sad in the middle, then move outward into associated feelings like optimistic or fragile.

Whenever you feel like your emotions are out of control, look up an emotion wheel online (or grab the copy youll print out after youre done reading this, right?). Starting with the core feelings and then the associated feelings or vice versa, try to name your emotions. Honestly, this can feel a bit silly at first. But exploring your emotions this way allows you to acknowledge, better cope with, and maybe even understand the meaning behind how you feel.

You can also make a habit of journaling every time you use your emotion wheel. Not only can this help with processing your emotions and problem solving in the moment, but you may also begin to notice patterns you would have missed otherwise.

Just as your feelings are valid, they are also often temporary. This can be hard to believe when youre feeling the heat of an emotional firestorm because you didnt get into the one class you were most excited to take this semester, so now everything feels like its going to be awfulbut its true. Here are some concrete ways to remind yourself that this too shall pass:

I know, I know: Youve heard this one before. But I promise that things really can look and feel different after you sleep.

As someone who went to med school, I completely understand the temptation to pull all-nighters in college. Sometimes it feels like that's the only possible way to get everything done (and done perfectly, at that). That's especially true if you're the first in your family to go to college, you or your family have taken out a lot of loans to get you through school, you have anxiety, you did poorly on a previous paper or test, or anything else that might make you feel especially pressured to succeed.

Still, I can't tell you how many sleep-deprived patients I've seen who feel significantly better physically and mentally when they start getting healthy amounts of sleep. When you're sleep-deprived, you're more prone to physical and mental illnesses, and it's a lot harder to juggle school, your social life, and everything else on your plate. You might not even notice how much a lack of sleep is impacting you until you start sleeping well again. Given the choice between one more hour of studying and sleep, I would choose sleep every time. Of course, sometimes a medical issue like anxiety can prevent you from getting the sleep you need, so be sure to see a doctor if you think thats the case for you.

This is somewhat related to the sleeping advice above, but its important enough to deserve special attention.

I fully understand that it can feel like taking a study break is a waste of time that will derail your day and leave you scrambling to catch up. With that said, its actually really important to incorporate study breaks into your schedule. It might feel like those extra 15 minutes of reading will make or break your grade, but when youre burned out or have just been doing something for too long, youre not learning or working at your full capacity. Giving your brain a rest will allow you to focus and absorb material even better the next time you get back to it. If you dont think youll remember to stop and take a break, setting PUT DOWN THE FLASH CARDS FOR A SEC reminders on your phone might help.

It might seem as though you need to have your whole life path figured out the second you set foot on campus. Ive seen many people believe this and wind up two years into, say, an engineering major without ever stopping to question if they remotely like engineering.

This can be unhealthy for so many reasons. You can end up doing something unfulfilling because you already invested a lot of time and energy into studying it, or you can feel like doing poorly on one test means your entire life plan is now ruined. On the other hand, you might feel upset and aimless because it seems like everyone else knows exactly what they want to do in life while youre still unsure.

In reality, college is all about change and questioning whats right for you. You dont have to have it all figured out at the start of school (or at the end, either). Be open to experimentation. Take the ceramics class that has piqued your interest even if you were always into math. Check out every booth at the club fair even if youre pretty sure the college newspaper is calling your name.

If you happen to arrive at the same place you started (e.g., you came in pre-med and still want to go to med school), youll likely feel like that decision is even stronger for having tested it. If I didnt question my goal to be a psychiatrist multiple times at basically every stage of my education, I truly believe I wouldnt know that Im doing what I want to doand for the right reasons.

You might worry about burdening others with your problems, but supporting you is in your friends and familys job description. And if it ever feels like you need more help than a loved one can handle, thats okay too. Nothing is wrong with seeking out that extra support.

Most campuses have a student health center that has mental health providers. These centers often have some sort of screening process to figure out what the best resources are for you and, to some degree, assess your level of urgency. They might recommend that you see a therapist for talk therapy, see a psychiatrist like me for a medication evaluation, or give group therapy a try. If youre having thoughts of harming yourself or someone else, please skip the counseling center and go straight to the emergency room or call 911.

If the wait list to see someone on campus is long (which can happen due to limited resources, especially during busy times of the year like midterms or finals), you can ask the center if they have recommendations for community mental health resources. Most college counseling centers keep a list of off-campus providers that is often more up to date than what insurance companies have on file (though they can be helpful too). Psychology Today is also a great resource because you can search for mental health experts using filters like your insurance plan if you have one and any main issues you want to discuss, like depression. (Heres more information about finding mental health support in college.)

I know the stigma around talking to someone like me can be very real, especially when the cultural message is that college should be the best years of your life. I promise you that it can be utterly normal to find college overwhelming, difficult, and disorienting. Reach out to us. We want to help. You don't have to be having your worst week ever or be doing poorly in school or avoiding your social life to ask for help. Just like you would want to prevent the flu by getting a flu shot, mental health support can be preventive too. Don't just wait for a crisis to reach out.

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7 Little Ways to Deal With the Emotional Roller Coaster That Is College - Self

Deborah Sengupta Stith

SaturdayOct5,2019at2:24PMOct5,2019at2:33PM

In the early afternoon, while crowds were still arriving for day two of Austin City Limits Festival, a small crowd gathered in a shady patch of grass near the wine grove for a session hosted by Gwyneth Paltrow's high end wellness brand, Goop. Paltrow was not on site and no one was on hand to peddle hundred dollar skin care products or yoni eggs. Instead we were invited to welcome "clean energy" into our bodies with breathwork and easy movement.

We stretched and swayed and envisioned our breath carrying life force through our bodies.

Sometimes the inward focus our gentle leader encouraged was difficult to maintain with upbeat rap music from the Q brothers on the nearby Kiddie Limits stage and disinterested tweens staking their spots for the 2 p.m. Billie Eilish session on the Bonus scattered through the crowd, but for the most mindful of fest-goers it was a welcome escape from the frenetic energy of the festival at large.

We imagined our bodies as "vessels of light" ready to shine bright through the blazing heat of the afternoon sun.

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No Gwyneth, but good vibes at Goop meditation session - austin360

CEDAR PARK, TX It's easy to become overwhelmed in the hustle and bustle of today's society. For many, dealing with day-to-day challenges pose very real consequences that disrupt mental and physical wellness and finding meaningful ways to disconnect may be met with difficulty. There are, however, helpful ways to regain focus and mental clarity. Requiring little more than patience and time, meditation is a valuable tool used to yield positive effects and benefits.

Meditation is the practice of training the mind toward a frame of consciousness tied to a specific benefit. While meditation isn't easily mastered, research shows the relaxation response attained through the practice of meditating offers results including:

As a community service, Learn to Meditate will offer a community service event with its Meditation for Beginners Class offered Saturday, Oct. 12 from 1 p.m. - 3 p.m. at 201 S. Bell Blvd., Suite 104, Cedar Park, TX 78613.

The beginners class teaches the basics of meditation for understanding and self-realization and is free and open to the public. For more information, please click HERE.

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Beginners Learn Basics And Benefits Of Meditation - Patch.com

Churches that use the revised common lectionary will likely read from the ancient prophet Habakkuk this weekend during worship.

The passage begins: O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you Violence! and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. (Habakkuk 1: 2-3)

This passage was on my mind this week when I attended a chapel service led by a group of impassioned students at a local Christian high school.

The theme of the service centered on care of Gods creation, and the students shared their concerns for the future of our planet. They also showed a short clip from Swedish teenager Greta Thunbergs address to the United Nations Climate Action Summit last week. In it, Thunberg took world leaders to task for the prioritizing economic expansion over environmental preservation. During her comments, she stridently said, How dare you! to a room full of adults whom she sees as passive in the face of a climate crisis. I cannot help but hear Habakkuks cry How long, O Lord? in Thunbergs appeal for action.

After Thunbergs public comments, many dismissed and attempted to discredit her, calling her disturbed and obsessed. For centuries, the same has been said about those who share a prophetic witness.

Habakkuk was disturbed and railed against what he perceived as Gods passiveness in the face of violence and wrongdoing. Yet, in the midst of frustration and dismay, the prophet recommitted to waiting for God to answer his cries for help. When God responded, Habakkuk was instructed to write the vision and make it plain so that all could see and understand what would one day be. God even assured the discouraged prophet that his patience would be rewarded. Habakkuks anger and anxiety turned into trust in Gods promises.

Thunberg shared honest and forthright grief about the environmental violence she sees being committed. Yet, she also shared a vision of hope. She gave voice to anger and sadness at the complacency of world leaders and begged them to make positive change. She confessed that she holds out a hope that they will be moved to action and refuses to believe that the adults who hear her will succumb to the evil of inaction.

This is similar to where Habakkuk lands. Despite his lingering questions and difficulties, he ends his complaint with praise of God singing: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength. (Habakkuk 3: 18-19) We are called to do the same.

I, too, will rejoice. I rejoice in the prophetic witness of impassioned young people who challenge adults out of complacency. I celebrate faithful witnesses to the goodness of Gods creation. And, I delight in the steadfast example of all the righteous who live simply by faith.

May we all have the courage to share a message of Gods love for creation through our words and our deeds.

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MEDITATION: Share a message of God's love for creation - Hickory Daily Record