Spiritual retreat

The Ash Wednesday on 1st March began Lent. It's a very important time for Catholics. The time of concentration on the spiritual preparation to live the Resurrection, the biggest holiday for Christians in the best way. The three big questions which concern Lent are: feast, prayer and charity.

During the Lent, in all churches the priests organise the retreat.

Today retreat began in my parish. They will last to Wednesday. The priest have told us a story that can make you think about the participation in retreat. So, he always saw a family in the Church and during retreat there were never the father of this family. And one day, during the pastoral visit in their home, he asked this man why he was never present on retreat in church. The man told that he was just 40, he didn't need to go there and he would go to retreat when he would be old. Three days later, her wife went to the parish office to this priest. She told that she wanted to order a funeral. The priest was surprised and asked for whom would be the funeral. She responded that this would be her husband's funeral. It turned out that two days after the pastoral visit he has a strong heart attack and he died. He didn't have the possibility to participate in the retreat which are very important and can enrich the wait for Easter, but we can do it be happy of the fruits of it.

Raw food

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Today I was talking with my friend and I've heard about a trend in nutrition. Namely, about raw food, I had never heard about it before so I decided to check it. Maybe you also don't know what is it, so you can find out something new.

American stars are fans of this diet: Gwyneth Paltrow, Demi Moore, Georgia May Jagger, Drew Barrymore... The list of celebrities who have opted for the raw food diet is very long. Straight from the United States, this trend is gradually starting to take hold in Europe.

See what the amateurs of raw food eat. Freshly picked fruits and vegetables, sprouted seeds, oilseeds, cereals, cold pressed first oils. No dairy products, no salt, no added sugar, no animal foods. The rules are strict: water is allowed only outside meals, each lunch must start with a salad, dinner, it must start with a soup, tea and coffee are proscribed.The list of authorized foods is short, such as the cooking methods permitted by the diet. The "raw" prohibits any firing above 47.8 ° C. For according to the gurus of the diet, cooking at more than 48 ° C would destroy the vitamins and especially the enzymes present in fruits and vegetables. To cook the food, you have to equip yourself: dehydrator, blender, cold juice extractors or variable-temperature steamer.

This diet has some positif aspects but it doesn't give you all the substances that your body needs. Personally, I don't like this idea and it would be difficult for me to bear even one day eating in this way.

Emotion regulation

This week I participated on the next lecture named „The Zone Psyche” on the University of Social Sciences and Humanities. This time it was about emotions.I knew the theory of emotion regulation according to which there are 5 ways to deal with your emotions, in particular with negative ones. Imagine that you are in a room and you have to meet a person which you don't like.a) you can avoid this person and don't go to the second roomb) you can modify the situation, for example you can tell this person that he partsc) you can spread attention, you don't have contact with this person, you don't talk to, you don't interact but it is not pleasant for youd) you can try to change the opinion about this person, you can reinterprete the situation and tell you that maybe she is not so bad and you can take it, this situation demands a lot of emotional efforte) you can hold your reaction back, it means that you can't stand this person but you are talking to her, you smile and you pretend that everything is good, obviously, in this case your emotional effort is the biggest and this type of situation hurts youThis approach is represented by Gross and Thomas and I agree with it.

"The Newlyweds"

I’ve just finished to read „The Newlyweds” of Nell Freudenberger. I’m starting to miss about this lecture because it took me some time to read it. "The Newlyweds" has nearly 500 pages. Usually I don’t read the books about oriental culture but this time I made an exception and I’m happy for it.

This book is about Amina, 24 years old woman from Bangladesh who meets an American man on the portal dating. But it is not so romantic because the biggest aim of Amina is to have a good husband who can give her and her parents a possibility to live better, in the USA. She has to wait 3 years before receiving an American nationality. Then, she can invite her parents there. Despite of fact that Amina lives in America and she has everything, she is not happy. She has a challenge to live in a different culture. The book is long and it contains a lot of events from her and her parents’ life in America but also in Bangladesh.

We have also impression that she loves an ancient friend from childhood and she wants to quit everything in USA and live in Bangladesh with him.

The parents of Amina have big problems to receive a visa to the USA, but finally they have it. On the last pages of the book, we can read about how they leave Bangladesh and fly to America. For me these pages are extremely sad. It’s just a fiction, but how these poor people from the Orient will live in a completely different world ? Is it worth it ? I’d like to know how they would live in this new world.

I'm also wondering if there is still this desire from the part of the family so that woman has a good and rich husband. Because in this book they still choose a husband by different criteria. Or nowadays is it normal to marry someone who we love?

The reality In Bangladesh is strongly different than in Europe and it was interesting to find out something new. 

Harmful effects of television violence on children

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There are several reasons for which watching violent programs on televison can affect children's emotional well being. Firstly, children's fear can increase. It concernes especially girls who are more likely to be represented as victims of violence on television. Consequently, this can make them more fearful of the world around them. Next, children become desensitized towards violence in general. The aggressive acts are widely presented in some cartoons for children. Furthermore, violence is presented in a comical way and its real consequences are rarely exposed, the death is presented grotesquely and violence remains unpunished. As a result, children learn not to react to the evil and brutality. Finally, watching the drastic scenes can increase the likelihood of aggressive behavior, even with time deferred. A child develops the habit of aggressive response, which over time is difficult to change, in particular when the child has seen that another film hero is rewarded for aggressive behavior. In short, if kids watch some acts of violence in television, they can become more timorous, more aggressive and insensitive to the violence.

Joyeux Noël !

Bûche de Noel

Due to Christmas I’d like to tell you something about Christmas tradition in France. You will see that this is a little bit different than in Poland. However there are a lot of things in common. For French people as for Polish people, Christmas is the most important celebration, it is the celebration of family. The 24th of December, in general everything is already prepared. Before to go to sleep some children hang Christmas stockings on the fireplace. Santa Claus will put the sweets there, otherwise children will find their gifts under the Christmas tree the 25 th of December because in general French people don’t have Christmas dinner which is throughrouly celebrated in Poland. Consequently, they don’t share wafer. But some of them go to the Midnight Mass to celebrate the birth od Jesus. But in France there aren’t many Catholic people so it’s not very common, It’s a shame because this tradition is beautiful and it changes a lot the meaning of Christmas which is not only the gifts and the meetings with family. We have to mention what is the reason for which we celebrate it.

It’s 25th of December when family meets, they eat a big dinner and they drink a lot of wine. The most traditional dishes are : turkey, seafood, foie gras, salmon and, for dessert, the cake named ‘bûche’ which resembles a stump.

I think that I’d like to spend Christmas in France just to see all these traditions under my eyes but I prefer our Christmas in Poland. 

Styles of attachement - Bartholomew and Horowitz

Today I would like you to present you another theory about styles of attachement. I will explain you that table which can be a little bit enigmatic. It presents the styles of attachement in adults in according to Kim Bartholomew and Leonard Horowitz.

As you can see, if you think positively about yourself and about your partner or other people, you can have the secure style of attachement. So, pose you some questions. Do you feel competent, worth attention and love? Do you love yourself? Do you think that someone can love you? 

If you have this style of attachement, you support other people, you are warm and you have confidence in others.

You feel well in a close relationship, not afraid of dependence or being alone.

It is the best style of attachement. 

However, if you have positive thoughts about you, but you think negatively about other people, you have the dismissive style of attachement. You also feel competent, and worth, but also independent and self-sufficient. Other people are hardly credible for you, hostile and unjust. Or you just think so... 

When it comes to your emotions you exclude negative emotions, you minimize the significance of the painful experiences. You have also poor emotional control, you prone to impulsive behavior. You can feel an extreme discomfort in the situation of proximity, you avoid intimacy, relationships and commitment. You build superficial contacts with others, based on common issues, and not on commitment. Unfortunately, you can treat instrumentally other people.

If your thoughts about yourself are negative and thoughts about other people are positive, you have preoccupied style of attachement. Your image of yourself is inconsistent and dependent on the acceptance of others. But you idealize other people, you have the high expectations, which are the source of your disappointment. You are jealous and are afriad of separation. You want to control emotions excessively. You are extensively involved in a relationship but at the same time you have difficulties with its maintenance. You are dependent on your partner, you want intimacy, fall in love quickly and you expect exclusive attention to yourself.

If both images, of yourself and of other are negative you have the fearful style of attachement. You feel incompetent and unattractive. You perceive others like threatening, not giving support, rejecting. You have difficulty in revealing emotions.You exhibit a lack of trust in others and fear of being dependent, rejection and abandonment. You rather avoid social contacts. In relations with others you are passive and shy, you also avoid conflicts.