Photo: apdk

What does it mean when we teach our kids they have to work harder and harder just to survive?

That having a childhood where they get to run around with other kids just having fun is no longer an option?

That regurgitating information constantly leads to stunted creative thought?

It means many kids are highly stressed, overwhelmed, and depressed:

Just as we’ve done for ourselves as adults, we’ve eliminated nights, weekends, and holidays for kids by making them work right through them all. Unfortunately, much of this is repetitive busy work, which has shown little positive impact on achievement.

No Child Left Behind has been an almost complete failure. AP classes in Science have not increased performance in college for this subject area.

Depression in kids more than doubled from 1995 to 2002 (though this may partly be attributed to other reasons, such as higher rates of diagnosis, there is certainly a connection between the stress put on kids and feelings of sadness and failure).

What’s the antidote? It’s easy: Play.

Even big companies are starting to get that. But if you need more convincing, check out some studies on play.

Here’s some other ways you can take action.

Photo: discover your passion

Happy New Year to everyone out there. This first post of the year on Living Holistically will hopefully detail – and guide – what you will find here this year.

Though I can add my excitement to the fresh start of a new year, I still find myself eying wearily the ‘wratcheting-up’ I’m witness around me.

It’s normal – a new year date on the calendar can feel like a clean slate. Time to dust off those mothball covered running pants and slightly moldy sneakers and make your way to the gym. Or to sit on a mat every morning at 5am to meditate away the stress. We’ll be a free and happy people in no time!

Unfortunately, though, our new year’s resolutions tend to fail more often than stick (and the weight-loss industry counts on it). But we are a stubborn crew; most of us have a list set and ready to go on January 1st, trying once again.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to change for the better. For trying to feel more energy, for cutting out those large mochawhathaveyous and frenchfriedtwinkieturduckens. For becoming the ultimate yogini who only eats Whole Foods gluten-free vegan chocolate-covered pretzels as a treat. It’s okay.

But here I go with that saying I know most of you have heard: what’s the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (yep, your parade has now officially been hit by Christine’s rain.)

Hopes and dreams are some of the best parts of being human. I LOVE to dream – it reinvigorates me when I’m brought down by the cold hard reality of work. And goals ground those dreams, and gets them done when that reality becomes exasperating.

Yet, maybe not fulfilling last year’s resolution(s) – or goals – has less to do with your lack of will-power or laziness (favorite terms for our culture to use against people). Maybe it has more to do with the fact that those goals are coming from the outside world, telling you what you should be doing.

Maybe they aren’t authentically what you want to be doing.

The Conundrum of Change

What is real change? We like to put a definition or a boundary on what change looks like – we are a results-based people. Did we achieve what we set out to do or fail?

Photo: Cam Vilay

It’s a western approach to the art of change, one that may seem innate in us considering it was bred so young. Plus, it’s constantly being reinforced in our daily lives and damn, it’s hard to stay steady in your own definition when everyone is telling you you “how it is”.

Scandalously, I’m going to posit to you that change is a little bit harder to define than what we can write down on a piece of paper.

Change is more about defining your larger purpose, and moving toward it.

What do I mean? Well, here’s an example: if you are starting out as a freelance writer and you write down on a piece of paper, “I want to publish 15 paid articles this year,” it’s easy to look back the next year and see if you accomplished your goal. But does this mean you are a better writer than if you hadn’t published 15? What if you’d only published 5? What if you didn’t publish any at all, but had written three times more blog posts which were read by many more people than 15 articles would have been?

Yes, you didn’t accomplish the definitive goal of having 15 paid published articles that year, but isn’t the larger goal being a writer? Writing makes you a writer, not the places you’ve been published.

Swap those 15 articles for 15 (or 150) pounds. Most of us have a definitive amount of weight we want to lose, and watch the scale very closely to make sure it is so. Until we lose it. Then we want to lose more. Or we “fail” to lose it, then feel bad about ourselves as we polish off one of those Otis Spunkmeyer muffins.

It doesn’t matter that we might have lost 5 pounds. It doesn’t matter that we were feeling more energetic, less energetically rollercoastery throughout the day. It doesn’t matter that we started reconnecting with our bodies. We didn’t lose what we set out to lose.

What if losing weight is the wrong goal? What if finding ways to be more connected and in love with your body is the right one? Most people want to lose weight because they think they’ll feel better. What if feeling better is more dependent on being in touch with your body than it is on lifting weights?

Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

To me, there is a difference between regular goals and “soul” goals. “Regular” goals are often those somehow imposed by the outside world. “Soul” goals are the ones, well, your soul yearns for.

I’m not saying throw your New Year’s resolutions out the passenger-side window of a moving car. But it may be worth taking a look at your list and thinking about the bigger things you want out of your-very-own life.

And yes, you still have to institute specific changes in order to bring soul goals to fruition. For me, one of my soul goals this year is to ground myself in my life, including my work, relationships, food, and movement. I can be too flighty, which takes me off course too often.

In order to become more of who I already am, I know I must re-direct some of my inclinations toward taking on too many projects, and dropping old ones as I take on new ones. I understand that meditation helps me with grounding. Therefore, I have to meditate more often to feel more grounded.

But I’m not going to say, “I will meditate every day for an hour this year.” Nope, done that before and it didn’t work. Instead, I’m remaining conscious that when I get caught up in a whirlwind, meditation is the answer that helps me. Because I know this is true on a gut level (instead of someone else telling me I should do it), the more I employ this technique, and the longer this “resolution” sticks around. The closer I get to being fully me.

Now that you’ve got an idea of what I’m talking about, what are your soul goals?

Photo: Bassi Baba

It’s been a tough year for a lot of people, including at moments, myself.

So on Christmas Day, or the middle of Hanukkah, or the day before Kwanzaa begins, or any other number of holidays throughout the world, I wanted to share a great piece that is necessary now more than ever.

Here are 12 Things That Happy People Do Differently.

Have some magic in your holiday, and show your gratitude to whomever is listening.

Choose it Now. / Photo: Matthias Rhomberg

Loving your body as it its. Accepting the size of your stomach, or hips, or thighs, and even those jangling underarms. Disregarding everything that society tells you is beautiful, and knowing what you see in the mirror is true beauty.

There is little in the media today that focuses on body acceptance, and even when there is an article, or a photo, or a book dedicated to loving yourself, there is almost always some stipulation. “Love yourself as you are, but still lose weight.” “Accept your body, but still cover up that acne.” “Be thankful for your health, but get that nose job.” “Respect your body, but make sure it’s small enough to look good in tight clothes.”

These are the messages that bombard our system on a daily basis, whether consciously or not.

Here’s the antidote. The Choose Love Project, created by Rachel Cole and Lori Race, is beyond necessary at a time where the stakes get higher – and the girls impacted get younger – every single day.

Please watch the whole video – it is worth it:

I’m more than excited to be a part of the Choose Love Project. Strike that – I’ve been waiting to be a part of this project for my whole life (though I didn’t necessarily know it until it showed up in my inbox).

Here’s a note from their About page:

The inspiration for The Choose Love Project came from the It Gets Better campaign. The premise of this campaign is that if LGTBQ youth, who are often the target of bullying and discrimination, can simply hold on until they are older, until they leave high school, their lives will get better.

We wished we could say the same kind of thing to young girls struggling with their relationship to their bodies. But the truth is, there is no promise that it will get better. As most of us know, women of all ages (and often for the duration of their lives) have a contentious relationship with their form.

The one thing that we realized we could say to younger women (all women for that matter) is that it is a choice. Loving one’s body is about choosing the path of love. It’s not a switch that can be flipped, or a specific weight that is reached – it is a choice to come to our body with love. We want to empower women to understand that they always have this choice, that they can put down their weapons, walk off the battlefield, and down the path of love.

Will you be a part of it too?

Photo: vistamommy

Here are the last of the great thanks-giving quotes we received from readers and friends:

“I’m thankful for the hard stuff in life that makes you realize, really realize, what is important. i was searching all over, and then it found me.”

~ Katie Kersey

“I’m grateful that when I am able to let go, the universe catches me and I have always been held in love.”

~ Sylvie Nalezny

“So grateful for the miracle of life, the wonder & laughter of a child, the star-shaped pattern on the inside of a persimmon, and for good health.”

~ Julie Gallant

“I am thankful to have started a family of my own this year!”

~ Amy Anderson

“I’m thankful for solitude when it’s needed, and good friends when it’s not!”

~ Jon Burritt

“Grateful for life, the miracle of human life and love, deep intimate true and lasting love. And food. so very grateful for real food.”

~ Theresa Rosenthal

“I am thankful for:
Sunrises that warm your soul..
Friends that make you rock and roll..
The ultimate gift of life and spirit..
Joyful for the time we have in it…”

~Kaye Bentley

“I’m grateful I can still choose when I poo.”

~ Chris Farnsworth

Photo: Dominic's pics

Thankfulness and gratitude feed many of us during this time of year. It’s also the time where many feel lonely, isolated, with little to look forward to as they seem to be surrounded by so many happy people.

Over the last month, I have heard about three people committing suicide, two of whom were considered ‘very positive people’. Although I only personally knew one of them, and in that case only from a short time of shared space at Burning Man, each of the people touched the lives of someone close to me.

Besides, suicide has an all-encompassing impact – the word is rarely uttered without rippling across the hearts who understand its finality.

Maybe I am affected by suicide more than some others because I faced it head-on as a young teenager. As many attempts are, mine wasn’t ‘successful’. Somehow, though, I doubt I’m affected more than others, considering nothing else exists that is so completely irrevocable.

So many people wonder, “how could they do this? How could they have ended up there?”

To me, the other side is often clear – “how could they not?”

Filled With Pain

We live in a hard, hard world. There is no way around this truth. You can throw out all the affirmations and the positivity that you want, but at the end of the day, there are still more people suffering right now than those who are content.

I’m tired of trying to act as if this isn’t reality.

But take a moment to look around you right now, right in this moment. Momentum for change is swirling all over the planet. And this is also reality, as much as the suffering that rests in front of our eyes.

The best thing about life is that change is always possible. There is a better way, and we always have the choice to be kinder and more accepting of others, of doing work and taking the road that isn’t littered with broken people, families, or communities. It’s so damn hard to choose the right path sometimes, but when you honestly take a look at all of the pain and suffering out there, why would choose any other way?

Suicide is the epitome of pain and disconnection. It happens because one feels so hurt and so alone, and often feels as if he or she doesn’t have a community they can lean on. Suicide is the microcosm of a world where abuses are high on the list of money first, and each individual is left to his own devices.

But as none of the CEO of massive corporations got there by themselves and continue each day to rely on the thousands of workers ‘beneath’ them to fulfill their duties, none of us get anywhere in life by ourselves. We are all connected – we just forget that (or push it down) all too often in our individualistic, dog-eat-dog society.

What You Can Do

Let’s focus on letting others know that we appreciate them and need them at this time of year, instead of worrying about what presents to get them (or what presents we want them to get us). The world is on a crazy roller-coaster ride at the moment this is bound to continue longer than most of us anticipate. Forge those bonds deeper, so that we all can feel a bit more steady.

Love harder.

Photo: rachel_titiriga

Here are my favorite thanks-giving thoughts for the week:

“I am grateful for getting laid off from a difficult 8 year stint in engineering, because if that didn’t happen, I would not have discovered what I really want to be when I grow up; a superhero.”

- Monica Bhatnagar, actress/writer

“I am thankful to be able to wholeheartedly pursue my creative endeavors!”

-Drea Roemer, singer/songwriter

“I am thankful for the opportunities I’ve had in my life. I’m well aware that most people aren’t so lucky.”

-Hayes Ferguson, social worker

“I’m grateful for friends and loved ones, the Appalachian Mountains, freedom to be, the joys of commitment, Pi (my dog), music, poetry, and exploration.”

-Anna Jane Joyner, writer/healthcare consultant

“I’m thankful for full moons on brisk nights, rustling leaves in the fall, and long johns.”

-Carlo Alcos, writer/editor

Send me yours at christine@holisticwithhumor.com, and I’ll post my favorites every Friday in November!

Photo: Original Bliss

Hey, dear readers, I know I’ve been gone for a while. It’s been one of those up and down sessions of life, as we all go through at different times. For a little while, I had to focus elsewhere in my life (as I’m sure many of you can relate).

Still, I have watched from afar as people traveled first to NYC to Occupy Wall Street, followed by people who traveled to their own downtown to Occupy their own Wall Street. There is more than an air of frustration, anguish, and changes afoot – it might just be time for a revolution.

Strike that – it IS time for a revolution.

As many of us face the outer struggle for money to pay our bills on time, the dream to one day have health insurance again, and to not be constantly running ragged in order to still not be able to keep up, we also are facing the inner struggle of what it means to be a human being on this planet at this time. Are we here to work to the bone, or to be fulfilled? Are we here to produce for others, or create for ourselves? Where is the line?

For too long, we have followed what we’ve been told instead of following our inner compass. Now, I know if you’ve read this blog before, or ones similar to it, this is hardly a new message. You may feel a bit smacked over the head with it. But considering every little bit of mainstream media from TV to magazines to movies are telling you the opposite – telling you to work harder and spend a lot of money to reach someone else’s ideal – I’m gonna say it again:

Live your own authentic self.

Easier said than done, certainly. Most of us tend to think we are following our heart, our ideals, and on some levels we are. But so often, what we think is in our heart, what we think are our ideals, are merely those than have been imprinted on us from day 1 via parents, via culture, via the others that are imprinted with the same crap.

So it can take time to unwrap your true authentic self. It means tuning in constantly to that inner, steady voice and allowing it to have its say. It means sitting in silence for long periods of time so you can decipher between that ego-driven maniac and the gentler gut expression. It means setting up boundaries when others talk about what they (and inadvertently, you) should be doing. It means working with your body every day, and working out the preconceived notions in your head continuously.

Because as long as we continue to identify with the outer roars, the more our inner selves change, mutate, become sick. Our hearts, souls, tissues, muscles, and bones need us to live our truths in order for them to do their job.

As Anais Nin said:

When one is pretending, the entire body revolts.

If you don’t follow what your soul is pushing for in this life, you will get sick. It’s the breakdown of the “spirit” aspect of the mind-body-spirit health trifecta.

But you have to believe that whatever your soul wants you to do, see, or accomplish in this life is in your best interest, and will therefore bring you the nourishment, feelings of fulfillment, and yes money to not only survive, but thrive. That your soul wants you to seriously kick ass while having fun (and experiencing pain some of the time. It’s part of being human, and it breeds compassion).

I’ve decided to move deeper into my soul’s calling by working more with people one-on-one with their health issues, imparting some of the wisdom that has been given to me by many wonderful teachers of the years. This is my internal feeding – one that will make me stronger – that will also externally benefit the world.

Kick up your own internal revolution as we watch the external revolution happen (and I know many of you are part of it). Your health – and the health of our world – depends on it.

Photo: Brett Jordan

The computer buzzed as I sat there and stared at it. Paralyzed.

I’ve never experienced an anxiety attack, though I can speak to the seeming inability to turn the mind off. (And the berating of oneself for not being able to turn the mind off.) The thoughts in themselves seem like attacks, pistols shooting one right after another in the frontal cortex, telling you how everything is just f-cked up and pointless. One piled on top of the other. Spiral down.

The heart is beating faster, but it’s hard to move away from the brain in order to notice; the brain demands all attention stay there to witness the onslaught. So the word ‘paralyzed’ seems apt, with this definition: “cause (a person or part of the body) to become partly or wholly incapable of movement.”

Yesterday, I experienced one of these episodes that doesn’t take over often, but when it does, I feel powerless (it seems hard to feel powerless against oneself, yet it’s probably who we most often feel powerless against). Desperately using all the tricks in my holistic health treasure chest, from breath work to meditation to qi gung, from laying off caffeine to spraying some Rescue Remedy, sometimes I reach that place where I finally know – it’s time to throw in the towel.

And just let it ride.

Oh, the Guilt

Thoughts / Photo: FALHakaFalLin's photostream

There’s plenty in life that we spend inordinate amounts of time feeling guilty about (well, most of us anyway. Sometimes I wish I could tap into the “I’m completely tuned out to how this affects other people” mentality) – not finishing the mound of work by the end of today or any other day, forgetting to email a friend back who took the time to write a heartfelt note, backing out on plans because of being exhausted.

Some of this is useful – it keeps us in check and moves us forward. Other (larger) parts are not; it hinders by creating a cycle of poverty in belief of oneself. It’s a fine balance to do what’s expected of us out in the world and also be true to ourselves, and guilt tends to increase the two butting heads.

It’s interesting how in some people, guilt can get them moving like nothing else. Their personality does not accept anything that might be termed ‘lazy’ (by one person; another might call the same thing ‘relaxing’ or ‘collecting oneself’) and so a frantic work schedule ensues.

For others like me, the paralysis kicks in. The stress jumbles my mind and makes it impossible for me to know where to start. Even if I do figure out where to begin, I’m still too caught up in all the other stuff to be focused and efficient. Usually, there is a ‘big’ situation that triggered the anxiety, and that likes to stay close like an over-protective parent. Until I can somehow resolve that anxiety, I’m caught; even after it’s resolved, it seems to take hours, if not the rest of the day, for my adrenals to stop pumping and the cloud to move away.

I know it’s not situational. This is something I’ve dealt with no matter the job or the class or the sport. I like to think I’ve gotten better at it, knowing that it will last for a while and then pass, that I won’t be caught up in this for weeks or even days. But I still subscribe too often to “I need to push past this, I don’t have time for it,” when the truth is, my body has different plans.

Respecting Your Personal Boundaries

The world out there has a different set of beliefs for us than most of us have for ourselves. So much of that depends on the culture in which you live, of course, but there’s usually either too much of a focus on work, or too much of a focus on alcohol, or sex, or just surviving. Rarely is there a place that as a cultural standard, the individual gets to decide what’s best for them.

In the US, the work focus has always ridden deep, with that whole “American Dream” bit, and people don’t even see how much energy and time they put into work (even the uptick in the importance of play often has to be scheduled in for a confined period of time). They feel stuck on the computer even when they know it’s aggravating their back and wrists, or getting that client call in though their entire body is screaming “go lay down.”

For me, an important boundary is knowing that when I hit paralyzed, I gotta give up trying to make it go away. It’s there for a reason, and fighting it makes it worse. And I can’t give it a timeline to move on, even though I so desperately want to (“will 2 hours suffice?”).

Respecting that boundary means letting go of the guilt of not working when I feel like I should or need to be working. That I’m not falling behind; I’m moving ahead in self-care, which is what adds to my health, quality of life, and longevity. That it doesn’t have to mean a long-term excuse of bailing out, it just means I’m re-charging so I can be better tomorrow or the next day.

That’s the kicker – I’m always 10 times better when I just let it be. And I make up for that lost work with better focus and more joy.

What do you do when anxiety kicks in big time? How do you deal with it?

Photo: HikingArtist.com

An article from last year is making it’s way around FB again (don’t you love when a good one pops back up a year or two later?). It’s called Nurse reveals the top 5 regrets people make on their deathbed, and it offers up those little tidbits that we all know, but need to be reminded of again and again:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Most people have had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks – love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice.

Most days I wake up now and wonder what I will hear has happened in the world during my sleep – a tornado here, an earthquake there, food-borne illnesses somewhere in the middle, ‘leaders’ who continue to endanger and eliminate their own people. I read about how we are moving into the Dark Industrial Age and that we might as well all start planting gardens and sewing our own clothes because it’s going to get ugly real, real soon.

Maybe the world isn’t ending, but it’s certainly going through some serious growing pains.

Let’s put that all aside for the moment. Yep, there are a lot of ways we each individually need to change in how we relate to our outer world, but really, we gotta change our inner world first. And these simple five steps remind us of the basics that we quickly forget in our everyday lives, inner basics that make us make different outer choices.

Yeah, sometimes you gotta work hard to express those feelings and stay in touch with friends. And sometimes to express your feelings means you’re not always going to be happy. Having the courage to go after your work sometimes means you’ll lose friendships.

But basically, these steps take us back to our heart, the heart that feeds our fulfillment in this lifetime. When we get too far from our heart, we give away the sense of who we are, and what we are doing here.

There are only a couple of things I would add to the list above:

6. Lose the guilt.

Maybe this one is just me, but I spend an inordinate amount of time feeling guilty. Guilty for not getting back to people. Guilty for not being a good enough friend. Guilty for taking the last piece of chocolate. Yes, we need to be aware of our actions and how they impact others, but really, guilt is just a way of internalizing your own sh-t and doesn’t help the person you feel bad about.

7. Stop comparing yourself to others.

I’ll just reference what I previously wrote on this topic. Also, see guilt for what it does to you.

8. Show more gratitude.

Simple. And often can make up for that guilt thing.