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Fergie's touching tribute to late mum who died in "cruel accident"

<p>Sarah Ferguson has reflected on her mother's death 26 years on. </p> <p>The Duchess of York took to Instagram to share the emotional tribute to her mother, Susan Barrantes, who died "far too young" in a car crash almost three decades ago. </p> <p>"My much-loved mother Susie died 26 years ago today," she began. </p> <p>The royal shared a series of photos of her mother, including one of them on the iconic Buckingham Palace balcony, after Fergie married Prince Andrew in 1986. </p> <p>She also posted framed photos she kept of her mother as well as professional photos that were taken when she was younger. </p> <p>"She was far too young to be taken from us and I often reflect on the fact that at just 61, she was younger than I am now when she died in a cruel accident," Ferguson continued.</p> <p>"I think constantly of her zest for life and her shining spirit. Like all of us, she made mistakes but she taught me to value each and every day and to always seek to treat people with kindness."</p> <p>She ended her post saying: "I miss her greatly."</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/DAGEaHBO_ii/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DAGEaHBO_ii/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Sarah Ferguson (Fergie) (@sarahferguson15)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p>Ferguson's daughter, Princess Eugenie, reposted the images to her Instagram story, with her own message. </p> <p>"Miss beautiful Granny Susie," she wrote. </p> <p>The Duchess of York's post was met with messages of love from fans and celebrities alike. </p> <p> "So beautiful," wrote Riley Keough, Lisa Marie Presley's daughter. </p> <p>Actor William Moseley, who starred in <em>The Royals</em> television series left three red heart emojis. </p> <p>"I lost my mother seven years ago, I miss her each and every day. Sending love," wrote one fan. </p> <p>"She is incredibly proud of you, and now it’s clear where you get your kindness from. Sending continued prayers and strength your way," added another. </p> <p>Barrantes, who was a documentary filmmaker, died in a car accident in 1998. Her death came one year after Princess Diana's tragic car crash. </p> <p><em>Images: Instagram</em></p> <p> </p>

Family & Pets

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Susan Sarandon's daughter claps back at wedding dress critics

<p>Susan Sarandon's daughter has spoken out against body-shaming trolls who were criticising her wedding dress. </p> <p>Eva Amurri, who like her mum is also an actress, became the subject of online criticism after she shared photos from her wedding day online. </p> <p>Writing on her blog <em>Happily Eva After </em>the 39-year-old admitted that the comments left her in tears, "in a way that brought me right back to Middle School".</p> <p>"Here were people I didn't even know and who didn't know me, spending time and energy typing something that they hoped would bring me one thing and one thing only: Shame," she recalled the moment she came across the "hundreds of cruel comments". </p> <p>"It wasn't what they were saying per se, I've had much more horrible things directed at me on the internet, but it was the yucky feeling of knowing that there are people out there (and lots of them!) whose immediate reaction upon witnessing my little family's joy was to try to hurt us."</p> <p>She continued to explain that she was shocked that her wedding photos had gone viral due to something beyond her control. </p> <p>"I was so taken aback by the fact that it was already viral... and for two reasons completely out of my control: My Breasts," she wrote.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/C82pK8juxqM/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C82pK8juxqM/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by People Magazine (@people)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p>"I've always been naturally very large-chested, and my breast size fluctuates with my weight (as real breasts often do)," she wrote, adding that she is a mother of three and she had breastfed all of her children. </p> <p>"Are my breasts the same perkiness they were at 20 years old before they sustained human life three times over? Definitely not. Do I care? Some days more than others. But my body isn't something I'm ashamed of."</p> <p>She then said that she chose the dress because she wanted to feel "sexy and elegant" on her special day. </p> <p>"I had purposefully gone into my wedding dress shopping wanting to show my figure and really celebrate myself as a woman - body parts included," she shared.</p> <p>"It had never occurred to me that people I don't even know would find my body so offensive, and especially that they would care so much about what I would choose to wear on my own wedding day."</p> <p>She then criticised the online trolls for their "embarrassing" behaviour and how unfortunate it was that women still experience this kind of criticism. </p> <p>"You don't need anybody's permission to make the choices you make for yourself," she wrote.</p> <p>"And when people feel something about those choices? Well, that's none of your business."</p> <p><em>Images: Instagram</em></p> <p> </p>

Body

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"She was magic": Grease actress dies at age 72

<p>Susan Buckner, known for her iconic role as Patty Simcox in <em>Grease</em>, has died at the age of 72. </p> <p>The news of her passing was announced by her family's publicists Melissa Berthier, who told <a href="https://people.com/grease-actress-susan-buckner-dead-72-8644640" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>People</em></a> magazine in a statement, “Susan died peacefully on May 2 surrounded by loved ones.”</p> <p>No cause of death has yet been revealed. </p> <p>Buckner’s daughter, Samantha Mansfield, paid tribute to her mother, saying, “The light she brought into every room will be missed forever.” </p> <p>“She was magic, and I was very lucky to call her my best friend.”</p> <p>Susan shot to fame playing Patty Simcox, who was one of Sandy's (played by Olivia Newton-John) cheerleading friends at Rydell High in the 1978 cult film <em>Grease</em>.</p> <p>Buckner chose not return for the sequel, <em>Grease 2</em>, which was released in 1982 and starred Michelle Pfeiffer and Maxwell Caulfield.</p> <p>Buckner's career in the spotlight began after she was crowned Miss Washington in 1971, and went on to join <em>The Dean Martin Show</em> as one of the Golddiggers, an all-female singing and dancing group.</p> <p>She went on to appear in the variety shows <em>The Mac Davis Show</em>, <em>Sonny and Cher</em> and <em>The Brady Bunch Variety Hour</em>.</p> <p>Susan also appeared in shows like <em>Starsky & Hutch</em> and <em>The Love Boat</em>, before appearing in her final acting role in the 1981 slasher film <em>Deadly Blessing</em>.</p> <p>In her later years, Buckner directed children’s theatre and taught dance at a gym in Florida.</p> <p>She is survived by daughter Samantha Mansfield, son Adam Josephs, grandchildren Oliver, Riley, Abigail and Ruby, as well as her sister Linda, daughter-in-law Noel Josephs, son-in-law Adam Mansfield and longtime partner Al.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Paramount</em></p>

Caring

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Swimming legend Susie O'Neill breaks world record at 50 years of age

<p>Susie O'Neill has broken a world record at the age of 50 in a triumphant return to international swimming at the World Masters Swimming Championships in Japan.</p> <p>The two-time Olympic gold medallist won the 50m butterfly, breaking the world record and championship record for the 50-54 age group. </p> <p>She touched out Britain’s Michelle Ware record by 0.52sec, with a time of 29.08 seconds, securing gold for her age group. </p> <p>The swimmer nicknamed Madame Butterfly during her career, proved that she's still got it after winning her first competition and butterfly race since the Sydney Olympics in 2000.</p> <p>This comes two months after she set another record when she swam an excellent time at the Masters championships in Queensland as part of her 50th birthday celebrations, which qualified her for the world championships. </p> <p>She agreed to compete at the relay event in the Masters championships to celebrate her 50th, with her <em>Nova 106.9 Breakfast </em>co-hosts Ash Bradnam and David Lutteral, plus one of their listeners.</p> <p>In a post-swim interview O'Neill told her co-hosts: “I felt like vomiting at the end to be honest,” </p> <p>“In the olden days I was nervous before the race, but I was calmer when I went out behind the block. This was like the opposite. I was calm before, but as I walked out behind the blocks I got a bit dishevelled compared to normal. Really jittery.</p> <p>“It was time to go out, and my goggles had come apart. My hands were shaking - and I couldn’t put my goggles on because they came apart at the nose-piece.</p> <p>“So, I had to get a lady to help me, and the girl that I ended up just beating was trying to calm me down. My nerves hit me really, really badly.”</p> <p>“I got a massive surge of adrenaline, and I reckon it helped me,” she said.</p> <p>O'Neill added that she initially didn't realise she had broken a record. </p> <p>“I wasn’t sure when I first finished.”</p> <p>Despite the challenges, the swimming legend relished in the camaraderie with a few swimmers that she had met in the past. </p> <p>“I met so many people in the marshalling area that I knew. For example, there was a Canadian girl in that race, and we swapped clothes in 1989 when we came to Japan for the Pan Pacific Games,” she said. </p> <p>The swimmer told Channel 7’s <em>Sunrise </em>that this was a one-off and she has no plans to continue racing. </p> <p><em>Images: Instagram</em></p>

Body

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"What a FIGHTER!": Susan Boyle reveals secret health scare during comeback

<p>Singing sensation Susan Boyle surprised her fans with an unexpected appearance on<em> Britain’s Got Talent </em>for the competition’s extravagant final. </p> <p>Boyle, who had previously appeared on the show herself in 2009, took to the stage with the cast of the West End’s <em>Les Miserables</em> for a performance of the song ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ - the same one she auditioned with when she was a competitor. </p> <p>And fans were treated to one more song, with the ensemble joining Boyle for a rendition of ‘Do You Hear The People Sing?’ too. </p> <p>Once the crowd’s delighted applause had quietened, Britain’s Got Talent hosts Ant and Dec approached Boyle, gushing over her as they welcomed her back to the stage. </p> <p>“It is so lovely to see you,” Dec declared. “It’s hard to believe you appeared on this show in 2009 - fourteen years ago. How does it feel to be back at <em>BGT</em>?” </p> <p>“It feels great,” Susan told him, to further cheering from the audience. </p> <p>She went on to share that the whole affair was “extra special” to her, before revealing that “last April there, I suffered a minor stroke.”</p> <p>The theatre was quiet, everyone taken by surprise, before Boyle announced that she’d “fought like crazy to get back on stage, and I have done it.”</p> <p>As Dec shared that they were “thrilled” to hear of her triumphant return, cheers rang out once again, and applause echoed throughout the room in celebration of Boyle. </p> <p>When judge Simon Cowell - who was present for Boyle’s audition as well - was asked how it felt to see her back on the stage, he noted that it was “unbelievable”. </p> <p>“Susan, we owe you so much,” he said, “and I knew you weren't well, but if anyone was going to come back, you were going to come back, because we wouldn't be the same without you. You are amazing."</p> <p>And when clips from her performance, and following reveal, made it online, fans wasted no time in sharing their love and support for the singer. </p> <p>“Huge huge respect for Susan Boyle,” one wrote. “Post stroke and absolutely smashing it on BGT tonight! Incredible!”</p> <p>“Good for her! Great to see her back!” another said. “Never ever be defined by an illness or disability. Never.”</p> <p>“Aww! Susan Boyle is an absolute superstar in every sense of the word, so humble,” one gushed. “It’s so good to see her back with her microphone!”</p> <p>And as someone else put it, “bless Susan Boyle, she spent her entire life not realising her full potential as a West End singer, to then go on to be one of the biggest stars to come out of #BGT. Her performance tonight had passion; she has real HEART and her having a stroke last year - what a FIGHTER!”</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">⭐ STAGEY SMILE OF THE DAY ⭐</p> <p>Here's Lucie Jones &amp; Susan Boyle performing "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Misérables, for the BGT grand final 🇫🇷 ✨ X x x <a href="https://t.co/nmIB5eo29c">pic.twitter.com/nmIB5eo29c</a></p> <p>— Theatre Fan (@ShaunTossell) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShaunTossell/status/1665467122053443586?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 4, 2023</a></p></blockquote> <p><em>Images: Twitter</em></p>

Caring

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"I still don't know what I did wrong": Susan Sarandon reflects on breaking royal protocol

<p dir="ltr">Susan Sarandon has opened up her brush with royalty, and how she was slammed for "breaking royal protocol". </p> <p dir="ltr">The 76-year-old actress recalled attending the Royal Windsor Cup at Guards Polo Club with her youngest son in 2018, where she met Queen Elizabeth. </p> <p dir="ltr">Sarandon said she was given conflicting advice about what to do when she came face-to-face with Her Majesty, as she explains in the documentary Portrait of the Queen.</p> <p dir="ltr">"[When] I got to to England and my friends were like, 'do not bow, whatever you do don't bow, that is so passe'," Sarandon recalled.</p> <p dir="ltr">"You know, there's this push and pull about whether and how much respect you're going to give to the royal family and whatever. They said to me 'don't bow. Do not bow' and I thought, 'well, I'm going to be respectful'."</p> <p dir="ltr">When the day arrived, Sarandon and her son Miles were seated in a different section, where she received a briefing from a royal aide before the Queen arrived for their meeting. </p> <p dir="ltr">"They said: 'Don't ask her any questions. [If] she talks to you, it's okay but don't ask her anything. And this is what you have to do, you know, bow when she comes'," Sarandon recalls.</p> <p dir="ltr">"So I'm all stressed out, I think, 'am I going to bow or am I not going to bow?'</p> <p dir="ltr">"So anyway, the moment came when they finally said: 'Okay, it's your turn to meet the Queen'. And here is what happened - she was sitting down!</p> <p dir="ltr">"So of course, I had to bend over to shake her hand and so it looked like a curtsy. So, at the end of the day, I kind of did bow and the headlines still said after all of that, that I had gone against protocol somehow. I still don't know what I did wrong."</p> <p dir="ltr">At the time, the British press condemned the actress for breaking royal protocol by initiating a handshake with the Queen. </p> <p dir="ltr">Despite the semantics of their meeting, Sarandon said her brief encounter with Her Majesty was perfectly pleasant. </p> <p dir="ltr">"She was lovely to me," Sarandon says.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I don't think we had a very long conversation. I think it was kind of just 'Oh, it's so nice to meet you'. And, and I said 'it's so nice to meet you'. And I remembered that you can't ask her anything."</p> <p dir="ltr">"So that definitely puts a damper on your conversation because she has to be in charge of everything."</p> <p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 4pt;"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

Beauty & Style

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Susan Sarandon’s daughter announces engagement

<p>Susan Sarandon’s daughter Eva Amurri has announced her engagement to her boyfriend, chef Ian Hock, 38, after more than two years of dating.</p> <p>The 37-year-old blogger, who has three kids with ex-husband, Kyle Martino, shared a series of images from Paris showing off the new ring.</p> <p>The couple shared a joint post on Instagram, starting out with a lyric from Taylor Swift’s song Lover.</p> <p>“My Heart's Been Borrowed And Yours Has Been Blue. All's Well That Ends Well To End Up With You.</p> <p>“Those who know us know so well what this moment means to us. We are so so so happy. Can't wait to spend all the rest of our days together.”</p> <p>Amurri can be seen smiling from ear to ear in her Instagram posts.</p> <p>She wore her red hair down, wearing a tan coat over a white sweater, while Ian was captured in a blue quarter zip sweater with a grey coat over the top.</p> <p>The mum of three also posted a picture of the ring, with the words, “Absolutely dying over this ring.”</p> <p>Eva’s friends were quick to offer their congratulations in the comments.</p> <p>Kat Dennings wrote, “Yaaaaaaaay and duh!!!! So happy for you!!!!! Gorgeous couple,” while her Two Broke Girls co-star Beth Behrs commented, “Yahooo."</p> <p>Actress JoAnna Garcia wrote, “Over the moon for you two."</p> <p>Eva is the daughter of actress Susan Sarandon and director Franco Amurri.</p> <p>The actress went public with her relationship on her blog <a href="https://happilyevaafter.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Happily Eva After</a> in January 2021.</p> <p>In a post called <a href="https://happilyevaafter.com/a-little-love-life-update/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Little Love Life Update</a>, she wrote, “I’m beyond happy to share with you that I have a wonderful boyfriend in my life! His name is Ian, he’s super loving, creative, handsome and funny, and we have a ton in common.”</p> <p>“Ian is a Chef (HOTTT), and we met when I went to eat dinner at his restaurant with a friend. My friend went to high school with him in New York City (Yes, he is a fellow New Yorker!), and he came out of the kitchen to say hi to her," she continued. 'We ended up chatting and had an immediate connection and spark.”</p> <p>'I followed him on Instagram, and he followed me back. We started chatting, and for a month just really got to know each other well from exchanging messages and laughing together via text,' she added.</p> <p>“We discovered how much we had in common (both foodies, love going to museums, both bookworms, both speak French...and little by little we created a really special friendship. All before even going on a date! By the time he took me to dinner for the first time, I felt SO close to him, and so safe with him, and it was an old-fashioned courtship in a lot of ways.”</p> <p>Image credit: Instagram</p>

Relationships

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Prince William's godmother resigns amid racism row

<p>Prince William's godmother and Queen Elizabeth's lady-in-waiting has resigned from her royal position after making "unacceptable comments" towards a black guest at Buckingham Palace. </p> <p>The incident reportedly took place earlier this week, when Camilla, Queen Consort was joined by Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Queen Mathilde of Belgium and Queen Rania of Jordan at an event to highlight domestic violence survivors and charities.</p> <p>Ngozi Fulani, chief executive of Sistah Space, was invited to the afternoon reception at the palace through Safe Lives, a charity the Queen Consort is patron of.</p> <p>The next day, Fulani took to social media where she detailed an exchange with Lady Susan Hussey, saying the woman repeatedly asked where she was "really from", saying "this event remains a blur after the violation".</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Mixed feelings about yesterday's visit to Buckingham Palace. 10 mins after arriving, a member of staff, Lady SH, approached me, moved my hair to see my name badge. The conversation below took place. The rest of the event is a blur.<br />Thanks <a href="https://twitter.com/ManduReid?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ManduReid</a> &amp; <a href="https://twitter.com/SuzanneEJacob?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SuzanneEJacob</a> for support🙏🏾 <a href="https://t.co/OUbQKlabyq">pic.twitter.com/OUbQKlabyq</a></p> <p>— Sistah Space (@Sistah_Space) <a href="https://twitter.com/Sistah_Space/status/1597854380115767296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 30, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p>The palace released a statement saying it took the matter "extremely seriously", labelling it "unacceptable" and confirming the staff member had stepped aside.</p> <p>"In this instance, unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments have been made," a statement from Buckingham Palace on Wednesday afternoon (Thursday morning AEDT) said.</p> <p>"We have reached out to Ngozi Fulani on this matter, and are inviting her to discuss all elements of her experience in person if she wishes."</p> <p>"In the meantime, the individual concerned would like to express her profound apologies for the hurt caused and has stepped aside from her honorary role with immediate effect."</p> <p>Prince William's spokesperson almost made a statement to the BBC, saying "Racism has no place in our society."</p> <p>"The comments were unacceptable, and it is right that the individual has stepped aside with immediate effect," they said.</p> <p>As the Palace claims it has reached out to Fulani, she told London radio station LBC and UK newspaper The Independent she hadn't heard from Buckingham Palace yet.</p> <p>Hussey, who served as Queen Elizabeth's lady-in-waiting for over 60 years was given a role in the royal household by King Charles after his mother's death.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

News

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“He doesn’t know he has it”: Susan Benedetto on Tony Bennett’s diagnosis

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan Benedetto, Tony Bennett’s wife, has revealed that the musical icon “doesn’t know” he has Alzheimer’s disease.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The 95-year-old singer appeared on the US </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">60 Minutes</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> with Benedetto and interviewer Anderson Cooper, as the show followed his final on-stage appearance with Lady Gaga in August.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“He recognises me, thank goodness, his children, you know we are blessed in a lot of ways,” Benedetto </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://celebrity.nine.com.au/latest/tony-bennett-alzheimers-disease-not-aware-wife-susan-benedetto-60-minutes-interview/8379c29a-a893-43ed-9fe9-13d4a8ec908f" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">told Cooper</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. “He’s very sweet.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Referring to his Alzheimer’s, Benedetto said, “He doesn’t know he has it.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bennett’s family revealed in February that he had been living with the disease.</span></p> <p><img style="width: 500px; height:281.0304449648712px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844677/despite-his-alzheimers-tony-bennett-prepares-to-perform-with-lady-gaga-1-37-screenshot.png" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/d41867ee644a4ca2b31bbbe1f6f317bd" /></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image: 60 Minutes / YouTube</span></em></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Benedetto previously said Bennett was unable to understand what the disease is.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“He would ask me, ‘What is Alzheimer’s?’ I would explain, but he wouldn’t get it,” she told </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">AARP Magazine</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> earlier this year.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“He’d tell me, ‘Susan, I feel fine’. That’s all he could process - that physically he felt great. So, nothing changed in his life. Anything that did change, he wasn’t aware of.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bennett was first diagnosed in 2017, after he became concerned with his memory a year earlier.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We came home one night and he said, ‘Susan,’ he said, ‘I’m having a hard time remembering the names of the musicians [who he works with]’,” Benedetto said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“And so it was unusual and I said, ‘Well do you wanna go see a doctor about it?’ and he said, ‘I do’.”</span></p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr">Tune in to <a href="https://twitter.com/60Minutes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@60Minutes</a> tonight at 7pm ET/PT on CBS for my conversation with <a href="https://twitter.com/andersoncooper?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@andersoncooper</a> about Love For Sale and my dear friend <a href="https://twitter.com/itstonybennett?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@itstonybennett</a>. ❤️ <a href="https://t.co/UQDfYbThDy">pic.twitter.com/UQDfYbThDy</a></p> — Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) <a href="https://twitter.com/ladygaga/status/1444770602024267779?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2021</a></blockquote> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When Cooper asked Lady Gaga if she thought Bennett’s last performance was “a sad story”, she shared her thoughts on working with the icon.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“It’s not a sad story,” she said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“It’s emotional. It’s hard to watch somebody change. I think what’s been beautiful about this, and what’s been challenging, is to see how it affects him in some ways, but to see how it doesn’t affect his talent.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I think he really pushed through something to give the world the gift of knowing that things can change and you can still be magnificent.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gaga and Bennett performed at two sold-out concerts in celebration of his 95th birthday and their second and final album together, </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Love for Sale</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr">Tony, this is the last album we will have created together, but the celebration of jazz, and us as musical companions, will live on with me forever. We offer the public “Love For Sale” for free love, to make them smile, because that’s what we’re here for. ❤️ Love, LG <a href="https://t.co/VP6QifdrHA">pic.twitter.com/VP6QifdrHA</a></p> — Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) <a href="https://twitter.com/ladygaga/status/1438714751165480961?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 17, 2021</a></blockquote> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When asked about the recording process, Gaga told </span><em><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/10/04/lady-gaga-talks-tony-bennett-alzheimers-love-for-sale/5979884001/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">USA Today</span></a></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">it was “hard” to talk about, but “it’s important during times like this to be authentic and share the pain of the realities of what it’s like to have a loved one have Alzheimer’s or dementia”.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I really extend my heart to people going through a similar situation.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">See an excerpt of Bennett, Benedetto and Gaga’s appearance on <em>60 Minutes</em> here.</span></p> <p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yNrvXw9juNs" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image: @itstonybennett / Instagram</span></em></p>

Mind

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Foster mother to 300 children killed by COVID-19: “They’ve already lost their family

<p><span>A woman who was a foster parent to over 300 children has tragically died following her COVID-19 diagnosis.</span><br /><br /><span>Susan Braley devoted decades of her life giving kids a second chance at a happy family, and adopted 7 children along the way.</span><br /><br /><span>And now, the hundreds of children taken under Braley’s wing are mourning the beloved mother’s death.</span><br /><br /><span>Braley died after contracting COVID-19 and being rushed to hospital with low oxygen.</span><br /><br /><span>However, even through her pain, she worried for her family.</span></p> <p><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.25px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7839711/1280x720.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/bba06c546fdf450ca7e254152805b264" /><br /><br /><span>During the ride there she told her grandson, Thomas Bartholomew, to make sure the family keep holiday traditions and always make sure to care for and feed anyone in need.</span><br /><br /><span>"Right before my grandmother passed, I got to talk to her, you know, when they were wheeling her out, first thing I wanted to tell her was that I love you and thank you for everything you've done in my life," Bartholomew said, via ABC News 4.</span><br /><br /><span>"And she said, 'I love you too'."</span><br /><br /><span>Sadly, Braley's husband was later admitted to hospital as well. Braley died soon after her husband arrived at the same hospital as her.</span><br /><br /><span>Now he's battling the virus in ICU as the hundreds of children they helped raise are grieving Braley and hoping for her husband's recovery.</span><br /><br /><span>"They've already lost their first family, this is their second family and we have kids who are older who understand that," said Bartholomew.</span><br /><br /><span>"Like Jazmin, who's 18 years old, she lost her mother and now she's lost her second mother. We don't want them to go through that experience."</span><br /><br /><span>An online fundraiser has been set up to help raise money to support Braley's family.</span><br /><br /><span>In just seven days, it has attracted over $24,000 in donations.</span></p>

Caring

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Susan Boyle delights the internet with her first ever TikTok video

<p>Susan Boyle has made an incredibly hilarious debut to social media app Tiktok, where she was shown displaying her amazing dance moves with friends. </p> <p>The 59-year-old <em>Britain's Got Talent</em> star took part in a socially distanced dance accompanied by her personal assistant Geraldine and vocal coach Chris Judge.</p> <p>The group boogied to the song <em>Laxed Siren Beat</em> by Jawsh 685 and the video was uploaded to the account of Gez Rae.</p> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"><iframe class="embed-responsive-item" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N3yKG_Yc4V4"></iframe></div> <p>The Scottish singer revealed in February she’s actually been trying to add another talent under her belt by taking dancing lessons</p> <p>"Someone suggested I would be good on Strictly Come Dancing," she told The Sun. </p> <p>"Yeah, I would like that. I've got some moves. I've been taking dance lessons."</p> <p>The Scottish singer, who rose to fame on the third series of <em>Britain's Got Talent</em> in 2009 with her stunning rendition of <em>I Dreamed a Dream</em> from<em> Les Misérables</em>, told to <em>A Current Affair's</em> Tracy Grimshaw that there's still plenty of things on her bucket list for her to tick off and make sure come to fruition. </p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/BySmiH-lddE/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BySmiH-lddE/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Susan Boyle (@susanboylemusic)</a> on Jun 4, 2019 at 7:08am PDT</p> </div> </blockquote> <p>"My bucket list? One is to ride a bike — I got my very first bike, never had a bike when I was a kid," Boyle said to Grimshaw. "And I've got my professional licence, I've learned how to drive."</p> <p>Boyle also admitted in the same interview that being pushed into international fame so suddenly back in 2012, was simply too much for her to handle at the time. </p> <p>She says three years after the show, she was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome which came as a “relief” to her. </p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8b2ZQpl3Cg/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B8b2ZQpl3Cg/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Susan Boyle (@susanboylemusic)</a> on Feb 11, 2020 at 9:34am PST</p> </div> </blockquote> <p>"That was just a relief for me, though, because for years I thought I had something a bit more serious, you know? So that took it off my shoulders a bit," Boyle said, explaining that she had previously thought she had "quite serious brain damage."</p> <p>"[With] Asperger's, you just have to make people aware that sometimes you have to go at a certain pace, don't be too bombarded with things. At the very beginning I was too bombarded," she recalled.</p> <p>"I just want to keep going. I just want to keep entertaining people, making albums, touring. I'm as happy as anything."</p>

Music

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Susan Boyle opens up about plans to start a family at 58

<p>Susan Boyle has revealed her plan to start a family at the age of 58.</p> <p>The singer, who shot to fame after appearing on <em>Britain’s Got Talent </em>in 2009, said she is interested in “fostering” children in a recent interview on <a rel="noopener" href="https://play.acast.com/s/bizarrelife/8b29568b-712d-4781-afe6-aaee983aaaf4" target="_blank" title="The Dan Woottan Interview"><em>The Dan Wootton Interview</em></a> podcast.</p> <p>“I’ve never had any of my own, that’s my biggest regret, but I love kids,” said Boyle.</p> <p>“When things quieten down a bit I would like to get into fostering.</p> <p>“I’m 58 so I’ve got something to bring my family home to. I’ve a lovely house, why not share it?”</p> <p>Boyle has been kept busy this year with releasing her new album <em>Ten</em> and competing on <em>America’s Got Talent: The Champions</em>.</p> <p>Boyle became an ambassador for Save the Children in 2013. At the time, she said working with the charity made her feel as though she was “adopting the kids”.</p> <p>She said, “I love children and I feel like I’m adopting the kids. I feel like a mammy.”</p> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"><iframe class="embed-responsive-item" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Jo4_XWVEIO0"></iframe></div> <p>She also released a song – a posthumous duet of <em>O Come, All Ye Faithful </em>with Elvis Presley – for the charity, with all the proceeds going to donations.</p>

Art

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Susan Boyle opens up about the diagnosis that changed her life

<p>In a rare interview, singing sensation Susan Boyle has revealed her struggle with Asperger’s and the “meltdowns” that haunted her early music career.</p> <p>Speaking to <em>A Current Affair’s</em> Tracey Grimshaw, the star revealed how her life took a drastic turn after <em>Britain’s Got Talent – </em>and not in a good way.</p> <p>After catapulting to fame in 2009 following her audition wowing judges and audiences alike, the artist’s rendition of<em> I Dreamed A Dream</em> quickly went viral around the world.</p> <p>But while the newfound attention was exciting, it also came with a host of negative headlines, with allegations of diva behaviour and “meltdowns” gaining traction as quickly as her performance had.</p> <p>Struggling with the instant fame, Boyle told Grimshaw that she “didn’t have the tools to deal” with overnight fame.</p> <p>“I hadn’t had any kind of formal training on how to deal with the media and stuff like that … there was a lot of surprises in the early days,” she said.</p> <p>“I didn’t really know what was going to happen. But I’m a bit more relaxed now, I take it all in my stride.”</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet tw-align-center" data-lang="en-gb"> <p dir="ltr">Ten years ago, the world was obsessed with Susan Boyle after she walked out onto the stage of Britain’s Got Talent, and sang in that surprising voice that she had a dream. But fame and success can be a double-edged sword. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/9ACA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#9ACA</a> | FULL STORY: <a href="https://t.co/efILIEHxZk">https://t.co/efILIEHxZk</a> <a href="https://t.co/3WVWHnhrko">pic.twitter.com/3WVWHnhrko</a></p> — A Current Affair (@ACurrentAffair9) <a href="https://twitter.com/ACurrentAffair9/status/1135836426644254720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">4 June 2019</a></blockquote> <p>When it all became too much to handle, Boyle’s manager and publicist Nicola Philips stepped in and hasn’t left the singer’s side ever since.</p> <p>“I don’t think anyone would when you’re being publicly assassinated and being called names, no-one is going to deal with that very well,” said Philips.</p> <p>“Especially when you’ve come from a provincial town in Scotland and you have spent your life in cotton wool. So it was dealing with that shock. Obviously it upset her like it would upset anybody.”</p> <p>Philips also shutdown suggestions saying that the musician should stop singing altogether due to the overwhelming amount of pressure.</p> <p>“See I completely disagree,” she told Grimshaw. “She’s always said in terms of nerves that anxiety, the nerves of performing is what positions her into the place to get on stage, it focuses her. She loves it and she has an amazing life.”</p> <p>Boyle revealed that she’s learnt “how to chill myself out more”, after her Asperger’s diagnosis in 2012 changed her outlook on life.</p> <p>“That was a relief for me because for years I thought I had something a bit more serious, you know, so that sort of took it off my shoulders a bit,” admitted the singer.</p> <p>“You just have to make people aware that somethings you have to go to a certain pace and don’t be too bombarded with things. At the very beginning I was very bombarded.”</p> <p>Boyle was under the assumption that she had brain damage, but once she received her diagnosis, decided to go public to raise awareness of Asperger’s.</p> <p>“There’s nothing to keep secret, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, everybody has something, a flaw if you like,” she said.</p> <p>“But you shouldn’t be ashamed of it, it’s something to bring out in the open and hopefully you help other people.</p> <p>“I like to feel I’ve been a voice for other people who have been the underdog and I wanted to try and prove myself.”</p> <p>After a long hiatus, Boyle is now ready to get back on stage as she returns to the spotlight with a new album and a UK tour.</p> <p>Boyle nabbed herself a record deal after coming runner-up on <em>Britain’s Got Talent</em>. Her debut album<em> I Dreamed A Dream </em>became the UK’s fastest-selling debut album of all time.</p>

Music

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The hilarious reason why Waleed Aly's wife wants to win a Logie

<div> <div class="replay"> <div class="reply_body body linkify"> <div class="reply_body"> <div class="body_text "> <p>Dr Susan Carland, the Australian academic and wife of<span> </span><em>The Project</em>host Waleed Aly, is not exactly best friends with One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson – and now she has used that exact reason to urge fans to vote for her to receive a Logie.</p> <p><span>Dr Carland, a Muslim convert</span><span>, has made the shortlist for her presenting gig on the SBS show </span><em>Child Genius<span> </span></em>and the TV host shared her comedic reason on Instagram to explain to her fans why they should vote for her in the Most Popular Presenter category in the 61st Annual Logies.</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/BupdYTLgKg1/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;"><a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BupdYTLgKg1/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" target="_blank">Friends. Am I the greatest TV presenter of all time? No. But am I the most likeable and deserving person to win this Logie? Also no. But is it worth voting for me just for the reaction it will evoke in Pauline Hanson? YES. Link to vote in my bio! #tvweeklogies</a></p> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/susancarland/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" target="_blank"> Susan Carland</a> (@susancarland) on Mar 5, 2019 at 5:05pm PST</p> </div> </blockquote> <p><span>“Friends. Am I the greatest TV presenter of all time? No,” Dr Carland wrote in the caption</span></p> <p>“But am I the most likeable and deserving person to win this Logie? Also no.</p> <p>“But is it worth voting for me just for the reaction it will evoke in Pauline Hanson? YES.”</p> <p>The One Nation leader and Dr Carland are on opposing sides based on Ms Hanson’s negative comments about Muslims.</p> <p>Fans are able to cast their votes on <em>TV Week’s</em> website for Most Popular Actor, Most Popular Actress, Most Popular Presenter and the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian TV.</p> <p>Between now and March 31, fans can pick from a shortlist of candidates in each category who they want to see win the award.</p> <p>The Logie nominees will be announced on May 26.</p> <p>Voting for the 11 most popular categories will reopen from June 24 until June 30.</p> <p>Dr Carland is not the only shortlist candidate to take to social media to urge fans to vote.</p> <p>Carrie Bickmore put up a sweet photo of her and her daughter at a dress fitting, encouraging her followers to vote for who they think should be nominated for each Logie.</p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bun4UL8H1cq/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" data-instgrm-version="12"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="margin: 8px 0 0 0; padding: 0 4px;"><a style="color: #000; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bun4UL8H1cq/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" target="_blank">Fav pic from last year’s final Logie dress fitting with 2 of my fav people @paolo_sebastian and Evie. Voting’s opened for this year’s awards so would love you to jump online and vote. Only takes a minute or two. 🙏tvweeklogieawards.com.au #tvweeklogies</a></p> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;">A post shared by <a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/bickmorecarrie/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_medium=loading" target="_blank"> Carrie Bickmore</a> (@bickmorecarrie) on Mar 5, 2019 at 2:22am PST</p> </div> </blockquote> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>

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What ever happened to Susan Boyle?

<p>After a life-changing audition on <em>Britain’s Got Talent</em> nine years ago, Susan Boyle was thrust into the spotlight due to her angelic voice and refusal to change despite fame.</p> <p>However, the pressure became too much for the homebody from Scotland, as pressure mounted due to a world hungry for more.</p> <p>Her mental health suffered as a result of the stardom, she told <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/8430978/susan-boyle-britains-got-talent-comeback-album/"><em>The Sun</em></a>.</p> <p>“It can be difficult to talk about mental health issues, as there is a kind of fear about that.</p> <p>“Years ago, there used to be a stigma about it, but now there is more knowledge, more expertise, and talking about things makes it a lot easier. A lot easier,” Boyle admitted.</p> <p>Five years later, Boyle is now able to cope with her fame and the pressure that comes with it.</p> <p>“I can cope with the pressure now. I know how to control myself better.</p> <p>“I don’t get so worked up about things. I got a lot of help and I’m managing a lot more effectively,” the talented singer shared.</p> <p>To celebrate, Boyle is releasing an album to mark 10 years within the music industry.</p> <p>Her first audition on TV in 2009 sent shockwaves around the world, as she surprised all three judges on the panel of <em>Britain’s Got Talent.</em></p> <p>Looking back and reflecting on that audition made Simon Cowell realise how he was viewed. Cowell revealed to <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/7337243/susan-boyle-talent-show-comeback/"><em>The Sun</em></a><em>:</em></p> <p>“When I saw me, I said, ‘I actually hate my guts right now.’ We were really sneery. That was the tipping point.”</p> <p><iframe width="540" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jca_p_3FcWA" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></p> <p>Boyle is doing much better now, as she’s surrounded by “a lot of support and the love of the community”. She insists that despite her net worth of AUD$40 million, her life is still the same.</p> <p>“I just want to entertain people, I want to make them happy. Money doesn’t bother me,” she insists.</p> <p>“My life has changed in that I’ve got a lot of people around me, I’ve got a nicer house and stuff like that, but those are material things. I think emotionally I’ve grown up with it.</p> <p>“My whole community hasn’t changed much but I have this sort of dual personality now. I’m a performer and an ordinary person, which is nice,” Boyle explained.</p> <p>Do you remember the first time you heard Susan Boyle sing? Let us know in the comments.</p>

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This may be the secret to happiness in relationships

<p><strong><em>Susan Krauss Whitbourne is a professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She writes the Fulfilment at Any Age blog for Psychology Today.</em></strong></p> <p><span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/laughter">Laughter</a></span> can be, if not the best, at least <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201007/laughter-certain-types-can-be-the-best-medicine">great medicine</a></span> for your personal <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/health">health</a></span>. You may not be aware, however, of the many <em>relationship</em> health benefits of sharing a smile or laugh. Couples who successfully navigate their inevitable periods of conflict and disagreement in long-term <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/relationships">relationships</a></span> know how best to use <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201206/the-12-ties-bind-long-term-relationships">constructive, rather than destructive</a></span>, methods of resolution. In <em>constructive</em> conflict resolution, you focus on the <em>problem</em>, not the <em>person</em>; in <em>destructive</em> conflict resolution, you make things <em>personal</em>.</p> <p>A key component to relationship health is that happy couples know how to relish their happy moments together. It seems obvious that sharing the joys of everyday life with your partner could promote your long-term bond. When you laugh with your partner, you’re serving as a source of positive reinforcement. As your partner increasingly comes to associate you with rewarding experiences, you boost your partner’s <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/motivation">motivation</a></span> to be with you (and vice versa).</p> <p>Positive emotions do more than provide psychological comfort, however. According to University College of London’s Sophie K. Scott and colleagues (2014):</p> <p><em>“Laughter is one of the positive emotional expressions, which are expressly linked to a physiological reduction in the stressful reactions to negative emotions (e.g., </em><span><em><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/fear">fear</a></em></span><em>, </em><span><em><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/anger">anger</a></em></span><em>, disgust), in a way which may be more effective than other ways of managing negative emotions” (pp. 619-620).</em></p> <p>Laughing helps your body as well as your mind: Scott and her <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/teamwork">team</a></span> bolstered their argument with evidence taken from a long-term study of middle-aged and older married couples. That study focused on the general relationship benefits of being able to manage emotions. Called "<span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201502/5-ways-get-your-unwanted-emotions-under-control">emotion regulation,</a></span>" this is essentially the ability to make yourself feel better when you feel bad. If you’re capable of emotion regulation, you can put the brakes on such negative emotions as anger, frustration and hostility. You can also keep humorous reactions in bounds, reflecting the situation as appropriate (unlike the “<span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201503/does-everyone-really-love-joker-does-anyone">class clown</a></span>”).</p> <p>Stanford University psychologist Lian Bloch and collaborators (2014) used data from a 13-year study of heterosexual marriages among middle-aged and older couples to examine whether the ones who used the process of “downregulating” negative emotion (i.e., getting themselves to feel better) would be better able to cope when faced with relationship strife. The researchers examined the predictive power of negative downregulation as the first assessment on marital satisfaction over the course of the 13 years of the study.</p> <p>In a long-term study such as this, you could argue from the “correlation doesn’t equal causation” perspective that the same quality that allows couples to regulate negative emotions at one point in time allows them to feel more satisfied with each other. Only a true experiment could rule out this possibility. Because earlier scores were being used statistically to predict later outcomes, however, there’s also a strong case to be made for a directional arrow from downregulation at one point in time to marital satisfaction in the following years.</p> <p>On each testing occasion, the Stanford study brought married couples to a lab session during which they spent 15 minutes each talking about:</p> <ul> <li>events of the day;</li> <li>a topic of continued disagreement; and</li> <li>a pleasant topic or something they enjoyed doing together.</li> </ul> <p>Their physiological reactions were monitored at the same time, and participants also rated their emotions during these encounters. Participants also rated the quality of their own conflict resolution, and whether it was constructive or destructive in <u><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/environment">nature</a></u>. </p> <p>The key question, then, was whether emotion regulation would predict marital satisfaction. However, the data were also broken down by spouse (husband vs. wife) so the researchers could also examine <em>whose </em>downregulation was more important for the relationship’s long-term health. The subtitle of the article – “More than a Wives’ Tale" – gives away the punch line because the <em>wife’s</em> downregulation more successfully predicted marital satisfaction over time. Her ability to communicate constructively played the key role in making good things happen long-term.</p> <p>We know from this study, then, that regulating negative emotions (by wives in particular) is helpful in maintaining relationship bonds. How do the findings relate to the sharing of positive emotions? Were couples benefited at all by focusing on an enjoyable, mutual activity? Berkeley psychologist Joyce Yuan and colleagues (2010), using the same married couples in the Bloch <em>et al.</em> research, found that couples who experienced positive emotions were better able to calm themselves physiologically as well. Positive emotions, in short, “have the capacity to ‘undo’ physiological arousal” (p. 471).</p> <p>Laughter is certainly one of the strongest reactions we have to positive emotions. You may smile when you’re feeling good, but you’ll only laugh if something strikes you as out-and-out funny. Scott and her team noted that people laugh surprisingly often, perhaps as much as 5 times in a 10-minute conversation. </p> <p>People also tend to laugh more at what <em>they</em> say than at what <em>others </em>contribute to the dialogue, according to the Scott<em> </em>et al. analysis. We seem to use laughter more as a tool in communicating our thoughts to others than in reacting to what those around us are trying to communicate. (The next time you're chatting with a friend or your partner, take note of the times you laugh and see if this observation matches your own experience.)</p> <p>Returning to the research, these findings suggest that you may be able to control the emotional climate of your relationship <em>by bringing laughter into it</em>. At first, it might seem strange or forced, but over time, you may find that you and your partner actually find more to laugh about in common. Press the pause button on conflicts before they become destructive and take a moment to put things in perspective. Who knows? Once you take that step back, the whole situation may become laughable. As difficult as it might be the first time, getting in the habit of downregulating together may be the best medicine for long-term relationship fulfillment.</p> <p><em>Written by Susan Krauss Whitbourne. Republished with permission of <span><strong><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201506/may-be-the-secret-happiness-in-relationships">Psychology Today.</a></strong></span> </em></p>

Relationships

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The best way for adult children and parents to communicate

<p><strong><em>Susan Krauss Whitbourne is a professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She writes the Fulfilment at Any Age blog for Psychology Today.</em></strong></p> <p>When I speak with other <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/parenting">parents</a></span> of adult children, I often wonder if I am being a negligent parent. Since sending our children off to college, to jobs, or <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/marriage">marriage</a></span>, some of my friends talk to and text their children endlessly. I, on the other hand, do not. I notice disbelief on their faces when I report not speaking to my married son for two-week stretches at a time.</p> <p>Adult children – particularly daughters as I learned from the research for my book <span><a href="http://amzn.to/1R7szpy">Nobody’s Baby Now: Reinventing Your Adult Relationship with Your Mother and Father</a></span> – report speaking with a parent two, three or more times a day in conversations that range from important to trivial. Mobile phones and texting have made sharing information inexpensive, easy and more immediate. But, is keeping in close or constant touch – in any mode of communication – beneficial for parents?</p> <p>Current forms of communication can be frustrating for parents. Many adult children don’t answer their mobile phones; they keep the voicemail boxes full; and if you can leave a message, it’s doubtful they listen to it. Emails don’t get read unless you send a text to alert them to read your email.</p> <p>However as one study reveals, parental feelings after contact with grown children are varied; they can be quite uplifting or upsetting in different circumstances. In short, it may be a mixed blessing that you can’t reach your adult child.</p> <p><strong>How contact with grown children affects parents’ mood</strong></p> <p>Calling and texting grown children – versus face-to-face interaction – may not be the emotionally best choice for parents. In the study, “The Ties That Bind: <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/mid-life">Midlife</a></span> Parents’ Daily Experiences With Grown Children,” lead author Karen Fingerman at the University of Texas, Austin, found that 96 percent of the sampled 247 parents with children over the age of 18 spoke with, texted or saw them in person during a one-week period.  A surprising number had daily contact.</p> <p>But researchers wanted to know whether the mode of communication was influenced by the quality of the parent-child relationship, and if the encounters had a significant impact on the mood and wellbeing of the parent.</p> <p><strong>A mixed bag of reactions</strong></p> <p>“Pleasant and stressful experiences with grown children were associated with parents’ positive and negative daily moods,” the study found.</p> <p>Fingerman and her <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/teamwork">team</a></span> used daily diaries for parents to report their contact intervals and whether their interaction was pleasant or negative. Of the many parents that communicated with their children in the study week, 88 percent spoke on the phone, three-fourths saw them in person and two thirds texted. “Nearly all” subjects laughed or had a pleasant interaction.</p> <p>But, more than 50 percent had stressful experiences, such as a child “getting on nerves,” or having thoughts of <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/anxiety">anxiety </a></span>over children. Most parents experienced either an overall positive or an overall negative communication, with few having neutral interactions.</p> <p><strong>The most rewarding ways to stay in touch</strong></p> <p>The quality of the parent-child relationship does matter; both the frequency of contact and its <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/environment">nature</a></span> hinge on it. Parents who had more positive relationships with their adult children were more likely to report daily contact using all three modes of communication (phone, text, in person). Those who rated their overall relationship as positive were almost one and a half times likelier to see their children in person.</p> <p>Also notable is that parents reported more negative relationship quality when they communicated with children via phone or text message. By contrast, in-person parent-child contact was not significantly associated with more negative relationships.</p> <p>One aspect of the study questioned what kinds of relationships were more rife with parental worry; researchers questioned whether positive relationships had more parents worrying about children – wondering about their wellbeing, for example. The opposite was found: “Stressful thoughts were more likely to occur regarding offspring with whom parents had less positive relationship qualities.”</p> <p><strong>Positive chats heal negative interactions</strong></p> <p>A positive <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/therapy-types/parent-child-interaction-therapy-pcit">parent-child interaction</a></span> appeared to “mitigate the effects” of a negative one no matter which adult child caused the initial parental upset on a given day:</p> <p>“A grown child may call with a problem, upsetting the parent. Later that day, the same child or a different child may call and share a joke at work or a funny story about how his or her toddler sings the ABCs to fall asleep. The amusing story may alleviate the distress over the problem.”</p> <p>How do you communicate with your adult children? How often? Do they ignore your phone calls, texts and emails? Are in-person visits less upsetting than your electronic connections? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.</p> <p><em>Written by Susan Krauss Whitbourne. Republished with permission of <strong><u><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com">Psychology Today</a>. </u></strong></em></p>

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The new and reliable way to spot a liar

<p><strong><em>Susan Krauss Whitbourne is a professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She writes the Fulfilment at Any Age blog for Psychology Today.</em></strong></p> <p>Figuring out who will be truthful is as important a determination to make as any you might make in your life. Your quest to identify what's a lie ranges from distilling the newsfeed you receive on a moment-to-moment basis to trying to decide if a salesperson is giving you a truly good deal for a truly good product. Psychology addresses the question of dishonesty from a range of perspectives, such as interpreting <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/body-language">body language</a></span> or counting the number of “uh’s” in a person’s speech. However, it would also make sense that <span><em><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/personality">personality</a></em></span> would figure into the equation. Putting this idea to the test, University of Cape Town (South Africa) psychologist Yolandi-Eloise Jansevan van Rensburg and colleagues (2018) explored academic dishonesty in a context easily investigated with college undergraduates. Although their focus is on this specific type of cheating, the results of this study also have implications for <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/empathy">understanding</a></span> dishonestly on a larger scale.</p> <p>Van Rensburg and her colleagues note that a large percentage (43%) of college students admit to having cheated at some point and in some way on exams. This estimate comes from a range of studies conducted between 2002 and 2013, with nearly 135,000 participants. In a way, although <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/infidelity">cheating on</a></span> campus is a headache primarily for instructors, the problem also takes on significance when you consider that some of those cheaters are now serving the public, sometimes in situations involving life or death decisions. Who wants a cheater conducting <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/neuroscience">brain</a></span> surgery or doing your taxes?</p> <p>The personality traits that the South African researchers believed would be most related to academic <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/deception">deception</a></span> stem from the so-called “HEXACO” model that includes as one if its components the honesty-humility dimension. As you can most likely guess from the term, scores on this personality attribute are related to what the researchers call “counter-academic behaviour.” In other words, people with low scores on the honesty end of the continuum should be more likely to commit “multiple ethical transgressions within an academic context” that would include cheating and plagiarising among other behaviours such as abusing substances and holding low personal standards. Whether honesty-humility scores would include cheating specifically within this range of counter-academic behaviour became the study’s empirical question.</p> <p>According to van Rensburg et al., it is necessary to break the honesty-humility scores down further in the effort to predict cheating. Honesty refers to being fair and trustworthy, and unwilling to engage in behaviours designed to provide personal gain such as exploiting, stealing, lying, and of course, cheating. People high in humility avoid being greedy and regard themselves as not particularly entitled to special treatment. Putting the two together, people may want to get ahead and hope to get special treatment (i.e. be low in humility), but honesty puts the brakes on their doing so, acting as a “control element” against engaging in counterproductive behaviour.</p> <p>Using an online sample of 308 South African students ranging from 18 to 47 years of age, with an average age of 23, van Rensburg and her collaborators assessed cheating both with direct questions about counter-academic behaviour as well as with a disguised measure of cheating in the form of an online task that participants were to score themselves. The online cheating task was administered prior to the personality test to ensure that participants wouldn’t guess the actual purpose of the study and then be influenced by the honesty questions when they performed the task.</p> <p>The online cheating measure was cleverly designed to tempt participants to cheat by giving them the opportunity to win money if they performed well. Participants were told they should not use any unauthorised help such as using a calculator, nor to change their answers once they started seeing the correct scores. After completing the task, participants then reported on whether or not they had cheated in the process of scoring themselves or using any of that unauthorised help. To assess counter-academic behaviour, the researchers asked participants a series of questions regarding such examples as submitting a class paper or project that was not their own work (misrepresentation) and turning in work that was of poor quality and lower than their true potential or ability (low personal standards).</p> <p>Think now about what you would do in the online task scenario. Would you try to change your answers or give yourself an honest grade based on which ones you got right and which you got wrong? If you believe you would refrain from cheating, why would this be? Would you feel it was unfair to receive unearned money or would you just feel that you were being insincere? Think too about whether you’d really want money you hadn’t earned. Is it worth it to get an extra few dollars in terms of your own self-respect and integrity, or would you stop at nothing to try to game the system?</p> <p>As it turned out, the fairness dimension ranked above all else in predicting who self-reports engaging in counter-academic behaviour. With fairness including an adherence to social norms and unwillingness to take advantage of others, the authors reasoned, people with high scores on this trait should stay away from all forms of behaving badly in academic settings. For the online cheating test, though, it was greed avoidance that provided the strongest predictive value. That material gain, small though it was, provided sufficient incentive for the greedy students to grab what they could.</p> <p>Breaking honesty-humility down into its components, then, and differentiating between general college misbehaviour and cheating on a specific task allowed the South African <span><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/teamwork">team</a></span> to pinpoint the distinct personality traits that lead people to lie to get what they feel they deserve. If you generalise beyond an academic situation, the findings suggest that the people most likely to cheat their way to the top are, at their core, greedy. Their desire to acquire material goods allows them to suspend their own sense of right and wrong. Those individuals who uphold the values of fairness will, by contrast, avoid the more general range of unsavoury behaviours that include ethical transgressions. </p> <p>If you want to figure out who to trust, the van Rensburg et al. study suggests you do a quick assessment of fairness and greed avoidance. Even if you dangle attractive goodies to the people high in greed avoidance, they’ll be able to resist temptation. You can conduct your own experiments of giving them the opportunity to earn something they don’t deserve and see how they behave. The people who believe in fairness, similarly, can be put to the test by finding out if they would try to get away with bending the rules if they could. Of course, you can also see if they do. If a salesperson fails to charge them for an item, do they point this out, or furtively leave the scene as fast as possible?</p> <p>Finding fulfillment in your own personal search for success means not cheating to get what you want. Learning to figure out who to trust in your relationships means looking not so much at their nonverbal communication but at the more easily observable, and perhaps reliable, conduct.</p> <p><em>Written by Susan Krauss Whitbourne. Republished with permission of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com"><strong><u>Psychology Today.</u></strong> </a></em></p>

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8 ways to test your stress mindset

<p><strong><em>Susan Krauss Whitbourne is a professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She writes the Fulfilment at Any Age blog for Psychology Today.</em></strong></p> <p>You’ve got a hugely pressured day ahead of you, with errands you’ve absolutely got to run along with getting ready for your partner’s upcoming birthday party. All of this has to happen on top of the actual work you need to do at your job. Before leaving the house, you decide to check your email in case your boss has tried to get a hold of you. As you start to log in, the Internet goes down. This is going to delay you by at least half an hour while you try to figure out the cause of the snafu.</p> <p>In the midst of this turmoil, you might ask yourself how you’re feeling. Is it possible that you actually <em>enjoy</em> all of this <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/stress">stress</a></strong></span>? Might you really thrive on pressure? It’s automatically assumed that the kind of hassles involved in these daily pressures and mishaps are harmful and cause wear and tear on your mind and body. However, for some people, stress is the fuel that keeps them going, and without it, they are miserable.</p> <p>The concept of a “stress mindset” helps to explain these alternative ways of approaching life’s pressures. Tel Aviv University’s Nili Ben-Avi and colleagues (2018) recently investigated the stress mindset, which they define as “the extent to which individuals hold the mindset that stress has enhancing versus debilitating consequences." Since it’s impossible to avoid stress, it would seem more adaptive to take the stress-as-enhancing mindset, unless of course your life is extremely boring and uneventful. It seems safe to assume that most people are in fact under more rather than less pressure, and therefore the stress-as-enhancing mindset would seem to be the better approach if your goal is to be able to overcome the left curves that life can send your way.</p> <p>The Israeli researchers took the unique approach of asking people not to rate their own stress mindset and then observe their levels of negative outcomes, but to use ratings of stress mindset as predictors of outcomes among other individuals. The idea behind the study was that your stress mindset will affect how much strain and unhappiness someone else is experiencing. Consider, for example, whether you think stress is debilitating. You would then think your partner shares your views about stress and would, therefore, be as unhappy as you would be under that same stress level.</p> <p>To measure your own stress mindset, rate yourself from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) on the following eight stress mindset items:</p> <ol> <li>The effects of stress are negative and should be avoided.</li> <li>Experiencing stress facilitates my learning and growth.</li> <li>Experiencing stress depletes my <span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/health" target="_blank">health</a></strong></span> </span>and vitality.</li> <li>Experiencing stress enhances my performance and <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/productivity">productivity</a></strong></span>.</li> <li>Experiencing stress inhibits my learning and growth.</li> <li>Experiencing stress improves my health and vitality.</li> <li>Experiencing stress debilitates my performance and productivity.</li> <li>The effects of stress are positive and should be utilized.</li> </ol> <ul> <li><em>A stress-enhancing mindset is indicated by your agreement with items 2, 4, 6, and 8.</em></li> <li><em>If you agree with items 1,3,5, and 7, you hold a stress-debilitating mindset.</em></li> </ul> <p>The average participant in the Ben-Avi et al. study received an average at about the middle of the 7-item scale (3.22 per item), and most people scored just between about 2 and 4. If you have a stress-enhancing mindset, you should, therefore, score at 4 or above per item on the even-numbered items, and 2 or below on the odd-numbered items.  </p> <p>Participants also rated their levels of <strong><u><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/therapy-types/positive-psychology">optimism</a></u></strong> and their mood. To measure optimism, the Tel Aviv University researchers used a standard optimism scale containing the following items:</p> <ol> <li>In uncertain times, I usually expect the best.</li> <li>I'm always <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/optimism">optimistic</a></strong></span><strong> </strong>about my future.</li> <li>Overall, I expect more good things to happen to me than bad.</li> </ol> <p>The mood scale simply asked participants to rate their levels of <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/happiness">happiness</a></strong></span> on a straightforward 9-point rating scale.</p> <p>Turning now to the outcome of having a stress-enhancing mindset, the findings clearly support the idea that your life will be better if you can put a positive spin on having a life that’s full of pressure. Although mood wasn’t related to stress mindset, optimism levels did show a positive correlation, with people who have more of a “can-do” spirit enjoying a life full of constant demands.</p> <p>As it turns out, your stress mindset levels also predict the way you judge other people. The Israeli <strong><u><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/teamwork">team</a></u></strong> asked participants to judge the levels of stress experienced by a male employee (“Ben”) described in a scenario as experiencing a great deal of work-related stress, such as being in a managerial position, working long hours, and having to multi-task. Participants did perceive this male employee as being highly stressed, but people who held a stress-as-enhancing mindset saw him as having a lower workload than did people who believed that stress is debilitating. Furthermore, the more participants believed that stress is enhancing, the lower they rated Ben on the <strong><u><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/burnout">burnout</a></u></strong> scale.</p> <p>Thus, having a stress-as-enhancing mindset affects the amount of stress you perceive other people to have. If you think stress is enhancing, you will project this attitude onto the way you perceive other people. These findings suggest that, unfortunately, if you and your partner have a stress-mindset mismatch, you’ll be less <strong><u><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/empathy">understanding</a></u></strong> toward your partner.</p> <p>Turning then to the ways that you can use stress to your advantage, look again at those 8 items on the stress mindset scale. If you’ve scored on the “agree” side of those odd-numbered items, maybe it’s time to see where your ideas about stress come from in the first place. Ben-Avi and her collaborators note that the mass media tends to emphasize the harmful and debilitative effects of stress over and beyond any of its benefits. It is true that unabated chronic stress has a negative impact on health and can even shorten your life; however, because stress is also a subjective state, if you could somehow be convinced to turn around your views of stress, you might not be quite so damaged by its presence in your life. People can, the Israeli researchers note, be helped to change their mindset, and in turn, their health and work performance can benefit.</p> <p>To sum up, assuming that all stress is bad can create its own self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, see stress as the product of your own perceptions, and you may well be on your way to a more positive outlook on life.</p> <p><em>Written by Susan Krauss Whitbourne. Republished with permission of <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Psychology Today</strong></span></a>. </em></p>

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