Caring for a Long-Haired Cat

Many cat lovers are especially drawn to long-haired kitties, because let’s face it, they’re magnificent to look at! And there are few things softer and more luxurious to the touch than a well-maintained feline fur coat.

What many novice long-haired cat guardians aren’t prepared for, however, is the upkeep their pet’s coat may require. Even though healthy cats habitually groom themselves and are fastidious by nature, many long-haired kitties need a little or even a lot of extra help keeping their coats beautiful.

How Much Grooming Help Your Cat Will Need Depends on Several Factors

How much grooming of your cat’s coat you’ll need to do depends a great deal on the type and texture of the fur, as well as your pet’s age, lifestyle and health status. For example:

• Some long coats never develop so much as a tangle, while others become matted overnight. Generally speaking, the softer and silkier the coat, the more upkeep it requires.

• Older cats may lose interest in grooming themselves, especially if they are experiencing age-related cognitive decline (kitty dementia).

• Overweight kitties often have a difficult time grooming the back half of their bodies, including the area right under the tail where bits of poop and litter can stick to long hair.

• Kitties with “pushed in” faces, known as brachycephalic breeds (Persians and Himalayans, for example), often need the area around their eyes cleaned to prevent tear staining and infections in the folds of the skin.

It’s a good idea for any owner of a long-haired cat to prepare to spend some time helping their pet with grooming chores. Your kitty’s coat may only need some TLC once a month — or you may need to tend to it daily to keep your cat looking and feeling good. Fortunately, many kitties absolutely love being brushed or combed, and many who are initially hesitant can learn to enjoy the process as well.

What About Bathing a Cat?

Some cats, and long-haired cats in particular, occasionally need baths. A greasy or sticky feeling coat is one reason a bath may be required. And when an overweight kitty can’t properly groom the back half of his body, baths are often necessary for sanitary purposes and to keep the skin healthy and free of infection.

But unless your cat is one of the very few who actually enjoys being immersed in water, attempting to bathe her will be considerably more challenging than running a brush or comb through her coat.

I always encourage new kitten owners to introduce their pet to bathing while they’re very young. Once a cat reaches adulthood without ever putting a paw in a sink or tub of water, bath time becomes a much trickier proposition.

If you’d like some instruction on how to bathe a cat, view my video and article “By Popular Demand: How to Bathe a Cat and Live to Tell About It.” In the video, I bathe one of my own cats, Enzo, for the first time in his life, and I walk viewers step-by-step through the process I follow.

Should I Have My Long-Haired Cat Professionally Groomed?

My general response to this question is, “Only if absolutely necessary.”

Think about how stressed most kitties are just riding in the car, visiting the vet, or getting a bath in their own home. It’s easy to imagine how traumatic it could be if your cat suddenly found himself in a cage of all things, in a noisy, strange location that didn’t smell friendly, where he was subjected to immersion in water, followed by a blow dry and brush-out by a complete stranger. I’ve never met a cat that would not hate the experience.

However, if you find yourself in a situation where your long-haired kitty is in dire need of a makeover and you just can’t manage it on your own, try to find a mobile or in-home groomer who is very experienced with cats. The biggest advantage to having a groomer come to you is that your kitty won’t be exposed to the sights, sounds and smells of other animals during what will be a stressful event. It also saves you from having to drive her anywhere.

The next best thing would be a grooming shop close to home with experienced cat groomers and cat-only hours or days of the week. Just as some veterinary clinics have evolved to be feline-friendly, some grooming shops have as well.

You might also want to visit the website of the National Cat Groomers Institute of America (NCGIA), which offers training and certification to groomers interested in improving their cat grooming skills. You can enter your location and find NCGIA-trained cat groomers in your area.

Dr. Karen Becker is a proactive and integrative wellness veterinarian. You can visit her site at: MercolaHealthyPets.com

Her goal is to help you create wellness in order to prevent illness in the lives of your pets. This proactive approach seeks to save you and your pet from unnecessary stress and suffering by identifying and removing health obstacles even before disease occurs. Unfortunately, most veterinarians in the United States are trained to be reactive. They wait for symptoms to occur, and often treat those symptoms without addressing the root cause.

By reading Dr. Becker’s information, you’ll learn how to make impactful, consistent lifestyle choices to improve your pet’s quality of life.

Does Your Dog Recognize Your Face?

Have you ever wondered how your dog knows it’s you coming home after a long day at work, or an evening out? How does she know, as you come through the door, that you’re not some scary stranger invading her territory?

It could be she hears familiar “coming home” sounds, like the garage door opening as you pull into the driveway. Maybe she recognizes the hum of your car’s engine, or your footsteps approaching. Maybe she catches a whiff of your personal scent as you open the door.

Or… perhaps she simply recognizes your face.

For social animals that live in groups as humans and dogs do, it’s important to be able to tell one individual in the group from another through facial recognition. But until recently, the aptitude for recognizing facial features was presumed to be a quality that only humans and possibly primates possess.

As it turns out, this highly developed skill is one we also share with our canine companions, which makes sense, since it’s an established fact that faces and eye contact play an important role in human-dog communication.

Researchers at the University of Helsinki Test Facial Recognition Abilities in Domestic Dogs

In a study published in the journal Animal Cognition, researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, set out to examine facial recognition in domestic dogs, using pictures of faces on a computer screen. Facial inversion effect (a fancy term that means faces are harder to recognize when they’re upside down) and responses to personal familiarity were tested using eye movement tracking.

The study included 23 pet dogs and 8 kennel dogs, and the question the researchers wanted to answer was, if dogs are not trained to recognize faces, are they able to see faces in the pictures, and do they naturally look at familiar and strange faces differently?

Among their findings, the researchers discovered that dogs are more interested in the faces of other dogs than human faces.

Not surprisingly, dogs who live with families are more responsive to human faces than dogs living in kennels, and are more observant of familiar rather than unfamiliar human faces.

The dogs also showed great interest in the eye area, which according to the researchers suggests they perceive images representing faces.

Can Dogs Identify Faces Even When They’re Upside-Down?

The study also analyzed the dogs’ responses to faces that were shown to them upside down, because some species do not process inverted faces the same way they process faces that are right-side up.

Humans have the ability to quickly and accurately identify normally oriented (right-side up) faces because we are instinctively able to identify faces in a different way than we identify other types of objects. We recognize right-side up faces as complete structures rather than as a collection of parts. But when faces are upside down, we must perceive them as we do other objects — as individual parts rather than as a complete structure.

According to the University of Helsinki study, dogs also have more difficulty identifying faces that are inverted. However, since they spend a lot of time looking at the eyes in both normally oriented and upside-down faces, it suggests they do recognize the objects as faces regardless of orientation.

It’s Official: Your Dog Knows Your Face!

The overall results of their study indicate that dogs — like humans and primates — are indeed capable of facial recognition.

“Dogs are able to see faces in the images and they differentiate familiar and strange faces from each other,” say the researchers. “These results indicate that dogs might have facial recognition skills, similar to humans.”

Dr. Karen Becker is a proactive and integrative wellness veterinarian. You can visit her site at: MercolaHealthyPets.com.

Her goal is to help you create wellness in order to prevent illness in the lives of your pets. This proactive approach seeks to save you and your pet from unnecessary stress and suffering by identifying and removing health obstacles even before disease occurs. Unfortunately, most veterinarians in the United States are trained to be reactive. They wait for symptoms to occur, and often treat those symptoms without addressing the root cause.

By reading Dr. Becker’s information, you’ll learn how to make impactful, consistent lifestyle choices to improve your pet’s quality of life.

Jonathan Taylor Dismissed From Alabama Crimson Tide After Second Domestic Violence Arrest

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Alabama coach Nick Saban has dismissed Jonathan Taylor from the team following the second domestic violence arrest of the defensive lineman’s college career.

Saban announced the decision on Sunday, a day after Taylor was arrested when a woman reported she was assaulted by her boyfriend. Taylor signed with the Crimson Tide about six months after his dismissal from Georgia following his arrest in a girlfriend’s assault.

Saban says the allegations “will still need to go through the legal process, but when he was given an opportunity here, it was under strict guidelines and we made it clear there was a zero tolerance policy.”

Tuscaloosa police charged the 21-year-old Taylor with domestic violence third-degree assault and domestic violence third-degree criminal mischief.

Police say the 24-year-old woman had injuries to her neck.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The College Admission Frenzy, Greek Life Gone Wild and Income Inequality

First a confession: I am not a sociologist, a behavioral economist nor a social scientist. I am a psychiatrist who has spent the last 25 years as a clinician, administrator and consultant in colleges and higher education settings. Thus, my comments should be taken as speculation and hopefully, a stimulus for further conversation.

Frank Bruni has recently published several excellent essays timed to correspond to the release of his book, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be. In these essays, Bruni discusses the increasing competitiveness in the college admissions process and the noxious impact this has had on young applicants and their families. I agree with him that high schools, colleges, the test prep industry among others, have fed this competition partly fueled by a desire to improve their prestige and U.S. News rankings. Bruni briefly mentions the impact of income inequality on this phenomenon. I believe that the growing income inequality (and from a psychological perspective the perception of income inequality) in American society over the past decades has had a profound impact on our national and individual psyches. I think we are seeing this play out in both the college admissions frenzy and in the recent spate of racist, sexist and aggressive behavior in fraternities in the past several years.

Let me explain.

What might happen psychologically to a society when income inequality increases? To start, by definition as income inequality grows there is an increasing gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots”; the “winners” and the “losers” or as we have heard in recent election campaigns, between the “moochers” and the “wealth makers.” As this divide becomes more stark and difficult to bridge, it would seem likely that there is erosion in the sense of connectedness with others unlike oneself. Communities become either more homogenous or more disconnected. The winners and losers are necessarily separate and distinct from each other. Class and group identities would harden under these conditions. We will empathize less and care less about those not part of our group.

But the great social anthropologist Ernest Becker taught us, in his classic works, The Denial of Death, and the follow up volume, Escape from Evil, that we are all, no matter how wealthy or powerful, faced with our human limitations (ultimately, we are all mortal) and as a result are inevitably led to a deep existential anxiety or dread. And one of the ways we may manage this anxiety is by reassuring ourselves that we are indeed “winners” or heroes (psychologically immortal). And we can do that by showing others to be losers and that we (the winners) are completely apart and better than they (the losers) are. This often involves showing we have power over them as well.

What does any of this have to do with college admissions or frats?

When my generation applied to college, there was still a stable and vibrant middle class. I and most of the people I knew felt pretty confident that no matter where we went to college, there was a strong likelihood that we would graduate (school was not nearly so expensive) and be able to either get a job or go on for more education. In either case, we felt confident that we would be able to work and earn enough to support ourselves and a family in a decent manner. But this sense of a comfortable middle class feels way less certain now. There are the winners and losers and a growing gap in between. If you do not get into a “winner” school, your future is crippled at the very least. So this real practical concern over future job prospects and the existential dread of not being a winner/hero have combined to make the college admission’s process feel like a truly cosmic event for many young people and their families. Winners take all and for the others, too bad.

Frats behaving badly.

I think we can better understand some of the recent spate of crude and aggressive behavior among fraternity members through this prism of the psychological impact of income inequality. If I feel like a “winner”, why should I care a whit about the losers (who include anyone not in my group)? But beyond this, my anxiety about the potential of slipping from this group makes it more likely that I will behave aggressively toward non-group members. How better to prove that they are not me and that I am more powerful than to push them around or demean them? If I can have power over them, I am safe from existential threat.

Let me be clear: This argument is in no way meant to excuse or suggest that we should tolerate this bad or aggressive behavior. It is meant to suggest that there are social forces that make this more likely among certain members of a group. It may also help us to consider how to address, limit and hopefully eventually prevent it.

Higher Ed “leadership mania.”

I’ve been troubled in the past 15 years or so as colleges have become more and more preoccupied with admitting young people who are “leaders” and providing training and seminars directed at “leadership.” As students apply, they must describe how they have been leaders and why they should be leaders. Then we train them to be leaders while in college. How can we have an entering class and communities with only leaders?

And what is so great about being a leader? Why are we not looking for people who are interested in participating, cooperating, working together? In fact, research has shown that businesses do better when there are more team members focused on teamwork, rather than on their own advancement (or leadership) alone .
So we have socialized-both purposely and inadvertently-many of our young people to be hyper-competitive, to feel entitled, needlessly powerful and important (you must be a “leader”), disconnected from others and at the same time uncertain and anxious.

What can we do?

We need to recognize that we are not doing our children a favor by encouraging the relentless pursuit of the top brand and the hyper-competition that comes with it. Education, growth and development are not a search for trophies. Growing up is meant to help us learn about the world, learn about people and relationships, explore, and even make mistakes. We do this through our family and school experience, through being in groups, clubs, playing sports and music, doing projects, playing games and having time to think and try out different things. We need to let kids be kids for a while.

And again to be clear, I’m not making an argument for mediocrity. I am making an argument for flexibility, exploration, cooperation and working hard at learning. Everyone should try to reach their potential as best they can; everyone cannot and should not be a “leader”. In fact, many people most desirous of leadership are least psychologically poised to lead effectively (as should be evident from the discussion above).

As Bruni has explained, where you go to college does not matter nearly so much as we think. How you learn to be a thoughtful, responsible and hopefully kind person and how you learn to relate to and work with others as a good friend, colleague, partner, spouse, parent and yes, sometimes as a leader will matter much more as you live your life.

When Things Fall Apart

Pema Chodron has a wonderful book called When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times which was given to me many years ago. It sat on my bookshelf and I hardly opened it.

About six months ago, she was on Oprah’s “Super Soul Sunday” series and I was absolutely fascinated by her story. Before she became a best selling author and famous Tibetan Buddhist nun, she was a regular woman who grew up in NJ, taught elementary school and had two children. Her life fell apart, she said when she discovered that her husband of eight years was having an affair and left her while her children were very young.

I was completely drawn into her story because it was so similar to mine and began to follow her teachings. All of us have at one time or another had our lives fall apart. A loved one is diagnosed with a terminal illness, we lose our job and in the process, our identities, a relationship ends, we are battling an addiction or someone we love dies. Whatever the event, it’s easy for us to go to the place of being a victim. To feel sorry for ourselves. “Why is this happening to me?” What did I do to deserve this?”

We did nothing to deserve it. Bad things happen to good people all the time. The trick is to reframe what is happening to us. To get out of the story and get into the gifts and opportunities presenting themselves. I’m not saying this is easy. Far from it. But it’s possible. If you can surrender to what is happening.

A year ago, I was at an event when this man I had never met before overheard me telling the “story” of what had just happened to me. I couldn’t get through the story without crying. He said, “I’ve been listening to your story and I’m not trying to diminish the pain that you’re feeling but I’m wondering if I can tell you a different story. The one that is actually true.” Intrigued, I agreed to listen to his version of my story.

In his story, I wasn’t a victim. In his version of the story, the person who had hurt me was actually my greatest teacher. The way he saw it, I was incredibly lucky that this person had showed me who he truly was, and freed me up to live the life I was meant to live. In his version of my story, I wasn’t “not enough” as I had been telling myself and anyone who would listen. I was “more than enough…” and the universe had manifested an amazing opportunity to prove to myself and everyone around me how strong I was… that I could handle myself with dignity and grace in the face of such a betrayal. I had been given an opportunity to show compassion and forgiveness towards someone who had hurt me. Wasn’t that a gift, he asked?

At first I found this version of the story a hard one to swallow and certainly a hard one to tell. It was *much* easier to be the victim in my story. And I didn’t have to stretch myself by having actual compassion for the person who had treated me with such dishonor and disrespect.

But as the months went one, more and more people I spoke with saw the same story as this man. Just when I was in another fit of pity and anger, they would say to me, “Look at all the amazing things you are doing with your life now! You wouldn’t be doing any of these things if this hadn’t happened to you.” Or “Wow. What an amazing lesson from the universe to teach you forgiveness and compassion.”

So in my writing, rather than pouring out all the self-righteous anger and sadness I was feeling, I spent more time writing down all the lessons. All the things I was learning about myself. All of the old behavioral patterns I was breaking. All of the amazing friends and family I had in my life who were showing up for me and being there in ways you can’t even imagine. All of the friendships that were strengthened because I was learning how to ask for help — something I *never* allowed myself to do in the past. As my life fell apart… I was broken open — and I came together like never before.

As I went through my own spiritual journey, I watched others I loved suffering their own trials. My brother-in-law lost his only brother to ALS. My friend suffered her third miscarriage. My co-worker bravely and tirelessly battled Stage 4 cancer. My good friend lost his job, another friend lost his father. Friends started confiding in me that their marriages were falling apart and they didn’t have the courage to leave. And it was as those things happened, I saw that I had a responsibility. I could be an example of how to reframe the tragedies in our life and create something magnificent out of it. Or I could stay the victim.

All of us are going through something right now. What I’ve learned is as awful as these things are when they happen, they are always temporary. They pass in time and happiness and joy find their way to us again. So, just for today I have chosen to not be a victim of my “story.” Today I’m choosing to be an example of all the wonderful things that can happen when things fall apart.

Because the only thing that can follow things falling apart… is it all coming back together.

Goldilocks Wasn't a (Happy) Runner

I could be wrong, but if I had to guess, I’d say Goldilocks would not have been a happy runner. Too hot. Too cold. Too wet. Too windy. Too tired. Too long. Too short. Too hilly.

A few weekends ago I laced up for an 18-mile run. Two weeks before I had just run the Austin Marathon — pacing my husband for the first time. I didn’t have a race on the horizon, but I was excited to get out the door and get my legs moving — I shouted the all familiar “Mommy’s going running” over my shoulder as I headed out the door — the cold Austin February air blasted my face. I took one look back to see my four kids, still dressed warmly in their pajamas, playing Star Wars with toy light sabers and makeshift ones made from long cardboard tubes, and I knew they were going to have a fun and loud morning with Chris — who was already sipping his coffee trying to wake up.

As I was waiting for my Garmin to pick up satellite, I looked up at the sky to see some dark clouds threatening rain — but my weather app promised it would hold out for a few hours. So I headed out.

The temperature was about 35, so when it started drizzling on me just a few miles into my long run, I knew it had the potential to be a miserable run. I caught myself as I started thinking: I wish it was just a little bit warmer. I pulled my beanie down over my ears so they wouldn’t ache from the cold and I adjusted my gloves — which weren’t waterproof. I started to feel a little sorry for myself as I felt the cold rain stinging my face — the initial excitement of a long run started floating away from my the colder I got. I realized just minutes before I had longed for this — and I wanted that feeling back. So I decided right then and there to push those negative thoughts out of my head. Because summers in Austin can be brutal. The first summer we moved here we had over 100 days of 100-degree weather. I refused to let myself complain about the chilly Austin air-I was going to enjoy the cold, wet run, knowing the dog days of summer are waiting for me. And I also hope that when Summer comes, I’ll just accept it for what it is — knowing I can’t do anything to change the weather — instead I can focus on the positives.

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I did not want to be a Goldilocks runner. Not this day.

18 miles later, I burst into the house, drenched and cold but feeling like my soul had been cleansed — worry, fear, doubt — all the negative things I had been holding onto from the week before, were released on my run that day. Running polishes you that way. You can leave for a run feeling rough around the edges and miles later the run will smooth you out and soften you up until you feel like things aren’t as hard as you thought they were.

When my oldest daughter saw me she placed her small hands against my face: Your cheeks are red! Weren’t you freezing cold running? I told her with the biggest grin on my face: I was cold — but that’s OK — I felt so happy to be running, It was fun! She looked doubtful but I promised her to take her out on a short run so she could run in the rain with me.

There is always something we can complain about when it comes to running. Too much traffic, too many piles of dog poop left behind, the sidewalk is too bumpy, there isn’t enough light. Even when all the conditions may be seemingly perfect, for whatever reason, completely out of your control — you may just have a horrible run.

And when we start getting Goldilocks-y about our runs, we lose sight of how great running can be and what it can do for an anxious or worried heart. If you only focus on the negatives you might miss out on the way it can help you release anger or self-doubt — or any of those ugly, negative emotions that shouldn’t rest inside you.

There is rarely a perfect day — even now, when Austin is beautiful as it turns into spring, with the temperature hovering around 70 degrees, I could complain about the allergies that will surely cause my eyes to get itchy and watery. Or.

Or… I could just enjoy the run for what it is: a beautiful day to be running in Austin, Texas.

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No, Goldilocks wasn’t a happy runner.

But every day we lace up our shoes for a run, we get to decide: Will we let our thoughts point out every little thing that isn’t perfect? Or will we push those negative thoughts aside and let us see running for what it is: a gift not to be taken for granted. For now, I choose joy. Because regardless of the weather, terrain, my state of exhaustion — running has the power to cleanse my soul-to wash away my worries of the day — whether it’s through sweating it out in a hot summer day, or washing it away with the cold, stinging, rain.

My heart doesn’t care — it just longs for me to enjoy the run.

Nicole Scott is an RRCA certified running coach who writes about being a mom to four, faith, and a whole lot of running at MyFitFamily.

3 Big Obstacles to Change — and How to Overcome Them

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Recently, Justin Bieber has been making headlines again, not for stripping down to his boxers or smuggling illegal monkeys or drinking and drag racing, but for something you’d think we could all rally behind: apologizing. “I’ve lost some of my best qualities. For that, I am sorry,” he said during the finale of his Comedy Central TV roast, looking contrite. “I’m looking forward to being someone who you guys can all look at and be proud of.”

Reception has been mixed, mostly because some people doubt the sincerity of his efforts, but his attempts, as well as the skepticism surrounding them, have highlighted a truth that resonates for us all: It’s really hard to change.

That’s because there are powerful forces, both within us, and outside us, that often hold us back and we need to know what they are — and how to tackle them. Three of the biggest:

Our Problems Often Protect Us. In the movie The Shawshank Redemption, the inmates become so accustomed to the constricted lives they live behind bars, that they have no idea what to do once they’re released. They have so little experience making choices, such as how to cross a busy street or find new friends or plan their day, that once free, they feel utterly lost. As inmates, they never had to face new decisions — or the fear that often attends them.

We all build familiar prisons as protection. The quiet man is drawn to women who call the shots, in part because he, too, doesn’t know how to make his own decisions — and with controlling women he never has to. The braggart continues to strut about not just because he’s afraid he’ll lose his audience if he isn’t always on, but because he has no clue how to be authentic — and his “friends” probably don’t either. The only way any of us can escape our self-made prisons is to actively and intentionally practice new behaviors that are sure to make us deeply uncomfortable at first.

If we’re unused to expressing opinions, we have to test out, however awkwardly, asserting ourselves; if we hide vulnerability behind posturing, we have to learn to share sadness or fear; if we’ve lived life too cautiously, we need to experiment with acting spontaneously. It’s disorienting and we’ll feel tempted to fall back on old ways, but we have to stay the course and stumble through.

Other People Might Not Want Us to Change. For a woman trapped in relationships with selfish friends or lovers, finding her voice is no easy matter. She can practice assertiveness skills ad nauseam. She can search her soul and finally discover what she truly wants. But her friends and loved ones might need her to remain quiet for their own reasons. The self-sacrificing woman inevitably nurtures relationships with friends, lovers or colleagues who don’t want to hear her needs. They probably don’t even know how to meet them. So when she finally asserts herself, saying she’s tired and can’t stay up until 2 a.m. helping with their latest “crisis,” they look away in confusion or disappointment — or worse — they get angry. And then she falls silent again — and stays up anyway.

This is how we build our own prisons again and again. We read the predictable resistance to our attempts to improve ourselves as punishment for doing the wrong thing, instead of seeing the backlash for what it truly is — the inexorable pain of growth. Including the pain, sometimes, of outgrowing old relationships.

Some people can accommodate your changes — and some can’t. With the ones who can’t, you might have to move on. If your efforts to improve are sincere and consistent (talking to you, Biebs), you’ll find that some people are delighted to meet the new you.

Your Old Self Will Fight Back, Hard. Our personality ties us to the people in our lives, and since most of us don’t want to be alone, our old self never gives up without a fight. Writing yourself off as needy, for example, is convenient for friends or loved ones who cringe in the face of any kind of vulnerability — sadness, anxiety, guilt — so it becomes a way of keeping them close.

So powerful is the tug of the old self that self-loathing people often go out of their way to avoid supportive friends or partners; they’ll even dodge caring spouses in favor of people who consistently put them down. They don’t enjoy being hurt. They just don’t know how to be close to someone who’s nice. So they slip back into relationships that confirm their old story of who they are: unworthy, flawed, or broken. We’ll nurse the darkest thoughts about ourselves if they protect our need for connection

The only way to push through all this is to prepare for the fight: The old “you” aggressively seeks out experiences to keep itself alive. You need to recognize, for example, that your queasiness around that cute guy who actually returns your calls isn’t bad chemistry; it’s your insecure self, making you a magnet for unreliable men who enjoy playing with your heart (and dismissing your pain as “neediness”). You need to resist the urge to flee the caring, self-confident date you met last night and know that it’s your “rescuer” self, preferring to trap you with someone you need to fix. And you need to admit that your aversion to that woman who doesn’t laugh at every single one of your jokes or fawn over your looks is your old arrogant self, looking for the perfect groupie instead of a real partner. Only when you’ve learned to resist the pull of the old self can you explore who you really are.

Then you’ll truly be free and proud of yourself.

Keep fighting the good fight, Justin.

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If you like my posts, let me know! Let’s connect on Facebook and Twitter. And be sure to sign up for my newsletter, for more tips and advice, as well as information on my forthcoming book, Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad–And Surprising Good–About Feeling Special, devoted to understanding and coping with narcissism in all its forms, in our friends, lovers, colleagues-and even ourselves. Harperwave and Harper UK, July 2015.

photo credits: istock

Bikini-Clad Britney Spears Spends Spring Break With Her Sons

Britney Spears’ spring break vacation was family-friendly.

The pop icon hit the beaches of Hawaii with her sons, 9-year-old Sean Preston and 8-year-old Jayden James. Spears shared adorable snapshots from the trip with her 41 million Twitter followers over the weekend:

The “Perfume” singer and her boys shared their own People magazine cover last week, and the proud mom spoke lovingly about watching her children grow up.

“Preston is very opinionated, very expressive, and if he doesn’t like something, he’s going to tell you, But he has a huge heart, he’s a good kid and he has manners,” she told People. “Jayden is sweet, very soft-spoken, kinda funny. He’s adorable — a momma’s boy,” she said.

Too cute!

What Can You Do with Data?

I gave a speech about marketing and data science last week. Afterwards, one of the CMOs came up to me with panic in his eyes. He said, and I quote, “Help!”

I get it. Big Data and Data Science are overused catch phrases that can mean anything anyone wants them to mean. But the hype doesn’t change the facts. We are being overwhelmed with data, and I can assure you that if you don’t know what to do with it, your competition will.

Data Science Can Help

The fundamental goal of data science, a mash-up of three foundational skills – domain expertise, mathematics and computer science – is to turn information into action. You can learn about how they work together in my article, Are You Ready for Data Science?

The truism “If you ask the wrong question, you’re guaranteed to get the wrong answer” is often tossed about in data science meetings as profound insight. It is not. It is an axiom.

Importantly, the obverse is almost never true. Asking the right question might be a path to enlightenment, but it certainly does not guarantee finding the right answer. To attempt that, you need the appropriate analytic tools and techniques. This is where mathematics and computer science add value.

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An Overview of Analytic Techniques

What are the technical members of your data science team going to do with your data? Transform, learn and predict. So, in the interest of searching for the right answers, let’s review a few common classes of analytic techniques and see how you might put them to good use.

Transformational Analytics

Aggregation – a class of techniques used to summarize data including basic statistics such as mean and weighted averages, median, Gaussian distribution and standard deviation. Other aggregation techniques include probability distribution fitting (the repeated measurement of variable phenomena – remember “method of moments” and “maximum likelihood” from Stats class?) and good, old-fashioned plotting points on a graph.

Enrichment – a set of techniques employed to add information to, or fill gaps in, a data set – for example, adding zip + 4 to five-digit zip codes, appending purchase data or credit scores or even simply standardizing prefixes or suffixes.

Processing – everything from data munging or data wrangling (the cleaning up of data) to entity extraction (identifying key terms in unstructured data that have value) to true feature extraction (building derived values from existing data).

Learning Analytics

Regression – a common way to predict the future based on the past by exploring spatial relationships. There are many types of regression techniques, but all share the common goal of predicting the value of a dependent variable where partial related variables are available, or estimating effects of an explanatory variable on the dependent variable.

Clustering – is just what it sounds like. The goal is to group a set of data points so that the ones with the most in common are closest together. Importantly, clustering is not a specific formula; it is accomplished by using a series of algorithms. And it is almost always an iterative process.

Classification – algorithms and other techniques used to identify to what category or subpopulation a data point belongs. When speaking about classifications, you must be careful to also identify the discipline you are speaking about. Statisticians use the term differently than practitioners of machine learning do.

Predictive Analytics

Simulation – a set of techniques used to create a simulated environment for testing predictive models.

Optimization – a wide-ranging tool set for making optimal selections from a set of alternatives. Commonly used for pricing and maximizing yield.

Want Help?

We have a team ready to help you prepare to work with your data, understand the opportunities afforded by machine learning and pattern matching and even do a data science readiness assessment. Just shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to work with you to help you achieve your business goals.

I’m the Managing Director of the Digital Media Group at Landmark|ShellyPalmer, a tech-focused investment banking and advisory firm specializing in M&A, financings, and strategic partnerships. You may also know me as Fox 5 New York’s on-air tech expert and host of Shelly Palmer Digital Living, my national daily radio report. Follow me @shellypalmer or visit shellypalmer.com for more info.

Sizing Up Your Genes

Once again Angelina Jolie Pitt made headlines with her New York Times op-ed article “Diary of a Surgery” addressing her decision to undergo prophylactic surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes. She chose to have the operation after her physician informed her that inflammatory markers from a test may point to ovarian cancer. Jolie Pitt’s mother, grandmother, and aunt all lost their lives to cancer.

In 2013, Jolie Pitt revealed her decision to undergo a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction as a safeguard against breast cancer. As a carrier of the BRCA1 gene mutation she had an estimated 87 percent risk of breast cancer and 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer.

There is no screening method for early detection of ovarian cancer. Sadly, it is often diagnosed at an advanced stage. Symptoms may be attributed to other conditions and ignored by the individual.

You may ask, “Why would someone undergo a surgery to remove healthy body parts and organs, radically changing her body, when she has not been diagnosed?” You may applaud her for taking such a courageous preemptive measure. You may snark, “Well she can afford it. Most people cannot.”

It’s a personal decision. I don’t think anyone should A) criticize or judge others for their choices, and B) make hasty decisions about their own health. It is important to evaluate with your physician your family history, current health, potential risks, and all outcomes and consequences for whatever decision you make. This includes how it impacts you, your family members, and your future family if you are planning one.

People who find out they carry a genetic mutation that could lead to a fatal illness for themselves, or that they can pass down to their children, carry that thought in their minds forever.

I tested positive for the BRCA2 genetic mutation. This was after I was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer at the age of 50. Even though there was no family history of breast cancer, my father had prostate cancer and melanoma, and his mother had pancreatic cancer. Both are also connected to the BRCA genetic mutation. My doctor explained my test results to me and noted that my risk for ovarian cancer would be greater as I grew older. I chose to have my ovaries and fallopian tubes removed. Health insurance covered the cost; I was lucky… well, sort of… I had to have breast cancer first to prompt the decision to undergo genetic testing. Otherwise genetic testing would not have crossed my mind; I would not have considered spending the money or even wanting to know. Breast cancer changed that. I would do most anything not to return to that “ground zero” of my life.

Because I was in menopause, the decision to have the surgery was easy for me. I no longer needed my ovaries, and I did not want to live with the worry of having ovarian cancer. But for many the decision is not that easy. And I still live with a concern about pancreatic cancer in back-of-mind. Pancreatic cancer is often called the “silent disease” because it can manifest inside of you and often goes undetected until it is advanced.

Genetic testing does not apply just to cancer. It is something to weigh with other hereditary illnesses, from Tay Sachs to Cystic Fibrosis. In the movie “About Alice,” Julianne Moore’s character, facing early onset Alzheimer’s Disease undergoes genetic testing as do two out of her three children. One finds out she is a carrier; the other is not. The third chooses not to have the test. Some would rather not know.

As someone who faced the decision herself, here are some things to weigh when considering genetic testing:

1. If you test positive it does not mean you need to resort to preemptive surgery in the case of your breasts or your ovaries. There are options such as surveillance and more frequent testing. You should ask your doctor who can also refer you to a clinical genetic specialist to discuss the latest tests and surveillance protocol.

2. You can ask about participating in research programs but realize these may not be covered by your health insurance. You need to ask your health insurance provider first. Make sure you have the exact names of the tests and reason(s) for undergoing them in writing from your doctor. I find it pays to call your health insurance carrier first and request from them in writing what us and is not covered.

3. If you are of child-bearing age you need to weigh the fact that you could pass the mutation to your children, but there is no guarantee. One sibling could have the genetic mutation and the other may not.

4. Removing your ovaries takes you into menopause and all of its wonderful side effects. Aside from no longer being able to conceive children, you may experience changes in skin texture, hair thickness, hot flashes, memory issues, moodiness and decreased sex drive. As someone who was diagnosed either estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, I personally am not a fan of hormone replacement therapy. Again, it is a personal decision based on your bio-individuality.

5. Finally, you need to realize that if you test positive for BRCA1 or BRCA2 you may be at risk for other cancers such as melanoma, colon cancer and pancreatic cancer. This means you need to be vigilant about taking care of yourself with a healthy diet, exercise, manage stress, wearing sunscreen and regular exams. Unfortunately in my case it also means every stomachache and gastro-intestinal episode puts me in a tizzy of fear that my pancreas is going to the cancer dogs. And I spend way too much time staring at spots and dots on my skin.

What I appreciate about Angelina Jolie Pitt’s candidness about her decisions is that she opens up the conversation and brings women’s health issues top of mind. Everyone seems to zero in on breast cancer and not nearly enough people focus on the cancers that can brew “down there.” Have you ever seen an image of a uterus on a T-shirt with a cutesy nickname or slogan?

Also realize it may be a conversation you want to have but other family members may not want to hear. Some loved ones may not feel the same way you do about knowing the outcome. Approach the topic with sensitivity.