August 26, 2019 at 10:04AM Relationships are powerful for a lot of reasons—a variety of strong emotions, intimacy, trust, hopes, and dreams. And that’s not even talking about the powerful negative emotions—fear, abandonment, rejection, shame. Yes, relationships are worth the risk. However, we need to be thoughtful and careful because powerful things (love and sex, as well as alcohol, drugs, and other similarly addictive things) can present problems for humans. It’s possible for us to act like we have some of the classic addictions when it comes to relationships. Addictions are some of the most powerful and confusing experiences a human can have. The short definition of an addiction is when we continue to do something in spite of all the chaos, drama, or pain it causes us. And to make matters worse, we (and others) often logically know that we should stop, but for some reason we keep doing it. We often see a few of the same telltale signs. Those signs tend to be guides for a variety of subjects, and this is definitely one where they can help to guide our decisions. 1. First things first: Is this a pattern? Does déjà vu mean anything to you? Have you been unsuccessful at avoiding this “type” of relationship or been unsuccessful at moving past the “same old” drama in this relationship? In spite of your best efforts, you keep finding your relationship back at this same spot, same drama. We all have a bad day or bad
Tag: ADF
6 traits that make Scorpios the most intense and intuitive powerhouses of the zodiac
August 25, 2019 at 02:00PM by CWC To all the Scorpios I’ve loved before (and also just regular platonic friends who were born between October 21 and November 23), plain and simple, I would follow you to hell and back. Something about being born amid the crisp air of peak fall, when the world’s still excited about sweater weather and more JOMO nights in, gives people of this zodiac sign a darkly magnetic lure. And if you’re one of them, surely you know it. I know it. So, consider this my love letter to Scorpios of the world and their captivating qualities. Okay, okay, to make this a little less creepy, let me provide some context: I’m a Taurus, and Scorpio is my total opposite on the zodiac wheel—I’ve always been drawn to them. Since so many of my friends are Scorpios, my bank account cringes every year come late October since it’s when I’m annually stockpiling birthday gifts for my most smoldering friends. My first love, in fact, was a total Scorpio. But he was also was a grade-A A-hole who ditched me on prom night…so I won’t derail this love letter to Scorpio personality traits to wax poetic about a romance I had when the hashtag symbol still meant “pound.” That said, his less-than-stellar handling of prom (and our relationship) does reflect a certain Scorpio tendency to avail oneself of traditions, astrologer Emma Toynbee tells me. And, hey, I have to learn to take the good with
Grab your headphones: These 10 must-listen health podcasts drop wellness knowledge you can actually trust
August 24, 2019 at 08:00PM by CWC Navigating the world of wellness has always been tricky, but it’s especially true in the digital age. With so much information at your fingertips—from Instagram posts to Dr. Google—it’s hard to separate the trustworthy intel from the scams. But there is a major plus side to technology: New media platforms, including health podcasts, make it easy to keep up with the world’s top doctors, nutritionists, therapists, and other experts, no appointments necessary. Whether you’re hoping to adopt an anti-inflammatory diet, wondering how to biohack your way to a healthier life, or researching ways to improve your mental health, there’s a podcast for that. And then some. In the span of your daily commute, you can get bite-sized health ed classes courtesy of pros such as functional medicine superstar Mark Hyman, MD, celebrity nutritionist Kimberly Snyder, and happiness researcher Gretchen Rubin—authorities that most of us would never have access to otherwise. Plus, you can rest assured that these health podcasts are doling out legit information. In an era when free digital content filled with questionable health claims abounds, that peace of mind is, well, priceless. Subscribe to these 10 health podcasts for an expert wellness education on demand. 1. Deliciously Ella In the Deliciously Ella Podcast, Ella Mills and her husband, Matthew, chat with top health experts every week about a wide range of topics, whether that’s bettering your gut health, mental health, or dealing with stress. They take the most confusing information
Work-life balance is dead—there’s a better way to think about your relationship with your job
August 13, 2019 at 12:51PM by CWC The idea of “balance”—once a buzzword in the wonderful world of wellness—has largely been abandoned. Now that the workforce has jumped ship on this restrictive 50-50 approach to juggling life and career, all of us need a new way to assess our relationship with work. One that doesn’t include the “B” word. A recent global study on this topic conducted by Kisi used metrics that suggest a way of rethinking how the two interact with one another. Taking into account the experiences of people across cities in the United States and beyond, the research looked at criteria you would expect in an assessment of employment (like hours worked per week, vacations taken, and length of commutes) with markers you don’t always hear incorporated in the conversation (like access to mental health care, gender and LGBTQ+ equality, amount of outdoor spaces, and wellness and fitness). On the world stage, Helsinki, Finland (hey, it is a Blue Zone) came out on top thanks to the city’s sky-high happiness score, impressive marks for wellness, and overall safety. Within the U.S., San Diego reigned supreme with access to outdoor spaces and high wellness and happiness scores. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Detroit and Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, represented the lowest scores across all the categories that make your hustle and your life work in tandem. When you look at the data as a whole, you start to see a pattern: Locations where wellness
You guys, stretch mark cream is a total scam
August 11, 2019 at 10:00AM by CWC The spiderweb of white lines first appeared on my thighs when I was a junior in high school, and they’ve stuck around ever since. I know now that stretch marks are incredibly common—I challenge you to find me a woman with nary a stripe—and are scars that form when the collagen and elastin in your skin ruptures due to a quick change in size, which often happens during pregnancy, when someone gains weight or muscle quickly, or goes through puberty. (At first they appear red, then fade to white.) But for teenaged me, recovering from an eating disorder, they were a reminder of the fact that I was a bigger than I used to be. To appease my disordered thinking that told me my stretch marks were A Problem, I loaded up on creams and gels that promised to banish them. I wish I knew then what three dermatologists have since confirmed for me: Stretch mark cream is a complete and total scam. Once you have the white stripes, Virginia-based dermatologist Lily Talakoub says, “don’t waste your time or money on stretch mark cream, because it won’t do anything.” Oh, the money I’d have saved! “There is a greater chance of [stretch marks] going away when you treat them at the early stages,” Dr. Talakoub says, because “the redness can be treated with a laser that decreases the vasculature under the stretch mark and prevents that stretch mark from expanding.” “Don’t waste
Please, let’s all take a moment to swoon over Keanu Reeves’ beauty routine
August 06, 2019 at 09:00AM by CWC Much like hair scrunchies and Birkenstocks, Keanu Reeves has—thanks to all that is good and pure in the universe—become “trendy” again. He’s currently considered the “Internet’s boyfriend” after playing a parodied version of himself in Always Be My Maybe (and the voice of Duke Caboom in Toy Story 4), and an increasing number of fan stories are coming out that solidify the fact that Reeves is truly a bona fide Nice Guy™. But I would like to take a second pivot everyone’s focus away from Reeves’ sparkling personality and wildly successful career to two equally impressive, yet oft overlooked, things: his skin and his hair. I initially began swooning over Reeves during my teenage years, when first I laid eyes on him in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. But I’ll admit he faded as a focal point of my romantic daydreams somewhere around The Matrix era, and then I sorta forgot about him altogether when I started to date dudes IRL and stopped pining over celebrities. Le sigh. His resurgence is exciting, though, and I’m thrilled to see that his perfect hair and dewy complexion have remained exactly the same over the past two decades. Like, he has not aged. At all. ad_intervals[‘411549_div-gpt-ad-7520022-3’] = setInterval(function () { if (ads_ready) { clearTimeout(ad_intervals[‘411549_div-gpt-ad-7520022-3’]); googletag.cmd.push(function(){googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-7520022-3’);}); } }, 100); But after some extensive research by way of online stalking (in the name of #journalism, of course) I can’t find a single article detailing anything that Reeves has ever revealed about his
Mercury is out of retrograde, but the ‘retroshade’ lingers—here’s what that means
August 01, 2019 at 01:25PM by CWC The only push notifications I allow on my phone are from Apple news, and the three astrology apps I have downloaded. Last night, I got a glorious notification from The Pattern, alerting me that Mercury retrograde was finally—finally!—over. Not to be dramatic (but definitely to be dramatic), this past Mercury retrograde felt like it went on forever. But turns out there’s this two week period post-retrograde, called Mercury retroshade, that can have quite the astrological impact. To quote the woman responsible for the majority of my IG captions, Taylor Swift, are we out of the woods? “The shadow period is about a two-week period after Mercury stations direct, when it travels along the path it was moving before it went retrograde,” explains intuitive astrologer and healer Rachel Lang. “It’s a time to clean up anything that happened during Mercury retrograde or to integrate any lessons you learned along the way. Often during Mercury retrograde, so much awareness about the past comes to the surface.” Other hallmarks of a Mercury retrograde: communication is off, technology is on the fritz, there’s general pandemonium, and everyone on social is blaming their bad choices on the planet (it me). Mercury retroshade is an opportunity to review big decisions in your life, reflect on the past, and reconnect with distant friends or exes. Lang says Mercury retroshade is an opportunity to review big decisions in your life, reflect on the past, and reconnect with distant friends or