My Heartsongs

My favorite Italian word for home is actually dimora, which is a more poetic description of home, evoking charm, and history – think ancestors and what they went through to make the home possible  – and a sense of timelessness, a place that represented or portrays the true center of my life.

A recent study from Japan demonstrated that optimists have similar brain activity patterns, especially in the medial prefrontal cortex, the home of imagining future happenings. An exploration of soundness of mind.

Even if one eschews traditional religions, and explores the perspective of spirituality as a choose your own adventure camp, living and embodying the values one believes in remains a lifelong pursuit. Hopefully I am capable of using the past to make better choices in the future, elevating my precious time on the planet into a sort of embodied learning tool.

Men have been very conditioned to provide, perform and protect. What are the female equivalents? As I’ve reflected upon it, I think nurture, be perfect and connect. Do I believe in an inner feminine?

Real connection asks for authenticity, a component of which is honesty – with self and others – which in turn requires some contemplation and vulnerability, as well as some skills in expressing what is inside to the outside in ways not destructive to self or others.

Test mentioned in the podcast:

https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/?srsltid=AfmBOoogMEz3jl7WMkwNeHTdjV68b7HWu4MohNLxROf_WpvtbU2YWwjE

Wandering around Home Depot looking for assistance this week reminded me of all those digital self-help marketplace voices whispering “I have what you need!” Sooo many offerings that supposedly will help us get what we most desire, whether that is weight loss, permanent inner peace, the key to navigating family trauma tripwires, or the perfect gizmo to further ease my existence.

Here are my 5 C’s: foundational principles for a vital healthy relationship. Commit, connect, communicate, clear conflict and create. Check out cupofempathy.com, created by Marianne van Dijk, who has many short insightful you tube videos on Non violent communication, mentioned in the podcast.

Healthy relationships have the capacity to assist us in changing, growing, evolving for the better. A young friend puts out a brief but insightful weekly newsletter (Sign up and read articles on WholeManMethod.com ), and in the last one he mused, “The cost of ignoring your authentic life will always outweigh the discomfort of answering your soul’s call."

The WHO recently released a report claiming that more than 871,000 people die from loneliness each year—almost 100 an hour. It defines loneliness as the distress that comes from the lack of desired relationships, while social isolation is defined by the objective absence of social ties.

The underlying reason for long CoVid at this point remains unclear, and may be different in different people. Possibilities include ongoing viral activity associated with an intra-host viral reservoir, autoimmune or dysregulated inflammatory state, microvascular dysfunction, organ damage from the original infection, or other as yet undiscovered mechanisms.