Everything You Need To Create A Lifetime Of Memories At: Fill & Download for Free

The best you will ever get from a Narcissist is an illusion. It's ALL an illusion. Think about that. You might see their photos, all happy, with their new supply, etc.. But, if you could be a fly on the wall and actually see them moments before or after those photos were taken, the same BS you endured with the Narcissist, you would be laughing at them. If you could see the truth, that would ruin everything. That's why they created the false character, they know you're watching, they are hurting. They live within the confines of envy daily, now they want You to feel their envy- it gives them narcissistic supply. It regulates their emotions and validates their one up complex.You need to sever the psychological connection that you have with the Narcissist. The Narcissist is watching you, hoping you're in misery. However they feel, you feel. Whatever they believe, you believe. Shame, regret, perceived limitations, all of it is projected onto you. They want to see you suffer. They have you ensnared in spider silk, neatly pickled in a nice little jar so they can just come back later and feed off of your high emotional vibrational frequencies all over again once you've built yourself back up. They want to leave you confused, yearning for them, clinging onto all those memories. But of course, when they come back around, regardless of what they say, do not believe it. It's all fake. They are fake. That's why they created the false character. They studied you like a pHD. Mirrored you, abused you, manipulated you, slowly. Covertly.They can do this because it works, they have a lifetime of practice, are self-serving, lack empathy, and it's fun. It may seem so awesome to actually believe this provides them an advantage, all that supply, the feeling of accomplishing all that grandeur that is finally fulfilling their fantasy.Yet this is not grounded in reality. I'm sure they had something really great going on with you. They isolate you and chase the carrot that is delusions of grandeur.It's only a matter of time before this little thing called reality comes knocking, but they don't want to answer that knock on the door. Inside their head they are yelling, “go away! I don't want to deal with you right now!” Yet, reality eventually just walks in the back door and quietly whispers “you have ignored me for a long time, here I am.”This results in narcissistic collapse. They fall into a terrible funk. Depression, regret, anxiety, paranoia, lack of motivation, boredom, stress, addiction, reckless sex, and obsession with their old supply. They wonder the earth zombies, until they build a new mask and recreate the cycle. Can you imagine anything worse than that? To have everything you ever wanted and needed right in front of you, but not able to obtain or achieve it because of your own distorted mental office? I can't. The narcissist has fooled you by putting you in this box, but what the narcissist did not expect was for me to chime in and rip that box open with my bare hands.Walk into the light, survivor. As you look back into the shadow realm this narcissist is stuck in, see the look of fear they have as you move farther and farther away. They know they can't come with you.

Git and GitHub is an incredibly powerful and useful tool. However, for anyone from a non-computer background, it can be very tricky to learn. Since the process is very systematic, and is one of the first things most developers do before starting a new project, I thought an effective means of memorising the sequence of git commands would be really useful.Learn GitHub VisuallyFor many of us ‘non-techies’, learning something like GitHub is like learning an entire new language. If you don’t have a computer science or web development background, many of even the most basic concepts are foreign. It becomes difficult to remember it all because you are not able to compare it to anything you know already. Quite simply, it can all be quite terrifying.The trick is to take dry and uncolourful statements, and turn them into something that is truly memorable.Of course, with enough repetition and practice you don’t need memory techniques like what I have described below. But from personal experience, and from speaking to many other beginner coders, the problem with this is that it really does slow down your learning if every time you need to refer to documentation even for the most basic tasks.What you need as a beginner is a system to quickly take in fundamental concepts, and build upon this with experience and practice.What on earth is GitHub?Firstly, to clarify, there is a difference between git and github. Git is a versioning technology, meaning you can create and commit different versions of your work. GitHub, on the other hand, hosts your gits remotely, and presents them in a very usable and accessible means. Not only can you easily see and access different versions of your work, but others can access them too – and even contribute! This has led to a mushrooming of open-sourced projects, where coders from around the world collectively add to and improve a single project.Very importantly for developers, GitHub allows you to keep all your work remotely. You can work from any desktop, and confidently know your project is safe.The main process is as follows:Declare your work as a git projectCommit your changes to a staging area (don’t worry about the lingo, it just means create a new version of your work)Push your changes to a GitHub repository (sort of like a bank where you keep all your work, the different versions, branches and more)To do all this, you have to type a series of terminal commands. These must be in order and in sequence. While learning these commands, it took me months to actually remember what they were. I frustratingly had to refer to a ‘cheat sheet’ every single time I began a new project. It was only after pure muscle memory began kicking in that the cheat sheet was not necessary.I have created a way to remember the sequence of commands to do all of the above 3 things. You need to spend 10 minutes picturing in your mind what I describe below. Then take 2 minutes tonight to run through it in your mind before you go to sleep, and then once more the next day.If you do this, you will not need to refer to a GitHub cheat sheet again.For it to work, you need to visualise each step in an abstract way. I have created a story representing the sequence of steps. The trick is to use your imagination, concentrate on the image, and make it FUN.The more colourful, sensual, humorous and even downright ridiculous you can imagine it, the eaiser it will be for you to remember it.The story is also not set in stone. If you want to change it in any way to make it more memorable, or just more sense to you, then DO IT! How you learn GitHub visually is up to you, and you need to make sure it is personalised and works for you.Getting ready for launchAt this point you have all your folders and files ready. Eg your html file, your resources folder with your css and js files etc. Let’s say all of these things are your belongings.Imagine this:You have decided to move all your belongings to an international space station, called GitHub. There all of your stuff will be safe and easily accessible.To reach the station, you just need to move everything to an allocated staging area, where it will be launched into space to the GitHub Space Station.You decide to use an old pick-up truck.But before you begin loading stuff in, you need to check it has enough so fuel. So you:You git init, and the fuel gauge tells you there is enough to get you to the staging area. All is ready. You start by loading a single suit case.Or: git add /folderGreat, you have added one suitcase. In web development, this could be a single file or folder. But when you see the mountain of stuff that needs to be put in (literally picture a mountain of stuff, with chairs tumbling down and pots and pans clattering to the floor) you know adding one suitcase at a time will take way too long.You decide to be deviously clever, and use a Poke Ball to capture all of it one vesicle. You throw the pokeball at the mountain, and it all disappears inside the ball. Remember, you don’t want to stand inside or on top of the mountain of belongings. You want to stand a distance away so you capture all of it. In web development, this means making sure you are in your main project folder.Once it’s all in the Pokeball, you throw it inside the truck.Or: git add .Okay time to get going. You grip the steering wheel, and realise you have no idea where the staging area is to take your pick-up Repo to the GitHub Space Station.Through the windscreen you suddenly see a commit in the sky, headed towards earth. It crashes into a MacDonalds, and there’s a big plume of dust. The car radio flickers to life, and the presenter announces this is the “First Commit. Every time there is a commit we will update”.Or: git commit -m “First commit”The dust clears, and you suddenly notice a large GitHubble telescope, next to what looks like a helicopter pad. The GitHubble will transport your pickup to a GitHub Space Station. You drive your truck onto the launch pad, and climb inside the telescope to get to the launch controls.You sit in a cockpit with lots of buttons and controls, and click a big launch button. Nothing happens. You notice a clipboard hanging from a string. On the clipboard it reads: “Use remote and push origin to Master Yoda.” You look through a window, and you see Master Yoda standing on the launch pad next to your pick-up truck.So, first step is to use the remote, which has a button with an evolution image on it. You click it, and it asks for an address. You type the GitHubble address, and a hairy, Neandarthal man appears.Or: git remote add origin https://github….Now there’s a Neandarthal man with you. Realising what you must do, you walk him to the launch pad and push him towards Master Yoda – who gives him a big awkward hug considering how small Yoda is compared to the man. They disappear and are transported to the GitHub Space Station.Or: git push -u origin masterCongrats! You have just learnt GitHub visually! You know the entire sequence of terminal commands in one simple story.What to do now?Great stuff for reaching the end of the story. This little story will last you a lifetime, and you won’t ever need to look up the sequence of commands when setting up a project. Before it sets in your memory though, you need to go through the entire thing once or twice more today.Remember to give it as much colour, sound and action as possible. When the Neandarthal man hugs Yoda, clearly visualise him bending down, getting his beard in Yoda’s face. When the commit crashes into Macdonalds, imagine the terrible sound it would make, and the sudden heat wave. The more vivid, the easier to remember.On your next project, try use the story and not a cheat sheet. If it works (or doesn’t work), please let me know how it went!

.What do you see when you look at this image? A young woman sitting for her bridal portrait on the cusp of beginning a new chapter in her life? Do you sense the love, anticipation and excitement she exudes knowing that in a matter of days she will be in the arms of her new husband, celebrating this union with family and friends?What I see, are the last precious moments of feeling unbounded joy, happiness, safe, loved and feeling truly beautiful for perhaps the first time in my life. Days later it would all come crashing down, leaving me shattered physically, emotionally and financially.In late October 2001, I was in the midst of the chaos of planning a destination wedding and preparing to defend my PhD proposal. My fiancé was in Damascus, Syria, handling things on his end - wedding venue, hotel arrangements, finding a place for us to live together, etc. Twice a month, I transferred funds to him to cover wedding expenses, new living costs as well as his tuition in an intensive English class offered through the US Embassy. Archaeologists, we planned to live in Syria allowing him to finish his degree and me to join the Department of Antiquities and continue my dissertation research. We had known each other for years, having met on an excavation in North Eastern Syria. I met his family, friends, spending hours communicating through emails and our twice-weekly phone calls.Our wedding was scheduled for late April 2002. My family and guests would be travelling together to Syria for the festivities. In February, I found myself back in Syria for two weeks, finalising details, searching for the perfect apartment and spending time where it was just the two of us. Long walks at night through the streets of Damascus, talking for hours over endless cups of tea. During the day, my fiancé went about his life and normal routine, joining me for lunch and then later in evening for our nightly wanderings.Latakia, SyriaNeeding a break from Damascus, we took a last minute overnight to Latakia, walking along the rocky beaches, reading, talking and enjoying one another. I am not sure when I realized that his engagement band was different. When I commented on it, he told me it had been stolen. He had taken it off to wash his hands and when he realized he forgot to put it on he went back to the sink it was gone. He went back to the jeweller from whom we purchased a matching set to replace it, but there was no match.Looking back, I should known that something was very very wrong. But I was caught up in the whirlwind, thinking that my new life was a reward for suffering a lifetime of ups and downs, physical and emotional abuse, self-confidence issues, etc.I returned back to Chicago and began the hassle of selling, packing and shipping basically everything I owned from childhood. Some things were sold, some shipped overseas, some in a friend's basement and some to my parents, who would ship them when asked.I found the dress of my dreams (pictured above) in South Florida where my parents lived and made a few day trips for fittings etc.During all this insanity, I continued to shift money and filed what seemed like thousands of forms for visas and our marriage license.Nobel Palace, Damascus, SyriaFive days before leaving for Damascus, I sat for the portrait above. My parents wanted it, knowing that our relationship was changing and that sharing photos, emails and phone calls would become a challenge. It was a lovely beautiful day, one etched forever in my memories.After a 12-hour layover in Milan, we eventually landed in Damascus at 2 AM. Customs took forever and there appeared to an issue with my visa. After much pleading and a little money. I was eventually cleared, joining my family and fiancé and catching a ride to the Meridian hotel.Later in the afternoon, we all gathered and headed over to the Nobel Palace, where the reception would be held. It was incredibly beautiful and I relaxed a bit knowing that everything was in order. The group disbanded, some returned to the hotel for a little sleep, while others roamed the Souq.Al-Hamidiyah Souq, Damascus, SyriaMy fiancé and I headed over to government complex, to pick up our license and drop it off at the Embassy, for the civil part of our ceremony. And that is when it all fell apart. There was no license, no paperwork in processing, they had no idea who we even were, and had us removed from the building.I was devastated, angry, scared. I had my family travel to the Middle East, months after September 11 and there would be no wedding. I headed directly to the Embassy, struggling to keep it together. After a few minutes, I was granted access and directly taken to Ambassador's quarters. After describing our predicament and asking for help, I was told that there was nothing the Embassy could do.Why? No paperwork had been submitted for the license, no appointment had been scheduled for the civil ceremony, and no one had ever heard my name. But they did know my fiancé‘s name. In fact, they knew all about him. He had been detained several weeks earlier, for attempting to sell victims’ personal information and identity. And it was not the first time he had attempted to do this.As the situation spiraled out of control, my parents and guests were brought to the Embassy. When everyone was present, that is when we learned whom exactly I had been engaged to and worked with for years.My fiancé, who never really was my fiancé, was actually 11 years younger than me, not enrolled in college, and had been using the money I transferred to him to join Damascus’s hip crowd. He never signed up for the intensive language program. That money had gone towards buying a new wardrobe. The rest had been spent in Damascus’s night life for himself, his friends and his wife. Yes, his true and legal wife.The money for deposits and rent was used to lease an apartment in a prestigious neighborhood. But it was never intended for me to live there. His wife and relatives occupied the apartment and lived quite nicely on my money. Furniture, clothing, travel, dining was funded by me.All of my personal belongings had been delivered to that apartment. What wasn't used or damaged during shipping was either sold, re-gifted or trashed. A lifetime of collected goods and memories gone.The wedding reception had been paid for, only it was to have been a party for his friends, wife and relatives, with me and my family being invited as guests. His friends, family and others all knew what was happening, hoping that they would get a share of the wealth. For years they helped him manage this farce and deception.In a matter of hours, I had gone from total bliss to becoming a broken, shattered, devastated shell of a human being. The dreams, future, and images of the family we would create were gone. They had never really existed to begin with. My parents were horrified, demanding help from the Embassy. But there was really nothing they could do, except gather our belongings from the hotel and escort us to the airport to immediately leave Syria before my ex-fiancé realized that the party was over and could plan retribution to protect his wife, himself and my finances that he felt entitled to. He was legally married to another, leaving me to be considered the mistress, a high crime in Syria.Within hours, we were all heading home, except I had no idea where home would be having sold or lost everything I owned, with the exception of the items left in the hotel room. No one spoke much on the flight, as we all longed for a sleep that would temporarily give us a break from the anger, fear, pain and consuming heartbreak. I had yet to cry, forcing myself to keep moving forward to help the others, when I feared that if I gave into the pain it would never end.I stayed in Florida with my parents as there was nothing left for me in Chicago or Syria. The first night, my parents removed any physical trace of the wedding that was never meant to be - photos, invitations, gifts everything. My bridal portrait was removed, placed in a storage unit. The dress - that beautiful creation that had made me feel so beautiful - I donated to a group that took wedding gowns and created coffin linings and a keepsake pouch for families unable to bury their children.Before placing the portrait in storage I asked my parents why they just didn't destroy it. For me, it was a physical reminder of the betrayal, loss and heartbreak over a future never destined to be. All I could see was a woman who failed, who fell so easily into a nightmare causing shame, embarrassment and financial loss to loved ones. I felt stupid for either overlooking or denying the warning signs. I felt unloved, unattractive and terrified as to how I would rebuild my life.But that is not what my parents saw. They saw a beautiful vibrant woman in love, beginning an adventure no one could have imagined. They could not part with the portrait, tossing it and me aside as had been done in Syria. It would be a reminder of a life with endless enthusiasm and promise. I would never be that woman again, but in time as I healed I could look to that woman and acknowledge the strength, resilience and beauty that would rise once more.This is a link to the follow up answer as to what happened once I returned to the statesColleen Anne Coyle's answer to What did you do with your wedding gown?