Ecstatic Gathering

You strengthen your entire relationship

When you meet someone, fall in love, and start a relationship, it is very exciting. But over time you get used to your partner, and the excitement declines. But if you do something exciting (novel and challenging) with your partner, that excitement gets associated with the partner and relationship.

You may have better sex, too

Vacation sex is real, you guys. Simply put, being in a new bed in a new place is very freeing, so you're more likely to open your mind and ~experiment~ than you are when you're wrapped up in your routine.

In fact, a survey from the U.S. Travel Association found that couples who travel together have better "sexual relationships" than those who don't. And 72% of the 1,100 people surveyed reported that going on an adventure together "inspires" their romance. Which should kind of inspire you to book your next ticket, no?

You learn how to be still together

Chances are, if you live in a big urban area, your dates are often surrounded by people and noise. Even when you have a "quiet night in" to watch a movie, you're probably still also texting, checking Instagram, and ordering Seamless. But when you're traveling together, you may not even have access to Wi-Fi, soooo ... then what? You learn how you operate as a couple when you have literally no one to talk to but each other.

Maybe you both start singing. Maybe you make up ridiculous road trip games or look for shapes in clouds. Or maybe you just smile at each other, knowing that you're both lost in your own thoughts and daydreams and you don't want to verbalize them at that moment, and that's totally okay. These are the things you only learn when you don't have your everyday routine to stand in your way.

And you learn like, really learn what your partner truly loves to do.

Perhaps your significant other loves nothing more than waking up at the crack of dawn and taking photos of the sunrise. Or maybe your S.O. is more of a history buff, and really gets into the stories behind all the places you're seeing.

Yes, you can learn such things when you're at home. Of course, you can. But traveling together 24/7 puts your and your partner's interests and passions directly on display. After all, it's just you guys no friend dates, no job to go to during the day, no yoga classes at night so you're better able to observe him or her in a totally unfiltered, purest-of-the-pure way. This is bae, NO CHASER.

You discover each other's hidden talents.

You find out where your partner falls on the planning spectrum.

Is your partner a planner in advancer? A wing-it person? Or somewhere in the middle? You will definitely find out. Between all of the booking of things and the Googling and Yelping of places, you will learn just how much your partner likes to plan, and ~just~ how much he or she likes to fly by the seat of his pants.

You learn how your partner handles emergencies and also how you handle them together.

When you're adventuring together, crisis situations think flat tires, food poisoning, and accidental detours inevitably pop up. The silver lining is that you can actually learn a ton about how you two will handle problems in life-based on how you handle these dilemmas.

You discover how you react as a team when things don't go your way.

So maybe your Airbnb turned out to be horrifying, or you got food poisoning and had to skip out on that hike you were going to do (or, in my case, that plane I was going to take home). Do you and/or your partner get all mad and grudgy, or do you get drunk at the airport bar?

And you learn how you both behave when you're out of your comfort zones altogether.

Maybe your partner is Ms. Confident when she's at home with her friends, eating her food, and doing her job. But you won't really ever know the full her until you've seen her outside of her world, in a culture that's not her own.

Without fail, placing yourselves in a new environment will help you see how accepting your partner is when faced with things he or she may not comprehend. If you want to be sure you are dating someone who is tolerant, not intolerant, of others, this is your moment. Your partner's True Self the beautiful and/or the ugly is most likely to come out when he or she is out in the unknown.

You learn about each others' money habits.

This one's a biggie. There is no better time to truly get an inside peek into how your partner handles finances than when you're on the road. After all, you not only see exactly where they're choosing to place the majority of their vacation budget food, hostels, booze, shopping, etc. but you also see how careful they are with the money they do have.

Do they question taxi drivers when it's clear they're ripping you off, or let it go? Do they haggle at markets? Do they try to find the best value for the money, or just kind of coast along and not really put too much thought into it? It's important to have an understanding of how your partner handles money and how you handle it together so pay attention.

You smile and laugh and kiss and jump for joy more often than you can possibly imagine.

You will crack up on the dance floor when you try to actually dance, you will smile at each other as you shove street food in your face, and you will try not to laugh at the guy next to you who is hoarding a whole bunch of peanut butter packets from the continental breakfast.

But you will fail because if there is anything you've learned along the way, it's that you love laughing together, and there is nothing you can or will do to ever change that.

You learn that, if you're with the right person, it doesn't even matter where you're going all the time because you're actually already there.

When you're on a trip, it's all too easy to get caught up in the itinerary, the must-sees, the attractions. But the best part about traveling with your S.O. is that you enjoy being around them so much, you know it'll be a fun adventure wherever you go including right there where you are.

And you feel confident that all of the lessons you learn on the road together will translate to your everyday life.

Despite, or perhaps because of, all the mishaps and delays and annoying flight attendants and whatever else, you still come out on top and you feel closer than ever before. And you know that if you can not only get through a trip together but have an amazing time in the process, you truly can get through anything.

buzzfeed.com

The philosopher Heraclitus said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” It speaks to our changing needs. We get older and recalibrate. We overcome and triumph.

Yet we are remarkably blind to some problems. They seem immune to progress. They mutate and grow. You smack them down. Years later, they reemerge another crumbling relationship, a second career crossroads, an elusive sense of contentment. You are left wondering, “Have I learned nothing?” And this is why our search for these truths should never end.
The search for definition should never end

There’s a famous story about Abraham Wald. He was a brilliant physicist from the early 20th century. He was hired by the Allies during World War II. They were sending bombers into battle over Germany and too many were being shot down.

They’d decided to add more armor to the planes but could only add a small amount due to the weight. Their fundamental question was, “Where do we add the armor?” They presented Abraham with the data. The drawings showed where all the returning planes had taken the most damage. There was a density of damage on the outer wings and hull. They’d proposed adding armor there.

Fast forwarding the story, Wald realized their logic was wrong. They were only using data from the returning planes. So just by virtue of those planes returning, the damage to those areas was non-critical. They should add armor where planes took the least damage because planes that took damage there never returned. This insight fundamentally changed military research and saved thousands of lives.

This story has deeper implications in our own lives. Wald identified the human tendency to define the wrong problems and solve them. For example, when partners are acting out when friendships are breaking down, people tend to villainize the other person. They forget that behavior is an expression of a problem, not the problem itself. They resort to finger-pointing and blame-gaming.

The act of analyzing and examining assumptions is what makes solutions appear in plain sight. It’s as Einstein said, “If I had an hour to save the world, I’d spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.” Stay in search of the clearest definition of your life’s problems.
The search for your truth should never end

I’ll never forget the vein on the side of her forehead. It bulged as she leaped from her chair, shouting, “Six months? You’ve been paying them overtime for six months!”

Our CFO was brimming with fire and fury. Her target was a soft-spoken project manager, Louis, who calmly and defensively held his hands up, “I told you we had these men on site several times. I told everyone in this room. Why are we just now acting surprised?”

We’d spent a half-million dollars on overtime for our field workers. Ten of us sat in the beautifully designed, dimly lit meeting room. The shouting continued before our CFO stormed out of the room, the door slamming behind her.

Louis wasn’t on my team, but I remembered him telling the CFO about the overtime months prior. It was she who’d forgotten. It was she who was now bypassing blame and putting on a show for the other managers. This was just another day in our turbulent office.

They often talk about ‘the moment’ in a relationship, the moment you know it has to end. It finally hits and there’s an unmistakable sense of finality. With my finance career — this shouting session was that moment. The decision was emotional much like it is with a failing relationship. It was the death of 10 years of effort and education. It was the dissipation of certainty, of a known future. But like most breakups, this moment had long been crawling to fruition. And on the other side, was a future I’d forgotten I deserved.

I’ve found that there is no running from who you are. When things don’t feel right, it reflects a lack of alignment in your life. Who you are and what you are doing is no longer compatible.

I’ve since made a rule that I’d never, ever, stay in a job that made me miserable. No amount of money or glory would change that fact. I’m approaching 40. My family members are getting older. The finitude of life has never felt more apparent. Time spent unhappy is an abject waste. Never stop searching for your true path. Even if you never find it, it's better to die searching than to have never looked at all.
The great tragedy of boredom

On his deathbed, Winston Churchill famously uttered his last words, “I’m just so bored of it all.” Even in his final moments, he was penning famous lines. Yet those words are only fitting. Researchers have found that boredom serves an all-important purpose: it’s your body identifying better uses of your time. What you are doing no longer has its place.

A part of me dies when I hear people complaining about being bored. Adulthood became this time-crunched, suffocating experience for so many years before I escaped. The idea of giving even a minute to boredom seems perverse. There will come a day when each of us knows our time on this earth is limited, and we’ll never look back wishing we’d sat around wondering what to do.

Read a book. Have a conversation. Go for a walk. Even when boredom seems warranted, make use of that time. For example, the average man gets bored of shopping after 26 minutes. I’ve always tried to be patient with my partner during those moments. I usually find a comfortable chair to sit in and read. I figure it’s an easy way to build up some good boyfriend currency. Never stop searching for rewarding uses of your time.

Remember, your time, energy, and happiness are worthy priorities. Your search for truth should never end.
Recap for memory: Always search for these three things
The most accurate definition of your problems. Behavior is an expression of a problem, not the cause of it. Look past the noise and your own bias.
Your true path in life. Everyone is deserving of a rewarding career and a happy relationship. It isn’t too much to ask of the universe.
The best and most meaningful use of your time. Boredom is a painfully wasteful use of your talents.

medium.com

Noel Gallagher has said he sometimes regrets not playing Oasis‘ final show, suggesting that “it would have been a mad gig”.

The band broke up in 2009 following a backstage bust-up just minutes before they were due to go on stage and headline Paris’ Rock En Seine.

Speaking in a new interview, Noel who quit the band then and there and has been estranged from his brother and bandmate Liam ever since – said he believes the war of words would have continued on stage and turned into a “mad gig”.

“We were getting pissed and fighting and then me going: ‘Fuck it, I’m going home, fuck off!'” Gallagher told the Daily Star (via ContactMusic).

“With the benefit of time, I don’t know whether it would have been better to stay and do the gig which would have been like a monumental, mad fucking Oasis gig because the fight would have carried on to the stage, maybe not the physical fighting but the verbals between us. It would have been a mad gig.”

He added: “Sometimes I think: ‘I wish I had the memory of that gig.’ That would have been the way to go out. But it had to happen.”

During a 2011 press conference for his debut solo album, ‘Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Noel claimed tensions heightened between the pair after Liam had “demanded” his clothing label Pretty Green had an advert in the band’s tour program and the pair had a “massive row” about it.

“I’d never had enough of Oasis – I’d had enough of him,” Noel said at the time. “It started to unravel when he started his clothing label and he demanded that in the Oasis tour program he be allowed to advertise. And I didn’t think it was right for him to be flogging his gear to our fans. There was a massive row about it. It slowly went downhill after that.”

Meanwhile, Liam and Noel Gallagher have reportedly registered a joint film production company.

The estranged brothers are said to have set up a firm called Kosmic Kyte via Companies House which is for “motion picture production activities”.

(nme.com)

What was once a practice for a centered few has now become mainstream American: According to a survey last year by Yoga Journal, today more than 15 million U.S. adults practice yoga, and not surprisingly, there is research supporting its physical benefits. Studies show the practice—which combines stretching and other exercises with deep breathing and meditation—can improve overall physical fitness, strength, flexibility, and lung capacity while reducing heart rate, blood pressure, and back pain.

But what is perhaps unknown to those who consider yoga just another exercise form is that there is a growing body of research documenting yoga's psychological benefits. Several recent studies suggest that yoga may help strengthen social attachments, reduce stress and relieve anxiety, depression, and insomnia. Researchers are also starting to claim some success in using yoga and yoga-based treatments to help active-duty military and veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"The evidence is showing that yoga really helps change people at every level," says Stanford University health psychologist and yoga instructor Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.

That's why more clinicians have embraced yoga as a complement to psychotherapy, McGonigal says. They're encouraging yoga as tool clients can use outside the therapy office to cope with stress and anxieties, and even heal emotional wounds.

"Talk therapy can be helpful in finding problem-solving strategies and understanding your own strengths and what's happening to you, but there are times when you just need to kind of get moving and work through the body," says Melanie Greenberg, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Alliant International University, who has studied yoga's benefits to mental health.

The mind-body meld

According to a study by Sherry A. Glied, Ph.D., professor of health policy and management at Columbia University, and Richard G. Frank, Ph.D., professor of health-care policy at Harvard Medical School, published in the May/June Health Affairs (Vol. 28, No. 3), the rate of diagnosed cases of mental disorders increased dramatically between 1996 and 2006 doubling among adults age 65 and older and rising by about 60 percent among adults 18 to 64. During that same time period, rates of psychotropic medication use rose by about the same percentages among these groups.

In light of these numbers, yoga remains a natural and readily available approach to maintaining wellness and treating mental health issues, says Sat Bir Khalsa, Ph.D., a neuroscientist, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who studies yoga's effects on depression and insomnia. Khalsa, who has practiced yoga for more than 35 years, says several studies in his 2004 comprehensive review of yoga's use as a therapeutic intervention, published in the Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology (Vol. 48, No. 3), show that yoga targets unmanaged stress, the main component of chronic disorders such as anxiety, depression, obesity, diabetes, and insomnia. It does this, he says, by reducing the stress response, which includes the activity of the sympathetic nervous system and the levels of the stress hormone cortisol. The practice enhances resilience and improves mind-body awareness, which can help people adjust their behaviors based on the feelings they're experiencing in their bodies, according to Khalsa.

While scientists don't have quite the full picture of how yoga does all that, new research is beginning to shed light on how the practice may influence the brain. In a 2007 study in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (Vol. 13, No. 4), researchers at Boston University School of Medicine and McLean Hospital used magnetic resonance imaging to compare levels of the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) before and after two types of activities: an hour of yoga and an hour of reading a book. The yoga group showed a 27 percent increase in GABA levels, which evidence suggests may counteract anxiety and other psychiatric disorders. GABA levels of the reading group remained unchanged.

"I believe if everyone practiced the techniques of yoga, we would have a preventive aid to a lot of our problems," Khalsa says. "There would likely be less obesity and Type-II diabetes, and people would be less aggressive, more content, and more integrated."

Khalsa's claims are backed by evidence supporting the social benefits of participating in a yoga class, says Stanford's McGonigal. A series of experiments conducted by organizational behavior researchers at Stanford University and published in January's Psychological Science (Vol. 20, No. 1) suggest that acting in synchrony with others—be it while walking, singing, or dancing can increase cooperation and collectivism among group members.

"In a yoga class, everyone is moving and breathing in at the same time and I think that's one of the undervalued mechanisms that yoga can really help with: giving people that sense of belonging, of being part of something bigger," McGonigal says.

Psychologists are also examining the use of yoga with survivors of trauma and finding it may even be more effective than some psychotherapy techniques. In a pilot study at the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute in Brookline, Mass., women with PTSD who took part in eight sessions of a 75-minute Hatha yoga class experienced significantly reduced PTSD symptoms compared with those participating in a dialectical behavior therapy group. The center recently received a grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine to conduct a randomized, single-blind, controlled study to further examine whether, as compared with a 10-week health class, yoga improves the frequency and severity of PTSD symptoms and other somatic complaints as well as social and occupational impairments among female trauma survivors.

"When people experience trauma, they may experience not only a sense of emotional dysregulation but also a feeling of being physically immobilized," says Ritu Sharma, Ph.D., project coordinator of the center's yoga program, who only began practicing yoga when she started leading the program. "Body-oriented techniques such as yoga help them increase awareness of sensations in the body, stay more focused on the present moment and hopefully empower them to take effective actions."

And in what is becoming one of the most widely applied yoga-based trauma treatments, clinical psychologist Richard Miller, Ph.D., has developed a nine-week, twice-weekly integrative restoration program based on the ancient practice of yoga Nidra. In 2006, the Department of Defense began testing iRest with active-duty soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who were experiencing PTSD. At the end of the program, participants reported a reduction in insomnia, depression, anxiety, and fear, improved interpersonal relations, and an increased sense of control over their lives. Since then, iRest classes have been established at VA facilities in Miami, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Miller has also helped develop similar programs for veterans, homeless people, and those with chemical dependencies and chronic pain.

"The program teaches them skills they can integrate into their daily lives so that in the midst of a difficult circumstance, they have the tools to be able to work at the moment," says Miller, president of the Integrative Restoration Institute in San Rafael, Calif.

New research is also supporting yoga's benefit for other mental illnesses. An as-yet-unpublished randomized control trial by Khalsa offers insight into how yoga may reduce insomnia. In this study, 20 participants who practiced a daily 45-minute series of Kundalini yoga techniques shortly before bedtime for eight weeks reported significant reductions in insomnia severity as compared with those told to follow six behavioral recommendations for sleep hygiene. And a 2007 study supports yoga's potential as a complementary treatment for depressed patients taking antidepressant medication but only in partial remission. University of California, Los Angeles, psychologist David Shapiro, Ph.D., found that participants who practiced Iyengar yoga three times a week for eight weeks reported significant reductions in depression, anxiety, and neurotic symptoms, as well as mood improvements at the end of each class (Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Vol. 4, No. 4). Many of the participants achieved remission and also showed physiological changes, such as heart rate variability, indicative of a greater capacity for emotional regulation, Shapiro says.

Putting yoga into practice

While she cautions against teaching yoga to clients without formal training, McGonigal and others say psychologists can use psychotherapy sessions to practice yoga's mind-body awareness and breathing techniques. Simple strategies such as encouraging clients to get as comfortable as possible during their sessions or to pay attention to how their body feels when they inhale and exhale—teach clients to be in the here and now.

"These by themselves would be considered yoga interventions because they direct attention to the breath and help unhook people from thoughts, emotions, and impulses that are negative or destructive," she says.

Alliant International University psychology professor Richard Gevirtz, Ph.D., agrees that alternatives to traditional psychotherapy may help clinicians make progress with difficult clients.

"Psychologists have painted themselves in the corner by only doing talk therapy," Gevirtz says. "There's much more that can be accomplished if you integrate it with other sorts of modalities,

such as biofeedback, relaxation training, or yoga."

In fact, some psychologists say yoga may not really be so special when it comes to improving one's mental state, and that several forms of exercise may provide mood-enhancing benefits.

In a 2007 study by researchers at Bowling Green State University, 36 participants kept mood diaries during the first and final four weeks of a 16-week weight-loss program. On the day's participants engaged in planned exercise—typically walking for 30 to 60 minutes they reported a better mood at night as compared to in the morning, before exercising

"It seems that many types of exercise particularly non-competitive exercise are related to positive mood alteration," says Bonnie Berger, EdD, one of the study's co-authors and professor and director of Bowling Green's School of Human Movement, Sport and Leisure Studies.

Psychologists may also benefit from using yoga and other forms of exercise for their own care, Greenberg says. In a 2007 survey of licensed APA members by the APA Board of Professional Affairs Advisory Committee on Colleague Assistance, 48 percent reported that vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue are likely to affect their functioning.

"Practicing yoga personally and adopting a stance based on yoga principles such as non-judgment, compassion, spirituality, and the connection of all living things can help relieve stress, enhance compassion and potentially make you a better therapist," she says. "If you can come to a level of peace with yourself, there may be more nurturing than you exude toward your patients."

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