Today at the Chalet

“Social control is best managed through fear.” Michael Crichton The science behind fear response and the brain is what we call “fight or flight.” Fear tells our brains to act or run. Yell out or move on quietly. Speak up or shut up.   We see the ‘fight’ reaction with each allegation where men and women are speaking up and out against sexual assault. The #MeToo movement's objective of breaking the silence has been carried with Time Magazine’s new release of their anticipated “Person / People of the Year.” When one (or many) stands strong in the face of power or authority all while knowing their career or livelihood is at stake, it takes an awful lot of belief in oneself to continue on in their leap of faith to say something. Often we are encouraged to defend ourselves, but usually within the comfort zone of societal ‘norms’ (lest we enter the less traveled territory of what is considered ‘taboo’). Unfortunately, it stops a great number of people from sticking up for thems...

We've all been there: your heart is pounding, your stomach churns, with eyes widened and a flared nose you dish out your rage letting all the anger out. And almost always, in retrospect (whether we even reflect upon it or not) losing our temper was probably not the wisest choice.  Our message was lost in the words we either bit or spewed. It's very difficult to suppress our passion, especially when it pertains to something that gets our gears in a bunch. Interestingly enough, there is the other side of the spectrum when we want to shout from the rooftops about someone we've fallen in love with, but after we've become disenchanted the common expression is that "love is blind." Well, so is anger. In fact, all emotions are - how many times have you been given the advice to make decisions with your brain or gut rather than your heart? That's because emotional intelligence is when we take a pause before we speak or act out of our emotions alone; which also lea...

     The results from the recent #MeToo movement are staggering, and what is even more shocking is that it shows no signs of weakening. According to Twitter, the popular hashtag was used over half of a million times, and Facebook reported 4.7 million engagements in the first 24 hours of its recent inception. Individuals scaling the globe stood united by sharing their very intimate and personal stories that exploded onto the feeds of social media.       Aside from the obvious, there is something very important the public needs to know about each survivor story: the shear courage it took for them to come forward. They opened themselves up to face public scrutiny, scorn, blame, accountability for someone else's actions, along with the responsibility to continue on in the wake of the tragedy that shaped their lives.      I wish to commend each and every single perso...