A Gift Guide for your Five “Alternative” Friends

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It’s that time of year again – time to empty your pockets and reflect on everything your friends, family and significant other have said in the past few months to try and find them the perfect Christmas gift. Or maybe you’re looking for a couple of things to add to your own Christmas list? Either way, check out the list below for some gift-spiration!

For the friend who’s always worried about the future:

Tarot cards can be a fun and interesting way to give you some insight on your past, present and future. There are countless different styles of tarot cards to choose from, but I recommend the Wisdom of the Oracle cards by Colette-Baron Reid. Each card features a whimsical design, and includes an oracle message, relationship message, prosperity message, and protection message.

Available at amazon.ca.

For the friend obsessed with everyone’s horoscope:

Now they can wear their Pisces pride around their neck! These necklaces also include their birthstone, and are available for all twelve months and zodiacs.

Available at etsy.com.

Or if they’re constantly on their phone checking their daily horoscope, consider ordering them The Astrotwins 2018 Planetary Planner.

The Astrotwins horoscopes are fun and eerily accurate, and their Planetary Planner includes over 500 pages of forecasts for your love, career, family, health and more!

Available at astrostyle.com.

For the vegan friend who’s tired of eating quinoa:

This cookbook contains fun illustrations and delicious recipes that are so easy to follow you could do it stoned! Whether your friend is newly vegan and wondering where to start, or has been vegan for a while and is looking for some new inspiration, this cookbook is bound to be a hit!

Available at amazon.ca.

For the friend that wants to clear the air (or just needs more light):

Himalayan salt lamps are known to help cleanse and deodorize the air, reduce allergies and increase energy levels. Not to mention they’re a beautiful source of light!

Available at amazon.ca.

For the friend that wants to clear their body:

Courtesy of loonkombucha.com.

If you’re looking to get your friend something to drink that isn’t wine, try picking them up a bottle of Kombucha! Kombucha is a delicious drink packed with enzymes that is great to drink when you’ve overeaten or overdrank – the perfect post-Christmas pick-me up! Loon Kombucha is sold multiple places across Ottawa, and comes in many delicious flavours including, my personal favourite, Blue Pomegranate.

Available at loonkombucha.com.

A conventional girl on an unconventional blog, Sophie’s been curious about alternate lifestyles since she first stumbled across an episode of Oprah exploring polygamy. A second year Professional Writing student at Algonquin College, Sophie loves reading, writing, and learning about different people and cultures.

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Sophie Gervais

A conventional girl on an unconventional blog, Sophie’s been curious about alternate lifestyles since she first stumbled across an episode of Oprah exploring polygamy. A second-year Professional Writing student at Algonquin College, Sophie loves reading, writing, and learning about different people and cultures.

Is Polyamory Right For You?

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A community growing in visibility and popularity, polyamory is quickly becoming the new normal. As society becomes more open to non-traditional relationships, those who struggle with monogamy have a chance to thrive by finding love in many places.

Polyamory is essentially the opposite of monogamy. A polyamorous person can have multiple relationships with different people at the same time, with various degrees of commitment to each. In a polyamorous relationship, all parties involved know and support their partner in having multiple partners, and might have multiple partners themselves.

Polyamorous relationships can have many variations – they might be a throuple (a relationship where all three people are equally committed to one another), they might have a primary partner who they’re most devoted to and secondary partners, or they could have multiple relationships with equal status through all of them.

Interested? Here are three signs that polyamory might be right for you:

photo courtesy of pexels.com

You enjoy being a part of a community

If you’re the type of person that enjoys having many people in your life, then you might enjoy having multiple romantic relationships as well. The more partners you have, the more variety and support you gain, each with different skills to offer.

You have strong communication skills

Ask any polyamorous person how they make their relationships work and they'll likely say the same thing – communication. Communication is critical in a monogamous relationship, so you can imagine that the more people you add to the relationship, the more important it becomes. Polyamorous couples have to be honest with their partners because they’re sharing their time with other people, who all have their own thoughts and feelings that need to be considered.

You can work through feelings of jealousy

Some people believe that polyamorous people are somehow more evolved and never feel jealousy, but the reality is they’re simply better at recognising it for what it really is – insecurity. You might feel jealousy at some point in all aspects of life, professionally, academically, and, yes, romantically. But you can work through these insecurities and overcome them, and romantic jealousy is no different.

photo courtesy of Mayar gala on unsplash.com

Ultimately, the biggest sign that polyamory is right for you is simply that you’re interested in trying it out. More people than ever are engaging in non-traditional relationships, and are happier personally and romantically for it.

And hey, you’re pretty great right? Why not give more people the opportunity to love you.

For more information, check out:

Blog about polyamory - https://www.morethantwo.com/

A conventional girl on an unconventional blog, Sophie’s been curious about alternative lifestyles since she first stumbled across an episode of Oprah exploring polygamy. A second-year Professional Writing student at Algonquin College, Sophie loves reading, writing, and learning about different people and cultures.

 

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Sophie Gervais

A conventional girl on an unconventional blog, Sophie’s been curious about alternate lifestyles since she first stumbled across an episode of Oprah exploring polygamy. A second-year Professional Writing student at Algonquin College, Sophie loves reading, writing, and learning about different people and cultures.

Hypnosis: Fake Party Trick or Powerful Alternative Medicine?

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Take a deep breath and relax your body.

You're feeling sleepy; very sleepy.
When I count to three, you’ll learn about hypnosis and its benefits.

One...
Two...
Three.

What the heck is it?

Have you ever been mowing the lawn or washing the dishes, completely unaware of your surroundings, only to look up fifteen minutes later with no memory of what happened?

Congratulations, you’ve experienced hypnosis.

Photo courtesy of unsplash.com

Similar to the effects of meditation, hypnotic states block out external stimuli and conscious thought and focus on the subconscious. While in this trance, subjects are extremely suggestible, relaxed, uninhibited and imaginative. Hypnotists (people who hypnotize subjects for a living, typically as a comedic act) can take advantage of this suggestible and uninhibited state, which is why even shy adults will do the funky-chicken on stage in front of their colleagues. However, in order for hypnosis to work, the subject must be fully willing to be hypnotized. Subjects are aware that the feelings and sensations they’re experiencing are imaginary and have the ability to resist the hypnotist's suggestions if they want to.

Photo courtesy of unsplash.com

How can we use this power for good?

Hypnosis has been around for centuries, but scientists didn’t begin studying its potential as a treatment until the 1700s. Today, hypnotherapy is considered a legitimate way to to treat all kinds of things, such as: mental illness, bad habits or physical pain.

Hypnotherapy uses a hypnotic trance to treat underlying psychological issues that are trapped in the subconscious. Much like traditional therapy, it gets to the unconscious issue that informs a person’s negative habits, and attempts to treat that issue directly.

The benefit of hypnotherapy is that while their patients are in a hypnotic trance, the hypnotherapist can replace these negative beliefs or issues with positive ones, so the patient's entire subconscious is altered. Hypnotherapy has been used to treat anxiety, depression and addiction, and it has also helped people with physical problems like quitting smoking and losing weight. Some people have even said it has positive effects for childbirth by helping the delivery and recovery time go faster and making the mother feel more calm and confident.

Unfortunately, scientists don’t know exactly how hypnosis works in the same way we don’t know exactly how the human mind works. All we know for sure is hypnosis can be far more powerful than a cool party trick.

Now, when I count to one you will like and share this post with your friends.

Three…
Two…
One.

For more information, check out the links below:

What It's Really Like to Have a Hypnobirth

The Science of Hypnosis

Photo courtesy of avi_acl

A conventional girl on an unconventional blog, Sophie’s been curious about alternate lifestyles since she first stumbled across an episode of Oprah exploring polygamy. A second year Professional Writing student at Algonquin College, Sophie loves reading, writing, and learning about different people and cultures.

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Sophie Gervais

A conventional girl on an unconventional blog, Sophie’s been curious about alternate lifestyles since she first stumbled across an episode of Oprah exploring polygamy. A second-year Professional Writing student at Algonquin College, Sophie loves reading, writing, and learning about different people and cultures.