The Info Examiner

We may sometimes consider the difficulty that occurs with our acceptance of ourselves and of who we are in accordance with the expectations of others.
Do you understand what I am talking about? Or am I speaking alone here?

I grew up in an environment dominated with the influence of the Catholic religion, and studied in the field of Engineering and Computer Science. With these factors in mind, I grew to become a natural skeptic, without realization. Any circumstance or opinion, which I encountered in respect to spirituality, would be considered with the analytical and skeptical mind that I had developed, in accordance to the environmental influences that I had grown up with.

In addition to my natural reaction of analyzing situations or circumstances that I was faced with in my life experience, I found the result to be a contradiction of terms. There was always one thing that exceeded my capacity to analyze or scrutinize. There was always something missing in my life. Something that I realized existed beyond any of my analytical means.

Holding an engineering degree did not alter any stance in my life by any means. Throughout my life I encountered very interesting people that introduced me to the spiritual aspects of life, without making me feeling imposed upon. I was merely listening and observing at this point on my particular experience.

Over 10 years ago, specific events occurred that drove me to further investigate the significance of my spiritual path, and to discover my blueprint in life. My first step was learning about meditation. I was faced with no alternative but to accept this and try the new method without analyzing the process.

When I realized, in the beginning, that it was essential to be in touch with my female side, it left me (like any man) questioning this in terms of an affront on my masculinity. Masculinity being the main focus for concern! Of course as men, in general, we have this additional obstacle to overcome when being involved in spirituality. However, I believe we make a bigger issue out of this than is necessary.

We do have our ego, our manhood, and finally the aspect I feel to be the most important, that many men are denying any involvement in spirituality when they assume that opening their female side is associated with being gay. This is not the case. Its association with our sexual direction in life, and whatever sexual partner we choose in our life, is of our own free choice and free will.

Opening the female side within our manhood allows the opening of ‘intuition’ or our ’sixth sense’ so to speak. This also applies to any female who requires developing her masculine side to bring strength to her decisions and to her level of assertiveness. However, with these requirements in mind, the important thing here can be summarized in one word for both the male and female - BALANCE - harmony between the male and female sides. There are so many gifted men out there that refuse to accept the spiritual side of their nature and create unnecessary inhibitions that exist only in their minds.

Throughout the last 10 years, I have developed myself spiritually by means of studying meditation, learning healing from my own guides, learning astrology, and palmistry until I discovered numerology, the subject upon which my new awareness about the Universe will start…

In the last ten years I have learnt a great deal, however, I was always “in the closet” and here I am now stepping “out of the closet”! On “stepping out of the closet”, I am allowing myself the capacity to be completely open with myself, and enabling myself to express my beliefs to the public, bearing in mind, I am still involved in the ’so-called’ business world with my regular day job.

Until next time…

Copyright © Joseph Ghabi
http://www.freespiritcentre.info

About the Author:

Joseph Ghabi is an author, lecturer, and healer. Joseph provides Intuitive Numerology Consultation, Healing Childhood Experiences Consultation and PhD Candidate living in Montreal Canada.

At the age of eight Joseph discovered his clairvoyance. Joseph is natural medium. Joseph started the ‘Free Spirit Centre’ website at http://www.freespiritcentre.info A community centre devoted to personal growth, self help, soul growth, eating disorders, relationships, healing and human issues. You can find over 800 articles on the site.

Joseph task is in bringing Souls back to realization of their own personal power and into alignment with their own soul purpose and path of evolution.

THE HISTORY OF SPORTS MEMORABILIA

The other day I was cataloguing three boxes of baseball cards for a friend of mine and I began to think about how this entire card collecting and sports memorabilia phenomenon began. If you are a closet fan (as I am) of shows on television that travel from city to city checking out and pricing antiques for the general public, you’d be aware of the fact that often sports memorabilia is brought to the shows for assessment. So this tells me that a lot of people out there have sports memorabilia that they consider to be antiques, so collecting of sports memorabilia has been around for a long time.

WHEN DID SPORTS MEMORABILIA COLLECTING BEGIN?

If it’s true that nothing says “USA” like baseball does, then it’s natural that sports memorabilia collecting in this country began with a connection to the American pastime of baseball. Tobacco Companies introduced baseball cards to Americans in the late 1800’s in an attempt to sell their products. When I was younger I had always thought that the Bubble Gum Companies such as Topps first introduced baseball cards, but bubble gum baseball cards were really a product of the fifties and sixties.

These days Tobacco Companies are finding it next to impossible to have their names advertised any where near sports and sporting events, but in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, cigarette and cigar smoking was the norm. The Goodwin Company of New York put out the first real numbered collection of baseball cards in the 1870’s. The American Tobacco Company produced the most famous and therefore, today, the most valuable baseball card, the Honus Wagner T206 in 1909. It has been estimated that only around fifty of these cards exist today. Wagner was said to be not happy having his name connected to tobacco sales and production of his card was therefore limited. In the early 1900’s baseball card collecting began in earnest and spawned the hobby and business of sports memorabilia collecting, as we know it today.

Tobacco Companies continued to produce baseball cards through to the 1920’s and in the 1930’s Bubble Gum Companies began putting collection cards in their packages in an attempt to increase sales of their product. These sales were halted during the Second World War and in the 1950’s production began again with the first color photograph cards being offered. Baseball card production continues to this day in a highly competitive business although no longer are card sales inter-connected to sales of gum.

IT’S NOT JUST A HOBBY

Of course, sports memorabilia collecting today has gone well beyond just the hobby of the collecting of baseball cards and today it is a full fledged industry on it’s own accord. Collectors today are not only sports buffs; they are also interested in the investment aspect of their collections. Probably the most famous of all baseball memorabilia collectors, Barry Halper who recently passed away at the age of sixty-six at one time owned over 80,000 baseball related items. He began his lifetime of collecting at the age of eight and collected over thirty thousand baseball cards along with many signed baseballs and other assorted baseball memorabilia. Around twenty percent of his collection is now displayed at the Baseball Hall of Fame with the balance having been sold at auction for approximately twenty-two million dollars after Halper found himself in failing health.

John Paul writes for Sports Player Network (SPN). SPN specializes in Authentic Sports Memorabilia. For more tips and information, visit his website at www.sportsplayer.net

The astonishing region of Africa called South Luangwa has been called the very best place to safari in Africa. The park has been celebrated in various years by the countries most influential animal experts. Couples might well be able to admire big groups of lions as well as amazing hippos. Explore Zambia with a Zambia safari.

The park is well regarded for its fantastic driving safaris and is popular with all UK folk. The changing seasons makes the wildlife park irrestible with a dry season right through winter and a green brilliant jungle feel over the summer months. During the changes in season the game can differ giving folk a different aspect.

Unearth the charisma of South Africa with a safari vacation and be at one with the amazing nature and wildlife. The spectacular rivers and wildlife may make people feel alive with energy. People will be able to take huge amounts of photos and take home the best memories.

South Africa comes with many animals in its regions and British tourists can often easily pick up the perfect photo of a giraffe. If you are not used to a walking safari you might well go on a driving safari and watch huge amounts of the country all within a short amount of time. Once you have done your safari by day you can then go back to your apartment to eat. Various hotels are 3 star and awesome.

Health care providers can take care of depressed people. A physician, for one, has also training in treating psychiatric disorders. The same goes with the physician assistant and the nurse practitioner. If the case is severe, these health care providers will automatically refer the patient to mental health specialists.

The mental health specialists are composed of the following: psychiatrist, psychologist, a psychiatric nurse specialist and even a social worker.

The psychiatrist offers treatment and diagnosis for mental and psychiatric patients. A psychologist, on the other hand, is trained for counseling, psychological examination and psychotherapy. The social worker knows counseling to a certain degree, whereas a registered nurse who has taken masterals in psychiatric nursing can help out the patient.

Before the diagnosis can be made, the health care providers or mental health specialists will ask the patient on the following: symptoms, overall health and medical and mental history of the family. A physical exam will be carried out as well as some lab tests.

Depression, being an illness, requires tremendous emotional support from the family. A family member must accompany the patient on doctor visits to give the latter a boost.

During the course of the visit, the doctor will figure out if the case is severe, mild or moderate. Depression is severe if the person experiences all the symptoms and if it keeps him from doing all his daily activities. Moderate, if the person has a lot of the symptoms that it hampers his activities. It can be categorized mild if the person has some of the depression symptoms and if he needs more push to do all the things he needs to do.

No one must underestimate depression. It is a real illness, and therefore the patient needs all the help and attention he can get.

As said earlier, you are not alone in this problem. Fortunately, depression, of all psychiatric illnesses, proves to be one of the most treatable. With proper care, more than 80 percent of those suffering from major depression experience significant improvement. Even those suffering from severe depression can helped. Here are some treatments for depression problems:

Psychotherapy There are many types and methods of therapeutic approaches used for treating depression. The most common types are behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, rational emotive therapy, and interpersonal therapy. Approaches also include psychodynamic and family approaches. Both the individual as well as group modalities have been used commonly, but these depend on the severity of one’s depression, the financial resources of the person, and resources that are available locally.

Arguably the most prominent therapy in treating depression, the cognitive behavioral therapy is commonly used for handling the condition. There has been extensive research and medical studies that conducted to check or assess the safety as well as the effectiveness in treating depression using this type of therapy.

Considered the father of cognitive behavioral therapy, many written studies and books support this type of therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy uses simple techniques that focus primarily on the patient’s negative thought patterns. These negative thought patterns are also known as cognitive distortions. A person suffering from depression may from time to time use these cognitive distortions, igniting the condition.

The therapy starts with the establishment of a supportive and warm environment for one suffering from depression. Making the patient learn about how his or her depression problem may be a result of thinking in cognitive distortions is generally the next step. The types of faulty logic and thinking are also discussed in this step (such as “everything or nothing logic,” “blame mis-attribution,” “overgeneralization,” among others) and the person being treated is encouraged to start taking notes of the thoughts he or she has been having as they happen throughout his or her day. This is conducted for the person to understand and realize how often and common this kind of thoughts are occuring.

In this type of therapy, the emphasis is mainly placed on realizing the thoughts as well as the behaviors that are associated with the depression problem rather than on the emotions themselves. The rationale for this emphasis is that is strongly believed that by altering one’s thoughts and consequently, behaviors, his or her emotions will most likely change as well. Because of this type of therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy is often short-term (generally lasts up to a dozen sessions or two only) and best suits people that are experiencing some kind of distress that is related to the depression they are having. Individuals that are able to handle a problem using a perspective that is unique and therefore are most likely cognitively-oriented could also do well under this approach.

Interpersonal therapy, on the other hand, is also a therapy on a short-term basis used for treating depression. In this type of treatment, the focus usually lies on the social relationships of the patient and determine ways in improving these relationships. It is strongly believed that in order to improve the overall well-being of a person (or the patient in the case); he or she needs to have a stable and good social support.

When a person’s relationships become unhealthy, the person would most likely suffer from this problem. This therapy approach then seeks to enrich one’s skills in social relationships, expression of his or her emotions, assertiveness, and communication skills. This type of approach is usually done individually but sometimes can be used also in a setting for group therapy.

Many individual approaches would place importance more on the patient’s active personal involvement in recovering from depression. Persons being treated under an individual approach are usually enticed and encouraged to finish homework assignments between sessions. If the person is not capable yet to join in therapy sessions actively, then his or her therapist could be the one to first provide the patient an environment that supports him or her until the medication starts to help improve his or her state of feelings and mind.

Psychodynamic or psychoanalytic approaches in treating depression currently do not have much research to recommend their use. Although there are some therapists that might use psychodynamic theory in helping conceptualize a patient’s personality, there are some issues raised on how this could prove to be an effective and efficient depression treatment.

Couples or family therapy could also be considered if the depression of the patient directly affects family relationships. These types of therapy focus on the interpersonal relationships among family members. In addition, these approaches seek to ensure good communication in the family. The roles of the family members in a patient’s depression could be examined. Education about the depression problem in general might also be used as part of the family therapy.

Medication The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved numerous medications for treating depression. These drugs have been sorted into classes; each medication has a unique chemical structure which acts on various chemicals present in the brain.

It is necessary to remember that all medications approved by the DFA to treat depression are effective and recommended - they just do not work the same effect for everybody.

You might want to closely work with the doctor in determining which drug is the best for your condition. Sometimes, conditions may involve having more than just one medication; some work with a mixture of medications. This is important: Do not change your medication or discontinue your dosage without asking your doctor.

The hero’s journey is the screenwriting template. Screenwriters can use it to write effective screenplays. Below are a few of the elements of each stage of the journey.

Meeting with the Goddess.