The list of five may not surprise anyone, but as you look at what you want to prioritize in the new year, these five things might be helpful, especially finding quiet time and breaks from all the noise in life to focus on what matters to you the most. I think that’s something many of us could use some help with. Check out the interview, and if you’ve read the book, let me know your thoughts.
Does American society care about mental illness or not? Right now, I would argue that our society would get a failing grade on whether we care.
How about just saying no to that pressure and making gift-giving about why we give gifts in the first place, to show someone that we care about them and value having them in our life?
That seems less stressful and isn’t limited to the end of December. I bet people would value a gift giving any time of year, and I bet giving it will give you a happiness boost, too.
The original news story is from 2013, and I admit I was unaware of it. On the other hand, there is something positive in seeing that something as tragic as this can spur activity and solutions in the Netherlands to deal with loneliness and the lack of social connection:
What Rebekah is writing about isn’t finding the meaning that would define why we were abused. That’s toxic. What she is writing about is finding what it means to live with childhood trauma.
The question we often ask ourselves about being abused is the simplest one to answer, but we’ve gotten it twisted.
Why was I abused? Because someone else decided to abuse me.
Consider how often a child is not believed because the family friend or member “doesn’t seem like the type?”
That’s familial grooming. That is getting the family to see you as one thing when you are targeting a child in that family, thereby not only giving you access to the child but creating doubt about whether their own child is telling the truth. It also doesn’t help that so many of us think we know what a predator looks like, and are so easily fooled:
