This well done Star Wars movie is out now on Digital

I have enjoyed most Star Wars films and TV shows that have come out lately. One of the best has been The Mandalorian. This show has shown fans the darker side of this universe and has been a blast to watch. When news came out of a movie being made, like many people I looked forward to watching it. I was able to get a digital copy of The Mandalorian and Grogu and here is my thoughts on it.

(c) Walt Disney Studios

You can read the plot for this film here:

The evil Empire has fallen, and Imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they have enlisted the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his young apprentice Grogu.

(c) Walt Disney Studios

It was nice to finally get the chance to watch this movie. There was plenty of action, drama and a few twists and turns as this story moved along. This film did sort of feel like a number of episodes were strewn together but overall I was okay with this. This may not be a movie for everyone but some people are sure to enjoy it. “Biomes—From Snow to Swamp’ revealed the process of bringing these locales to life and a few of the challenges the crew faced making them. “Welcome to Shakari’ showed how this bustling city was brought together and how amazed the cast and crew were by how well it all turned out. “Dejarik for Real” told how a pivotal scene came together and how much fun the crew had putting it all together.

(c) Walt Disney Studios

The Mandalorian and Grogu is out now on Digital and arrives on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-Ray August 25th. You can follow Star Wars on Facebook and Instagram.

The post ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Is Out Now on Digital appeared first on The Good Men Project.

The Four Kinds of Heartbreak

There are four kinds of heartbreak, which all have the ability to create some of the worst pain of your life.

The first is the heartbreak of the person that you fell for but never dated, or at the very least, it never got serious with.

Then there’s what I call the one-day heartbreak, which is when it ends with someone that you have been on and off with for an extended period of time, but deep down you saw yourself ending up with them.

The third is the serious relationship heartbreak, which is the result of a genuine, committed, and often very long-term relationship ending.

Lastly, there’s the one you didn’t see coming.

This is a very specific brand of heartbreak that can be devastating in ways we must understand if we are to survive it.

In this video, you will come to understand the version of heartbreak you’re in, the unique challenges of that kind of heartbreak, and what you must know about your version if you are to come out the other side of it faster and stronger than ever.

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Here is a summary of the transcript from YouTube, slightly edited with AI.

The Heartbreak of the Person You Never Dated

Our first kind of heartbreak is the person you never dated.

One of the most painful heartbreaks isn’t always the person you spent years with.

Sometimes it’s the person you never really got to have.

Maybe you dated for a few weeks before they pulled away.

Maybe it was someone you work with who you became close to, but then when you tried to advance it, they didn’t want anything more.

We don’t really know this person.

Like, I get that we know them well enough to have fallen for them a little bit, or maybe a lot, but we don’t know everything about them.

We don’t know their flaws.

We don’t know who they would be in a relationship.

We don’t necessarily know who they are in an argument.

What we have in front of us is an idealized person.

That person came along and represented something that we were probably starving for, which is hope.

An answer to our problem.

The problem of loneliness, the problem of anxiety that I’m never going to meet anyone, the yearning that we have felt for so much of our lives to want to find love.

And in a dating landscape that can feel depressing a lot of the time, when someone shows up as hope, we cling onto it.

And when we lose it, it feels like we’re not just losing a person.

We’re losing the answer to the great problem of our life.

The problem of feeling lonely in the present and anxious about our future.

When Hope Becomes the Source of Heartbreak

When this person showed up, it got us hopeful again.

It got us dreaming again.

It got us imagining that our love life might actually happen in the way that we had always imagined.

And then it goes away as quickly as it arrived.

The danger is we make the tremendous heartbreak that we feel as a result about that person.

The heartbreak we feel has far less to do with the person than it has to do with the fact that we thought we had found the answer.

And once again, we have found ourselves disappointed and back where we started.

We need to put the relationship in its proper place.

I know the feelings are real. I get that they are.

You can be truly heartbroken by a person like this.

But we have to remember on a rational level that we did not know them well enough to know whether they were actually right for us.

We only know the version of them that existed before real life actually tested the relationship.

So, it’s not “I lost the one.”

It’s that this person never even proved themselves to be the one.

So, forget the one that got away.

This is not the one that got away.

This person is a normal stepping stone on the path to meeting the right person.

The One-Day Heartbreak

The second kind of heartbreak is what I call the one-day heartbreak.

You get together, you break up, you come back together, you break up again, and over time it kind of gets turned into your own personal will-they-won’t-they story.

I call these situations, by the way, one-day wagers.

One day, this person will turn out to be what I’ve always wanted them to be.

And the wager I make is my time, my emotions, my energy, my intimacy.

Every part of me I’m going to give you in the hope that one day you’ll have the qualities I want you to have.

You’ll be generous, not selfish.

You’ll want kids instead of what you’re saying now, which is you don’t.

You’ll commit on a serious level instead of just stringing me along.

One day you’ll become that.

And the one-day wager is the greatest gamble you can make for your life because it wastes years.

When We Mistake Inconsistency for Destiny

That’s how these things stay alive.

We have this romantic idea that we hold onto of how important this relationship is, how special this person is.

And we keep reinforcing that story by talking about it with friends, dissecting it over time, and looking at those moments when they come back as some kind of symbol or meaning.

It’s not:

“Well, we keep breaking up, so we must be wrong for each other.”

It’s:

“We keep finding our way back together no matter what.”

We wind up mistaking inconsistency for destiny.

The second reason they’re hard is that we never fully grieve that person.

Every time that person disappeared and reappeared, we learned that they always reappear.

So, we never really let ourselves grieve.

Every ending with this person over time has felt like an ellipsis instead of a period.

When it does finally end, we have to admit that this story we’ve been telling ourselves is not real, at least in the way that we imagined it.

And parting ways with that story can feel like parting ways with a part of ourselves.

How to Heal From the One-Day Heartbreak

So what do we do about heartbreak here?

Well, on one hand, it can actually be productive to get angry.

Anger can actually help break the spell of the sadness.

Sometimes anger is a good antidote to heartbreak.

If we feel angry at the time spent with this person because we’re like:

“You were never serious about me.”

“You never actually gave me what I wanted, and I’m finally angry about that instead of hurt.”

That actually can help create the emotional distance we need to walk away.

The second is: let go of the fantasy.

This wasn’t a relationship that never got a chance.

It was a relationship that had every possible chance and still didn’t happen.

It had too many chances.

Understanding Why We Stayed

I always think that when we’re beating ourselves up for how much time we spent in a situation like this, we have to remember that it was a symptom.

It was a symptom of something deeper in us that we felt we weren’t worthy of more.

That we felt this person was the answer to all of our problems, even though they weren’t even showing up for us.

There’s a wound that we are operating from in continuing to give this person so much power in our lives.

And when we realize that, it does two things.

The first is it makes us realize it was never really about them.

We had nominated them in this role in our lives that was far more to do with that wound than anything else.

So, it suddenly makes them less important.

But the second thing it does is it allows us to give compassion to ourselves.

It allows us to realize that this wasn’t an easy thing for me to change.

So rather than seeing it like:

“I’ve wasted so much time. I can’t believe I gave this person this much of my life. I can’t believe I stayed around for so long hoping that would turn into something.”

Tell yourself:

“I’m like everyone else on earth who finds it really hard to heal the deeper wounds that are governing all of my behaviors in life.”

This behavior in this particular case just happens to involve another person.

You Are Not Alone in Your Heartbreak

Whatever form of heartbreak you are experiencing right now, please know I have had my own version of the place that you are in right now.

And so have thousands of people I have sat with in some of the darkest moments of their lives.

I see you.

You are not alone.

And I am so deeply sorry that you are going through this in your life right now.

Sometimes when life feels so dark that no light can possibly find its way to us, someone reaches into that darkness at exactly the moment we need it most.

And when someone does that, those moments don’t just help us heal—they restore our faith in people, and sometimes in life itself.

I’d love to offer you one of those moments right now.

Because starting on July 20, I am doing something that I have never done before.

I’m setting aside an entire week of my life to be with anyone in this community who is currently going through heartbreak.

I know that summer is a time when a lot of other people are talking about finding love and getting excited about their plans, but when you’re in that darkness, that’s not where you’re at.

You just want to feel better.

So, for five consecutive days, I am going to go live in a process I am calling Five Days to Mend.

This is designed to be a complete experience where each day builds on the last, taking you from that dark, raw place you’re in to a place of greater peace, strength, hope, and happiness by the end of the five days.

I’m going to be answering questions.

I’m going to be working with you.

I’m going to be sitting with you and holding space for the pain that you’re going through.

There is no fee to attend this.

I wanted it to be completely open and completely free for every single person in my community who needs it.

So, whoever you are, come.

Invite your friends. Invite your family. Whoever you know needs this, join us.

Go to mendweek.com and sign up. It’ll take you just a couple of seconds.

I believe that sometimes life brings us exactly what we need at exactly the moment we need it.

Maybe this is that moment for you.

The Heartbreak of a Serious Relationship

The third kind of heartbreak is the serious relationship heartbreak.

This is the committed relationship that has been a huge part of your life—if not your entire life—and it ends.

It might have been after a few years.

It might have been after decades, after spending half your life with this person.

And of course, when you lose someone like this, you’re not just grieving a person.

You’re grieving an entire life.

Years of shared history, routines, traditions, dreams, plus the future you thought you were going to have with this person.

In the beginning, everyone shows up for you because it’s obvious to them that this is a profound thing that has happened in your life.

They know you deserve all of the love, sympathy, and support in the world.

But just like when we lose a family member and people initially show up and then get on with their lives, so too do people move on after we’ve been heartbroken—even in the longest relationship of our lives.

So we find ourselves showing up for work, friends, family, and responsibilities, all the while still being heartbroken at a time when everyone else feels like we’ve moved on.

Life has moved on.

We fracture ourselves.

We end up living one life for everybody else and another life privately.

The exhaustion that comes from putting on that mask is profound and often leads to burnout and depression.

It’s like the world feels unfairly normal while you’re still going through one of the greatest losses—maybe the greatest loss—of your life.

It’s like the old Skeeter Davis song:

“Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
It ended when I lost your love.”

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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California’s state constitution keeps real-money gambling inside tribal compacts and cardrooms, and Sacramento’s own attempts to legalize online sports betting have stalled twice now. Assembly Bill 831 has also recently changed the sweepstakes casino landscape, pushing players who got used to Gold Coins and Sweeps Coins toward the offshore real-money sites that were already accepting California signups. I spent this week going through the terms, banking pages, and welcome offers of five casinos and offshore sportsbook options California players may be able to access. Here are my findings.

Everygame Casino

Everygame Casino traces its history to Intertops, a sportsbook that was launched in 1983 and became operational online in 1996.  In 2021, Intertops became Everygame and has since then been running a licensed sportsbook alongside its casino under one login.

For the sports side, Everygame is currently running a 50% sign-up bonus up to $200, which is an attractive entry point for someone testing the offshore waters. It covers everything from NFL and NBA to more niche markets like stock market betting and politics.

Beyond the sign-up offer, Everygame keeps a rotating slate of sportsbook promotions that reward different styles of play. Boosted Odds is the one I find easiest to like. There is no deposit bonus and no rollover strings, just enhanced payouts on hand-picked single bets that refresh regularly.

The casino side has two distinct casino wings, Red and Classic. Casino Red is where the heavy-hitting happens. I recently checked out its Triple Tigers promotion, which offers a massive $7,000 extra across your first three deposits plus free spins. The math is straightforward: a 75% match on your first deposit, scaling up to 125% by your third. It also has a Slot of the Month feature, currently Miami Jackpots, that offers double comp points and matches up to $5,000.

Casino Red also runs a special welcome package where you can grab $5,555 in Rookie Raise bonuses across your first four qualifying deposits, followed by a $55 free bonus once all four are cleared. The minimum deposit is $20 per coupon, and at that minimum, the 125% match adds $25, so your play balance opens at $45. The casino states a clean 30x rule on deposit plus bonus for standard promotions, so on that $45 opening balance you need to wager $1,350 before a withdrawal request goes through.

On banking, Everygame accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, BetterEFT, CardPay, Paysafe, INTERAC, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Lightning Bitcoin, Litecoin, Neosurf, and EZeeWallet. Card deposits run $20 to $1,000 per transaction with no fee. Withdrawals begin processing 48 hours after a request is submitted. Crypto tends to clear instantly after processing. Checks carry a $150 minimum payout, a $3,000 maximum, and a $60 fee is charged for each payout. Only one check withdrawal is processed per person every seven days.

My honest read on Everygame is that the terms are the most transparent of the five brands here. The 30x figure, the coupon codes, and the deposit minimums are all sitting on the official page rather than buried in a support ticket.

Miami Club Casino

Miami Club runs on WGS Technology software. Instead of one giant headline bonus that requires a massive rollover, Miami Club offers a 100% match up to $100 on each of your first eight deposits, for up to $800 total, with a $25 minimum deposit. This approach is much easier on the wallet. The official promotions information does not publish a wagering multiplier next to that match, which is a gap I would want closed before committing a deposit. Budget a few minutes with support or the full terms before you opt in.

Withdrawals with Bitcoin start at a $100 minimum. Wire transfer charges a $50 processing fee and a window that can stretch from 1 to 10 business days after processing. Bitcoin is the faster route, landing in roughly 48 hours. The WGS library runs more than 270 titles.

I see Miami Club as the beginner-friendly offshore option if you are looking for a less aggressive starting point than Everygame’s massive bonuses. The eight-deposit structure spreads the bonus out, which is a more forgiving pace if you are still deciding how much you actually want to play.

Uptown Aces

Uptown Aces comes across as a laid-back online casino, the kind built for browsing through new releases and chasing that one big score. On sign-up, you get a $10 free chip with no deposit required, which is a rare find in 2026. Once ready to commit, the code UNPACK gives you a 250% first-deposit match. If you deposit $25, you are playing with over $87.50 right away. The casino states there is no cap on how much you can eventually cash out from that match. Standard wagering is 30x deposit plus bonus, so on the $87.50 balance you would need to wager $2,625 before requesting a withdrawal.

Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Lightning Bitcoin are available for deposits. Bitcoin is its verified cryptocurrency withdrawal option. Bitcoin withdrawals cap at $2,500 per transaction and $5,000 per week. Real-Series slots like Fortunate Buddha and Cash Bandits 3 are in the current games lobby.

What really stands out to me here is their 24-hour VIP withdrawals. If you play consistently and hit their VIP tiers, they prioritize your cashouts, making same-day crypto payouts a reality for loyal California players.

Grande Vegas Casino

Grande Vegas Casino has been around since 2002, making it a genuine legacy brand in the offshore world. That kind of longevity shows up in the game library too, with over 300 titles pulled from RTG and SpinLogic. Right now they are offering a $25 free chip with code TESTGV, no deposit required, followed by a 150% match up to $300 on your first deposit.

It is worth noting that Grande Vegas is a bit old school with how they present their terms. They don’t always spell out the exact wagering requirements on the promo banners themselves, so you will want to click through to the full terms before claiming anything. On the plus side, their Bitcoin payouts are promoted as a fast withdrawal option, although you should check the current processing terms before depositing.

Jackpot Capital Casino

Jackpot Capital runs on RTG software with over 400 titles. The current first-deposit offer is a 222% match up to $2,000 plus 22 free spins on Fortunate Buddha. Card deposits through Visa, Mastercard, and American Express run from a $25 minimum up to a $500 maximum.

Beyond cards, Jackpot Capital takes Bitcoin from $25 to $2,500 with no fees and withdrawals processed within five business days, Bitcoin Cash, Lightning Bitcoin from $5 to $100 with no fees, Ethereum from $25 to $2,500 with no fees, and CardPay from $10 to $1,000 with instant processing. There is also a 25% cashback offer. The newer game releases are Bass Baggin’ Bounty, Devil’s Jackpot, T-Rex Lava Blitz, Blazing Horse, Buffalo Mania: Thunder Springs, Oz Golden Trail, Temple Totems, Regal Reels, and Fortunate Zeus, alongside the welcome-package title Fortunate Buddha.

The Lightning Bitcoin option is the standout for me personally. A $5 minimum with no fee attached is the lowest minimum deposit you will find anywhere on this list.

Play Responsibly

Betting is entertainment, not a financial strategy. If you feel like your gambling is becoming a problem, the California Council on Problem Gambling offers a 24/7 confidential helpline at 1-800-GAMBLER. You can also reach the National Council on Problem Gambling at 1-800-MY-RESET.

My Take

Until California lawmakers finally get a regulated market on the ballot in 2028, offshore sites remain our primary avenue for real-money action. If you want a California-facing offshore site that covers both sports betting and casino games without a second signup, Everygame is the one I would open first. The terms are published in full rather than scattered across support tickets, the 30x wagering figure on the casino side is stated plainly, and the sportsbook offer gives you a good starting point.

Claim the Everygame welcome package and start with the 125% first deposit match on Casino Red or the $200 sportsbook offer, whichever side of the site you plan to use first.

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This post is for information and entertainment only. Please check all local laws. 

This post brought to you by Haroon Bajwa. 

Photo: iStock

The post Best Real-Money Sportsbooks and Casinos for California Players (2026): Top Offshore Betting Sites Ranked appeared first on The Good Men Project.

I recall my first year of teaching — a colleague and I were chaperoning a field trip. We had to stay until the last student was picked up since it was our duty as educators.

Around 9 p.m., all but one student was picked up. She was calling people who could come pick her up, but by around 9:30, no one picked up. Since we were both there, this colleague agreed to drive the student home if I also sat in the car for liability reasons. It was a Tuesday or Wednesday, and she had to come to school the next day, and we had to go to work the next day, so it was in everyone’s best interest for everyone to get home.

Something she said when she was trying to get a ride stuck with me: “this is why I hate relying on people.”

I can resonate in quite a few ways. I also dislike relying on people. It’s one of my least favorite things in the world. I don’t like relying on my parents for anything, friends, colleagues. It feels like a defeat and a surrender, but there have been periods of time I’ve had to.

I have always prided myself on not relying on others and showing that I was hyperindependent, particularly because, as one of two brothers, I was the one who needed less help and was more reliable. It’s not that I never struggled, but I would often try to find a million ways to figure out a problem myself before I ask for help.

I wish it did not feel that way, but I think pride, stubbornness, and embarrassment get in the way. I also hate feeling like an inconvenience or burden to other people — I rarely feel that way about others, but perhaps it’s the image I want to curate of myself as someone who does not need help and who has developed an armor and shield to not have to be in situations where I am not in control and I need to rely on the grace of God and others. It’s hard not to be in control and acknowledge I can’t do it on my own, but life has a way of humbling me in many ways.

There are certain life situations I, like that student, cannot avoid relying on others.

Sometimes, a breakdown of the hyperindependent identity can happen in small, everyday moments.

I was on an early morning run with a group of local runners. They were all dads with kids and families and had to get back home at a certain time (before 7:30 a.m., for the most part), so we were trying to make good time. Along the run, I lost my car key on the trail. I tried to retrace my steps, and another guy went to look for my key, but no one could find it, so it was lost and I had no way to get into my car.

Because I couldn’t get into my car, I needed a ride home. Another runner in the group still needed to get home early, but he offered to give me a ride. He had to cut his run short a couple of miles short of what he planned, but he still gave me a ride so he had enough time to take care of his young kids.

I got home and had to figure something out. I called another friend who gave up his whole morning to drive me to my car. While there, we called a locksmith who, after an hour, was able to get into my car and program a key. My friend waited the whole time for me to get situated and drive my car home, and I paid him back by getting him brunch, but it was a very small gesture in return for the immense kindness he showed me.

Without the kindness of these friends, I would have been completely screwed. My car would have been stranded at a random park-and-ride where anything could have happened. I was in trouble, and only by relying on them was I able to get out of the situation.

Of course, I was out a couple hundred dollars after paying the locksmith that I wish I could have gotten back, but the situation could have been significantly worse — I could have been alone, and my friends could have not offered to help me in a situation of great need. They treated it like it was no big deal, but I know both had to go out of their days a bit in terms of distance from their homes and time taken out of their mornings.

Vulnerability has shown up in smaller, everyday ways, too. have had to rely on others to jump my car when it died. When I went the wrong way in the middle of a marathon, someone graciously let me use her phone to call my friend to pick me up. A month and a half ago, I had to rely on my wife to take care of me for a couple of days when I had my wisdom teeth taken out.

I recall all the colleagues who gave me a ride home and to work when I had car issues. I would have had to pay $20-$30 for an Uber, but they wouldn’t let me. They wanted to do me the favor and said it wasn’t that big of a deal, even though I lived more out of the way than they necessarily would admit. But one of them just gave this bit of life advice: pay it forward.

In such a transactional world, they focused on our long-term relationships and their own values of helping others in a time of need. This gives me an obligation to pay it forward. This is a long life, and we often do not see the impact when we go out of our way to help someone in need. It isn’t about expecting anything in return, but doing the right thing and living according to these shared values of generosity, grace, and compassion. I know that I have an obligation to help others in a time of need as well, whether in a professional or personal capacity.

There are certainly times we all have to traverse challenges alone and figure it out. As much as I try to preach it, I don’t think I can get past the feelings of embarrassment and defeat like the flip of a switch. I think it’s a gradual chipping away, a gradual revelation of the importance of community in times of need, and the gradual ability to pay it forward when others need help as well.

I think of my biggest excuse when I ignore someone who reaches out to me for help, or when I see a homeless person on the D.C. Metro or street when driving.

“I don’t have enough time.”
“I don’t have enough money.”
“I have enough of my own problems and as much as I want to, I don’t have to the capacity to help this person with theirs.”

Although I know I cannot be perfect every time, I can do better to just prioritize this notion of paying it forward. It’s what others have done for me, now and time and time again, and life is hard enough to get through alone. It will take a village, for me and for many of us.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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By Isaya Lemerketo

Drive into the Samburu lands of northern Kenya and you’ll see a semiarid region dotted with high-end safari lodges and sprawling community conservancies. The nearby Samburu National Reserve attracts visitors from across the world and garners international recognition. Reports from nongovernmental organizations highlight millions of dollars invested throughout the region in wildlife protection, tourism enterprises, carbon markets, peacebuilding, and community initiatives.

But on these lands, the reality is far more complicated: Despite global acclaim and revenue flows, ordinary pastoralist households often remain cut off from the wealth generated by conservation.

Globally the question of who benefits from conservation has persisted for decades. In northern Kenya that question isn’t theoretical; it’s immediate and unresolved.

Under initiatives such as the Northern Kenya Rangelands Carbon Project, participating community conservancies — locally governed areas of community-owned land set aside for wildlife conservation alongside pastoral livelihoods — have generated substantial revenues though “carbon credits” sales. Since 2013 the project has generated millions of dollars in revenue from carbon credits verified under the Verra standard. In 2022 14 conservancies each reportedly received disbursements of approximately $324,000. According to publicly available project materials, these funds were intended to support rangeland management and community projects in education, water, and health.

Yet these financial flows sit uneasily alongside everyday realities. Many pastoralist households remain economically vulnerable, shaped by recurrent drought, livestock loss, and limited livelihood diversification. Women and children still walk long distances for water. Young people depend on precarious wage labor in landscapes marketed globally as models of sustainability.

This tension points to a deeper structural problem: While conservancies generate significant conservation revenue, the mechanisms through which that value reaches ordinary households remain weak, uneven, and difficult to trace.

Tourism revenues illustrate this imbalance clearly. High-end lodges within conservancies charge between $490 and $2,000 per person per night, while even lower-end lodges charge patrons hundreds of dollars. Entry fees for foreign tourists visiting national reserves range from $70-85 per 24 hours, paid to the county government of Samburu. Conservancies also generate income through concession agreements, lease payments, bed-night fees, and landing fees at airstrips on community land.

Despite these revenue streams, broad-based household benefit remains limited. Research across Kenya’s rangelands indicates that a minority of households earn income from conservancy employment, and those earnings typically constitute a modest share of overall livelihoods. Publicly accessible information on how revenue is distributed is scarce. Without transparency, even educated observers struggle to reconcile marketed benefits with lived realities.

Ownership structures further shape these outcomes. Many lodges operating on community land are owned or managed by foreign hospitality companies, often in partnership with international investors. Communities participate primarily through lease agreements negotiated by conservancy institutions. In exchange they receive fixed payments, employment opportunities, and funding for community projects. However, they rarely hold equity or control over profit distribution.

This pattern mirrors a common dynamic across the Global South: Economic value generated from local land often leaks outward, leaving communities with a small fraction of the wealth produced on their ancestral lands.

And the issue extends beyond conservancies. Samburu National Reserve generates substantial revenue through tourism, yet the funds flow into county government accounts. Decades of conservation investment have not fundamentally altered structural poverty among communities living closest to protected areas.

Despite progressive frameworks meant to protect community land and its people, the promise often remains unrealized. In many conservancies questions around membership remain unresolved, with some community members unclear about their recognition within conservancy structures despite their birthrights on the ancestral land. This uncertainty raises deeper questions about governance, legitimacy, and who truly has a voice in decisions affecting land and community livelihoods, even as formal frameworks exist to safeguard these rights.

Research across rangeland regions in Kenya shows that benefits frequently accrue disproportionately to board members, politically connected actors, and institutional intermediaries. Women, youth, casual laborers, and land-poor households — despite bearing the costs of wildlife predation, grazing restrictions, and mobility constraints — often receive modest or irregular returns. Conservation success is routinely measured in amount of land protected, wildlife populations stabilized, and dollars mobilized, but rarely in terms of household-level well-being, despite global frameworks (such as the Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) that advocate for doing exactly that.

Recent developments have brought these tensions into sharper focus. Legal challenges to conservancy governance, the withdrawal of key donors from conservation programs, and the suspension of major carbon credit certification in northern Kenya have exposed underlying concerns around consent, transparency, and benefit sharing. Meetings are held and “benefits announced,” but financial flows from tourism, “carbon markets,” and donors rarely reach households in meaningful ways.

Without transparency, benefit-sharing risks being symbolic rather than substantive.

Equity in benefit distribution is central to conservation legitimacy. Without clearer accountability, conservation risks reproducing extractive dynamics it claims to replace, where land and wildlife generate global value while local communities remain marginalized.

Debates over equity in conservation are not new; for decades scholars and practitioners have questioned whether community-based models genuinely redistribute benefits or just reproduce inequality. Recent global commitments at the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2025 have reinforced this principle, but implementation continues to lag.

Rethinking equity does not mean abandoning community conservancies. In the face of accelerating biodiversity loss, climate change, and constrained public funding, they remain one of the most viable conservation models. But their long-term legitimacy depends on whether they deliver not only ecological outcomes, but fair and measurable social benefits.

A more equitable approach requires concrete shifts. Conservancies and associated partners must adopt transparent, publicly accessible financial reporting that tracks how revenues translate into household-level benefits. Benefit-sharing mechanisms should extend beyond land ownership alone to include broader community members, particularly women and youth. Governance structures must ensure meaningful participation, not just formal representation. Finally, conservation planning must explicitly account for opportunity costs, including restriction on grazing and land use.

Encouragingly, emerging models in parts of Kenya have begun experimenting with more direct household payments, stronger community ownership structures, and transparent financial accountability. While still evolving, these examples demonstrate that alternative approaches are possible.

Pastoralist landscapes have sustained wildlife and cultural systems for generations. Their communities should not remain economically marginalized within conservation’s globally celebrated success stories.

A personal note: I grew up in a village of 25 households and around 150 people, located less than a mile from the main entry to Samburu National Reserve. By now I would expect to see even a single anecdote of someone’s life improving directly from conservancies. I have not. Most of these households still live in insecure housing, struggle to pay for their children’s schools fees, and endure degraded rangelands for their livestock.

If Kenya’s conservancy model is to endure, it must move beyond measuring success in amounts of land protected or dollars generated and confront the more difficult but necessary question: Who truly benefits?

—

This post was previously published on THEREVELATOR.ORG and is republished on Medium.

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The post Who Really Benefits From Community Conservancies? Rethinking Equity in Kenya’s Conservation Model appeared first on The Good Men Project.

Donald Trump did not invent Donald Trump. He was assembled, piece by piece, by a family whose history reads like a manual for manufacturing a man who would treat life as a demolition derby. The Trumps were not a Norman Rockwell clan with a white picket fence and a golden retriever. They were a dynasty built on opportunism, reinvention, racial exclusion, and the unspoken rule that feelings were for other people. If you want to understand the man who would one day insist he alone could fix America, you have to understand the family that taught him that losing was a moral failure and winning was the only proof of worth.

This is the story of growing up Trump, a childhood shaped by a grandfather who ran frontier hotels and brothels, a father who built an empire on federal subsidies and segregation, a mother who vanished into illness, and a brother who drank himself into an early grave. It is not a story of wealth. It is a story of training.

I. The Grandfather: Friedrich Trump and the Original Hustle

Donald Trump never met his grandfather, Friedrich Trump, but he inherited the man’s worldview as if it were a genetic mutation. Friedrich was a draft‑dodging immigrant from Bavaria who reinvented himself in America with the moral flexibility of a man who understood that rules were for the rule‑followers. He made his first real money in the Klondike Gold Rush, running hotels and restaurants that offered miners everything they needed: food, liquor, and sex. The polite term was “sporting house.” The accurate term was brothel.

This was the first Trump business model: Find a boomtown. Build something fast. Extract as much money as possible. Don’t ask questions. Leave before the sheriff shows up.

When Friedrich returned to New York, he invested his profits in Queens real estate — the seed that would grow into the Trump empire. Then he died in 1918, leaving behind a widow, three children, and a blueprint for how Trumps would operate for the next century:

• Bend rules.
• Exploit opportunity.
• Rewrite the past when necessary.

The family would later claim Swedish ancestry to hide their German roots during WWII. Donald would repeat the lie for decades. Reinvention wasn’t a strategy; it was a family tradition. In his 1987 book The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump explicitly wrote that his grandfather “came here from Sweden.”

II. Fred Trump Sr.: The Enforcer

If Friedrich built the template, Fred Trump Sr. turned it into a doctrine. Fred was thirteen when his father died, and he responded by becoming the kind of man who never again wanted to feel powerless. By fifteen, he was building houses. By twenty‑two, he had a company. By middle age, he was one of the most powerful real‑estate developers in New York — and one of the most feared.

Fred Trump was not subtle. He built his empire on federal housing subsidies while loudly insisting he was self‑made. He kept his buildings white by design, not accident. When folk singer Woody Guthrie moved into Fred’s Beach Haven apartments in 1950, he was so disgusted by the racial exclusion that he wrote a song about it: “Old Man Trump.” Guthrie accused Fred of stirring up “racial hate” and drawing a “color line” through the complex. The Department of Justice later agreed, suing Fred and Donald in 1973 for systematic discrimination.

Old Man TrumpWords by Woody Guthrie, Adapted by Ryan Harvey, Music by Ryan HarveyContact Publisher — Woody Guthrie Publications/BMG Chrysalis

I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hateHe stirred up in that bloodpot of human heartsWhen he drawed that color lineHere at his Beach Haven family project

Beach Haven ain’t my home!No, I just can’t pay this rent!My money’s down the drain,And my soul is badly bent!Beach Haven is Trump’s TowerWhere no black folks come to roam,No, no, Old Man Trump!Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!

I’m calling out my welcome to you and your man bothWelcoming you here to Beach HavenTo love in any way you please and to have some kind of a decent placeTo have your kids raised up in.

Beach Haven ain’t my home!No, I just can’t pay this rent!My money’s down the drain,And my soul is badly bent!Beach Haven is Trump’s TowerWhere no black folks come to roam,No, no, Old Man Trump!Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!

This was the household Donald grew up in: A father who believed racism was a business model, tenants were adversaries, and compassion was a defect. Several years after Guthrie’s song, Fred Trump Sr. was arrested at a Klan protest of a Memorial Day parade in Queens. While Donald later claims his father wasn’t there. The same attorney represented Fred as six Klan members arrested at the same time. Fred was released without charges.

“He was never arrested. He has nothing to do with this. This never happened. This is nonsense, and it never happened. This never happened. Never took place. He was never arrested, never convicted, never even charged. It’s a completely false, ridiculous story. He was never there! It never happened. Never took place.” — Donald Trump

Ten Years Ago, I Wrote About Fred Trump’s Klan Arrest. I Thought It Worthy Of Recycling

Fred Trump taught his children that the world was a battlefield and the only safe place was on top. He favored Donald because Donald mirrored his aggression. He dismissed Donald’s older brother, Fred Jr., as weak. He rewarded dominance and punished vulnerability. He was the sun around which the Trump household orbited — and he cast a long, cold shadow.

III. The Mother Who Disappeared

Donald’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, was the opposite of Fred: soft‑spoken, devout, and elegant. She immigrated from the Outer Hebrides at eighteen, worked as a domestic servant, and married into a world she could never have imagined as a child in a Gaelic‑speaking fishing village.

But when Donald was young, Mary Anne suffered a traumatic medical emergency after childbirth. She was hospitalized for months and never fully recovered. For long stretches of Donald’s childhood, she was physically present but emotionally absent — a ghost in the house.

This left Donald with a father who barked orders and a mother who could not buffer the impact. The emotional center of the home collapsed, and Fred Trump filled the vacuum with his own values: toughness, dominance, and the belief that love was conditional.

Growing up Trump meant learning early that affection was earned, not given — and that the safest way to earn it was to imitate the man who controlled the room.

IV. The Brother Who Became a Warning Label

If Fred Trump Sr. was the enforcer, Fred Trump Jr. was the family’s cautionary tale. He was charming, kind, and uninterested in real estate. He wanted to fly airplanes, not collect rent. He joined TWA and built a life outside the family business. His father hated it.

Fred Sr. mocked his son’s career, belittled his choices, and treated him as a disappointment. Under the weight of that contempt, Fred Jr. began drinking. His alcoholism worsened. He died at forty‑two.

Donald watched all of it. He saw what happened to the son who didn’t fight hard enough. He saw what happened to the child who didn’t mirror his father’s aggression. He saw that gentleness was punished and vulnerability was fatal.

Fred Jr.’s death didn’t just teach Donald to avoid alcohol. It taught him to avoid weakness in himself and in others. It taught him that the only safe identity was the one his father approved of: the fighter, the winner, the killer.

V. The Schools That Tried to Contain Him

Donald Trump was not an easy child. Teachers at the Kew‑Forest School described him as disruptive, aggressive, and impossible to discipline. By thirteen, he was getting into fights and pushing boundaries in ways that alarmed his parents. Fred Trump’s solution was not therapy. It was militarization.

He sent Donald to the New York Military Academy, a boarding school where discipline was enforced with boots and shouting. Donald thrived in the hierarchy. He learned to command attention, to dominate peers, and to treat rules as negotiable if you had enough swagger. He learned that leadership was performance and performance was power.

After NYMA, he drifted through Fordham and then Wharton, where he was not a standout student but an absolute standout self‑promoter. He told classmates he would be famous. He told friends he would be rich. He told the world he was destined for greatness long before he had done anything to justify the claim.

VI. The Family Mythology That Became His Operating System

Growing up Trump meant growing up inside a mythology — a story Fred Trump told so often that it hardened into family scripture:

• We are winners.
• We are self‑made, even when we aren’t.
• We are strong, even when we’re terrified.
• We never apologize.
• We never lose.
• If we lose, we say we won.

This mythology required constant performance. It demanded that Donald present himself as the embodiment of Trump success, even when the facts contradicted the narrative. It taught him that truth was flexible, that shame was optional, and that the past could be rewritten if it became inconvenient.

It also taught him that the world was divided into two categories: killers and losers. His father was a killer. His brother was a loser. Donald knew which one he had to be.

VII. The Man the Family Built

By the time Donald Trump entered adulthood, the influences that shaped him were fused into his personality:

• From Friedrich, he inherited opportunism and the belief that rules were obstacles, women were objects to be possessed and used.
• From Fred, he inherited aggression, racial hierarchy, and the obsession with dominance.
• From Mary Anne, he inherited a void — the absence of maternal warmth that left him hungry for attention.
• From Fred Jr., he inherited a warning: never be vulnerable.
• From military school, he inherited the idea that leadership was performance and performance was war.

Donald Trump did not become who he is by accident. He became who he is because the family that raised him rewarded aggression, punished empathy, and treated winning as the only moral value.

Donald Trump Is Not a Racist! He Isn’t a Misogynist, Homophobe, or Criminal, Either! | by William Spivey | Medium

VIII. Conclusion: The Family as Destiny

Growing up Trump meant growing up in a house where love was conditional, success was mandatory, and the family name was both a shield and a weapon. It meant learning that the truth was negotiable, that losing was unacceptable, and that the only safe position in life was on top.

Donald Trump is not an anomaly. He is the logical outcome of the Trump family system — a man engineered by a lineage that believed in dominance above all else. To understand the adult, you have to understand the child. And to understand the child, you have to understand the family that built him: a grandfather who hustled, a father who enforced, a mother who vanished, and a brother who broke. Growing up Trump was not a childhood. It was an apprenticeship.

If only the pattern ended with Donald. It seems three of his children have inherited the same traits from Donald. I don’t have to document it, you already know. Don Jr. attempted escape and didn’t speak to his father for years before crawling back. Ivanka tried to separate herself, but is on call when needed. She and her husband, Jared, are attempting to create a luxury private island rivaling anything Epstein owned.

Welcome to Jared and Ivanka’s Private Island | by William Spivey | The Polis | Jun, 2026 | Medium

There are generations of Trumps who have been exposed to the Trump traditions. All haven’t succumbed, time will tell about the rest.

—

This post was previously published on William Spivey’s blog.

***

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The post Growing up Trump: The Family That Built the Man appeared first on The Good Men Project.

I used to think my story was something I needed to survive. I did not know yet that I was being devoted to it, and it to me. For most of my life I believed pain was something to endure and, if you were fortunate, eventually outrun. I was wrong. Pain is an assignment. Every wound quietly shapes the person you were always meant to become. These are the five ways it did.

Name the Wound You Did Not Choose.

I grew up unchosen by my own parents, invisible in the way only a child inside a home can feel. My brother was the golden child, adored in the way I silently ached to be. I loved him for it, even when the longing hurt. I did not have a word for what I carried then. Now I do: grief. Not just for what I never had, but for him, because he was taken from me too.

I invite you to give your grief a name. Grief that is named begins to lose its power to define you.

Recognize That Staying Is a Courageous Act.

That grief nearly swallowed me whole. Survivor’s guilt is a particular kind of invisible. It makes you question whether your life has weight, whether you were meant to stay. But something in me, rooted deeper than the pain, refused to believe I had survived for nothing. Staying alive was not an accident. It was a courageous act, whether I recognized it as one or not.

I invite you to choose to stay, one day at a time. Every morning you show up for your life is one of the most courageous things a human being can do.

Let Healing Come Back to the Body.

Healing lives in the body as much as the spirit. The vagus nerve, the quiet wire running through us, is capable of anchoring the nervous system back to calm when fear takes over. My body, braced for years against abandonment and loss, was learning to feel safe from the inside out. That kind of rooted calm does not come quickly. But it comes.

I invite you to come back to your body. When fear rises, breathe slowly. Your nervous system is listening, and it can learn a new story.

Find the Love That Knows Your Fear by Name.

Then came love, the kind that knows your fear by name. My partner and I found each other the way two people with the same scar sometimes do. We share a fear not of each other, but of how much we want the other person to stay. That wanting, so tender and fierce, is where love and fear become the same feeling. That daily choosing to stay is its own kind of healing.

I invite you to let your story be a bridge, not a wall. When you are ready, someone with the same scar is waiting for the recognition you carry.

Trust That Purpose Was Woven into the Pain.

All of it has led me here, to a life devoted to purpose. Purpose does not arrive after the pain. It was woven into it. Every scar is a place where the light gets through, for anyone who has ever felt unchosen or afraid that love will not stay. My story was never only mine to carry. It was meant to become a lamp for someone else walking in the dark.

I invite you to ask yourself what this pain has made you capable of that you could not have been otherwise. That answer is your assignment.

I write these words with gratitude, not the easy kind that forgets what it cost, but the deep, hard-won kind that still remembers every step. Grateful for the wounds that appointed me. Grateful for the brother I loved and lost. Grateful for the body that learned to come home to itself. Grateful for a love brave enough to stay.

Pain shaped me. Grief schooled me. Love anchored me. And purpose carried me to exactly where I was always meant to be.

 iStock image

The post 5 Ways Pain Prepares You for the Life You Were Meant to Live appeared first on The Good Men Project.

I once gave a dulcimer to a child. He asked several questions about how to play it. I assured him there were no rules. He could strum or pluck the strings and play however he wanted. He looked at me with wide eyes and asked,

I assured him it was. If I could talk to him again, I would add,

“Yes, it’s a free instrument and you are a free musician.”

We all have children inside us, who we once were and still carry within us, who long for the freedom to create. When our creativity is blocked, we are not allowing our Inner Child to be free. Here’s why we do it, and how we can learn to free our Inner Creative Child.

What are your subconscious thoughts about yourself and your creativity

When you procrastinate writing, familiarly known as writer’s block, what are your subconscious and conscious thoughts? Conscious thoughts might include:

I’m not funny anymore

I can’t think of anything to write

Everybody (or a specific famous writer) is better than I am

I’m not good enough as a writer to keep going

We’ve all had these thoughts. The feelings attached to them are often depression, fear, anxiety, or agitation, none of which are good for the creative process. In fact, these thoughts and feelings make writing, or creating in any field, an uphill battle. With weights attached to our ankles. Or, more accurately, to our minds.

As a writer and a psychotherapist, I’ve observed these heavy thoughts and feelings, and the behaviors, or lack thereof, they lead to. I’ve seen them both in myself and in my clients. These thoughts and feelings are not “who we are” and they are not our personality. Children aren’t born being negative with low self-esteem. They are taught negativity and low self-esteem.

In therapy, we can address the thoughts that cause these feelings with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. You can also do it yourself right now, using countering statements like these:

I’ve been funny before, so there’s no reason I won’t be funny again

If I relax, and look around me, I can think of things to write about. I can take an object I see or a recent experience and begin writing about it

Who cares if someone else is better than I am at my craft? I’ll work on being the best I can be

Who says I’m not good enough?

Where our negativity came from

The last one leads us to discovering and countering our subconscious blocks. Someone, somewhere, told us we were not good enough.

You may find yourself wanting to argue against believing others told you that you weren’t good enough. My clients often argue. When I ask my clients who told them something negative about themselves, they often say, “I did” or “Nobody, it’s just true.”

It is not just true, and somebody did tell you that when you were young, even if not in those specific words. Although sometimes those were the exact words. Don’t believe me? Try this:

Take a minute to think back to the earliest age you remember not feeling good enough, or smart enough, or committed enough to create or succeed.

What age are you?

Who else is there?

What are they saying?

Do you believe them?

What do you tell yourself about yourself?

This is the deeper work

It takes more than cognitive reframing to uproot these memories and change the decisions you made about yourself. Gestalt therapy, Inner Child work, and Re-decision therapy help find and change these embedded thoughts and feellings.

I’m a Gestalt therapist, and I encourage you to work with a therapist when you’re well and truly stuck. However, you can do most of the work of unblocking your creativity, and changing your subconscious drivers and blocks, yourself.

After following the instructions above — remembering the earliest age you felt inadequate, and determining who told you — decide how you want to think about yourself and your abilities going forward. Who did you picture in the memory with you? Was it a parent, a grandparent, a teacher?

Place the memory of that person in a chair in front of you. As the adult you are now, tell that person what you want to say in protection of the child you once were. Tell them they are wrong about you. Tell them you will no longer listen to their negative voice.

You are good enough, and your inner child is good enough. In fact, you and your inner child are creative and strong. Tell the person in the empty chair those new beliefs until they are convinced, or at least promise to keep silent.

Then, put your Inner Child in the chair and, from your protective adult self, tell the child all the things you needed to hear as a child. Give your Inner Child all the positive messages you didn’t receive when you were a child. Let your Inner Child know those particular adults were wrong about you and your abilities. They were operating out of their own fears.

Create new affirmations to counter the negative messages. Personalize them to you and your creativity. For every negative thought and feeling you identify, come up with a counter one, and tell it to your Inner child until the child within you believes it.

. . .

I taught writers about this work on Medium Day 2025, and the year before led writers through the process in a longer seminar for MuddyUm. People were moved to tears, accessed their Free Child, and were delighted to be able to write freely without prompts during the process.

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This post was previously published on New Choices.

***

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The post Techniques to Get From Flaw State to Creative Flow State appeared first on The Good Men Project.

By Yale

Hal Blumenfeld, a professor of neurology at Yale School of Medicine (YSM), got out of the pool one afternoon and couldn’t find his watch. He was certain he’d left it at the side where he entered. He found it on the opposite end. He’d moved it himself while swimming, with no memory of doing so.

“I had no idea that I had done that,” Blumenfeld says. “But I clearly did.”

The new study in PNAS Nexus and led by Blumenfeld and David S. Jin, a former PhD student in the Yale Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, is the first to examine the brain signals that determine whether we’re conscious of our own actions as we perform them and resolves a debate that has persisted for more than 130 years.

In the late 19th century, psychologists William James and Wilhelm Wundt staked out opposing theories of action awareness. James believed it comes after an action, through sensory feedback. Wundt argued it arises from the brain’s act of planning and initiating movement, before any sensation occurs. The debate went unresolved because no one had a method to test it.

But Jin, more than a century later, had an idea. His solution was to adapt the sliding block puzzle game Rush Hour, in which players move toy cars and trucks around to create a path for one main car to exit the puzzle.

For the study, Jin had participants play the game while simultaneously watching background videos they were told to memorize. Periodically, the game paused and asked them to identify their last move and rate their confidence. Correct answers with high confidence were deemed “aware.” Incorrect answers with low confidence were labeled “unaware.”

“If you correctly reported what you were doing, but felt no agency in it, would it be true awareness?” asks Jin, now a postdoctoral fellow at University of Alabama at Birmingham. “When you drive from point A to point B and get out of your car and think, ‘Wait, how did I get here?’—I wanted to recapitulate that feeling in a behavioral task.”

The researchers measured brain activity with electroencephalography (EEG) across 67 participants as they completed the task. They found that brain signals differed between aware and unaware moves both before and after the action. A motor-planning signal called the pre-movement positivity was stronger in aware trials. A sensory processing signal called the N140, tied to awareness of bodily sensation, was also enhanced. Neither alone was sufficient.

“It turns out James and Wundt were both right,” says Blumenfeld, senior author of the study. “Both the volition- and the perception-related signals are bigger when we’re aware of what we do.”

The study also found a third factor neither theorist had anticipated: As participants worked deeper into the session, pupil diameter shrank—a proxy for dwindling alertness—and awareness declined in lockstep.

“As the task went on, participants got a little more bored, a little more tired, a little more distracted,” Blumenfeld explains. “Their pupils got smaller and smaller, and they became less and less aware of what they were doing.”

For Blumenfeld, the multiple signals reflect something fundamental. “Consciousness is so important that it makes sense in evolutionary terms that there’s going to be redundancy. Many things are influencing how aware or unaware we are of what we do.”

The findings also reframe unawareness not as a failure but as a feature.

“To be aware of your actions all the time would really suck,” Jin says. “Perhaps it is unawareness of action that allows for daily life to proceed smoothly. Imagine being a musician and having to think out every note moment by moment.”

Jin’s interest in the subject is partly personal. As a person with epilepsy, he has experienced firsthand what it’s like to hold conversations and play piano during a seizure, with no memory of any of it afterward.

“The ability to perform all these complex actions and yet not be able to describe them afterwards is just incredibly fascinating,” he says.

The same brain signals disrupted in unaware participants are also diminished in Parkinson’s disease patients, with similar disruptions appearing in schizophrenia and following stroke—conditions where impaired awareness of one’s own actions has real consequences for diagnosis, rehabilitation, and legal questions of intent.

Thousands of studies have examined perceptual awareness, but the equivalent question for action has gone largely unasked. “It basically opens up the whole second half of the field,” Blumenfeld says. “It essentially doubles the amount of research that can be done now.”

The lab’s next step is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which will offer better spatial resolution to untangle some of the study’s remaining puzzles, including how signals deep in the brain not reachable by surface EEG may contribute to awareness.

Reflecting on how much the results surprised him, Jin says, “When I first began, I thought I’d be calling for Iron Man. One clean signal that could explain awareness of action. But as I went through all the signals we were observing, it was really like Avengers Assemble: Signals across a number of different cognitive domains, all showing up at once.”

The research reported in this news article was supported by the National Institutes of Health and Yale University. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Additional support was provided by the Mark Loughridge and Michele Williams Foundation and the Betsy and Jonathan Blattmachr Family.

Source: Yale University

Original Study DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag220

—

Previously Published on futurity.org with Creative Commons License

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By Jacob Sweet | Harvard Staff Writer | Harvard Gazette

There are more than a million frozen embryos in the U.S. — and it seems just about as many ethical and legal questions behind their regulation.

A panel of experts attempted to untangle some of the thorniest issues at play during a recent Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law, Biotechnology, and Bioethics event titled “Hot Topics in Embryo Law and Ethics.”

Since 1980, more than 500 legal cases involving frozen embryos have been filed in state courts, according to Leslie Meltzer Henry, a professor of law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and faculty at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

The cases, she said, often involve disputes between intended parents following a divorce, separation, or another change in plans. Although the highest courts of nine states have addressed such disputes, no consistent standard has emerged.

This fragmented legal landscape, she said, “contributes to the costly emotional litigation that has left both intended parents and fertility providers without clear guidance.”

Julia Hesse, a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight who often represents fertility clinics, agreed. She said a lack of clear laws and insufficient coverage from insurance companies have made running fertility clinics burdensome.

For typical medical malpractice claims in other fields, she said, tort reform has protected doctors from paying out huge sums of money that could lead to closure of their businesses. The same protection is not afforded to the fertility industry, potentially making the accidental destruction of embryos financially catastrophic.

“You can’t operate a business where the liability is unlimited but the amount that they’re charging for long-term storage is $500 or $1,000 a year,” Hesse said. “There’s a big mismatch.”

She advocated for laws, similar to some passed in Europe, that establish a maximum duration for tissue storage. A 10-year limit, she said, would help solve the problem clinics face when clients lose contact or stop paying instead of deciding whether to continue storing their embryos.

You can’t operate a business where the liability is unlimited but the amount that they’re charging for long-term storage is $500 or $1,000 a year.

–Julia Hesse

While American Society of Reproductive Medicine guidelines allow clinics to dispose of embryos after long periods of lost contact, no clinic wants to seem excessively harsh, fearing both reputational and legal consequences.

Other panelists, like MIT Technology Review senior editor Antonio Regalado, spoke about the philosophical debates over using embryos for scientific purposes. Regalado cited the work of Jacob Hanna, a researcher he profiled whose lab creates synthetic embryo models — and who Regalado said intends to grow these models to harvest useful human tissues. The research is now intersecting with longevity science and members of the ultra-rich who intend to live forever.

“They’re darn serious about not dying,” Regalado said, “and having a clone of yourself is their top fix.”

Insoo Hyun, director of the Center for Life Sciences and Public Learning at the Museum of Science and a fellow at the Hastings Center for Bioethics, said that when it comes to ethical issues around stem-cell use, “What’s old is new again.” He recalled graduating with his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1998, the same year James Thomson derived the first human embryonic stem cell line. Recently, he said, people have been asking him about the same reproductive cloning debate that began decades ago.

Hyun stressed that while the threat of human cloning with embryo models still exists, the technology behind it has not yet reached a point where a lab-grown embryo model could develop into a human being.

Regardless of whether that threat is already scientifically possible, legislation and judicial rulings continue to shape the field. Judith Daar, a law professor at the Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law, suggested that while courts used to favor the person who wanted to avoid procreation in embryo disputes, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision eliminating the constitutional right to abortion has shifted that dynamic.

Taking the idea further, one audience member asked how a state’s decision to define embryos as people could affect parents’ decisions to freeze their embryos.

Hesse worried about the potential for these laws to create an obligation to carry every embryo to term. If every embryo needed to be placed for pregnancy, she said, “I think it would really limit people’s desire to begin a fertility journey.”

Henry shared similar concerns, raising the possibility that adults could be legally compelled to carry a pregnancy. Regalado encouraged the audience to ponder a future in which people made thousands of embryos to select the perfect baby — a fantasy he said is harbored in certain corners of Silicon Valley.

—

This story is reprinted with permission from The Harvard Gazette.

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The post You’re Getting a Divorce. What Happens to the Frozen Embryo? appeared first on The Good Men Project.

You have probably heard the formula.

Maybe it was a wedding sermon, a marriage-prep course, a pastor’s counselling office, a podcast hosted by a smiling couple in matching shirts, or a tile shared on Facebook.

The wording varies, but the architecture is always the same: God first, spouse second, children third, yourself last.

Or something to that effect.

For example…

Sometimes, self doesn’t even make the list.

It is implied that to mention yourself at all is to misunderstand the whole point.

Now, it is a beautiful idea on paper.

It promises clarity, sacrifice, devotion, and a kind of moral order that the messiness of real love seems to lack.

It tells us that if we can just get the rankings right, the rest of the marriage will follow.

And, honestly, there is something genuinely good buried inside it…

the instinct that marriage cannot survive on pure self-interest, that something larger than the individual ego must hold a couple together.

That instinct is correct.

But I want to argue, gently and honestly, that this priority list itself, as it is usually preached and practised, is not what produces a happy, lasting marriage.

In fact, decades of marriage research and clinical psychology suggest the opposite: the very people who follow this hierarchy most faithfully are often the ones who arrive in therapists’ offices twenty years in, hollowed out, baffled, and saying some version of I did everything right, and I have nothing left.

And this is not because they were bad spouses.

It is because the model itself contains a hidden flaw, one that only shows up in practice, not on paper or in a sermon.

Let me explain what the research actually says, why this marriage hierarchy fails the way it does, and what a more honest framework might look like.

What this marriage hierarchy is really trying to solve

Before we critique the hierarchy, we should also be fair to it.

The priority list is not arbitrary.

In my opinion, partly why it emerged is due to a real fear, namely the fear of selfishness.

Marriages collapse all the time because two people refuse to give, refuse to compromise, refuse to defer their own needs.

And in my work as a couples counsellor, I have seen that many times.

So, religious and cultural traditions developed a counterweight, namely a moral ranking that demoted the self to protect the marriage bond.

Put yourself last, and the marriage will stand.

But fear was not the only engine driving this idea.

For many Christians, the hierarchy was never primarily about preventing selfishness at all.

It was about devotion.

It is a way of saying, with the structure of your daily life, that God comes first in everything, including how you order your household.

To put God at the top of the marriage list felt like an act of worship, a public and private declaration that this family bows to something higher than its own desires and comforts.

Now, that is a genuinely beautiful impulse.

And it deserves to be honoured as such, rather than reduced to mere rule-following.

But the problem is not the impulse.

The problem is what happens when that impulse gets translated into a rigid domestic ranking system.

Piety becomes a formula.

Devotion becomes a hierarchy.

And somewhere in that translation, a living spiritual instinct gets flattened into a checklist that people are expected to perform, often at considerable cost to themselves, and then feel guilty about questioning.

Let me be clear here: Expressing faithfulness to God through the shape of your marriage is a worthy goal.

But faithfulness and self-erasure are not the same thing, and the fact that they have been conflated so often, in so many churches, is worth thinking about.

So, with that said, the logic of the marriage hierarchy is intuitive and might even sound rational or religious.

For if both partners genuinely put God first, and each other ahead of themselves, you get a virtuous circle of mutual care and ultimately, a successful marriage.

God gets honoured.

Nobody is self-serving, and everyone is giving.

Conflict dissolves into generosity.

It sounds like heaven.

It sounds like a good plan.

The problem, however, is that it does not work that way in actual human beings, and psychology has been quietly documenting why for the better part of seventy years.

Unfortunately, for many well-meaning and beautiful people, intuition and data tell two different stories, no matter how good or even religious it all sounds.

Here’s why…

The differentiation problem: you cannot give what you do not have

In the 1960s and 70s, an American psychiatrist named Murray Bowen developed what is now considered one of the most influential theories of family functioning, called Bowen Family Systems Theory.

At the heart of his work is a concept called differentiation of self, which basically means the capacity to remain a distinct, emotionally regulated person while staying deeply connected to others.

Bowen observed something that has been replicated thousands of times since:

The healthiest couples are not the ones who fuse into each other. They are the ones who can stay close without losing themselves.

Conversely, however, people with low differentiation tend to do one of two things in marriage.

One, they either collapse into the other person’s emotional world, absorbing their moods, abandoning their preferences, deferring every decision, or two, they react against that collapse by cutting off, becoming rigid, or exploding.

Both look, from the outside, like marital problems.

But they are actually problems of the self.

And this is where the marriage hierarchy begins to wobble.

If you systematically place yourself last for ten or twenty years, if you treat your own needs, body, friendships, ambitions, and inner life as the least legitimate item on the family agenda, you are not becoming a more loving spouse.

You are becoming a less differentiated one.

You are slowly erasing the very self that your partner originally married.

And the cruel irony is that the more you erase, the less there is to love.

No wonder, couples in this pattern often describe a strange flatness creeping in.

It’s a kind of…

I do not even know who you are anymore.

That is not because the self-sacrificing spouse failed to sacrifice enough.

It is because they sacrificed the wrong thing.

What John Gottman actually found

Now, if you want to know what predicts a happy, lasting marriage, the gold standard is the work of John and Julie Gottman, who have studied thousands of couples in laboratory settings over four decades.

The Gottmans can predict divorce with startling accuracy from a fifteen-minute conversation, and they have published extensively on what distinguishes the couples who flourish from the ones who fall apart.

Here is what is striking about their findings: the marriage hierarchy is nowhere in them.

Not in the order, not in the ranking, not in the self-erasure.

What predicts thriving marriages is something quite different…

It is the ratio of positive to negative interactions during conflict (roughly five to one in stable couples).

It is the small daily gestures of turning toward your partner when they make a “bid” for attention, a sigh, a comment about the news, a hand reaching across the table.

It is the ability to repair after a fight.

It is emotional attunement, friendship, shared meaning, and the management, not elimination, of perpetual disagreements.

None of these capacities flows naturally from a person who has spent years treating their own inner life as the lowest priority in the household.

They flow from a person who is rested, regulated, has access to their own emotions, knows what they think, and can stay present in a hard conversation without dissolving or attacking.

In other words, they flow from a person who has tended to themselves enough to have a self to bring.

Here’s another way to look at it…

Attachment, oxygen masks, and the slow leak of resentment

Attachment theory tells a similar story.

The work of researchers like Sue Johnson, who developed Emotionally Focused Therapy out of attachment science, shows that the core question partners ask each other, beneath every fight about dishes or in-laws or money, is some version of Are you there for me? Can I reach you?

Secure marriages are built on what Johnson calls accessibility, responsiveness, and emotional engagement.

Now, consider what it takes to be emotionally accessible.

You have to be reachable.

You have to have inner resources to offer.

You have to be able to sit with your partner’s distress without being swept away by it.

None of that is possible if you’re a depleted person.

Let me use a simple analogy…

Anyone who has flown on a commercial airline knows the safety briefing: secure your own oxygen mask before assisting others.

It is not selfishness; it is physics.

An unconscious caregiver cannot care or help.

So, with that in mind, what happens when a spouse spends a decade or two consistently last on their own list?

Two things, almost without exception.

The first is depletion, the gradual loss of vitality, libido, curiosity, humour, and emotional bandwidth.

The second is resentment.

Not loud, dramatic resentment.

The quiet kind.

The kind that leaks out sideways in sarcasm, in lost interest, in unexplained fatigue, in a partner who is technically present but somehow not really there anymore.

Many therapists will tell you that the most common pattern they see in long-term unhappy marriages is not infidelity or abuse.

It is two people who have been so dutiful for so long that they no longer recognise themselves, and they cannot quite figure out why something so virtuous has produced something so empty.

The child-centred trap

Now, a particular version of this problem deserves its own attention, because it harms marriages and children both.

It’s also insidious, and most good parents are too scared to admit how they actually feel (even to themselves), or talk about it honestly and openly.

So it festers while you feel guilty for feeling the way you do.

I’m talking about kids…

Once children enter the picture, the marriage hierarchy often morphs into God, spouse, children, then you, and in practice, the children quickly move to the top.

And this is understandable.

Children are loud, dependent, and adorable.

They make demands you cannot ignore.

But research on family systems is fairly clear that child-centred marriages tend to struggle, and the children of those marriages do not, on average, fare better than children whose parents prioritised their partnership.

And the reason is simple…

The most important thing parents can give their children is not constant attention or sacrificial devotion.

It is a stable, affectionate marriage that the children get to witness.

Kids who grow up watching their parents like each other, flirt, argue and repair, take weekends away, and treat each other as a unit rather than as auxiliary support staff develop a working model of love that will shape their own relationships for life.

But kids who grow up watching two people who orbit only around them, and who barely make eye contact with each other, often leave home with a lurking anxiety they cannot name.

The marriage, it turns out, was the gift to the children all along.

What about the religious dimension?

Now, because the marriage hierarchy is often framed in religious language, it is worth saying something about that explicitly as well.

First off, I am not arguing against faith, devotion, or the idea that something larger than the individual matters in marriage.

However, I am arguing against a particular interpretation of those values that, ironically, may not even be theologically sound.

The very thing you prioritise might actually be asking something else of you entirely.

For instance, consider that the most famous ethical instruction in the Judeo-Christian tradition is love your neighbour as yourself.

That phrasing assumes some functioning self-love is in place.

It does not say love your neighbour instead of yourself, or love your neighbour and despise yourself, BUT, as yourself.

Now, some of you reading this might want to stop me right here and point out that I am leaving something important out.

And you would be right to raise it.

When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he did not give a one-part answer.

He gave two.

First, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Second, love your neighbour as yourself.

However, here’s the issue…

The marriage hierarchy model borrows the first part and turns it into a domestic ranking system, a list with God at the top and you at the bottom.

But that is not what Jesus was constructing.

He was describing a spiritual posture, an orientation of the whole person toward God and toward others, not a formula for how to ration your emotional energy across a household.

So, you can be utterly devoted to God in the deepest theological sense while also sleeping enough, maintaining your friendships, and knowing who you are as a person.

Now, look carefully at the second part of the commandment again.

Jesus does not say love your neighbour instead of yourself.

He does not say love your neighbour more than yourself.

He says love your neighbour as yourself.

That word “as” is doing enormous theological work in that sentence.

It sets self-love as the measuring rod, the standard by which love for others is calibrated and understood.

If you have systematically erased yourself over twenty years of dutiful marriage, you have not only depleted yourself, you have removed the very standard by which the commandment is meant to be measured.

You cannot love your spouse as yourself if there is no coherent self left to measure from.

And consider what it means to love God with all that you are.

That phrase calls for the full engagement of your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength.

It presupposes that those capacities exist in you, that they are developed, that they are alive.

A person who has spent years treating their own inner life as the least legitimate item on the household agenda is not offering God a fuller or more devoted self. They are offering a depleted one.

Many thoughtful theologians, including writers across both Protestant and Catholic traditions, have argued that the systematic self-erasure preached in some marriage settings, particularly to women, is not the gospel.

It is a cultural overlay borrowed from Victorian sentimentality and a few mistranslated proof-texts, dressed up in religious clothing.

So again, you can hold faith at the centre of your life without making self-neglect the test of your devotion.

In fact, the people in any tradition who have lived the most generous, durable, expansive lives have almost always been deeply rooted in their own personhood.

They had a self to give because they had tended one.

A better framework: integration, not hierarchy

Now, with all of the above said, a valid question then becomes, if the marriage hierarchy does not work, what does?

Again, the data suggest something else.

The research points toward a different shape, not a ranked list, but an integrated ecosystem.

You can think of it as four interlocking circles rather than four rungs on a ladder.

The first circle is your own selfhood, your body, your mind, your friendships, your work, your interests, your spiritual life.

Healthy marriages are made by two people who continue to develop as individuals, not two people who dissolve into a shared blur.

This is what Esther Perel, the Belgian-American therapist, has spent her career arguing:

that desire and aliveness in long-term relationships depend on the partners remaining, in some real sense, two separate people who keep choosing each other.

The second circle is the marriage itself, treated as a real entity, with its own needs, that requires deliberate tending.

Dates that are protected.

Conversations that go beyond logistics.

Repair after fights.

Sexual intimacy that is not the last item on a to-do list at 11 pm.

It’s about a shared sense of where the partnership is going.

The third circle is the family the couple builds together, children, extended family, and the home.

This circle is nourished by the inner two, not the other way around.

Parenting from a healthy marriage looks different from parenting from a depleted one.

The fourth circle, for those for whom it matters, is the larger sense of meaning, faith, vocation, community, and contribution to the world beyond the home.

This circle pulls the whole system outward, gives it purpose, and prevents it from becoming claustrophobic.

But notice that nothing is last here.

Nothing is treated as illegitimate or a guilty indulgence.

The self is not demoted; it is the soil in which everything else grows.

The marriage is not a duty; it is a living thing.

The children are not the centre; they are beloved members of a household whose adults are flourishing.

And very importantly, the larger meaning or religion is not a master to whom everything else is sacrificed; it is the horizon that keeps the rest of life oriented.

Together, these intertwined circles create the possibility for a richer marriage and life together, serving all and not just some.

conclusion

Now, I am not writing this to tell anyone they have been doing it wrong.

Most people who have lived by some version of the marriage hierarchy did so because they were taught it by people they loved and trusted, and because they wanted, sincerely, to be good.

That is not a small thing.

We have to honour that.

The instinct that marriage requires something more than self-interest is correct.

The instinct that we owe our partners and our children real devotion is correct.

But what is worth questioning is the shape of that devotion.

A self-sacrificing marriage and a self-respecting marriage are not the same.

The first looks holier from the outside.

The second tends to last longer, feel warmer, raise healthier children, and produce two people who, thirty years in, still know who they are and still like each other.

The most controversial thing the research actually says is also the most freeing: tending to yourself is not the betrayal of your marriage.

It is one of the most important things you can do for it.

The marriage hierarchy, however well-meaning, often gets this exactly backwards, and the cost is paid quietly, over decades, by people who deserved a better blueprint.

If a marriage is a house, the self is not the basement to be buried and forgotten.

It is the foundation.

Foundations are not glamorous.

Nobody compliments them at weddings.

But every house that has ever stood for fifty years has had one, intact, supporting everything above it.

Including the love.

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Previously Published on therelationshipguy and is republished on Medium.

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Photo credit: unsplash

The post God First, Spouse Second, You Last: Why this Marriage Hierarchy Falls Apart in Life appeared first on The Good Men Project.

In 1914, Thomas Edison’s lab complex burned down in spectacular fashion. Thousands of patent ideas, gadgets, and inventions, destroyed in a few hours. Contrary to what one might expect, Edison did not fall to his knees and cry.

“Go get your mother and all her friends,” Edison told his son. “They’ll never see a fire like this again.” He even claimed that “it’s all right. We’ve just got rid of a lot of rubbish.” It wasn’t part of his plan, but at 67 years old, Edison decided to “start all over again tomorrow,” as he told The New York Times the next day.

Within 3 weeks, buildings were partially restored, and his employees were at work in temporary facilities. The following year, his company posted $10 million in revenue, about 10x what he had lost in the fire.

Even if you aren’t as good at coping in real-time as Thomas Edison, whether it’s with some temporal distance or a lot, you, too, can turn a calamity into a can-can. With the right perspective, a big loss is not a bereavement but merely a prompt to begin anew, with a clean slate, and reinvent yourself.

Perhaps there’s no such thing as a disaster. Only an invitation to dance — and even if the ticket arrives in fire and flames, what is life but the chance to say yes and start twirling?

Grab a copy of Nik’s book, 2-Minute Pep Talks.

2-Minute Pep Talks is a collection of 67 jolts of inspiration for more hope, comfort, and love in any situation. With more than two months of daily inspiration across five categories, 2-Minute Pep Talks will make you feel more comfortable in your own skin, remind you to love yourself enough to ask life for what you truly want, and provide you with the world’s scarcest resource: hope. Whether you’re looking for a pick-me-up, new perspectives, or more fuel to accomplish your dreams — if you’re ready to regain that light, passionate, optimistic feeling we all used to possess as children, this book is for you.

AVAILABLE NOW ON AMAZON!

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This post was previously published on Niklas Göke’s blog

Subscribe HERE

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You may also like these posts on The Good Men Project:

White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism

Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box

The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer

What We Talk About When We Talk About Men

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The post An Invitation to Dance appeared first on The Good Men Project.

The only surprising thing about the investigation launched by a coalition of 42 US state attorneys general into OpenAI is that it didn’t happen sooner. ChatGPT’s mounting problems since late 2022 have not been taken seriously: invented answers, non-existent quotes, absurd recommendations or conversations that end up leading to strange conclusions. And when these problems affect hundreds of millions of users, they somebody has to accept responsibility.

The court summons requests information on the processing of personal and health data, protection of minors, training systems, advertising, user retention and, significantly, on a phenomenon that has acquired enormous relevance in recent months: sycophancy, research focused precisely on those aspects where a conversational model can cause real damage.

OpenAI publicly acknowledged in an explanation about GPT-4o’s sycophantic issues that an update to the model had led to overly accommodating behaviors. The system tended to validate user opinions, reinforce their perceptions, and provide responses designed to be pleasant even when it could be problematic. The company further admitted that its assessment procedures were not prepared to properly detect such behavior before deploying it.

The issue is important because sycophancy is not simply an annoying feature. A system that systematically agrees with the user can end up reinforcing erroneous interpretations of reality, fueling personal conflicts or validating negative emotional states. In small talk it can be anecdotal; in a conversation with a vulnerable person, it can turn into something much more serious.

The health dimension is even more delicate. In October 2025, OpenAI published an update on its efforts to improve ChatGPT’s responses in sensitive conversations, explaining that it had worked with more than 170 mental health specialists to develop new metrics related to suicide, self-harm, psychosis or emotional dependence. The initiative is positive, but it also raises an uncomfortable question: if those safeguards were necessary in 2025, to what extent were they present when ChatGPT was already used daily by hundreds of millions of people?

The available data shows that the problem is not hypothetical. A recent analysis noted that OpenAI had detected signs of seizures related to psychosis and self-harm in approximately 0.7% of weekly active users, while 0.15% had conversations that included signs related to suicidal ideation or planning. These are seemingly small percentages, but applied to a user base of hundreds of millions of people they represent huge numbers. Under these conditions, talking about isolated cases ceases to make sense.

Added to this is another widely known problem: hallucinations. In medicine, education, law, or public information, a plausible but incorrect answer can have important consequences. A paper published in npj digital medicine looks at the need to establish rigorous frameworks to evaluate errors and hallucinations in medical applications based on AI. Similarly, an analysis published in The BMJ warned about the risks of insufficient accuracy, bias and security issues in AI systems used in healthcare.

The underlying issue is not that the models make mistakes. All technology makes mistakes. The point is that these systems have become daily interlocutors for millions of people who use them to search for medical information, resolve personal doubts, make professional decisions or deal with emotional problems. When a user talks to ChatGPT about anxiety, depression, medication, personal relationships or family problems, they are not simply using a computer tool. They are sharing extremely sensitive information with a corporate infrastructure that continues to evolve rapidly and whose governance continues to raise numerous questions.

Comparison with the recent case of Gemini in Germany is inevitable. As I commented a few days ago, the discussion no longer revolves only around who generates false information, but ho should bear the consequences when that information produces real damage. Generative models have ceased to be academic experiments and have become social infrastructure.

Of course, OpenAI can rightly argue that it has introduced constant improvements, new security measures, parental controls, emergency protocols, and more sophisticated monitoring systems, but the company has also played a pivotal role in popularizing an extraordinarily promising technology. But none of these considerations eliminate the central question: was ChatGPT made universally available too soon?

For decades, the technology industry has operated under a very specific logic: deploy first, correct later. That approach may be acceptable when we’re talking about social media, interfaces, or entertainment apps. However, it is much more difficult to defend when we are talking about systems capable of influencing emotionally vulnerable people, managing health information or becoming a source of perceived authority.

The ongoing investigation into OpenAI should not be interpreted as an attack on AI. Rather, it represents a test of maturity for a technology that aspires to occupy a central role in our lives. If language models are to be present in our schools, businesses, hospitals, administrations, and homes, they will have to accept levels of responsibility commensurate with their influence.

OpenAI effectively ushered in the AI age with a fascinating and transformative product, albeit one that might not have been fully developed. If this is the case, the discussion will no longer be about technology. It will be legal, regulatory and social.

For too long, we’ve treated ChatGPT’s teething problems as anecdotes. Now, the time has come to look at them for what they really are: symptoms of powerful technology deployed at a speed far beyond our collective ability to understand its full consequences.

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This post was previously published on Enrique Dans’ blog.

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The post ChatGPT Under Scrutiny: The End of Move Fast and Fix Things Later? appeared first on The Good Men Project.

If you’re thinking of giving up your job search or feeling frustrated by a lack of results, this article is for you.

I’m going to give you a few practical steps you should try before you give up on job hunting.

My goal in this article is to (hopefully) convince you NOT to give up, and to provide you with new ideas and strategies you can use to land a job over the next few weeks or months.

5 Steps Before Giving Up Your Job Search:

1. Take a Short Break (With a Deadline)

Sometimes you just need a break.

Job searching is stressful.

The ups and downs. The waiting. The rejection.

So if you feel like every little thing is overwhelming you right now, and the thought of starting to apply for more jobs is incredibly stressful, take a break. That’s a lot better than giving up your job hunt.

Take a few days, a full week, or even slightly more if you need it.

But decide how long your break is going to be, and stick to it! Mark your calendar, and know what day you’re going to return to your job search.

And then do it! Attack your job search (with the tips I’m going to share in the rest of this article) on your first day back.

This is not the same as giving up your job search. You’re taking a strategic break to recharge. Which I highly recommend if you’ve been job hunting for more than three months and haven’t been able to find a job.

2. When You’re Ready to Continue, Make BIG Changes

Clearly, something isn’t working if you’re at the point of wanting to give up on your job search.

So don’t come back and repeat what wasn’t effective.

Make huge changes.

A different resume style. A different type of message in your cover letter. Or a different industry where you might be able to find similar work.

If you’re sending out your resume and not getting callbacks, change the whole thing around.

Move entire sections. Re-write key parts. Delete pieces that you feel aren’t relevant to the specific jobs you’re applying for.

Add way more facts, details, and metrics, especially into your resume bullet points.

And if you’re using a resume objective, get rid of it.

Everyone knows your objective is to find a position in your field/industry.

What should you put instead? Try writing a resume summary section – one or two sentences summarizing your career and accomplishments.

After that brief summary section, your resume should dive into your recent work experience in the first half of the first page. The only exception is if you have no work experience.

Forget a functional resume, forget listing a bunch of skills and certifications near the top.

You need to list your most recent experience and you “tailor” it to match the job descriptions of the positions you’re applying for.

So the order of sections I recommend for the top of the first page of your resume is:

1. Your name/contact info
2. A brief resume summary (go here for resume summary examples)
3. Your work experience, starting with the most recent

Now, the same goes for cover letters. If you’re sending cover letters and nobody’s interviewing you, make huge changes.

Let’s say you have a gap in employment you’re trying to explain. And nobody’s responding.

Explain it differently. Try a new angle.

If you’re stuck on this, ask a few friends for their opinions too.

I’d highly recommend checking out this article on the reasons you can’t find a job, because it breaks down some of the possible issues you’re facing depending on where you’re struggling (not getting interviews, getting rejected in interviews, etc.)

3. Stop Applying to Random Jobs and Start Networking More

I wrote this article about why networking is the fastest way to get a job. I still feel strongly that this is true.

If you’ve been sending out your resume to random job postings on job boards, or applying on LinkedIn or other large job sites, take a break and start networking.

Ask everyone in your network if they know of any companies hiring in your field.

People cannot help you in your job search if they don’t know you’re looking. So make sure people know.

Also expand your network by building genuine connections with new people (this does NOT mean asking people if their company is hiring, or attaching your resume to a LinkedIn message)

Here’s a script you can use to connect with someone new on LinkedIn:

“Hi <Name>,

I noticed you’re involved in <Job Function/Team Name> over at <Company>.

I’m job searching and it’s one of the top companies I was considering applying to. Have you enjoyed the company culture and work environment over there?

I always find it better to ask someone in the company, rather than read reviews online. Anything you’re willing to share would be great!

Cheers,

<Your Name>

What the script would look like filled in/completed: 

“Hi Sandra,

I noticed you’re involved in finance over at IBM.

I’m job searching and it’s one of the top companies I was considering applying to. Have you enjoyed the company culture and work environment over there?

I always find it better to ask someone in the company, rather than read reviews online. Anything you’re willing to share would be great!

Cheers,

Biron

You can adapt this and make it fit your tone and personality, but that should give you a general idea of how to start networking to find a job.

And this will actually do better than directly asking for a big favor upfront. In fact, that will get you ignored almost every time.

After this, thank them and ask a follow-up question.

Keep the conversation going. Eventually, you’ll have a new friend, and they may offer to introduce you to the hiring manager of their group (or you can ask very casually if not, but do not ask on the first day).

4. Improve Your Interview Skills

Your resume has one mission: to get you the interview.

Once you’re in the interview, it comes down to your interview skills.

So if you got a few interviews (even phone interviews), but they didn’t turn into job offers, it’s a sign your interviews are going badly.

As a former Executive Recruiter, I am 100% sure of this.

So here are some interview resources to help you build up this skill. It will pay off now and in every job search, so I’d encourage you to take a week and just focus on this. Think of it as an investment in your future.

• Job interview question and answer examples
• Interview preparation checklist to make sure you’re ready

5. Consider Part-Time or Temporary Work

If you’re thinking of giving up your job search, consider taking a part-time job or a temporary position while you continue to look for full-time work.

It’s usually easier to find a job when you have a job (because of your mental state/confidence, and because employers are more attracted to someone who’s currently working).

And this will also take some of the financial pressure off.

When employers see that you’re working part-time, they’ll know you’re motivated and committed to keeping your skills current, and they’ll be more likely to hire you.

If you’re wondering whether it’s time to give up your job search but haven’t considered this option, it’s worth thinking about. It’s a lot better than giving up completely.

Try All 5 Steps Above Before Deciding to Quit or Give Up Your Job Search

If you’re nearing the point of thinking whether it’s time to give up your job search, the tips above can help turn your job search around.

It’s okay to take a break, but don’t quit. And when you’re ready to keep trying, make big changes and use the tips above to get better results from your job applications and interviews.

—

Previously Published on Career Sidekick

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The post Thinking of Giving Up Your Job Search? Try These 5 Steps First appeared first on The Good Men Project.

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Getting a dog is exciting, but the first few weeks can also feel overwhelming.

A new owner may expect cuddles, walks, playtime, and a stronger bond. Then real life begins. The puppy bites hands, chews furniture, barks at random sounds, pulls on the leash, has accidents indoors, and refuses to follow basic commands when distractions appear.

For first-time dog owners, this can quickly become stressful. The problem is not lack of love. It is usually lack of clear guidance.

That is where Raising Dog becomes interesting. It is a personalized dog training book designed to help owners understand their dog, build better habits, overcome behavior challenges, teach skills, and create a stronger lifelong bond.

Instead of giving every owner the same training advice, Raising Dog offers personalized content based on the dog’s age and unique needs. It also includes behavior support, tricks and games, more than 100 training and play ideas, health and nutrition guidance, and an assistant app for progress tracking.

The idea is simple: dog training feels easier when owners know what to practice, why it matters, and how to stay consistent.

What Is Raising Dog?

Raising Dog is a personalized dog training book created for owners who want practical, step-by-step guidance.

The book helps users learn the core principles of dog training and master essential skills through content tailored to their dog’s age and needs. It also includes simple strategies for behavior challenges, fun bonding activities, training and play ideas, and health and nutrition guidance.

Raising Dog also offers an assistant app. This helps owners track their dog’s progress, stay organized, and keep a digital guide available whenever they need support.

In simple terms, Raising Dog gives owners a more structured way to train their dog at home without relying on random advice from different places.

At a Glance

Personalized content, dog training lessons tailored to the dog’s age and unique needs.

Behavior support, simple strategies to address common challenges and build better habits.

Tricks and games, fun activities that help strengthen trust and bonding.

100+ training and play ideas, age and breed-appropriate activities for everyday practice.

Health and nutrition guidance, expert tips to support the dog’s well-being at each stage.

Assistant app, a digital tool for tracking progress and keeping guidance available anytime.

Why First-Time Dog Owners Often Feel Lost

Many first-time owners begin with good intentions, but dog training can be more complicated than expected.

A dog does not automatically understand house rules. It needs repetition, patience, routine, and clear communication. Without guidance, owners may feel unsure whether they are doing too much, too little, or the wrong thing completely.

This is where confusion starts.

One online source says to ignore a behavior. Another recommends correcting it immediately. A video shows one method, while another trainer suggests something different. Suddenly, training feels more confusing than helpful.

Raising Dog helps by giving owners one personalized guide to follow. Instead of collecting random dog training tips, users get a book built around their dog’s needs.

That can make the first months feel calmer and more manageable.

Personalized Training Makes the Process Clearer

One of the strongest parts of Raising Dog is personalization.

Dog training is not the same for every dog. A young puppy needs different guidance than an adult dog. A high-energy dog may need more structured play. A nervous dog may need slower steps. Breed, age, behavior, personality, and daily routine can all affect training.

Raising Dog is designed to make the guidance feel more relevant.

The book includes lessons tailored to the dog’s age and unique needs. This helps owners understand what to focus on instead of trying to apply generic advice that may not fit their situation.

For a first-time owner, this can make a big difference. Training feels less like guessing and more like following a clear path.

Help With Common Behavior Challenges

Behavior issues are one of the biggest reasons dog owners feel overwhelmed.

Barking, biting, chewing, jumping, pulling on the leash, crate training struggles, and potty training problems can all make daily life feel chaotic. These issues are common, but they can feel personal when the owner does not know how to respond.

Raising Dog includes tips to overcome behavior issues. The strategies are designed to help owners address challenges and build better habits with their dog.

This is useful because behavior training is not only about stopping unwanted actions. It is about understanding what the dog is communicating, creating consistency, and helping the dog learn what to do instead.

With clearer guidance, owners can respond with more confidence instead of reacting out of frustration.

Building a Bond Through Training

Training is not only about obedience.

A strong bond makes training easier because the dog learns to trust the owner, stay engaged, and enjoy shared time. This is why Raising Dog includes tricks and games for bonding.

These activities help keep the dog mentally active while strengthening trust between the owner and dog. They also make training feel more enjoyable.

For first-time owners, this matters because training can sometimes feel serious or stressful. Tricks and games bring play back into the process.

The dog gets stimulation, the owner gets more confidence, and the relationship becomes stronger over time.

100+ Training and Play Ideas

Another useful feature of Raising Dog is the collection of more than 100 training and play ideas.

Many owners start training with basic commands, then run out of ideas. They may practice sit, stay, and come, but they do not always know what to do next. This can make the routine feel repetitive, and consistency may fade.

Raising Dog helps by giving owners a larger set of activities to use.

The ideas are designed to be fun, age and breed-appropriate, and easy to enjoy together. This gives owners more variety and helps training fit naturally into everyday life.

Instead of treating training like a separate task, owners can turn playtime into learning time.

Health and Nutrition Guidance Adds More Support

Raising Dog also includes health and nutrition guidance.

This makes the book feel more complete because raising a dog is not only about commands. Owners also need to understand care, feeding, activity, energy, and overall well-being.

The guidance is designed to help keep dogs healthy, happy, well-nourished, and thriving at every stage of life.

For first-time owners, this can be especially helpful. Many people feel unsure about what their dog needs beyond training. Having care guidance inside the same personalized resource can make the whole experience feel more organized.

The Assistant App Helps Owners Stay Organized

Training a dog takes repetition. That means progress tracking can be useful.

Raising Dog includes an assistant app that helps owners track their dog’s progress, stay organized, and keep a digital guide available anytime.

This can be helpful for busy pet parents who want to remember what they practiced, understand what is improving, and stay consistent with training routines.

The book gives owners the personalized plan, while the assistant app helps make the process easier to manage day by day.

For people who like having both a physical guide and digital support, this combination is a strong advantage.

Who Is Raising Dog Best For?

Raising Dog is best for first-time dog owners who want simple, step-by-step training guidance.

It can be especially useful for puppy owners who want to build good habits early and avoid feeling lost during the first months.

The book can also work well for owners dealing with common behavior issues like barking, chewing, jumping, biting, pulling, or potty training challenges.

Raising Dog is also a good fit for busy pet parents who want easy at-home routines and practical activities they can use without needing to research everything alone.

Overall, Raising Dog is best for owners who want a personalized training guide that helps them understand their dog, stay consistent, and build a stronger bond.

Raising Dog Pros and Cons

Pros

Raising Dog offers personalized training content tailored to the dog’s age and unique needs.

The behavior tips help owners address common challenges with more confidence.

Tricks and games make training feel more enjoyable and relationship-focused.

The 100+ training and play ideas give owners variety for everyday practice.

Health and nutrition guidance makes the book more complete than a basic obedience guide.

The assistant app helps owners track progress and keep guidance available digitally.

Cons

Raising Dog works best when owners practice consistently, so daily effort still matters.

Some behavior challenges may take time and patience before steady progress appears.

Owners who want only a short list of commands may find the personalized book format more detailed than expected.

These are mild drawbacks and mostly depend on what the owner needs. For people who want a clear, personal, and supportive dog training guide, Raising Dog fits the purpose well.

Is Raising Dog Worth Trying?

Raising Dog is worth trying if you want to feel more confident training your dog at home.

It is especially useful for owners who need help with puppy training, dog obedience, behavior challenges, bonding games, play ideas, and everyday routines.

It may not be the right fit for someone who wants only a very basic command checklist. But for first-time dog owners and busy pet parents who want personalized guidance, practical tips, and assistant app support, Raising Dog is a strong option.

Raising Dog User Reviews and Success Stories

Before choosing a personalized dog training book, user feedback can help show how the guidance works in real homes. Reading Raising Dog user reviews can give potential users a better idea of how owners use the personalized lessons, behavior tips, training ideas, games, health guidance, and assistant app with their own dogs.

This can be especially helpful for first-time owners who feel unsure about where to start. Reviews and success stories can show whether Raising Dog feels easy to follow, supportive, practical, and useful for building better habits over time.

Final Verdict

Raising Dog is a practical personalized dog training book for owners who want more confidence, more structure, and a clearer way to train their dog.

Its biggest strength is that it makes training feel more personal. Users get content tailored to their dog’s age and needs, plus behavior support, bonding activities, training and play ideas, health and nutrition guidance, and assistant app support.

Raising Dog is not only about teaching commands. It is about helping owners understand their dog, build trust, stay consistent, and create better daily routines.

For first-time dog owners, puppy owners, and busy pet parents who want a more guided approach, Raising Dog is definitely worth checking out.

Ready to train your dog with more confidence? Visit Raising Dog, complete the quiz, and get your personalized dog training book.

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Photo provided by raising.dog

The post Raising Dog Review: Training Help for First-Time Owners appeared first on The Good Men Project.

When you’re thoroughly caught up in addiction, your priorities are clear; the drug comes first. Everything is done or not done in service of the drug. It’s the first thing you think about in the morning, the last thing you think about at night. It is the one thing that determines and organizes everything.

When you abstain, that organizing element is gone. The drug no longer governs your mind; it no longer dictates your activities. You’re at loose ends. Your life lacks meaning, direction, and purpose.

The drug may not have been a worthy thing to organize your life around. Snorting coke is not like curing cancer. Raising a glass is not raising kids. Shooting dope may give you temporary peace, but it’s not world peace. It’s easy to be critical of the choice you made to serve your addiction, but you did it for a reason. One of the reasons is because you need meaning and purpose in life.

Why is that important?

When I play any kind of a sport, I tend to really get into it. I’m very competitive when I play it, although, when the game is done, it may not matter who won. You don’t have to be as competitive as me to know that the goal of almost every game is to win. Yeah, I know we’re out to have a good time, but come on, you throw that curveball so the batter can’t hit it and he swings the bat to try to score. The fielders aren’t chasing the balls because they don’t like them littering up the field, they’re playing defense; and the catcher is not blocking home plate for his health, he’s trying to get in the runner’s way. Winning is the organizing principle. It governs what the players do. It is the meaning of the game. Without trying to win, they really aren’t even fully playing.

When you find the meaning of any activity, whether it be sports, or life, itself, it’s important not to scrutinize it too much. No meaning holds up very well under inspection. Winning may be the meaning of playing a game and it may make us play better, but, really, what does it matter? If one team wins and the other loses, how does it change anything?

We might just as well ask, why is it important to cure cancer? Everyone is just going to die of something else, anyway. When we have world peace, then what? What’s the point of raising your kids? So they can raise theirs? Where does it end?

The truth is, we don’t know what the point of all this is, and, when people try to tell us, we don’t know if they’re right. Maybe we never will know the meaning of life.

We do know this: in order to live fully, we have to find meaning in what we do, just as, in order to play a sport, we have to try to win. When we are without meaning, we will use drugs to provide it.

Keith R Wilson is a mental health counselor in private practice and the author of seven books and innumerable articles

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

Did you know? We have 8 publications on Medium. Join us there!

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Photo credit: Dustin Groh On Unsplash

The post Staying Clean Is Not Enough appeared first on The Good Men Project.

Greg Campisi is a Renaissance Man who I met sometime over the past 10 or so years through an interfaith spiritual community we are part of called Circle of Miracles. He is an artist, content creator, web designer, author and now has emerged as solid voice that addresses the heights and depths of spirituality that merges the mainstream with the metaphysical. He says he is ‘dedicated to the awakening of humanity,’ but doesn’t express it in an ‘I know better,’ grandiose way. He is humble and glad to share what he has learned with the world. He is also one of the founding members of Hugmobsters Armed with Love, offering FREE HUGS on a planned and spontaneous basis. Check out our conversation here.

Can you please offer some insight into the man behind the titles of author, speaker, coach, event planner, content creator, father, and husband?

I basically stepped onto what I consider my spiritual path when I turned 30, which was a little over 20 years ago. And that calling to dive more into spirituality, led me to creating AWAKEN Center for Human Evolution because I wanted to create a nonprofit and a center to help other people on their spiritual path and give them a community and give them support to help them along their journey of awakening and enlightenment.

Creating AWAKEN led to me to creating and hosting a lot of events, which led to me becoming a speaker. About two years ago, I started channeling information. I am really feeling the call now to be the messenger of this information, so it’s taking my speaking to a whole new level.

Using this channeled information, along with everything else that I’ve learned, I want to put myself out there to help others on their spiritual path. So now I’m also offering personal coaching sessions and have given myself the title of “Awakener” to help people awaken to their life purpose, help them see the truth of who they are, and help them release fear, trauma, and things that weigh them down.

Along the way, I met my wife and her two kids from her previous marriage. So, I instantly became a dad to a three and a five-year-old at the time, and both those kids are now teenagers. I’ve basically raised them for the majority of their life. So, it’s been quite a journey as my traditional career was website design, then began AWAKEN, then became a father and husband, and now I’m putting myself out there as a channeler with the goal of being a world-renown speaker.

You say you are dedicated to the awakening of humanity. Pretty lofty goal. What is your deepest vision and hope for the world?

Yes, when I started channeling messages, I would end my videos by saying, “I’m Gregory Campisi, dedicated to the awakening of humanity.”

This ties in personally and through AWAKEN to my mission to help awaken humanity. For me, what it means is that I have been on my journey of bringing more awareness into my life of who I am, what my connection is to Source or God or the Universe, or whatever you want to call it, and I really want to see a world where people live with awareness instead of out of reaction, understand each other, have compassion for each other, and live in humility. If we can cultivate all this, we can absolutely live in a world of peace. That’s really my goal, to see world peace in my lifetime, and I’m taking it one step at a time to do my part.

And I’m not just talking about no more wars. I’m talking about a world where there’s not even killing. There’s not even fighting—just people looking out for each other and putting humanity first. That is the world that I am intending and working toward.

What role do you want to play in creating that world?

It’s why I founded AWAKEN. Doing events, expos, and support groups, that is all helping to lead toward that vision of an aware, awakened humanity.

This is also why I’m putting myself out there personally to work directly with people to really help them dig in, release, and bring new awareness and consciousness into how they show up in the world every day.

And it’s why my next move is getting on bigger platforms to reach more people and share my channeled messages, The Simple Truths of Existence, with as many people as I can.

You’ve written several books over the last few years for adults and children. Your newest is called Lighten Up: From Density to Freedom. How would you describe it? What would you like readers to experience as they turn the pages?

Lighten Up was based on three hours of channeled information that came through me, and it was all based on the intention of me wanting to release my fears.

And when I talk about fears, I’m not talking about civil wars, recessions, or politics. I don’t worry myself with those types of things happening in the world. I just put out positive thoughts.

But I’m still carrying a lot of subtle fears like worry, anxiety, and even self-worth. Even at this age, and with everything I’ve gone through, I still struggle with some self-worth issues.

So, I set this intention of, “How do I finally get rid of this? How do I release these fears?”

Three hours of channeled information came through following that intention, looking at humanity and emotions from an energetic standpoint and relating to the physical states of matter.

It related the energy of fear to density—it being a dense emotion compared to love, peace, and joy, which are expansive, higher emotions. We talk about high vibes and low vibes, and this information came through to show the correlation that things like fear and hate actually have a lower vibration and are denser energies, which creates more density in and around us, condensing us.

When you think about density and the states of matter, you think about solid, liquid, and gas. Something that is very dense is solid, like a rock. Rocks don’t move. They just sit there. Two rocks hitting each other don’t really experience each other other than on the surface. They just collide, bounce off, break, and fracture each other.

From the physical perspective, when you expand particles, the difference between ice, water, and vapor is simply the particles spacing out and moving at a higher vibration. They have more motion and more energy, but all three are made of the same atoms.

So, the message was: stop being rocks. Stop being stuck—stuck in beliefs, stuck in ideas, resisting what is. Live through acceptance and awareness instead of reaction. Move from being that stubborn rock to, as we say, “going with the flow” like water, and finally being as expansive as air.

When you hit a rock, you can break your hand. If you slap water hard enough, it hurts, but your hand goes through the water. But if you try to hit air, you don’t even feel it.

It’s about moving from this dense state to an expanded state where we’re no longer stuck and we’re not resisting. Air doesn’t resist anything. Everything just goes right through it. We’re meant to allow creation and experience to move through us, not stop it, not block it.

If there are two stuck people—two rocks hitting each other—and one of them lightens up, only one person has to lighten up, and the other person’s density just passes through them.

A big message in the book was that energy has to move and has to flow, and that all of life and all of creation is meant to flow through us. When we’re dense, we prevent energy from moving through us. We prevent creative life force from moving through us, and we also prevent our own light from shining out.

One of the reasons that we pick the families we do, as a soul from the other side, is because we come in out of love. We have soul groups and soul families, and we see where the parents are stuck in their density. We come down into their life as their child to help show them where the density is—to poke them and trigger them to help them to let it go.

But if they don’t get the message, we just end up getting traumatized. Unhealed people pass on their pain. This is general trauma persisting because people aren’t lightening up, healing, and letting life flow.

Then it falls on us to be the one to bring enough awareness into our life to lighten ourselves up, let it go, stop passing on pain, and learn to pass on awareness instead.

Describe what channeling means. Do the words feel like they’re coming from you or an external source?

It’s an interesting thing because it’s a little bit of everything.

I definitely know I have guides speaking to me, teaching me, but I also feel like there’s some connection to my higher self and that some of this is being channeled through my higher self as well.

I don’t always know the difference, and I don’t need to know the difference. I just honor the message and the information that’s coming through.

In the book, you share the story of how some of the insights came to be. Was I frightened, excited, curious, etc., when I had the vision?

When this started coming through, there was absolutely no fear.

Even though I was delving into fear, it was immediately shown to me that this was about experiencing the energy of fear, not being afraid.

It was about understanding fear from this energetic level—that it’s this dense emotion that presses down on us—and also understanding trauma from a different perspective, passed on until someone decides to heal and stop passing it on. I all made so much sense.

As it came through, I was in awe. I was blown away and so excited that I was given so many amazing visuals, analogies, and correlations that were so easy for me to understand and so easy for others to understand.

When it was done, I was beside myself with how amazing all this information was, and I knew that it had to be shared. And thank God my wife recorded it!

Humans are a mix of emotions. Some are welcome, some are dreaded. You use the word “dense” to describe emotional states. Can you elaborate on ways to transform density into lightness?

The book goes into this at the end with ways we can lighten up.

One of the easiest—and maybe one of the hardest—things we can do is to be around lighter energy and do things that make us more expansive and bring more joy and peace into our lives. That’s as simple as meditation, visualization, and breathwork, but it’s about adopting this lighter way of being, and breaking the cycle of fear, trauma, and density we’ve accumulated over our lifetime.

There’s a workbook that comes with the book in digital form—or you can purchase a physical copy—that has questions, exercises, and visualizations to help everyone lighten up and let go. To help shift their awareness and manifest a new way of relating to the world.

But it really comes down to us doing this every day and shifting our mindset to think, act, and speak in lighter ways.

Letting go of judgment, resistance, stubbornness, and stuck beliefs—these are all ways for us to lighten up. It’s why we have so many events with AWAKEN, including gathering every Monday night to keep our spirits raised, inspired, and releasing what we no longer need.

What existential questions were you able to come to grips with when the book unfolded?

This book wasn’t really existential. To me, it was more about seeing the human condition from a different standpoint, including relating ourselves to the physical world.

This book itself was really focused on understanding the flow of energy, how density and pain are passed on, and seeing it from a new perspective.

There are more messages coming, and book 2 will be more books that get deeper into broader reasons and ideas of why we’re here, looking at creation over lifetimes, not just a. Single life.

Book Two is titled Waves of Creation: Throughout Lifetimes and Generations. When that book is released, we can do another interview : )

How did multigenerational patterns show themselves in both our trauma and our healing?

Because we’re addressing trauma, I want to be clear that I’m not any kind of counselor or therapist, anything like that. I’m just relaying the messages coming through.

It’s as simple as we, as children, learn from what’s around us. As adults, we’re basically passing on the emotions, traumas, and patterns that we never healed. And when we have a trauma, and block it, instead of releasing it, it eventually has to go somewhere—typically to our children. If we’re angry, we’re going to pass anger on. We’re going to be angry at other people, and we’re going to do things to hurt them. And now they’re traumatized.

Every generation has trauma from their parents, and if they don’t heal it, they end up passing it on again to the next generation and round and round we go until a generation has enough awareness, and I’ll even say bravery, to take responsibility and stop passing on the pain.

We also pass it on in our other relationships.

The patterns become very clear because whatever is not healed in one generation typically gets passed on to the next.

How can we move through resistance to change?

Again, this is about lightening up. It’s really about allowance and acceptance of all things.

Book Three is going to be called Love Allows, and it goes more into allowing all of creation.

Some of Lighten Up goes into understanding creation and even touches a little on reincarnation and why we’re here, but it really is about allowing creation to be.

You can’t uncreate creation.

So, we’re not trying to stop creation. We’re not trying to stop someone else’s creation. We’re simply here to experience it.

If we don’t like it, then we’re here to create something new and rally others and inspire others to join us in creating something new and different from what already exists.

Resisting anything is putting up a wall to life. Adding more density to the mix. Clashing with life, instead of expanding ourself and allowing other’s density to pass though. Shifting creation doesn’t happen overnight, but I promise that resisting creation only stalls evolution and leaves two rocks banging against each other.

Do you believe that we create soul contracts for the experiences that happen in our lives, or do things happen randomly?

I don’t believe anything happens randomly.

I believe this whole creation and existence is based on energy. When things happen to us, they happen because it’s an energetic reaction. I’ve always believed in soul contracts, but this information gave me a new perspective. It’s like the contact has come in to help release the density, and how that plays out could be a myriad of ways.

Even when it’s family, it’s never personal. If we were traumatized by our parents—and this is where we take away the judgment, we need to see that our soul came here to help others release their trauma, and we do that by triggering them. And if, say our parents, won’t let go, in a sense we take it on so we now have the power to heal something someone else couldn’t.

We’re traumatized because someone else didn’t heal themselves. Period.

It’s not about it being random. Sometimes it seems random because there’s something in our energy that’s vibrating at that same level. If we have trauma, we attract and find ourselves in more of that trauma because that’s the frequency we’re at. So, it’s about understanding all of life and existence from an energetic standpoint.

Hopefully, that helps people become more aware that this isn’t any kind of punishment. It’s about bringing enough awareness into your life to heal and move on. Someone else didn’t heal. That’s why we were hurt.

Now we have the choice to heal instead of passing on the pain.

In a sense, t’s empowering. You now have the power to stop the cycle of generational trauma by healing yourself and letting go of your own trauma.

What are some ways to move from victim mode to thrive mode?

Again, it’s all about bringing in awareness. Awareness that it wasn’t a random attack. It wasn’t a personal attack. It was someone who was unhealed passing their pain on to us.

Now it’s up to us to heal ourselves instead of continuing to pass on the pain. Instead of staying a victim. We are a victim to the act itself. After that, we are the ones who create the emotion prison, the dense walls, that keep us a victim.

We move into thriving when we take responsibility for ourselves and release all the density that we took on. When we understand that in taking on someone else’s pain, it empowers us to make a different choice. After all the people who traumatized us, they were likely abused themselves. And they were once innocence children whose souls tried to free their parent’s density.

It’s not about judging others. It’s about seeing ourselves as a victim. It’s about making a choice to lighten up, release the pain, and choose a different way of seeing life and being in the world.

How can we release our attachment to our story, our suffering, and lighten up?

I feel like I’m answering these questions with the same answer.

It’s about moving energy, deciding not to pass on the pain, making a decision, having more awareness, and living from awareness instead of reaction.

It’s about understanding someone passed on paid because they didn’t step-up and heal themselves. They didn’t lighten up. So we can blame them and perpetuate the cycle, or own it, and release it for ourselves and for the rest of humanity.

When we shift our energy, we also create a shift in the collective energy. We put a crack in the dense walls of humanity. And when enough of us lighten up, the collective wall comes crumbling down.

Any thoughts about integrating spirituality into our daily lives?

I’m not sure I completely understand this question.

For me, lightening up includes bringing more spirituality into our lives. But I guess it also depends on what you consider spirituality to be.

When we talk about spirituality, for me, it’s about having a connection with Source, with my true essence and soul, but it doesn’t even have to be that.

Lightening up is simply about letting go of the density, the heavy emotions, and the pain.

It’s about living through awareness, acceptance, and allowing. Even if that means allowing other people to be the rock—to be dense. It’s not our job to change them.

Allow the world to be dense where it needs to be dense. We just focus on lightening ourselves up and being that example for others. We often treat the density of the world with more density. More hate. More anger. More resistance. All you do is add to the density that way. Lighten up and let the density of the world to pass through. Be the air living light and free, floating above the density. When others are ready, they’ll lighten up and join you.

How has writing this book changed you?

It shifted my awareness and how I see fear and trauma. How I see others in their pain. I already carry a lot of compassion for humanity, but it helped me see it with new eyes, from a perspective so obvious, we can all understand it.

When I channeled all this material, and also I integrated it fully. Even writing the book made me live through it the messages again, banging it into me consciousness. I also wrote the workbook, and I’m doing the workbook myself, to integrate it even fuller.

It’s given me a completely different awareness and view of pain, trauma, energy, and why we’re here.

At some point, when this awareness sinks in, you just get it. You understand, and you want to let go of the density. You want to stop fighting life because you realize you’re not here to be a victim to it. You’re here to free it. To free yourself and others of the eons of fear and pain we’ve carried.

You want to live a better life and a lighter life for yourself, for everyone you know, for your family, and for all humanity.

iStock image

The post On the Wakeup Crew appeared first on The Good Men Project.

By Maddie O’Connor

“Why am I not being taught this?”

It’s a question Amardeep Mangat says medical learners frequently ask after rotating through his Lifestyle Medicine clinic, where they witness patients improving their chronic disease management through nutrition, exercise, sleep optimization and behavioural interventions – and sometimes deprescribing medications altogether.

Despite decades of evidence linking diet to chronic disease, nutrition education remains surprisingly limited in most North American medical schools. Despite some attempts at introducing nutrition into medical education, concerns about insufficient nutrition education in medical training have been raised by Canadian students and researchers for decades.

In the U.S., Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently announced his effort for American medical schools to increase their nutrition education to meet a 40-hour minimum requirement or risk facing cuts to their federal funding. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education have already received voluntary commitments from 53 medical schools. Rather than mandating a standardized curriculum, the proposal provides schools with a set of nutrition competencies and flexibility to determine how the content is delivered, with the goal of integrating approximately 40 hours of nutrition education throughout the four years of medical training.

Mangat, medical director at Aroga Lifestyle Medicine in Ontario, argues that nutrition education can no longer be optional, especially given the rise in chronic disease. The clinic operates using a mixed public-private funding model. Physician consultations, specialist assessments and medically necessary investigations are covered through provincial insurance plans. However, many of the clinic’s additional lifestyle-based supports – including nutrition counselling and exercise programming – are paid out-of-pocket or through extended health insurance benefits.

Mangat is currently working with Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) medical school to establish a clinical rotation for medical learners through his clinic. The relationship is still in its early stages, but it is intended to extend beyond clinical exposure alone. TMU has already begun introducing lifestyle medicine concepts into the pre-clerkship curriculum, including a “Food as Medicine” lecture and a hands-on cooking demonstration.

The experience at TMU offers a glimpse of what nutrition education can look like when a curriculum is built from the ground up. As Canada’s newest medical school, TMU had the rare opportunity to reconsider what today’s physicians need to learn before established curricula becomes entrenched.

Through focus groups and community engagement, the school identified preventative medicine as a priority. Rather than treating nutrition and lifestyle medicine as optional additions, TMU embedded them into its undergraduate curriculum. This approach was driven by the belief that prevention should be a cornerstone of modern medical practice. Theresa Chan, the Dean of TMU’s School of Medicine, said the guiding question was: “How do we prevent disease, and how do we make sure people see that not as a nice-to-have, but as a must-have?”

Few would argue against teaching future physicians more about nutrition. The more difficult question is why this has proven so challenging in practice. Although major organizations such as the Canadian Medical Association and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons emphasize prevention and health promotion, neither currently mandates specific nutrition education requirements.

Mangat says a barrier to broader implementation is a lack of awareness among many current medical educators who were not formally trained in nutrition or lifestyle medicine.

Still, enthusiasm alone does not easily translate into curriculum reform. While the importance of nutrition may seem self-evident, integrating mandatory content into medical education is far more complicated in practice.

The issue is often not disagreement about importance but determining where it can fit. Both undergraduate and postgraduate medical curricula are dense, and the addition of new competencies involves a systematic and lengthy process.

Batya Grundland, associate program director of curriculum at the University of Toronto’s Department of Family and Community Medicine, says implementing new educational priorities across large training systems is inherently complex.

It starts with identifying a true educational gap, having evidence to support the change and then finding enough people with the expertise to teach it.

At the University of Toronto alone, family medicine training occurs across 18 different teaching sites, ranging from downtown academic centres to rural community programs. Integrating new curriculum consistently across all of them presents major logistical and financial challenges.

“The devil is always in the details of the logistics,” says Grundland.

Nutrition education itself presents additional complications. Schools must determine not only what should be taught, but how. Whether through standalone lectures, integrated case-based teaching, culinary medicine programs or longitudinal clinical exposure, each approach requires faculty expertise, protected teaching time and institutional resources that many programs already struggle to provide.

There is also the challenge of defining what nutrition education should include. Physicians are not expected to function as registered dietitians, yet they increasingly encounter patients seeking guidance on diet, supplements and chronic disease prevention. Determining the appropriate depth and scope of training remains an ongoing debate among the residency curriculum committee at the University of Toronto.

The university explored integrating a formal nutrition curriculum about a decade ago, but the initiative ultimately proved difficult to implement because of fiscal and resource-related barriers. When asked whether the program may revisit the idea, Grundland described medical education as “an evolving landscape,” shaped by available funding, faculty expertise and competing priorities. At present, nutrition curriculum integration is not considered a leading priority, but this doesn’t negate its recognized importance. With limited curricular space, the program is currently focused on several higher-priority initiatives, including the integration of digital health content and other emerging areas of medical education.

A review of the 36 nutrition competencies recently endorsed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows a framework that extends beyond basic nutritional science to include competencies such as motivational interviewing and dietary counselling. However, much of the proposal remains focused on competency lists and hour requirements and provides limited guidance on how medical schools should meaningfully implement and assess these practical clinical skills across diverse training environments.

Therefore, while calls for more nutrition education are often framed as obvious solutions to rising chronic disease, some educators caution against oversimplifying the issue. Mandating a minimum number of hours alone does not guarantee meaningful integration.

Without clear learning objectives, trained faculty and opportunities for practical clinical application, nutrition education risks becoming another checkbox in an already overcrowded curriculum.

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Previously Published on healthydebate.ca with Creative Commons License

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Nowadays, social media is filled with tradwife content. Beautiful women in vintage dresses bake fresh bread, decorate spotless homes, raise children, and smile beside husbands who pay every bill, take them on luxurious vacations, and shower them with gifts.

But is that the reality of being a traditional wife, or are we only seeing the version that sells?

Let me tell you the story of a real tradwife.

Our househelp was once a traditional wife. She genuinely enjoyed taking care of her home while her husband worked a stable job. Like many women of her generation, she trusted that her husband would always provide.

Then life happened.

Her husband lost his stable job and began taking whatever work he could find, eventually becoming a cab driver. The financial pressure slowly consumed him. The man who once cherished his wife became an alcoholic who beat her regularly.

With no education, career, or financial independence to rely on, she had no choice but to clean other people’s houses and wash their clothes just to feed her children.

You might think things would get easier once the children grew up.

They didn’t.

Out of her three children, one tragically died after battling cancer. Another became an alcoholic himself. The third chose to live separately and offers little to no support. Her husband has since passed away, yet in her sixties she still cleans houses to survive while also trying to help support her alcoholic son’s family.

Sometimes she says,

“I cannot wait to finally pass away and be free from this labour.”

As heartbreaking as those words are, you can understand why death might feel like the only escape after decades of endless sacrifice.

This is also the reality of being a tradwife.

For every successful tradwife story shared online, there are countless women whose stories are never told. Women who never got their shining moment. Women who quietly disappeared into decades of unpaid labour until old age caught up with them.

Social media rarely shows that side.

The perfectly curated videos of women cooking in couture dresses are content. Content earns money. Those creators often have sponsorships, YouTube revenue, brand deals, affiliate links, and businesses behind the scenes. Their lifestyle may not even be funded solely by a husband, despite what the aesthetic suggests.

We simply don’t know what happens behind closed doors.

We also ignore one simple reality.

Supporting an entire household on a single income in 2026 is incredibly difficult. For the average man, it is becoming nearly impossible.

Yet despite that, more and more people romanticize traditional marriages without discussing the risks involved.

The reality is that many men who claim they want a tradwife aren’t necessarily looking for a partner.

They’re looking for someone who cooks, cleans, raises the children, manages the home, satisfies their emotional needs, satisfies their sexual needs, and asks for very little in return.

A maid?

No.

In many cases, worse than a maid.

At least a maid gets paid.

How many traditional wives have their own income?

How many can buy themselves a new dress without asking permission?

How many have money set aside for emergencies?

How many have enough savings to leave if the relationship becomes abusive?

The answer isn’t nearly as comforting as social media would have you believe.

Many women spend decades putting everyone else’s needs before their own. They work twenty-four hours a day without weekends, salaries, promotions, pensions, or appreciation because they’re told that is simply what they are meant to do.

Some cannot even buy basic necessities for themselves while their husbands spend money on alcohol, affairs, hobbies, or entirely new lifestyles.

People often say, “My husband bought me a dishwasher.”

But think about that for a second.

A dishwasher isn’t jewelry.

It isn’t financial security.

It isn’t independence.

It’s a household appliance that makes it easier for her to continue doing unpaid labour.

That isn’t necessarily a gift.

It’s a tool for the job.

None of this means every traditional marriage fails.

Some women genuinely live happy, fulfilling lives with loving husbands who respect them, value their work, and ensure they have financial security. Those marriages absolutely exist.

But pretending that every tradwife gets that ending is simply untrue.

Many women lose years of opportunities, careers, education, friendships, hobbies, and financial independence. If life suddenly changes through unemployment, illness, abuse, addiction, divorce, or death, they often have no safety net left to fall back on.

Perhaps the real question isn’t whether women should become tradwives.

Perhaps the question we should be asking in 2026 is this:

Can we still afford to build an entire life around depending on one person, or should every woman have the ability to stand on her own feet—even if she chooses not to?

A choice is only truly a choice when you have the freedom to make a different one.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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Moving to a new city is rarely just about changing your address. It can mean leaving behind familiar streets, favorite places, daily routines, and people who have become part of your life. At the same time, it can open the door to something completely different.

Some people move because they have accepted a new job, started a relationship, or want a better environment for their family. Others relocate because life gives them little choice. Whatever the reason, starting over in a new city can bring a mixture of excitement, uncertainty, hope, and even sadness.

A new city can feel like a blank page. But turning that page is not always easy.

The Emotional Weight of Leaving Familiar Places

When people think about moving, they often focus on practical details. They think about packing boxes, hiring movers, changing addresses, and transporting furniture. Yet the emotional side of moving can be just as significant.

A familiar home holds memories. So does the neighborhood around it. The café where you stopped for coffee, the park where you walked on weekends, or the street you traveled every morning may seem ordinary until you know you are leaving them behind.

Friends and family can make the transition even more emotional. Even when you stay connected through phone calls and social media, physical distance changes relationships. Casual visits become planned occasions. Spontaneous conversations may become less frequent.

This does not mean moving is the wrong decision. It simply means that moving stress is not always caused by the physical work of relocation. Sometimes, it comes from saying goodbye to a version of life that felt safe and familiar.

Recognizing those feelings can make the transition easier. You do not have to pretend that leaving is effortless.

Why a New City Can Be a Fresh Start

While leaving is difficult, a new city can also offer something valuable: a chance to build new routines.

Relocating to a new city may introduce you to different neighborhoods, workplaces, communities, and social circles. You may discover interests you never had time to explore before. You might start exercising, take a class, join a local group, or simply develop a different daily rhythm.

There is also something psychologically refreshing about entering an environment where few people know your history. You can make choices based on who you are now rather than who you were years ago.

Of course, a new city will not solve every problem. But it can create space for reflection and growth.

Sometimes, the most important part of a fresh start is not becoming a completely different person. It is having the opportunity to decide what you want to carry forward and what you are ready to leave behind.

The Practical Reality Behind a Fresh Start

A fresh start may sound inspiring, but there is plenty of practical work behind it. Preparing for a move requires organization, especially when the distance between your old and new homes is significant.

Before moving day, consider creating a realistic timeline. Decide what needs to be packed first, which belongings you actually want to keep, and what should be donated, sold, or discarded. Keep one clearly marked bag with whatever you cannot afford to lose track of: prescriptions, identification, laptop and chargers, and enough clothing for the first few days.

It is also important to think about transportation and logistics early. Long-distance moves can involve more planning than a local relocation, particularly when timing and delivery arrangements need to be coordinated carefully. Whichever company you consider, it is worth following the Better Business Bureau’s guidance on vetting movers: verify credentials and insurance, read complaint histories, and insist on written estimates.

For people moving farther away, professional long-distance moving services can reduce some of the physical and logistical pressure. Companies such as JFK Moving, which handles long-distance relocations originating throughout Southern California, coordinate timing and delivery arrangements so the practical side of the move stays manageable.

The goal is not to eliminate every challenge. Instead, good preparation helps prevent small problems from becoming unnecessary sources of stress.

How to Make the Transition Easier

One of the biggest mistakes people make after moving is trying to do everything immediately. They want to unpack every box, decorate every room, find the best restaurants, meet new people, and understand the entire city within a few days.

That is a lot to ask of yourself.

Give the transition time. Start with the essentials. Make sure your bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen are functional first, and leave the rest of the boxes for later in the week.

Once the basics are settled, begin exploring gradually. Walk around your neighborhood. Find the nearest grocery store. Learn the easiest route to work or school. Visit a local park or coffee shop.

These small discoveries help turn an unfamiliar place into somewhere that feels like home.

Moving Doesn’t Automatically Change Your Life

A new address can create opportunities, but it cannot magically erase every difficulty.

If you were unhappy before the move, those feelings may not disappear overnight. If you struggled with certain habits or relationships, moving away does not automatically solve them. In this sense, life after relocation requires just as much personal effort as life before it.

However, your environment can influence your choices.

A new city may encourage you to build healthier routines, meet different people, or approach your goals from a new perspective. You have a chance to make intentional changes rather than simply repeating the same patterns.

Think of relocation as an opportunity, not a guarantee.

The city provides the setting. You still have to write the next chapter.

The First 30 Days in a New City

The first month after moving can feel strange. Even if the move was something you wanted, it takes time for a new place to feel familiar.

During the first 30 days, focus on small, realistic goals.

Start by establishing a basic routine. Wake up and sleep at consistent times. Find places for everyday necessities. Set up your workspace if you work from home. These simple actions create a sense of stability.

Then, explore your surroundings. You do not need to see every attraction immediately. Choose one new place each week. Try a local restaurant, visit a library, walk through a nearby neighborhood, or attend a community event.

Building connections also matters. Say hello to neighbors, join a local activity, or reconnect with hobbies that naturally bring you into contact with other people.

Most importantly, give yourself permission to feel unsettled. Adjusting to a new city takes time. The unfamiliar streets gradually become recognizable. The grocery store becomes your grocery store. The route you once had to check on your phone becomes automatic.

Little by little, the new city becomes part of your everyday life.

Final Thoughts

Moving to a new city can be one of life’s most challenging transitions, but it can also become one of its most transformative experiences. You may leave behind familiar places and relationships, yet you also gain the opportunity to create new routines, discover new possibilities, and grow in ways you did not expect.

Starting over does not mean forgetting your past. It means carrying the best parts of it with you while making room for something new.

The boxes will eventually be unpacked. The streets will become familiar. And one day, the city that once felt completely foreign may simply feel like home.

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