Warning: "Emotional Contagion" is an energy that can be absorbed without warning or prior knowledge.

Most people are able to pick up emotional energy from others. This means they are vulnerable to negative or positive emotions carried by strangers or people they know. The person who receives the emotional energy can be a participant in the conversation or an innocent bystander. Without realizing what has happened, their attitude or mood can be impacted without warning or prior knowledge. Since some people's negative attitudes are highly contagious, it's important to be aware of any unexpected or inexplicable change of mood you might experience and be aware of people you encounter. 

"Emotional Contagion," was once considered a questionable concept. But there's a scientific explanation for this phenomenon. The following excerpt from an online article, "Are You Catching Other People's Emotions?" explains it best:

"Research has found that upbeat emotions such as enthusiasm and joy, as well as negative ones, including sadness, fear and anger, are easily passed from person to person, often without either party's realizing it. Emotional contagion occurs in a matter of milliseconds, and it depends on an incredibly basic, even primitive, instinct: During conversation, human beings naturally tend to mimic their companion’s facial expressions, posture, body language and speech rhythms, without being consciously aware of it, explains John T. Cacioppo, professor of psychology and director of the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago" (Colino, Stacey).

In the article, Stacey Colino offers suggestions which help guard against receiving emotional energy from negative others. She concludes with, "If that doesn’t help, pull the escape hatch by leaving the scene or taking a break (even if it’s to visit the restroom so you can regroup). Think of it as a way of coming to your own emotional rescue."

Colino, Stacey. "Are You Catching Other People's Emotions?", 20 Jan. 2016

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2016-01-20/are-you-catching-other-peoples-emotions.

Sierra Club and #NorthCarolina governor need 70,000 signatures to stop FRACKING legislation in North Carolina & you can help!

Duke Energy, the largest energy company in the USA,  wants to do seismic drilling on the Atlantic coast and make customers pay through higher utility bills. On behalf of the people of NC, the Sierra Club needs to collect 70,000 signatures needed by NC Governor Roy Cooper to make Duke Energy and other "clean energy" proponents go away. Their argument is, this creates clean energy. But how can it be clean when it pollutes our waters and destroys the natural environment?

FRACKING or seismic drilling will upset the balance of a delicate ecosystem in the area, a natural habitat that has been in existence since prehistoric times. Some plant and animal species living in North Carolina live nowhere else in the world. Despite the imminent threat to wildlife and their natural environment, landowners and clean energy proponents downplay the dangers to this stable ecosystem while the media turns a blind eye or downplays the devastating effects of #fracking seen in states that have allowed it.

I have provided an excerpt from the Sierra Club's email response to my inquiry. It outlines a few things we might do to help get signatures and spread the word about this challenge that North Carolina faces. States that received the needed signatures were able to STOP legislation that would allow this invasive practice of fracking.

Please read the information below. If you need more information or resources,

contact me here: www.survivingaday.blogspot.com or @survivingaday on Twitter.

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Hello,

Thank you for speaking with me! There are so many upcoming opportunities to participate in as we move closer to stopping this pipeline, so I'm excited to work with you on making some of these things happen.

1) Get your voice heard (and get your friends / neighbors to submit comments too). The easiest way to do this is to go here and get as many people to sign this as possible through August 19th! sc.org/nc-acp

Do Something for the Environment!  Ask the NC Department of Environmental Quality to protect waterways from the Atlantic Coast Pipeline – do it before August 18th. 

2) A group meeting on this -- Every 3rd Thursday from 6:45p to 8:45p at Eastover Recreation Center, 3637 Pembroke Lane, Fayetteville, NC 28301 (Eastover Community) there is a local meeting of folks concerned about the pipeline.

Facebook: Cumberland County Caring Voices

3) Write a letter to the editor at the Fayetteville Observer. They wrote a great piece about the hearing, now they need to keep hearing from people on this issue. The Sierra Club has a short guide on how to do this.

4) Host a house party and show a 20 minute documentary on this pipeline -- Won't Pipe Down.

5) Paper petition is available from the Sierra Club. However, it's most convenient to.use the online form (sc.org/nc-acp) whenever there is wifi or internet capability. 

Thank you!

Linkin Park Singer Chester Bennington committed suicide yesterday. One day you're listening to them; the next day they're tragically gone.

Linkin Park Singer Chester Bennington committed suicide yesterday. Although I didn't know him, I heard his music and I feel the loss. You never know when someone is making one last effort to overcome negative thinking, negative influences or negative habits. You never know how close they are to falling off a cliff, drenched in hopelessness. One day you're listening to them speak or perform, and the next day they're tragically gone. 

I've heard the music of Linkin Park, saw a performance online. But somebody important to Chester Bennington had committed suicide in May, 2017. Now it's only late July 2017 and the surviving best friend is also dead. You'd think someone would have suspected that this first tragic event might trigger a state of depression for a survivor. We continually miss the signs that all is not well with someone we know and love. We smile and watch as they plunge deeper into hopelessness.

A colleague of mine committed suicide a year after my friend attempted a murder-suicide. The suicide was not successful. For a few years, I blamed myself, thinking surely there was something I could have done. My friend had vowed to come from the Midwest to the Northeast just to visit me and my family. Two weeks prior to her visit, I got the tragic news. She had attempted but failed to commit suicide after successfully murdering her son. 

Hearing the news, all I could feel was anger and betrayal that she misrepresented her thoughts and feelings without saying a word. Then I felt sadness and guilt that I didn't detect a problem, didn't notice a change in her disposition, didn't sense that something was wrong. I could have volunteered to keep her son, would have kept him as long as she needed. As for my colleague, we said goodbye in June, at semester's end. By October he had completed a suicide.

I think of all of the people we have lost in our society--in plain sight. My quesion is always the same: How do they manage to complete a suicide with so many people around them, looking after their every need? 

So we've lost another one at age 41. It's such a tragic thing to know that people can feel they have outlived their usefulness. That's got to be what happens because when we feel useful, wanted, needed and appreciated, we hold on to those positive feelings. We receive validation and support. We feel connected to a higher purpose in life. I'm often at a loss for words when someone commits suicide. All I can do is pray for their peace and tranquility.  Chester Bennington, may he R.I.P.

Linkin Park Singer Chester Bennington Dead, Commits Suicide by Hanging (UPDATE) http://www.tmz.com/2017/07/20/linkin-park-singer-chester-bennington-dead-commits-suicide/ via @TMZ

Choose to be around people who validate you.

We are motivated by our wants and needs. We can postpone or eliminate our wants but our needs must be fulfilled. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who studied human needs. He created a list of human needs that must be fulfilled. The list is called, A Hierarchy of Needs. It begins with our basic need to survive and ends with our highest need, the need for “self actualization.” 

“Self-actualization” is an emotional need. It inspires us to do our greatest good and to achieve our very best. In order to fulfill this need, we must first fulfill all lower needs. For example, if the need for validation is not fulfilled, our need for "self-actualization" will never appear. If the need to become “self-actualized” never appears, self-actualization can never be realized.

The general order in which our needs appear is:

• Basic needs: food, water, air, survival

• Safety needs: security, protection 

• Psychological needs: love, relationships and belonging

• Emotional needs: self-esteem and validation

• Spiritual needs: self-actualization and achieving our greatest good

Being validated by others is the last need to be fulfilled before the need for “self-actualization” appears. Meeting the need for validation depends on positive feelings about ourselves and others. It's the key to healthy self-esteem and positive social relationships. Validation involves interacting with others and being appreciated by them. It requires connecting with people who appreciate us. Validation closes the gap between meeting lower needs and fulfilling our highest need for “self-actualization.”

It's important to choose our relationships carefully. It's necessary to build connections with people who appreciate and validate us. We build self-esteem when we are around people who offer positive reinforcement and value us. This enables us to become “self-actualized,” achieve our greatest good, and find happiness in life.  

Whether the Pro-Life movement is about babies dead or alive, it does not respect a woman's abilities & right to choose.

You can't legislate morals and you can't judge a woman by the choice she decides to make. It's a personal matter and no one but the highest Universal Power can determine whether she is fit for Heaven or Hell. Which is the lesser evil--bringing a child into hopeless circumstances or stopping the madness before it has a chance to take root? Such is the dilemma of a pregnant mother whose only obligation is to make the right choice for herself and her child based on her circumstances.

No one can know the future of a child born into unfavorable or detrimental circumstances. A woman must decide what's best and she should be provided weeks of counseling and emotional support, not just ten or fifteen minutes. Once she has had the counseling she needs, she must be trusted to make the decision that's best for herself and her unborn child. But choosing to terminate a pregnancy has karmic consequences. The universe will be the judge, not the people.

What happens to babies once the mother decides to have an unwanted child depends on many things that I suspect to be true. Is it about babies or about the market to provide fresh babies to adoptive parents? If such is the case, what happens to babies that are not adopted? You see, I don't think the Pro-Life movement is about all dead babies. It's also not about caring for unwanted babies after they are born. Once the baby is born, you can't return it to be womb, and there is no expiration date for a newborn child. We seem to care more about babies in the womb than about children in the livingroom (if they are lucky enough to have one).

Regarding a woman's right to choose, all we can do is provide knowledge, compassion, and emotional support with the understanding that the choice she makes is not up to us. Each woman must do the right thing--for herself based on her reality. I've known of abortions since childhood. There were fancy names for it but the results were the same--termination of pregnancy. I've heard of women dying by clothes hanger injected into the body to cause miscarriage. I've heard of unwanted babies being shaken to death, starved and neglected, beaten to death, or stuck into foster homes only to be abused and thrown away like yesterday's trash. Once they age-out of the social services system, the horror continues. The horror stories are endless. What mother would want to bring a child into a world like this? What mother would want to watch her child grow up on the streets as a victim of poverty living in a state of hopelessness, destined for failure? What mother would want to feed the prison system or the predators on the street, knowing her child didn't stand a chance?

Who are we to decide how a mother chooses to save the life of her child? If we lived our lives with a sense of compassion for mothers who face dilemmas regarding the future of their unborn children, if we stopped the trafficking of newborn children, if we stopped persecuting mothers who make the best choice under the circumstances, if we stopped prejudging and ostracizing would-be mothers, I think this world would be a better place in which to raise a child. Society would be filled with children who are loved and who have a chance at living happy and prosperous lives.

If you're planning to relocate to a new city, here are a few findings you might appreciate.

Are you happy where you live? America is the land of opportunity but whether we succeed or fail to achieve happiness in a particular city or state can depend on more than a job or circle of friends. 

Achieving success and happiness in a place often depends on whether we understand the politics of the majority population and especially, the religious preferences of that majority. Knowing how people view their religious preferences will determine how to interact with them, and interacting with members of a community is a requirement if we plan to live there for very long.  

No matter which state you choose to live in, whether relocating or staying put, it usually requires some type of mental adjustment or compromise. The question is, are you prepared to compromise, especially where religious practices are concerned? If you're planning to relocate to a new city or state, here are a few findings you might appreciate:

Source: "How Religious is your State?" Pew Research FactTank (2016/02/29).

1. Alabama	77%
1. Mississippi	77%
3. Tennessee	73%
4. Louisiana	71%
5. Arkansas	70%
5. South Carolina	70%
7. West Virginia	69%
8. Oklahoma	66%
8. Georgia	66%
10. North Carolina	65%
11. Texas	64%
11. Utah	64%
13. Kentucky	63%
14. Virginia	61%
15. Missouri	60%
16. South Dakota	59%
17. Ohio	58%
18. New Mexico	57%
19. Iowa	55%
19. Kansas	55%
19. New Jersey	55%
22. Indiana	54%
22. Wyoming	54%
22. Florida	54%
22. Maryland	54%
22. Nebraska	54%
27. Michigan	53%
27. Pennsylvania	53%
27. Arizona	53%
27. District of Columbia	53%
27. North Dakota	53%
32. Delaware	52%
33. Illinois	51%
33. Idaho	51%
35. California	49%
35. Nevada	49%
35. Minnesota	49%
35. Rhode Island	49%
39. Montana	48%
39. Oregon	48%
41. Hawaii	47%
41. Colorado	47%
43. New York	46%
44. Washington	45%
44. Alaska	45%
44. Wisconsin	45%
47. Connecticut	43%
48. Maine	34%
48. Vermont	34%
50. New Hampshire	33%
50. Massachusetts	33%