Peaceful Families

Learning to be a parent can be challenging and rewarding. I discovered that living with a child can be like being thrown around in an emotional washing machine. Regardless of all my advances in learning to be with myself and to extend compassion to others, I soon learned that raising a child required additional personal resources. It just wasn't enough to have unconditional love and a heart of compassion, I needed real skills in relating to my daughter. I realized that being a parent was not a natural gift, so becoming a parent has been a gradual evolution that continues to teach me about personal integrity and respect for my daughter.

One of my valuable resources is a practice of communication developed by Marshall Rosenberg, which he calls "non-violent communication" (NVC). It is a style of communication and consciousness to promote connection, compassion, and peace in relationships. Among other things, the Bay NVC group has a program for peaceful families.

Blessings,
Darren Weber

Even the Humming Bird Must Pause

"Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself."

Hermann Hesse

My summer garden at the close of a long warm day is one of my favorite places to be. 15 minutes at peace amongst the plants has the power to restore my energies and settle my mind in an astonishingly effective way.

This year, what I hope to hold onto more than anything else is how necessary the stillness is.

For us all--children and adults alike.

The calendar fills up quickly each school year. The flurry of activity and the energy expressed each day is doable, and even enjoyable--when you take the time to breathe.

photo by Marc Finkel.
please click on image to see the hummingbird in all its splendor.

Earth Friendly Thanks

Did you know that this Thanksgiving is a GREAT time to put some earth-friendly traditions into place?

Here’s why…

• Connect to Community: Stressing about creating a great holiday meal or finding good, kid-friendly recipes for the fall season? Don’t forget to turn to your MdTL community! Not only are we lucky enough to have some professional chefs in our midst, but you are surrounded by bread bakers, soup makers, sauerkraut fermenters (no kidding!) and countless other sources of inspiration, all of whom know what it’s like to try to get healthy food into our often picky families in the midst of busy schedules. We’ll be posting recipes on our blog – please send us any you’d like to share!

• Reuse/Recycle: No, not cans and bottles (we know you’re doing that already!) but did you know that stock or bone broth is a terrific example of how you can turn something you may normally think of throwing away (chicken carcass, beef bones, etc) into a super-nutritious staple for winter cooking? In addition to being a folk treatment for colds and flu, stock made this way has also been used historically for ailments that affect connective tissues such as the gastrointestinal tract, the joints, the skin, the lungs, the muscles and the blood and continues to be a staple in professional and gourmet cuisine, due to its unsurpassed flavor and body. Don’t stop at bones, either – if you’re peeling vegetables like butternut squash, carrots or potatoes (all of which are loaded with essential vitamins) just toss the peelings into a bag in a freezer, and throw those into your next batch of stock, too. Fresh herbs turning past their prime can go into the freezer bag as well. This broth requires almost no work, just put the bones and peelings in a pot, add water and vinegar, bring it to a simmer and walk away. No chopping or tending is needed; just strain the peels and bones out at the end and you’re done. For more creative ideas on minimizing food waste, follow this link to a list of “50 Ways to Never Waste Food Again”: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/ways-avoid-waste-food.html?campaign=TH_rotator
  

• Go Local: This is a great time to say a fond farewell to the produce of summer and dive into the bounty that our local farms have to offer. It may take some more creativity (see “Connect to Community” for where to turn for ideas on how to use all this beautiful fall produce), but shopping local connects us and our children to the rhythms of the seasons, and allows for important diversity in our family’s diets. The Marin Farmer’s Markets are still humming along, and this might be a nice time to try out a Community Supported Agriculture box (please fill out our survey to let us know if you’re interested in seeing MdTL bring more local options to our community). Here’s a link to a site with local CSA options: http://omorganics.org/page.php?pageid=107&contentid=90

• Give Thanks: ... and not just on Thanksgiving. Did you know gratitude can be learned? Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, is one of the foremost authorities on the topic of gratitude in North America. After studying what makes people happy for nearly twenty years, he’s learned a lot that we can apply to helping our children cultivate gratitude in their own lives. Concrete practices like weekly gratitude journals and lists, expressing gratefulness oneself as a parent, writing thank you letters to relatives, teachers, gratitude prayers within one’s tradition at mealtime and bedtime all contribute to a greater sense of gratitude in our children. The list of benefits is incredible – just a few are listed below:

• In an experimental comparison, those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

• A related benefit was observed in the realm of personal goal attainment: Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.

• A daily gratitude intervention (self-guided exercises) with young adults resulted in higher reported levels of the positive states of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, attentiveness and energy compared to a focus on hassles or a downward social comparison (ways in which participants thought they were better off than others). There was no difference in levels of unpleasant emotions reported in the three groups.

• Participants in the daily gratitude condition were more likely to report having helped someone with a personal problem or having offered emotional support to another, relative to the hassles or social comparison condition.

• In a sample of adults with neuromuscular disease, a 21-day gratitude intervention resulted in greater amounts of high energy positive moods, a greater sense of feeling connected to others, more optimistic ratings of one’s life, and better sleep duration and sleep quality, relative to a control group.

• Children who practice grateful thinking have more positive attitudes toward school and their families (Froh, Sefick, & Emmons, 2008).

Happy Thanksgiving from the MdTL Green Committee!



Post by Sarah Lugaric