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CovEr: Blue Fairy - Guillermo del Toro: Pinocchio

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PINOCCHIO

Netflix Film and Columbia Records Soundtrack

Along with the new release on Netflix, comes the official soundtrack from Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, in line with the worldwide premiere of the film, streaming now. The soundtrack features the Roeban Katz and Guillermo del Toro cowritten track “Ciao Papa” alongside score tracks from multiple Oscar and Grammy Award-winning composer Alexandre Desplat. The soundtrack was released via CD on Dec. 16, 2022 and will be available on vinyl soon.

In the film, Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro reinvents the classic tale of the wooden marionette who is magically brought to life in order to mend the heart of a grieving woodcarver named Geppetto. This animated, stop-motion film directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson follows the mischievous and disobedient adventures of Pinocchio in his pursuit of a place in the world.

PRIDE JOURNEY

Orlando, FL

By Joey Amato

Orlando has always been a place close to my heart. Back in 2002, I attended graduate school there as well as worked in the music industry for a company that launched the careers of Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, O-Town and other stars. I even managed a boy band of my own around that time. Needless to say, I really enjoyed living in Orlando. It was also the place where I finally admitted to myself that I was gay, although I didn’t officially come out to my family until a few years later.

When I heard U.S. Travel’s IPW convention was going to take place in Orlando this year, I knew I had to go.

I stayed at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, which is perfectly situated within minutes of Walt Disney World parks and just a short drive from Universal Studios. The property is massive and contains a separate fitness building, resort-style pool with bar and live music as well as a convention area.

Epcot was always my favorite park to visit as a child, so I was excited to learn that one of the main events for the conference would take place there. We got to experience the park without the crowds, which was quite pleasant, especially when it came to the newer rides Frozen Ever

After and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Seeing the iconic globe lit up at night is as magical now as it was when I was a younger.

Ironically, the conference coincided with One Magical Weekend, so I also had the opportunity to visit two LGBTQ parties while there, the first being the annual Red Party at House of Blues and the second being OMW’s Therapy pool party at Sheraton Lake Buena Vista Resort. People from around the country travel to Orlando for this event.

My visit wasn’t all fun and games though. I think we all remember where we were when we heard the news of the Pulse massacre back on June 12, 2016. A few years ago, the owner of the club opened an interim memorial with a goal of raising the funds to open a permanent space which would pay homage to the fortynine beautiful souls lost that day. Located at the site of the original club, the current memorial contains an offering wall where visitors can leave flowers or mementos.

There are three viewing areas of the building. Visitors will be able to see the waterfall at the entrance of the club, a wall of the building where the forty-nine names are inscribed, as well as the area where people were rescued by from the restrooms by first responders.

The memorial also has a Ribbon Wall of Photographs, filled with pictures of the community and the world’s response of

PRIDE JOURNEY ORLANDO CONTINUED

love and support and artifacts collected from the Orange County History Regional Center. It’s a very emotional experience but one you need to do if you’re ever in the area.

The Museum’s Tiffany collection includes jewelry, pottery, paintings, art glass, leaded-glass windows and lamps, and the chapel interior the artist designed for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Orlando is known for having a wonderful LGBTQ scene. One of my preferred low-key places to enjoy a cocktail is Savoy, located just north of downtown. Every time I visit, I usually end up there with friends. Some other popular spots include Stonewall Bar Orlando and Southern Nights.

A few miles away is the new Hall on the Yard development, an upscale food hall venue. One of the highlights is a restaurant called The Chef & I, which is owned by my friends Erica and Chris Rains from Nashville. Every time I visited their restaurant, I knew I was about to experience something special. The Chef & I is one of my favorite restaurants in Nashville and I’m sure it will be a hit with the Orlando community. The restaurant throws a delicious brunch, featuring menu items like Duck and Waffles, Brined and Smoked Salmon Benedict as well as their Hot Salt Chicken.

People often forget that Orlando isn’t just theme parks. There are many beautiful towns in the metro area that are worth visiting. Antique collectors will really enjoy the charm of Mount Dora, while Dr. Phillips has emerged as a culinary epicenter boasting a variety of fine dining restaurants.

However, my favorite neighborhood to visit is Winter Park and more specifically, Park Avenue. The cobblestone street is lined with wonderful boutiques, outdoor cafes and is adjacent to Rollins College, my alma matter. Located in Winter Park, The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art is home to the world’s most comprehensive collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Orlando Pride is also one of the largest pride events in the state. In October, Coming Out With Pride took place at Lake Eola Park in downtown, and was surrounded by a host of other events throughout the week that lead up to the festival.

While downtown, try to catch a show at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. The sparkly new building hosts a variety of touring Broadway shows as well as performances from major artists in addition to Orlando’s many local performing arts organizations.

The next time you visit Orlando, I would encourage you to venture outside of the amusement park areas to get to experience the city. I met so many wonderful people when I lived there, so I would love for you to get to know the locals the way I did.

Enjoy the Journey!

Hitting the gym releases mood-regulating neurotransmitters and chemicals including dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins, which can help chill out those feelings of anxiety and stress. It’s not a moreis-more situation, though. Exercise has been shown to help restore balance in the brain in terms of neurotransmitters, rather than creating more. In anxious brains, neurotransmitters are not being transmitted from one cell to the next very efficiently, so it doesn’t get around the brain as effectively as it should. So, exercise is one of the practices that can help regulate this.

Working out can also help distract you from going down a rabbit hole of worries and what-ifs, since it forces you to focus on the movement itself. What’s more is that from a more psychological perspective, some people think it contributes to this idea of self-efficacy, meaning that if you can exercise and get better at it over time, that gives you a sense that you’re accomplishing something. This is especially true when you combine exercise with a social component, like exercising with a friend or group, which can help boost mood and reduce anxiety.

Not surprising, this means that group fitness classes are in higher demand than ever because people are craving companionship and togetherness after the previous year of isolation.

Sometimes exercise can make anxiety worse, however, exercise is a perfect example of how you can have too much of a good thing, literally and figuratively. Consuming fitness content (which is basically everywhere these days) can illustrate the downside of workout culture and create body image pressure. Much of that is fueled by social media apps like Instagram and TikTok, where people are flaunting ‘perfect’ and often filtered bodies, not to mention perfectly posed and angled bodies. The purpose of working out, which

is to be healthy, can get lost and replaced with an end goal of body idealism.

Not only is this obsession counterintuitive to improving anxiety, it can be physically dangerous, too. Over-exercising to meet your goals, for example, exercising six to seven days per week and/or more than 90 minutes per session can lead to physical and mental burnout. Although we all know and love the athleisure craze, it also creates pressure to look cute while working out. Long gone are the days of throwing on whatever workout clothes you grab first out of the drawer and breaking a sweat.

Plus, most social media posts tend to show a reflection of getting in shape quickly, and people post pictures of meals and workouts that are not necessarily the truth. Keep in mind that others’ online fitness journeys often are a carefully curated highlight reel. This goes for not only fitness posts, but posts that promote a sense of idealism around body positivity itself. While it’s great that some people tout the idea of self-love on Instagram and TikTok, not feeling that way 24/7 can become another reason to feel like you’re not stacking up.

Beyond how you look, being a committed gym-goer has the potential to turn into an obsession, feeding into the anxiety spiral.

Perfection becomes more important than the journey, and nothing becomes good enough, what once was a stress relief becomes a stressor and it’s really tough not to compare oneself with another who may perform a certain way. The most important thing is to stay true to your own goals and understand that being “in shape” is anything but a onesize-fits-all definition and that everyone is different.

One of the first steps here is to identify social media content that can put you into that anxiety and perfection spiral. Try to follow accounts that align more with the realistic journey you face toward achieving your body goals, and limit how much time you spend looking at images online.

Physically, some types of exercise (like hardcore cardio) can also spur feelings of anxiety in people who already struggle with it. For example, sprinting it out on a treadmill can feel a lot like experiencing the shortness of breath, increased heart rate, and sweating of a panic attack, and that scary feeling doesn’t always deliver the endorphin-boosting “high” of exercise we’re looking for.

This doesn’t have to be a forever challenge. People can overcome the fear of the physical response, you associate increased heart rate with anxiety, but you can relearn that this response can actually be a positive thing.

To help get there, try a grounding exercise when you’re feeling anxious during a workout.

Notice five things you can see (like a plant in the corner or your water bottle), four that you can handle (like your hands or your phone), three you can smell (like gym cleaning solution or someone’s perfume), two you can hear (like birds chirping or cars passing outside the studio), and one you can taste (like your gum or coffee). This exercise, also known as the 5-4-3-2-1 coping technique, is touted in the behavioral health space for its ability to keep the mind focused on the present and stay in the moment (similar to meditation and breathing exercises). Ultimately you can retrain your brain and body to react to workouts more calmly.

It can also be helpful to time workouts around other parts of your week that put you on-edge. If you know the things that typically make you anxious, you can plan workouts that fit into those days ahead of time. When you start feeling anxious, carve out time in your day to replace any other habit that doesn’t serve you with working out.

Ultimately, the best time and type of workout is the one you can stick with. Little and often will help you make positive changes to your handle on anxiety through an exercise routine. If you’re new to exercise altogether, start slow and steady to avoid getting overwhelmed, after all, trying new things can be scary, so be kind to yourself.

Changes in the brain take time. If you exercise once and not again, you’ll probably see an immediate benefit, and then it’ll go away because you have to maintain those activities to keep those neurotransmitters balanced. Medicines for anxiety or depression may take weeks to really kick in and show a benefit, and the same can be said for the longer term benefits of exercise.

On that note, it’s very important to remember that anxiety is a serious condition, and sometimes, self-care practices like exercise and sleep are not enough, and that’s on the brain, not on you. So, think of exercise as a tool for combatting anxiety, not the end-all miracle cure, but, it’s a pretty powerful tool at that.

HEALTH & WELLNESS Getting Through The Holidays

by: Dr. Charla Waxman BS, MBA, EdD Director of Business Development Lake Behavioral Hospital

The holidays come and go and you are left feeling down, sad and disconnected. You are not alone. According to NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 24% of people with an existing mental illness find that the holidays made their condition feel “a lot” worse and 40% said the holidays made them feel “somewhat” worse. 64% of people surveyed indicated that for them, the holidays were followed by negative emotions. This is perplexing to some because the holidays, to them, are a time of wonder and excitement. But for you, memories of the past, missing friends or family now gone, or just feeling lonely has left you in a postholiday funk.

Feeling blue after the holidays may clear up in a few days when things like work or school go back to normal routines. If anxiety and stress continue 2 weeks or more beyond the holidays, it may be more than just the letdown of a fast paced, activity-driven time of the year. It can mean that perhaps you have over celebrated and eating too much or consuming too much alcohol has contributed to existing symptoms of depression. Maybe you have overspent and now you are feeling anxious and stressed about taking care of those expenses.

If you have come off of your holiday time back into the routines of work, school, and busy family life having

had no real sleep; attending parties and readying for gatherings, the postholiday blues, for you, might just be lack of sleep. You may just be exhausted and scheduling a few days off beyond the holidays for some rest and quiet time may bring you back to comfort.

Try to notice whether post-holiday emotions have railroaded you before and think back to how long it took you to recover and feel normal and satisfied with your life. If it seems like you are not bouncing back, or it feels like this is the worst you have ever felt, it may be time to seek some help or support. Try spending time talking to a friend or close family member. That may be all that you need. They may be able to help you talk through the rough spots and help you sort out your feelings. If this doesn’t seem to make things feel any better, consider connecting for the short term with a counselor who may be able to help you sift through what it is about the holidays that get you down.

Whatever you decide to do, take your feelings seriously and attend to them. Letting bad feelings fester can only make things worse. You are not alone. Post-holiday blues are real. Connect with someone and talk it out. Things can get better.

CAN MENTAL HEALTH REALLY BE IMPORTANT?

by: Dr. Charla Waxman BS, MBA, EdD Director of Business Development Lake Behavioral Hospital

It sure can! Mental health covers a wide range of our well-being. It can include our emotions, our way of thinking, and how we interact with others. From childhood through our adult lives, how we think, feel and act are affected by what is going on in our heads. When our work or home lives are stressful, many of our choices will reflect how mentally healthy we really are. According to the National Council for Mental Well-Being, mental health will have an impact on three areas of our lives: work or school, activities of daily living, and our relationships. That pretty much covers it all! As if that were not enough, mental health affects how we cope with things that come across our path, what we can accomplish with our skills, how well we learn and work, and whether or not we contribute to our communities.

Mental health is important, but it is probably one of the least talkedabout topics in relationships, in our workplaces, and in our schools. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has called mental illness the only disease that is still whispered about. Per NAMI, we talk about cancer, we talk about AIDS, but we still whisper about mental illness.

Only by talking about mental illness can those who live with it begin to accept their conditions,

find positive ways of coping and be willing to join recovery communities. Talking about mental illness can help us learn to be honest about our own concerns and fears about mental health. When people are willing to talk about mental illness, it becomes less stigmatizing and the isolation, guilt and embarrassment that go along with stigma is reduced.

Staying mentally healthy can start with ways that we treat ourselves: practicing good eating and sleeping habits, exercising, focusing on the positives and being grateful. In addition, cultivating friendships, finding relationships at work or school that help us learn and grow and setting goals for ourselves that push us, but are achievable, are good ways to stay healthy. Looking for ways to be out in the community and volunteering are important, too. Finding leisure time activities for fun and learning can elevate our sense of self. Don’t forget that yoga, meditation and focused journaling can make a difference too.

Communication about feelings and fears and worries is key to staying mentally healthy. Letting others know that help is needed and not being afraid to ask can mean support and recovery are more likely.

There are many benefits to having good mental health, so really striving to find our best sense of self is valuable. Here are some advantages of good mental health: ability to cope with stress and anxiety, improved outlook on life, clearer focus and ability to concentrate, steady relationships, the capacity to deal with dips in mood or issues of depression, feeling better about oneself, times of peace and comfort in just being alone or feeling confident that our skills will carry us through the tougher times.

Although we can manage our mental health and even do much to prevent mental illness, the exact cause of some mental illnesses is unknown.

We do know that there is a variety of causes including; heredity, trauma, stresses, and predisposition to things like alcohol or other substances.

Mental illness is common. When it is obvious that someone is struggling, do your best to show patience and caring. Just like the National Council for Mental Well Being asks us to do in their Mental Health First Aid program: listen nonjudgmentally, encourage selfhelp and other support strategies or encourage appropriate professional help.

If someone you care about is experiencing a mental illness, don’t hesitate to call the professionals at Lake Behavioral Hospital, 24/7/365. They are there to help. One call to 855-990-1900 will get you an appointment for a free, confidential level of care assessment. Walk-ins are also accepted.

by Jack Santo

Benefits

and Disadvantages of Blockchains

The Benefits of Blockchains Over Traditional Finance

Trustless: The blockchain is immutable and automates trusted transactions between counterparties who do not need to know each other. Transactions are only executed when programmed conditions are met by both parties.

Unstoppable: Once the conditions programmed into a blockchain protocol are met, an initiated transaction cannot be undone, changed, or stopped. It’s going to execute and nothing, no bank, government, or third party can stop it.

Immutable: Records on a blockchain cannot be changed or tampered with, so far Bitcoin has never been hacked. A new block of transactions is only added after a complex mathematical problem is solved and verified by a consensus mechanism. Each new block has a unique cryptographic key resulting from the previous block’s information and key being added into a formula.

Decentralized: No single entity maintains the network. Unlike centralized banks, decisions on the blockchain are made via consensus.

Decentralization is essential because it ensures people can easily access and build on the platform, and there are multiple points of failure.

Lower Cost: In the traditional finance system, you pay third parties like banks to process transactions. The blockchain eliminates these intermediaries and reduces fees, with some systems returning fees to miners and stakers.

Peer-to-Peer: Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, let you send money directly to anyone, anywhere in the world, without an intermediary like a bank charging transaction or handling fees.

Transparent: Public blockchains are open-source software, so anyone can access them to view transactions and their source code. They can even use the code to build new applications and suggest improvements to the code. Suggestions are accepted or rejected via consensus.

Universal Banking: 2 Billion people globally do not have a bank account. Because anyone can access the blockchain to store money, it’s a great way to bank the unbanked and protect against theft that can happen due to holding cash in physical locations.

What Are the Disadvantages of Blockchains?

Public open source blockchains are not without their hazards and challenges. Here is a list of the top concerns:

Environmental Impact: Blockchain networks like Bitcoin use a lot of electricity to validate transactions, leading to environmental concerns. For example, Bitcoin consumes more electricity than a small, mediumsized European country, and Bitcoin mining is threatening China’s climate change goals.

However, many would argue that Bitcoin is held to higher environmental standards than anyone and anything. This may be true, especially if you consider that the blockchain and Bitcoin are an alternative to the traditional finance system that uses much more electricity and has a much larger environmental impact.

A study by Galaxy Digital suggests Bitcoin energy consumption is less than half that of the traditional banking system. If anything, you could argue that Bitcoin is a step in the right direction for the environment.

No one is saying that making strides to lowering the carbon footprint shouldn’t be on the agenda (this is already happening with some mining farms shifting to renewable

energy sources like solar panels and the El Salvadoran President calling for a plan to use geothermal energy (volcanoes) to mine Bitcoin).

But it’s crucial to maintain a balanced view when viewing the cost, environmental impact, and blockchain benefits.

Personal Responsibility: One of blockchains and cryptocurrencies’ most significant advantages is also its biggest weakness. When you invest in public open-source blockchains by mining or buying cryptocurrencies and store it in your cryptocurrency wallet (your wallet is like your bank account, except only you can access it and have the passwords), only you control your money.

You are your own bank, and this is great! But if you lose your seed phrases, the list of words that give you access to recover your wallets, there is no recourse (compared to banks where you can reset your password). Your money is lost forever.

TECH TRENDS CONTINUED

Unsurprisingly, a large portion of Bitcoin remains permanently lost. According to some estimates, 20% or 3.7 million of the currently minted Bitcoin is probably lost forever.

Growing Pains:

Even though public blockchains remain more efficient than traditional banking systems, decentralization comes at the cost of scalability. Trying to grow blockchain networks to global capacity, in turn, is the root cause of speed inefficiencies. It’s why, as we saw, Bitcoin and Ethereum can only process a maximum of seven and 30 transactions, respectively, compared to Visa’s 24,000.

Luckily solutions are being built to improve scalability and the speed of transactions. For example, the lightning network allows transactions to happen off the Bitcoin blockchain to speed up transactions. On Ethereum, many innovative Layer 2 (L2) solutions are being developed to improve scalability and speed including rollups, zero-knowledge proofs and side chains.

False Narratives:

Some cryptocurrencies are undoubtedly used in unlawful activity. The most famous example is Silk Road: people laundered money and bought drugs on the platform using Bitcoin.

However, this is no different from the illegal activity that constantly happens when people use other currencies like the Dollar.

This false narrative that cryptocurrencies are only or mainly used for illicit activities only delays their inevitable adoption, which can hugely benefit everyone, including the financial system.

Blockchain technology is currently used across various industries like supply chain, health care, retail, media and advertising, financial services, insurance, travel and transportation, oil, gas, and gaming.

Here are some promising use cases: Cryptocurrencies: The ‘killer app’ of blockchains today is internet money. Cryptocurrencies let you transfer value faster and cheaper across borders without a bank. Besides Bitcoin and Ethereum, other digital currency examples include Polkadot (DOT), NEO, Cardano (ADA), Tether (USDT), Binance Coin (BNB), and Litecoin (LTC).

Smart Contracts: These blockchain applications are contracts that automatically execute without an intermediary once conditions written into the computer code are met.

Decentralized Banking: The use of blockchain technology is also proliferating in banking. For example, many banks like Barclays, Canadian Imperial Bank, and UBS are interested in how blockchain can make their back-office settlement systems more efficient.