Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Establishing Healthy Relationships


Establishing Healthy Relationships 

“Help thy brother’s boat across and lo!
Thine own has reached the shore.”
Hindu proverb

                                                                                                                                       Establishing healthy relationships is the key to happiness. Being in a supportive and loving relationship is probably the strongest psychological predictor to establishing overall wellness. When we are asked, “What gives meaning to our lives?” our friendships and other significant others are probably at the top of our list. The human brain is wired for us to be social beings. People need other people. We are able to store in our memory banks a large amount of facial images and we can retrieve these images from memory at a moment’s notice because of our need to be with others.

We may be experiencing thoughts which prevent us from having healthier relationships such as feeling obligated to do certain things with significant others, family members, and other people in our lives. We can change our thoughts to “I am looking forward to spending time with my family.” Relationships don’t just happen, they are built on mutual respect and understanding. Their development is something that is learned and practiced. We need to think of relationships as an investment. When dealing with unresolved trauma, we may have had trouble facing the future with the anticipation of positive outcomes. It is important to change our outlook on life in order to make the life changes necessary to establish healthy relationships.

The transition from just being acquaintances to friendship is characterized by the increase of self-disclosure. In the early stages of any relationship, self-disclosure tends to be a more gradual and reciprocal process. Letting people know about things that are very personal to us takes courage for most of us. Reciprocity is the key and if you or your possible friend is not willing to share your deepest, darkest secrets, more than likely the relationship will not last long. Or the relationship will feel like something is missing and will quickly lose its luster. Once the relationship is established through mutual self-disclosure, the glue that binds two people together is intimacy. Emotional expressiveness and unconditional support along with acceptance, loyalty, and trust are key ingredients for a solid and satisfactory relationship. Skills such as learning how to listen as well as responding appropriately to the news being shared are paramount. We need to listen as well as share. 

 

Ingredients for a healthy relationship are: 

·         Mutual respect.
·         Forgiveness.
·         Honest Communication.
·         Empathy.
·         Shared responsibilities.
·         Trust and support.
·         Effort and Commitment.
·         Making decisions together.
·         Respecting each other’s boundaries.
·         Avoid competing with one another.
·         Avoiding stereotypes
·         Focusing on each other as individuals. Respecting each other’s strengths and abilities. 
                  ·         Being assertive helps relationships which means stating our needs and wants without                          attacking, blaming or making excuses.
·         Independence which is a very important factor that both friends can find enjoyment with spending time with each other; but at the same time maintain separate identities.
·         Being willing to admit our mistakes and shortcomings.
·         Generosity is another necessary component when maintaining a healthy relationship. In a healthy relationship, we can give another person something or do a good deed for a person and not expect something in return for our generosity.
·         Have a common vision. We both have an idea of what the relationship means and where we would like it to go.   

Friendships and spousal connections are like a dose of good medicine, someone who will stick by our side through the good and bad times. A loving and supportive relationship to a spouse is one of the most important of all relationships. Marriage has been noted as a better predictor of happiness than having money or children. Friendships cannot be minimized due to their importance. Most young people who say they have a good relationship with their parents are usually happier with life in general.
 
          If we are having difficulty sustaining healthy relationships, one of the biggest roadblocks may be not taking the time or making the effort to make healthy and supportive connections with other people. We can easily get caught up in our own lives, our jobs, our routines, and before we know it, we are spending less and less time with friends, family, and our spouse or significant other. We can and need to take the time to spend quality time with our friends and family to secure our connection with others. We need to pay attention to how much time we waste doing things that don’t enhance our lives such as watching too much television. 

Healthy relationships take commitment and the desire to maintain a connection to others.  Having a wholesome relationship is a choice between two individuals. We need to allow enough time in our lives for each other and don’t place blame on the other person if things are not working out. It takes two to fight and it also takes two to make things work. Communicate with one another and make plans to spend time together. A lot of time is wasted when there are disagreements due to misunderstandings. We are responsible for our own feelings and we can portray what our feelings are in a productive, non-hurtful manner. The value of a strong, supportive and caring relationship is priceless.

 

The Greastest Murder Machine in History


The Greatest Murder Machine in History
By Mike Konrad

When one thinks of mass murder, Hitler comes to mind. If not Hitler,
then Tojo, Stalin, or Mao. Credit is given to the 20th-century
totalitarians as the worst species of tyranny to have ever arisen.
However, the alarming truth is that Islam has killed more than any of
these, and may surpass all of them combined in numbers and cruelty.

The enormity of the slaughters of the "religion of peace" are so far
beyond comprehension that even honest historians overlook the scale.
When one looks beyond our myopic focus, Islam is the greatest killing
machine in the history of mankind, bar none.

The Islamic conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in
history. -- Will Durant, as quoted on Daniel Pipes site.

Conservative estimates place the number at 80 million dead Indians.

According to some calculations, the Indian (subcontinent)
population decreased by 80 million between 1000 (conquest of
Afghanistan) and 1525 (end of Delhi Sultanate). -- Koenrad Elst as
quoted on Daniel Pipes site

80 Million?! The conquistadors' crimes pale into insignificance at that
number. No wonder Hitler admired Islam as a fighting religion. He stood
in awe of Islam, whose butchery even he did not surpass.

Over 110 Million Blacks were killed by Islam.

... a minumum of 28 Million African were enslaved in the Muslim
Middle East. Since, at least, 80 percent of those captured by Muslim
slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave
market, it is believed that the death toll from 1400 years of Arab and
Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been as high as 112 Millions.
When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total
number of African victims of the trans-Saharan and East African slave
trade could be significantly higher than 140 Million people. -- John
Allembillah Azumah, author of The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa: A
Quest for Inter-religious Dialogue

Add just those two numbers alone together, and Islam has surpassed the
victims of 20th-century totalitarianism. However, it does not end
there. Add the millions who died at the hand of Muslims in the Sudan in
our lifetime.

Much of Islamic slavery was sexual in nature, with a preference for
women. Those men who were captured were castrated. The mulatto children
of the women were often killed, which explains why Islam was not
demographically shifted towards the black race, unlike slaves in the
West, who bore children to breed a mestizo class. Add in those dead
children; and we arrive at well over 200 million.

Remember that in the 7th century, North Africa was almost totally
Christian. What happened to them?

By the year 750, a hundred years after the conquest of Jerusalem,
at least 50 percent of the world's Christians found themselves under
Muslim hegemony… Today there is no indigenous Christianity in the
region [of Northwest Africa], no communities of Christians whose
history can be traced to antiquity.-- "Christianity Face to Face with
Islam," CERC

What happened to those Christian millions? Some converted. The rest?
Lost to history.

We know that over 1 million Europeans were enslaved by Barbary Pirates.
How many died is anybody's guess.

...for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the figure could easily
have been as high as 1,250,000 - BBC

In the Middle Ages…

…many slaves were passed through Armenia and were castrated there
to fill the Muslim demand for eunuchs. -- Slavery in Early Medieval
Europe.

The same practice ran through Islamic Spain. North Europeans captured
from raids up to Iceland, or purchased, were butchered in the
castratoriums of Iberia. Many died from the operations that ran for
centuries.

The number of dead from the Muslim conquest of the Balkans and Southern
Italy is unknown, but again the numbers add up, surely into the
millions over the centuries. Don't forget the 1.5 million Armenian
Christians killed by the Turks during WWI. We do know that over five
centuries, vast numbers of Christian boys were kidnapped to become
Islamic Janissary mercenaries for the Turks. Add those in, too.

Muslims prized blonde women for their harems; and so enslaved Slavic
women were purchased in the bazaars of the Crimean Caliphate. In Muslim
Spain, an annual tribute of 100 Visigothic [blonde] women was required
from Spain's Cantabrian coast.

For decades, 100 virgins per year were required by the Muslim
rulers of Spain from the conquered population. The tribute was only
stopped when the Spaniards began fighting back -- Jihad: Islam's 1,300
Year War Against Western Civilisation

Add in the death toll from the Reconquista and the numbers climb
higher.

Research has shown that the Dark Ages were not caused by the Goths, who
eventually assimilated and Christianized:

…the real destroyers of classical civilization were the Muslims. It
was the Arab Invasions... which broke the unity of the Mediterranean
world and turned the Middle Sea -- previously one of the world’s most
important trading highways -- into a battleground. It was only after
the appearance of Islam... that the cities of the West, which depended
upon the Mediterranean trade for their survival, began to die. -- Islam
Caused the Dark Ages

Add in those unknown millions who died as a consequence.

How many know the horrors of the conquest of Malaysia? The Buddhists of
Thailand and Malaysia were slaughtered en masse.

When attacked and massacred by the Muslims, the Buddhists initially
did not make any attempt to escape from their murderers. They accepted
death with an air of fatalism and destiny. And hence they are not
around today to tell their story. – History of Jihad.org

We may never know the numbers of dead.

After Muslims came to power in the early 15th century, animist hill
peoples eventually disappeared due to their enslavement and
‘incorporation’ into the Muslim population of Malaya, Sumatra, Borneo,
and Java via raids, tribute and purchase, especially of children. Java
was the largest exporter of slaves around 1500. -- Islam Monitor

In the same manner, Islam arrived in the Philippines. Only the
appearance of the Spanish stopped a total collapse, and confined Islam
to the southern islands.

The coming of the Spanish saved the Philippines from Islam, except
for the Southern tip where the population had been converted to
Islam.-- History of Jihad.org

Again, the number of dead is unknown; but add them to the total.

The animist Filipinos were eager to ally with the Spanish against
Islam. In fact, much of Southeast Asia welcomed the Spanish and
Portuguese as preferable to Islam.

...from the 17th century successive Thai kings allied themselves
with the seafaring Western powers – the Portuguese and the Dutch and
succeeded in staving off the threat of Islam from the Muslim Malays and
their Arab overlords.-- History of Jihad.org

A few galleons and muskets were not enough to conquer Asia. Islam had
made the Europeans initially appear as liberators; and to a certain
extent they were. Who were the real imperialists?

Even today...

...Malaysian Jihadis are plotting to transform multi-ethnic
Malaysia into an Islamic Caliphate, and fomenting trouble in Southern
Thailand.-- History of Jihad.org

Add this all up. The African victims. The Indian victims. The European
victims. Add in the Armenian genocide. Then add in the lesser known,
but no doubt quite large number of victims of Eastern Asia. Add in the
jihad committed by Muslims against China, which was invaded in 651 AD.
Add in the Crimean Khanate predations on the Slavs, especially their
women.

Though the numbers are not clear, what is obvious is that Islam is the
greatest murder machine in history bar none, possibly exceeding 250
million dead. Possibly one-third to one-half or more of all those
killed by war or slavery in history can be traced to Islam; and this is
just a cursory examination.

Now consider the over 125 Million women today who have been genitally
mutilated for Islamic honor's sake. In spite of what apologists tell
you, the practice is almost totally confined to Islamic areas.

New information from Iraqi Kurdistan raises the possibility that
the problem is more prevalent in the Middle East than previously
believed and that FGM is far more tied to religion than many Western
academics and activists admit. – “Is Female Genital Mutilation an
Islamic Problem?” ME Quarterly

Once thought concentrated in Africa, FGM has now been discovered to be
common wherever Islam is found.

There are indications that FGM might be a phenomenon of epidemic
proportions in the Arab Middle East. Hosken, for instance, notes that
traditionally all women in the Persian Gulf region were mutilated. Arab
governments refuse to address the problem. -- "Is Female Genital
Mutilation an Islamic Problem?" ME Quarterly

Remember that this has gone on for 1400 years; and was imposed on a
population that had been formerly Christian or pagan.

FGM is practiced on large scale in Islamic Indonesia; and is increasing.

...far from scaling down, the problem of FGM in Indonesia has
escalated sharply. The mass ceremonies in Bandung have grown bigger and
more popular every year. -- Guardian

The horrified British author of that Guardian article is still deluded
that Islam does not support FGM, when in fact it is now settled that
FGM is a core Islamic practice. Islamic women have been brainwashed to
support their own abuse.

Abu Sahlieh further cited Muhammad as saying, "Circumcision is a
sunna (tradition) for the men and makruma (honorable deed) for the
women." -- “Is Female Genital Mutilation an Islamic Problem?” ME
Quarterly

What other tyranny does this? Not even the Nazis mutilated their own
women!

Unlike the 20th-century totalitarians whose killing fury consumed
themselves, reducing their longevity, Islam paces itself. In the end,
though slower, Islam has killed and tortured far more than any other
creed, religious or secular. Unlike secular tyranny, Islam, by virtue
of its polygamy and sexual predations, reproduces itself and
increases.

Other tyrannies are furious infections, which burn hot, but are soon
overcome. Islam is a slow terminal cancer, which metastasizes, and
takes over. It never retreats. Its methods are more insidious, often
imperceptible at first, driven by demographics. Like cancer, excision
may be the only cure.

So whenever you read about this or that Israeli outrage -- and there
may be truth to the complaint -- place the news in context. Look whom
the Israelis are fighting against. Islam is like nothing else in
history.


Sidenote by Sharon Brunner: Stephen Quayle in Angel Wars: Past, Present, and Future includes information on page 208 about the amount of people killed by the Muslims. It is something that I was not aware of until I read Quayle's book. I find it astounding that a religion supposedly based on peace has such a violent history. The Islam appear to me as lions in sheeps' clothing. They have an amazingly morbid and violent past which appears to be continuing into the present and possibly the future.