Inter-X-Connected

In Romantic Relationships Privacy is Precious and Secrecy is Vile.

When two adults commit to be together romantically, it is important to keep in mind that there is a difference between secrecy and privacy. To maintain a certain level of privacy can be helpful as a means to preserve healthy boundaries and an erotic charge.

There are thoughts and actions that if shared can be hurtful to the other, but that does not imply that they are deceitful.

🗝️ In other words, to build and maintain trust and mutual respect, privacy must be included while secrecy must be excluded.

💡 This is a very cool piece of art by Robert Panda, located at the Prata Riverside Village in Lisbon. However, the posture is only sustainable for a sculpture. Any human being maintaining this position would start to suffer quickly. While it is becoming more and more common to see something akin to this posture in our computerized society, it is harmful to your body as well as your mind. This posture can create a lot of tension in the back of your neck/head which in turn may cause severe headaches, exhaustion and a foggy brain. In addition, it can result in serious back pain because the back muscles get overstretched and thus weakened in this position. The more hours you spend sitting like this, the more fatigued and painful the back muscles will get.

💪🏻 What can you do for yourself?

Get a good chair with support for your lower back.

Be mindful of how you sit on your chair, check your posture every 15 min.

If you are already in pain, see a good massage therapist.

Get professional advice on how to strengthen your back so that you can maintain a good posture, and prevent future pain.

Newspapers are temporary and yesterday’s news are quickly forgotten, however books tend to be permanent.

Leiden Stadsfotograaf Koen Suidgeest’s () project of 2021-2022 whose goal was to show that Leiden is a multicultural city, succeeded and culminated in a beautiful book featuring 52 stories of chosen expats.

Big thanks to Koen who included me in this project. Last Sunday we all got the opportunity to attend a beautiful gathering to celebrate the book and to honor and applaud Koen’s talent and success.

◘ Strokes are not only for the apparently “unhealthy”, elderly people, those that are maybe a bit on the heavy side, who enjoy a steak, a cake and a few drinks, and who rather inhale deeply from an occasional cigarette than from the exertion of the treadmill. More and more youngish, healthy looking, educated, people are suffering from strokes these days, and it is a big shock to everybody who knows these ”healthy” people, how could that happen to them? They are doing all the “right things".

◘ Unfortunately many of these young stroke victims are their own worst enemies; very driven to succeed in life, and unusually eager to absorb as much knowledge as possible, they rarely “mess up; ”Things are in order." They are known for that. And of course they are fit. Sometimes “too fit” for their age.

◘ One can eat kale until the cows come home but if there is no inner peace, if what you do is never enough, if there is always another “to do” list waiting, stroke can strike anybody. The bottom line to prevent strokes as well as heart attacks, which is not mentioned in most educational material from well meaning organizations, is the inner peace that is needed to create a harmonic environment for all the cells in the body to thrive.

◘ If there is constant stress and inner pressure there is higher chance of inflammation and infection and that can be a source of blood cloths which can create ischemic strokes, blockage of one or more small arteries in the brain that will starve the adjacent nerve cells for oxygen. The hemorrhagic strokes refer to a blood vessel in the brain bursting as the the walls of the blood vessels can get more fragile if there is inflammation in the body.

◘ Bottom line:
Take little symptom seriously: headaches, tiredness, feeling off, frequent urination or lack of, upset stomach, changes in s*x drive or appetite, don't push through, try to pause and examine what could be off balance, rest a bit, even if that is not your "normal” way of being. We are not talking about becoming hypochondriacs, but rather be attuned to small nuances in your well being.