Friday, January 31, 2014
Thursday, January 30, 2014
22 Unbelievable Places that are Hard to Believe Really Exist
http://www.boredpanda.com/amazing-places/
Our world is so full of wonders that new and amazing places are discovered every day, be that by professional photographers or amateurs. Different geographical locations, climatic conditions and even seasons offer the widest variety of natural wonders: pink lakes, stunning lavender or tulip fields, breath-taking canyons and mountains, and other places you can hardly believe actually exist!Some of the pictures in this collection will be of all natural sights you can find while traveling around the world, while the others have experienced human interference – but even in these cases, the result of such collaboration is spectacular. The Japanese learned how to tame thousands of orchids and form a romantic tunnel out of them; another one was formed all the way in Ukraine by a passing train; and what eventually ends up as hot tea in our mugs, first grows in stunning tree fields in Asia.No wonder that traveling in one of the best forms of recreation – even looking at these pictures takes your mind to far away places… And yes, all those of those places are real!
Our world is so full of wonders that new and amazing places are discovered every day, be that by professional photographers or amateurs. Different geographical locations, climatic conditions and even seasons offer the widest variety of natural wonders: pink lakes, stunning lavender or tulip fields, breath-taking canyons and mountains, and other places you can hardly believe actually exist!
Some of the pictures in this collection will be of all natural sights you can find while traveling around the world, while the others have experienced human interference – but even in these cases, the result of such collaboration is spectacular. The Japanese learned how to tame thousands of orchids and form a romantic tunnel out of them; another one was formed all the way in Ukraine by a passing train; and what eventually ends up as hot tea in our mugs, first grows in stunning tree fields in Asia.
No wonder that traveling in one of the best forms of recreation – even looking at these pictures takes your mind to far away places… And yes, all those of those places are real!
Tunnel of Love, Ukraine
Image credits: Oleg Gordienko
Tulip Fields in Netherlands
Image credits: Allard Schager
Salar de Uyuni: One of the World’s Largest Mirrors, Bolivia
Image credits: dadi360
Hitachi Seaside Park, Japan
Mendenhall Ice Caves, Juneau, Alaska
Image credits: Kent Mearig
Red Beach, Panjin, China
Image credits: MJiA
Bamboo Forest, Japan
Street in Bonn, Germany
Image credits: Adas Meliauskas
Naica Mine, Mexico
Image credits: nicole_denise
Wisteria Flower Tunnel in Japan
Image credits: imgur.com | mindphoto.blog.fc2.com
Black Forest, Germany
Image credits: andy linden
Fields of Tea, China
Image credits: unknown
Tianzi Mountains, China
Image credits: Richard Janecki
Hang Son Doong, Vietnam
Image credits: Carsten Peter
Shibazakura Flowers, Takinoue Park, Japan
Image credits: kimi-tourguide.blogspot.com
Antelope Canyon, USA
Image credits: CSMphotography
Lake Hillier, Australia
Image credits: Ockert Le Roux
Lake Retba, Senegal
Image credits: buzzfeed
Lavender Fields, UK and France
Image credits: Antony Spencer | Erasmus T
Canola Flower Fields, China
Image credits: +Lanzi
Mount Roraima, South America
Image credits: imgur.com | Uwe George
Zhangye Danxia Landform, China
Image credits: unbelievableinfo.blogspot.it
Did we miss anything? Add it in the comments under the article.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Adventurousness Test: How adventurous are you?
Adventure Quotient (AQ) Test
77 questions, 30 min
http://psychologytoday.tests.psychtests.com/bin/transfer?req=MTF8MzIzNHw2MDUyNjcwfDF8MQ==&refempt=
77 questions, 30 min
How adventurous are you? Thrill-seeking can come in different forms, whether it's doing a swan dive bungee jump off the Auckland Harbour Bridge in New Zealand, or trying that new exotic restaurant around the corner from work. The type of adventure you enjoy (or avoid) depends a great deal on your personality. Are you more of a planner or spontaneous? Courageous or careful? Do you have the energy level of a bee or a sloth? Find out more about your adventure personality with this test!
Examine the following statements and choose the answer option that best applies to you. There may be some questions describing situations that may not be relevant to you. In such cases, select the answer you would most likely choose if you ever found yourself in that type of situation. In order to receive the most accurate results, please answer as truthfully as possible.
After finishing the test, you will receive a Snapshot Report with an introduction, and a personalized interpretation for one of your team role preferences. You will then have the option to purchase the full results.
http://psychologytoday.tests.psychtests.com/bin/transfer?req=MTF8MzIzNHw2MDUyNjcwfDF8MQ==&refempt=
7 Reasons Most People are Afraid of Love
Compassion Matters
How to save a life
What keeps us from finding and keeping the love we say we want?
Around this time last year, Virgin Mobile USA proclaimed Feb. 13 to be “National Breakup Day.” They did so after conducting a survey in which 59 percent of people said that if they were looking to end their relationship, they would hypothetically do so before Valentine’s Day to save money. The beginning of the year is often said to see a spike in couple splits, with various sources claiming that January hosts most divorce filings and couple separations. You may even have heard it referred to as “National Breakup Month.” In this so-called breakup season, we may be unfortunate enough to witness once-happy couples splitting up left and right, or we may recount our own painful parting from a partner we once loved.
No matter what the timeline, the story of lost love is one most of us can tell. This leaves the question “why do relationships fail?” to linger heavily in the back of our minds. The answer for many of us can be found within. Whether we know it or not, most of us are afraid of really being in love. While our fears may manifest themselves in different ways or show themselves at different stages of a relationship, we all harbor defenses that we believe on some level will protect us from getting hurt. These defenses may offer us a false illusion of safety or security, but they keep us from attaining the closeness we most desire. So what drives our fears of intimacy? What keeps us from finding and keeping the love we say we want?
1. Real love makes us feel vulnerable. A new relationship is uncharted territory, and most of us have natural fears of the unknown. Letting ourselves fall in love means taking a real risk. We are placing a great amount of trust in another person, allowing them to affect us, which makes us feel exposed and vulnerable. Our core defenses are challenged. Any habits we’ve long had that allow us to feel self-focused or self-contained start to fall by the wayside. We tend to believe that the more we care, the more we can get hurt.
2. New love stirs up past hurts. When we enter into a relationship, we are rarely fully aware of how we’ve been impacted by our history. The ways we were hurt in previous relationships, starting from our childhood, have a strong influence on how we perceive the people we get close to as well as how we act in our romantic relationships. Old, negative dynamics may make us wary of opening ourselves up to someone new. We may steer away from intimacy, because it stirs up old feelings of hurt, loss,anger or rejection. As Dr. Pat Love said in an interview with PsychAlive, “when you long for something, like love, it becomes associated with pain,” the pain you felt at not having it in the past.
3. Love challenges an old identity. Many of us struggle with underlying feelings of being unlovable. We have trouble feeling our own value and believing anyone could really care for us. We all have a “critical inner voice,” which acts like a cruel coach inside our heads that tells us we are worthless or undeserving of happiness. This coach is shaped from painful childhood experiences and critical attitudes we were exposed to early in life as well as feelings our parents had about themselves.
While these attitudes can be hurtful, over time, they have become engrained in us. As adults, we may fail to see them as an enemy, instead accepting their destructive point of view as our own. These critical thoughts or “inner voices” are often harmful and unpleasant, but they’re also comfortable in their familiarity. When another person sees us differently from our voices, loving and appreciating us, we may actually start to feel uncomfortable and defensive, as it challenges these long-held points of identification.
4. With real joy comes real pain. Any time we fully experience true joy or feel the preciousness of life on an emotional level, we can expect to feel a great amount of sadness. Many of us shy away from the things that would make us happiest, because they also make us feel pain. The opposite is also true. We cannot selectively numb ourselves to sadness without numbing ourselves to joy. When it comes to falling in love, we may be hesitant to go “all in,” for fear of the sadness it would stir up in us.
5. Love is often unequal. Many people I’ve talked to have expressed hesitation over getting involved with someone, because that person “likes them too much.” They worry that if they got involved with this person, their own feelings wouldn’t evolve, and the other person would wind up getting hurt or feeling rejected. The truth is that love is often imbalanced, with one person feeling more or less from moment to moment. Our feelings toward someone are an ever-changing force. In a matter of seconds, we can feel anger, irritation or even hate for a person we love. Worrying over how we will feel keeps us from seeing where our feelings would naturally go. It’s better to be open to how our feelings develop over time. Allowing worry or guilt over how we may or may not feel keeps us from getting to know someone who is expressing interest in us and may prevent us from forming a relationship that could really make us happy.
6. Relationships can break your connection to your family. Relationships can be the ultimate symbol of growing up. They represent starting our own lives as independent, autonomous individuals. This development can also represent a parting from our family. Much like breaking from an old identity, this separation isn’t physical. It doesn’t mean literally giving up our family, but rather letting go on an emotional level – no longer feeling like a kid and differentiating from the more negative dynamics that plagued our early relationships and shaped our identity.
7. Love stirs up existential fears. The more we have, the more we have to lose. The more someone means to us, the more afraid we are of losing that person. When we fall in love, we not only face the fear of losing our partner, but we become more aware of our mortality. Our life now holds more value and meaning, so the thought of losing it becomes more frightening. In an attempt to cover over this fear, we may focus on more superficial concerns, pick fights with our partner or, in extreme cases, completely give up the relationship. We are rarely fully aware of how we defend against these existential fears. We may even try to rationalize to ourselves a million reasons we shouldn’t be in the relationship. However, the reasons we give may have workable solutions, and what’s really driving us are those deeper fears of loss.
Most relationships bring up an onslaught of challenges. Getting to know our fears of intimacy and how they inform our behavior is an important step to having a fulfilling, long-term relationship. These fears can be masked by various justifications for why things aren’t working out, however we may be surprised to learn about all of the ways that we self-sabotage when getting close to someone else. This is one of the subjects I will address in the upcoming eCourse “Creating Your Ideal Relationship.” By getting to know ourselves, we give ourselves the best chance of finding and maintaining lasting love.
Read more from Dr. Lisa Firestone at PsychAlive.org
Join Dr. Lisa Firestone for the Jan. 21 CE Webinar "Overcoming the Fear of Intimacy."
Learn more about Dr. Lisa Firestone's eCourse "Creating Your Ideal Relationship.
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Saturday, January 11, 2014
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