Tag Archives: children

The Answer to the Season’s Biggest Question; Yes, Santa IS Real!

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When it comes to the delicate matter of belief, there are creative ways to answer our children’s questions without taking the magic out of life.

When my oldest daughter was about five, she asked whether Santa Claus was real. Her dad and I told her that Santa is real — to those who believe.

Is love real? Is hope real? Is magic real? Is faith real? Is God? We can’t touch or see any of these things, but most of us believe in at least a few of them. In some cases, we can feel them. In others, we may see proof of them appearing in the physical world.

I believe in Christmas miracles. I believe that Mystics speak with God. I believe that Tibetan lamas reincarnate with full recall of their previous lives. I believe in our ability to do good in the world, with each conscious choice we make. I believe in faeries, and faerie tales, pookas, ghosts, saints, and goblins. I believe in a power omnipresent and indivisible.

And, I still believe in Santa Claus. I always will. Just like I believe in God, with Its ineffability, and the many faces It wears.

Jitterbug Perfume by Tim Robbins has one of the best descriptions I’ve seen of the human relationship with deity. The premise is this: the gods depend upon our belief in them to survive. Our belief in the gods is what makes them real.

The power of belief is an important gift we must instruct and safeguard in our children. Belief is what we build our lives upon. Without belief, we may be cast adrift on an endless, meaningless sea. Belief offers a rudder when nothing else can help us find our way.

At 11, my oldest daughter started the Christmas season by saying she no longer believed in Santa. And then complained when she didn’t feel the Christmas Spirit flooding her as we trimmed the tree.

I talked to her about faith.

The fact is, sometimes it’s hard to have faith that Santa will come. I’ll admit it; even I have been known to test The Spirit from time to time. My first Christmas post-divorce I made such a test.

That year it was hard to find my belief in the Spirit of Christmas. I had no one to give my Christmas list to. No one to tell what I hoped to find under the tree. I prayed to the universe to enforce my faith. I wanted proof that Santa was still real.

I wanted indoor/outdoor, “Ugg” knock-off slippers. I know, it’s kind of petty. Slippers? But it was what I wanted. Sometimes, especially in the midst of doubt, fear, and sadness, it’s the little things that matter. Cozy feet on a lonely morning. A small gift out of nowhere.

It was a deal between me and The Spirit, and since I had asked, The Spirit knew exactly what was required to validate my faith.

Come Christmas day, I was gifted a pair of slippers.

That Christmas, Santa showed up as my sister. She didn’t get the slippers for me, but for another family member. When the slippers didn’t fit the quickly growing girl, my sister asked me to take them instead; she didn’t want to go to the trouble of carrying them home on the plane and exchanging them.

I whispered a thank you to Santa, and reminded myself that sometimes He works in mysterious ways; I didn’t know my sister was bringing slippers for the nieces. She didn’t know I wanted them, either. But Santa did. And He delivered.

Throughout my life I’ve seen innumerable miracles of Christmas faith occur, large and small.

I was 14 when my father left the family. That year Christmas looked bleak. There were five mouths to feed, and no “extra”money to be found. We had a “Charlie Brown tree” cut from a stand of fir trees on our own land, and bedecked with ornaments from Christmases past. We were fortunate enough to have food in the cupboard. But my mother was devastated knowing there was no way she would be able to provide Christmas gifts for all of us.

As the eldest, I was privy to the goings-on of the adult world. But to this day, I don’t have any idea who brought Santa that year. All I know is that on Christmas Eve a jolly, bespectacled  man with a beard of white and suit of red pulled into our very remote, country driveway in his sleigh — or rather, his worn, old, white pick-up truck — with bags filled with festively wrapped gifts. There was a name on each one.

Santa left the bags on our porch. With a jolly smile he offered a “Merry Christmas!”, and was on his way.

In 2007 my Christmas Miracle was the grandest The Spirit of Christmas has yet conspired to deliver for me; the man I’ve been waiting my whole life to find traversed mountain and river that stormy December to be by my side and spend the holidays with me and the children.

That Christmas I felt like both Doris and little Susan in Miracle on 34th Street; the home, the family, the life that I had been nearly afraid to desire became my greatest Christmas miracle. Now every holiday season is a celebration of that most profound of miracles; the emergence of a love perfect and complete.

For me, the holidays will continue for the rest of our lives. My faith in the Miracle of Christmas is no longer shakable. No more tests required – I finally got my ultimate proof.  The man of my dreams, now my husband, is here to stay.

Some would say it was just a fluke of timing. And there’s something to that; finding The One is a miracle whenever it happens. But to me, it was more than just a twist of circumstance that this relationship arrived wrapped in a  Christmas ribbon. For me, it’s further proof that when we open ourselves to the possibility that magic exists, magic proves itself real.

Receiving the Miracles, while amazing, heart-expanding, and at times even life-saving, are only one side of the Christmas Miracle coin. The other side is the one where we become the manifestation of The Spirit. Through our agency, miracles are made manifest.

Movies are built on the theme of The Christmas Miracle. In this case, art imitates life. Christmas stories with their grand, sweeping, soaring themes serve as a reminder of what’s possible when we allow ourselves to invest in love and faith. And as believing becomes more effortless, the miracles grow larger.

Off the screen, food banks fill for at least one day with more than enough to feed the local hungry. People open their homes to strangers so they will have somewhere to be on Christmas morning. Communities pull together and provide gifts for children who would otherwise have been without.

To quote the words of song writer Red West, popularized by Elvis, “if every day could be just like Christmas, what a wonderful world this would be.”

It’s been proven to me again and again through personal experience that the Holiday Spirit does exist. I have been both the one who receives and the one who delivers on the promise of hope that the season offers.

As a Mystic mama, I don’t feel like a hypocrite or a liar, or as though I’m misleading my children by allowing them to believe in a power that makes their child-lives a little more happy, a little more bountiful, a little more hopeful, a little more magical.

And as they grow older, The Spirit need not disappear for our children. Instead of losing heart at the news that Santa is a myth — or a god, or a spirit, or a force — faith may continue to flourish. Given the chance to become part of the spirit of Saint Nick, children can become an active part of that energy of selfless giving. They will become the ones who enact the miracles of the season. In learning about the true meaning of the Spirit of generosity and kindness, they grow to be the hearts and bodies that offer those miracles up.

Back to my daughter as a proof of the shift that may occur with proper shifting of the dynamic of belief; when she was 12, she and I started the holiday season by clearing out all of our excess belongings; warm coats, bedding, clothes that would make a person feel happy to wear, some toys, and taking them to a homeless services center in our town. She was adamant about not only wanting to participate in the gathering up of the items, but also in participating in the process of dropping the boxes off at the center.

Together, we took three large, heaping boxes of items that would brighten the season for people we would never meet, and dropped them off with a group of people who had dedicated their lives to helping the generally unseen members of our community – all year round.

That office is gone now – closed due to lack of funding. But our ability to pull together and deliver Miracles is not. For us it has become a more personal offering. Buying food for a hungry person sitting outside a grocery store. Carrying give-away items in the back of the car and offering them to people in need. Listening to the stories of those who have ended up on the street. Recognizing a person; making him or her seen, if only for the duration of the conversation.

The gratitude returned is a larger gift than any other.

The Spirit is palpable. It acts in the world. Whether you call it the power of faith, or Jesus, or Santa Claus, or generosity, it’s a reminder of a bond of love for our fellow man.

Regardless of the name we give it, it sustains. If we allow it to, if we believe it will, The Spirit acts through and for each of us, bringing miracles to bear.

RECOMMENDED ACTIVITIES:
1. Itemize memories of Christmas miracles – offered and received – in your own life.
2. Practice a random act of holiday cheer.
3. Find a way to “give back” to your community. Or pay it forward. Or however you look at it.
4. Be someone’s Santa.
5. Involve your child or children in these activities.

Other holiday themed articles:
Of Dark Nights and Wood Stoves – A Christmas Reminiscence
Compassionate Consumerism
Reframing Your Family’s Recesssion Anxiety to Conscious Consumerism
Five Ways to Engage Your Kids in Grateful Giving

Support an independent business person; ME!!!

Tarot Readings with Lasara – Gfit Certificates holiday special!

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January, 2013; A LOCAL, IN-PERSON SEXY WITCH COURSE? YOU can make this happen. Local? Register now.

To Hell With Chicken Little!

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A while back my ten-year-old kid came home from school and said, “Mom, is the world really going to end in 2012?”

This moment was one I hadn’t even known I had a secret dread of.

I was raised as part of the Back-to-the-Land movement. If you weren’t there, you probably don’t know that a big chunk of the foundation of the Back-to-the-Land movement was apocalyptic. The hippies who went to the hills were not just running from The Man, and not just “to the garden”, many were running into a safe zone – a place where they’d be safe “when the shit comes down”.

I grew up in a world where there was always an immanent threat that the sky was going to fall on our heads at any minute. I grew up in fear of the mushroom cloud, the Big One (the California Quake), the flu, whatever date was the next forecasted end-point. My dad used to joke (half-seriously) about the day we’d have oceanfront property (assuming we survived the quake).

In addition to the threat of natural and man made disaster, there was a strong us/them mentality in the Back-to-the-Land movement. Fear and disdain for The Man was one of the binding agents that drew like-minded souls together.  And we were Us, and everyone else was Them.

But even more than the divide between those who had “turned on, tuned in, and dropped out” and the worker bees of the mainstream, there was a pronounced fear, a cultural paranoia, that They (whoever They were) were out to get Us.

This larger They was not the worker bee, but some nefarious entity that controlled the environment that the worker bees lived in.

This terminology is mostly my own, but I don’t know how else to explain the beliefs that formed a bedrock for me – a bedrock of fear and overwhelm. A bedrock that I, to this day, rebel against.

By the time the Y2K scare rolled around I had one kid, and another one on the way. My kids’ dad and I were living on the land where I grew up. Everyone we knew was hoarding water, grains, seeds, fuel, candles, and more. The more radical amongst them were also stockpiling ammo for the hunting rifles and shotguns they owned.

It was a turning point for me. I made my decision to take a stand against the enculturation of fear. We didn’t finish the bomb shelter my parents had started in the ‘70s. We didn’t buy 50 pound bags of rice. We didn’t even get extra candles.

I decided, then and there, that I would not raise my children in a culture of fear.

So, ten years later, here was my kid, looking me in the eye and asking for reassurance. And I told her what I believe to be true; “No, honey. The world is not going to end in 2012.”

Anger surged in me, even though I know I can’t control my kids’ environments fully, even though I know that the culture of fear will grow, fungus-like, into the cracks where fear already lives. The innate, biological fear of death that wraps itself around us, fills the darkened cracks and crevasses, and warps our vision of future possibility.

I asked my daughter who it was that said that the world would end, but the question was irrelevant; just like in the ‘70s, just like in 1500s when the plague was spreading like wildfire, just like in 1000 AD, the end is nigh!

The funny thing is, most Back-to-the-Landers are not even Christian. Yet, the at-once fear-driven and hope-inspired belief that, indeed, the shit WILL come down, strongly mirrors the Christian preoccupation with the apocalypse.

Some wait and pray for the downfall of the Machine, imagining a day when the collapse of The World As We Know It will lead us through a magical doorway, and back into “the garden’; a beautiful place where people live (once again, some would claim) in harmony with the land, sit around campfires, and build egalitarian communities together.

Famine, global warming, war without end. Yes, these are sorry and sad truths. But signs that the end is at hand? I choose to think that they are not.

Moreover, I choose not to raise my children believing that they are.

Peak oil will happen. Maybe sooner, maybe later. But will we rise to the occasion and adapt to renewable energy sources? The answer is yet to be seen, but it’s not out of the question that there will be a positive outcome.

War rages as it has since time immemorial. Will that ever change? What if there was a chance that there are positive effects of the globalization of culture? What if 13-year-old pen-pals who live in America, Israel, and Palestine learn to build a world beyond boundaries?

Some may call me pollyanna, or worse. Some may think I’m living with my head in the sand. Some may think I’m a starry-eyed idealist. I assure you I am not. I’m well aware of the global predicament.

And, that secret dread I mentioned at the opening of this article? The secret dread is that maybe the shit IS coming down. Maybe we won’t make the collective changes that need to be made in time. Maybe, even though it wasn’t Y2K, or any of the other “This is it!” scares that have happened in my life and beyond, maybe this IS it!

When this dread arises, I ask myself a few questions. These are those questions:

Do I want to raise my children to love life, or to fear death? Do I want to raise them to trust their fellow man, or to weave nihilistic, egoist tales of conspiracy? Do I want raise my children to believe that the nameless, faceless “Them” is like a Hydra with innumerable heads and  poisonous breath, or do I want my children to think beyond an “us” and a “them” into a place of “we”?

I choose to raise my children grounded strongly in a sense of justice and the possibility of effecting change. I inculcate my children with the idea that this is now, and now is what we make it. I don’t frighten them with the spectre of a post-apocalyptic tomorrow, nor do I promise them the return of the garden, the advent of heaven on earth.

I choose to raise my children with their feet on the ground, and their hands reaching for the stars that glow in a future of their own making.

How to be Transparent in Parenting by Lasara Allen

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Modeling is always the strongest message. You want your kids to be honest? How about you be honest, too?

What is transparency? The definition I like the most is; the quality that allows light to pass through, undisturbed. As a parenting metaphor, this is a great image; we’re transparent when there’s nothing clouding our interactions with our children.

Sex, drugs, money; they’re all topics that may have been avoided in your family of origin. But do you want your kids getting answers from the same unreliable sources you did? On the schoolyard, TV, your parents, the government?

The conspicuous silences in your communication are an OUT LOUD statement – about what’s inappropriate, shameful, unmentionable. If you want your kids getting different messages than the ones you were handed, make sure you’re giving voice to your opinions.

Normalize the topics that make you want to freeze up. Talk with your friends, talk with your trusted advisers; talk with your coach, your priest, your therapist, your doctor, talk with your parents, talk with your peers. Know that there’s a whole world of information out there. If you feel conflicted about your own ideas, educate yourself about different views.

If money was a hidden topic in your family and you feel that hasn’t served you in your quest for financial literacy, give your kids a head start by bringing them into alignment with your financial values. If you want your kids to know that sex is a thing to build clarity about, model it by having values-based conversations with your kids about how to define their own sexual values.

If your kids ask a question and you’re not ready to answer it, let them know you’re not ready to answer it. Never blame them for asking the question, but own your own discomfort.

With your nonjudgmental guidance and conscientious modeling, this process can begin before your kids are even bringing direct question to you for answers.

There is a line of balance – maybe it’s a tight-wire; don’t over share, or expect your kids to tell you all their deepest secrets. We all have a right to our boundaries, and our inner lives. But do create an environment where every question is valid, and every answer – even “I don’t know” – is too.

Here’s the bottom line; you want your kids to let you know what’s really happening in their lives? Let them into yours. You want your children to trust you enough to offer their transparency? Give them yours. You want your kids to be honest with you? Be honest with them.

Bonus Idea: Use my Sexual Ethics questionnaire for a tool that will help you find a starting place for these discussions. Write me at ms.allen@lasaraallen.com for your free copy.

Seven Steps to Healthy Communication with Your Kids

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lasara and girlsAs conscious parents working to create a better world, we know that the work – and joy – of it begins at home. Here are seven steps that offer you a foundation for clear and healthy communication with your most precious focus; your children.

1. Honor your kid’s questions with answers.

If your child is mature enough to formulate a question on a given topic, she is mature enough to get an honest answer from you. That answer should always be age appropriate, and within your comfort zone.

Sometimes an honest answer is “I don’t know,” or “That’s not a question I’m ready to answer.” If either of those are the case, follow up appropriately.

If you don’t know, you can always make it a research project for you and your kid to engage in together.

If you don’t feel comfortable answering a question because it gets into territory you feel conflicted about, own your boundary around it (see step 4), and let your child know when you would be willing to revisit the topic – whether it’s in a couple of days, or when your kid is in the fifth grade, or when you’ve sorted your stuff out. Always be responsible and proactive with the follow-up.

Bonus idea: Click here for directions on creating a “Question Box.”

2. Own your feelings.

Don’t make your discomfort your kid’s “fault.” If the question he has asked makes your hair stand on end and your face flush, know that your embarrassment, your discomfort, or your anger.

A danger inherent in parent-child communication is that your kid will take on your shame, your discomfort, or your unease. Or, in cases where a kid is a “mismatcher”, they may act out in opposition to your stance. If you don’t want your kids blindly falling into – or acting out in response to – your wounding, patterning, imprinting or behaviors, own your internal conflicts.

3. What isn’t said speaks more loudly than what IS.

Ignore it and it’ll go away? Not a chance. But sooner or later, your kid(s) will – especially if you’re unable to answer the questions brought to you. Sex, drugs, money; they’re all topics that may have been avoided in your family of origin. But do you want your kids getting answers from the same unreliable sources you did? (On the schoolyard, TV, your parents, the government?)

The conspicuous silences in your communication are an OUT LOUD statement – about what’s inappropriate, shameful, unmentionable. If you want your kids getting different messages than what you were handed, make sure you’re giving voice to your opinions.

Normalize the topics that make you want to freeze up. Talk with your friends, talk with your trusted advisors (your coach, your priest, your therapist, your doctor), talk with your parents, talk with your peers. Know that there’s a whole world of information out there. If you feel conflicted about your own ideas, educate yourself about different views.

If money was a hidden topic in your family and you feel that hasn’t served you in your quest for financial literacy, give your kids a head start by bringing them into alignment with your financial values.

If you want your kids to know that sex is a good thing to have clarity about, model it by having values-based conversations with your kids about how to define their own sexual values.

With your nonjudgmental guidance and conscientious modeling, this process can begin consciously before your kids are even bringing direct question to you for answers.

Bonus Idea: Use my Sexual Ethics questionnaire for a tool that will help you find a starting place for these discussions. Write me at ms.allen@lasaraallen.com for your free copy.

4. Own your boundaries.

We all need appropriate boundaries. Modeling boundaries is, in my opinion, one of the most resourceful gifts you can offer your kids. One of the best way to offer boundary awareness to your kids is to model healthy boundaries in your interactions with them.

This means that you have not only the right, but the responsibility to say “stop!” when your wee one is hurting you, to close the door when you need a minute to yourself, to go for a run on a daily basis – no matter how needy others might be feeling.

Your healthy boundary also makes a clear distinction, and allows you to own your limitations or discomfort. In the course of a conversation or other interaction with your kids, you are bound to occasionally come up against the edges of your comfort zone. In these moments, it creates clarity to own your boundary, and make it clear that any discomfort you feel is due to your own process, and not something that your young-one is doing wrong.

5. Respect your child’s boundaries.

Healthy boundaries go both ways. Another element of boundary in parenting that is all-too-often overlooked is this one; if you want your kids to know that their boundaries are to be respected, you must respect your kid’s “no.”

This can be tricky, but it must be worked out.

For example, sharing is a great value to instill. However, I know how I’d feel if someone came into my office and said “You aren’t using your cell phone right now. Let Joe use it.” My response would be along the lines of “Well, I don’t lend out my cell phone, but Joe is welcome to use the house phone.”

Yet, often parents will enforce sharing to such a degree that it can erode a kid’s sense of control. Negotiate with your young-one. Create agreed-upon rules about sharing, such as designating certain items as “special” ones that they will never be asked to share.

With touch-related boundaries, it may be the most important to respect our kid’s voice. If little Aaron doesn’t like being grabbed and kissed by Aunt Joan, or tickled by his cousins, help him to voice his boundary.

Helping to set a boundary with Aunt Joan may be an uncomfortable moment, but everyone is sure to learn something in it, and Aaron is going to know that he never has to be touched in a way that’s not comfortable for him in order to make someone else feel better.

If we want our kids to have the power of knowing that boundaries are to be respected, we need to both model firm boundaries for ourselves and our kids, and respect our children when they place a boundary that is reasonable.

6. Respectful, loving touch fosters connection! Stay embodied.

Kids listen better when they feel safe. (We all do.) They also communicate better when they know you aren’t mad at them. (We all do.) Creating consensual, appropriate, loving connection through physical touch can help both parties stay present in an interaction.

There are many different modes for communication. Different types and levels of physical engagement are appropriate to different settings.

If your child enjoys horsing around, sometimes breaking the tension with a little tickling, wrestling or clowning around is totally appropriate. Or, sometimes massaging your kid’s neck while you chat might be just the right thing.

If your little one is feeling sad, ask if he wants a hug. If your child is feeling tender or vulnerable, it can be great to offer to just hold your kid while he cries. If that’s too much, or not desired, you can offer your hand for holding.

Most importantly, pay attention to your child’s physiological responses, and respond accordingly. If your kid prefers sitting side-to-side instead of face-to-face, talk while sitting on the couch.

One of my daughters loves to have sit-down meetings with her parents. She’s the younger kid, and loves all the attention being on her for the time that we give it. My older daughter, on the other hand, prefers a casual chat while in the car, out on a walk, or her favorite – while shopping.

The point is, every kid is different, with different needs, comfort levels, and desires regarding touch, embodiment and process. Pay attention to what makes your kid more comfortable, and communication will get easier.

Another way to stay embodied is to remember to breathe. If things get stressful, consciously choose to relax your body. Breath into the moment, and you will be more likely to respond the moment that is occurring, rather than reacting to how your dad responded when you brought up the same issue, and you were in the seat that your son is in.

There are two benefits to this practice; the first is that you will be more relaxed, which is a positive thing in and of itself. The second is that your child’s body will respond to your relaxation by matching it.

Whiling remaining conscious and respectful of boundary, connect with your kids on a physical level while you communicate with them. And, stay engaged with your own physiological center.

7. The model is the message.

“Do what I say, not what I do,” doesn’t work. Your kids believe you. They watch you. They look up to you. They learn from you. And, actions speak so much louder than words.

When my clients say demoralizing things about themselves, my standard response is “How would you feel if your kid did (or said, felt or thought) that? Because, she’s going to.” Your kids will, consciously or unconsciously, emulate your modeling.

In this way, self-care is taking care of your children. Your ability to take care of yourself is one of the best foundational messages you can offer your kids. If you don’t want your kids to smoke, quit smoking. If you are having a hard time quitting, talk with your kids about it.

When you make a commitment to shifting a pattern of your own behavior, you can also enroll your kid’s support. This is another opportunity to model resilient skills for your kids. Ask for the help and support you need. Explain why shifting the pattern is hard for you. Use it as an opportunity to educate your kids on good choice-making, using yourself as an example.

Transparency and integrity are areas that you may also choose to model. “I only smoke when I’m away from my kids,” may seem like a good way to limit the damage, but how would you feel if your kid said “Well, I only smoke when I’m away from you.”

When you tell your kids not to get in the car with anyone who’s drinking, and then drive them home from a party after you’ve had a beer, you’re sending a mixed message. It’s confusing, and builds in not only the space for justification in the particular (well, Jo isn’t drunk, so I guess it’s okay to get a ride with her…), but also the room for justification in other areas.

Do you obfuscate? Do you outright lie to your kids? If so, you are ultimately undermining your own authority. How do you think your kids will feel when they find out that you did inhale? If you lie to your kids, or if your behaviors and your words don’t match up, you are giving your kids a template for behaving in the same way. If you value transparency and honesty, model it.

Are you being a resourceful and integrated model for your kids? Here’s a good guideline; ask yourself,  ‘If my kid were engaging in the behavior I’m engaging in, how would I feel about it?”

Bonus idea: Create a family charter of agreements.

Sustainable Family Values – How Values Grow.

You are always modeling your values. The tricky part is that we often have two sets of values – idealized values (the values we like to think we have) and applied values (the values we actually live by). If what you think you believe, and how you act in your day to day don’t match up, you’re out of alignment with your ideal values.

You can shift your values into alignment by changing your behaviors to match up with your beliefs. The steps I have offered in this article offer a great starting point for the work of coming into alignment.

The more consciously you engage with living your values, the more aligned your modeling will be with your ideal life. This is a true win/win situation; as you model the behavior that you would most want to see your children emulate, you begin living the best possible version of your life.

Bonus Idea: Define your family’s shared values.

The Answer to the Season’s Biggest Question; Yes, Santa IS Real!

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When it comes to the delicate matter of belief, there are creative ways to answer our children’s questions without taking the magic out of life.

When my oldest daughter was about five, she asked whether Santa Claus was real. Her dad and I told her that Santa is real to those who believe.

Is love real? Is hope real? Is magic real? Is faith real? We can’t touch or see any of these things, but most of us do believe in at least a few of them. In some cases, we can feel them. In others, we see proof of them appearing in the physical world.

I still believe in Santa Claus, and always will.

I believe that Tibetan Lamas reincarnate with full recall of their previous lives. I believe in knights in shining armor, and princesses in towers. Sometimes it irks me to admit it, but believe I do. I believe in faeries, and faerie tales, pookas, ghosts, saints, and goblins. And I believe in Christmas miracles.

Just like I believe in God, with Its ineffability, and the many faces It wears.

<em>Jitterbug Perfume</em> by Tim Robbins has one of the best descriptions I’ve seen of the human relationship with deity. The premise is this: the gods depend upon our belief in them to survive. Our belief makes them real.

The power of belief is an important gift we must safeguard and instruct in our children. Belief is what we build our lives upon. Without belief, we’re cast adrift on an endless, meaningless sea. Belief offers a rudder when nothing else can help us find our way. 

At 12, my oldest daughter started our Christmas festivities by saying she no longer believes in Santa. And then complained when she didn’t feel the Christmas Spirit flooding her as we trimmed the tree.

I talked to her about faith.

The fact is, sometimes it’s been hard to have faith that Santa will come. I’ll admit it; even I of abundant belief I have been known to test The Spirit from time to time. In 2006 I made one such test. It was my first Christmas post-divorce. I had no one to give my Christmas list to. No one to tell what I hoped to find under the tree. That year it was hard to find my belief in the Spirit of Christmas.

I wanted indoor/outdoor, “Ugg” knock-off slippers. It was what I wanted. It was a deal between me and God, and since I had asked, God knew exactly what was required to prove my faith. I know, it’s kind of petty. Slippers?

But sometime it’s the little things that matter. Cozy feet on a lonely morning. A small gift out of nowhere.

Come Christmas, I was gifted a pair of slippers. The gifter didn’t buy them for me, but for a niece. When the slippers didn’t fit the quickly growing girl, my sister asked me to take them instead; she didn’t want to go to the trouble of carrying them home on the plane and exchanging them.

I whispered a thank you to Santa, and reminded myself that sometimes He works in mysterious ways. He makes miracles occur. Or at least the belief in Him does.

I didn’t know my sister was bringing slippers for the nieces. She didn’t know I wanted them, either. But He did. And He delivered.

Throughout my life I’ve seen innumerable miracles of Christmas faith occur, large and small. Movies are built on the theme of The Christmas Miracle.

Art imitates life. Off the screen, food banks fill for at least one day with more than enough to feed the local hungry. I’ve seen people open their doors to strangers so they would have somewhere to be on Christmas morning. I’ve seen communities pull together and provide gifts for children who would have otherwise gone without.

To quote the words of song writer Red West, popularized by Elvis, “if every day could be just like Christmas, what a wonderful world this would be.”

Christmas movies with their grand, soaring themes serve only as a reminder of what’s possible when we allow ourselves to invest in love and faith. And as believing becomes more effortless, the miracles become larger.

My faith in the Miracle of Christmas is no longer shakable. No more tests required – I finally got my ultimate proof.

In 2007 my Christmas Miracle was the grandest The Spirit of Christmas has yet conspired to deliver for me. The man I’ve been waiting my whole life to find crossed mountains and rivers that stormy December to be by my side and spend the holidays with me and the children.

The holidays have never ended for us. They’ll continue for the rest of our lives. The man of my dreams, now my husband, hasn’t left since.

That Christmas I felt like both Doris and little Susan in Miracle on 34th Street; the home, the family, the life that I had been nearly afraid to desire became my greatest Christmas miracle. Now every holiday season is a celebration of that most profound of miracles; the emergence of a love perfect and complete.

As a Mystic Mama, I don’t feel that I’m misleading my children by encouraging them to believe in a power that makes their lives happier, more joyous, more bountiful, more hopeful, more magical.

As they grow older, my children get to become an active part of that energy of selfless giving. They become the ones who enact the spirit. The arms, legs, bodies and hearts that offer those miracles up.

I know from personal experience that the Holiday Spirit does exist. It’s palpable. It acts in the world.

Call it the power of faith, or Jesus, or Santa Claus, or generosity, it’s a reminder of a bond of love for our fellow man. Regardless of the name we give it, it sustains. It acts through and for each of us, bringing miracles to bear.

Kind of like God.

Five Ways to Engage Your Kids in Grateful Giving

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Offering.When funds are tight, giving reminds us of how much we have, and how fortunate we are.

While coming face-to-face with money problems can be a challenging experience, being able to do something about it is a saving grace. Especially for children, a sense of empowerment is a key factor to viewing the global situation of “have and have-not” with compassion instead of fear.

The power to create solutions, even in small ways, is both a learning opportunity, and a healing act that serves both giver and receiver. Generosity is a balm that soothes the soul.

With our nation in the grasp of some hard financial times, many of us are holding back on the consumptive aspect of our former lifestyles.

What better way than giving, to remind us what we’ve got?

1. Cull/weed household belongings and take them to the local shelter, women’s center, or philanthropic thrift store.
An easy starting point to cultivating generosity in your family is to cull or weed your belongings. While you get rid of household items, suggest that your kids do the same with their things. Have them decide what they’re willing to part with to help a kid in need.

Call your local shelter and see what they need, and what they’re willing to take. If you’re flush you can throw in some new items like toiletries and such. The shelter will be grateful.

Al Arroub Camp, West Bank, Palestine.

Boys Playing with Supply Dolly, Al Arroub Refugee Camp, West Bank, Palestine.

If your kids are ready for the experience, they may want to participate in the delivery of items, too. When my older daughter was 11, she asked me to bring her with me on a drop off.

We took our piles of clothes and toys to a local “free store” for struggling and homeless families. She still talks about how rewarding it felt to participate in the gifting. I’m sure it will be a memory she holds for life.

2. Host a Potlatch and take all leftover items to the charity or service of your choice.
The potlatch ceremony is also called a give-away. Potlatch comes from the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest coastline. In a potlatch, you give away your belongings as a celebration of your abundance.

In north-western native culture, the potlatch consisted of every home in the village putting belongings outside for the taking. The one who GAVE the most, as opposed to the family who had the most, gained the highest status in the community.

In native culture, this ceremony was undertaken for many reasons. All of them had to do with the redistribution of wealth. Wealth was not only measured in belongings, though. Not everyone in the community had material possessions to offer, and some offered dances or songs instead. These offerings were just as valued.

Invite your friends to bring belongings to offer, and to take what they need from what others are giving away.

In addition to being an achingly beautiful traditional ceremony, this is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint. A give-away is a way to reduce waste, clean out storage and closets, and it saves each participant the money, time, and by-product of a shopping trip, by way of new-to-them belongings.

At the end of the potlatch, invite your friends to leave all extra items, and take them to your local shelter or favorite charity.

3. Help your kid come up with ways to help humanity.
Food drives, clothing drives, penny drives, quilt drives, coat drives, and more. There are so many ways to help. What are some creative ways your child can come up with to gather resources together and offer them to those less fortunate?

For maximum impact on your kids’ sense of service, allow them to offer ideas, and do your best to support them. The more empowered your kid is to participate in grateful giving, the more organic and integrated the experience becomes.

One year my older daughter decided to bring her change jar – a huge pickle jar with a good start on coins – to her classroom for a change drive. Start to finish, it was completely her idea.

She wasn’t sure where the coins would go once the jar was full. With a little encouragement from me, she decided that her classmates will all bring suggestions of different local charities or services, and the class as a whole will decide together where the money will go.

I suggested that she choose the parameters; local, national, international? And other guidelines; a charity, a service, a fund? Buy items with the money and give them directly to the shelter? There are so many options.

The by-product of this course of action was that my daughter and her classmates researched the local charities and services, and learned about the network of support that they could plug into to offer service.

4. Offer service at your local soup kitchen.
Our local soup kitchen offers a family lunch service before the general lunch. While the general service might be a little risky to take kids to, the family meal is a great way for kids to put a face on those they’re helping.

Ask the kitchen if you can bring a dish, or home made cookies or something easy. Your child’s sense of accomplishment and generosity will be even larger if they’ve had a hand in creating the food they’re offering out.

New recreation center in Arroub Refugee Camp, West Bank, Palestine, 2009. All Funding from International Donors.

New recreation center in Arroub Refugee Camp, West Bank, Palestine, 2009. All Funding from International Donors.

5. Want to make it international, yet very personal? Microfinancing is a great option!
Microfinancing is a great way to involve your family in the international picture of wealth distribution, resources, and generosity. Getting into microfinancing is a great opportunity to talk to your kids about currencies, and how an American dollar goes a lot farther in a third-world country.

It’s also a great opportunity to illustrate the dire financial conditions in other countries, while still illustrating the fact that we are not powerless to create change.

Your family is unlikely to be able to fund an ecologically sound start-up for a poverty stricken American family. But, for example, $150 goes a long way in the Philippines. The listing below is from Kiva.org:

“Vicenta Duron is 52 years old … She tills a small parcel of land, which she inherited from her father. Her life is in farming and she loves growing crops, especially rice. …Vicenta needs a loan of $125 to purchase sacks of certified seed and fertilizers. She also plans to open a store where she can sell her farm produce, and increase her profits to support her family.”
-Kiva.org loan request

Kiva.org is designed so you can choose the project you most want to fund. And, you can make a loan of any amount and contribute to a larger fund, or choose a smaller one and make the whole loan yourselves.

For information on other microfinancing options, check out www.microfinancegateway.org.

I’m Grateful for 2009!

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Things I’m most grateful for from 2009

    The Kiss, Lasara and Robert Allen

  • Getting married to my true and eternal love. It’s for reals, yo! Seriously now, I didn’t think that love like this was possible, and there’s nothing I have loved more to be proved wrong about that. I want to shout it from the mountaintops; TRUE LOVE IS REAL! I have been matched, not just met. For finding my twin flame, I will be eternally grateful.
  • My constantly renewing relationship with my amazing daughters. They continue making my heart sing. My pride in them is boundless. I love the way they learn, listen, love, laugh. I love the way they allow themselves to cry, ask for hugs when they need them, reflect our family values of gratitude, honesty, generosity, and friendliness. I love watching them grow into young women, sometimes slowly – and sometimes just a little bit faster than I’d like for a moment or two. Then I remember; “Your children are not your children./They are the sons and daughters of Life’s own longing for itself./They come through you but not from you,/And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.” – The Prophet, On Children, Kahlil Gibran. They are becoming more themselves – more self possessed – everyday.
  • Learning trust. It’s a BIG ONE for me, and my man has been instrumental in helping me to confront and move through the fears that have previously blocked my ability to achieve it.
  • Learning honesty and transparency on a deeper level than ever before. This great gift has allowed, and is allowing for my true, authentic self to reveal itself day by day. It has allowed my defensiveness to drop, my stories to fall away, transform, change.

    • Mr. and the Kids make Cupcakes.

  • My gratitude practice. It keeps me moving into living the life I long to create. (I like saying it that way better than, “creating the life I long to live.”
  • My physical practice. Though I’m not perfect at it (that’s why it’s called practice, right?), it saves my life and my sanity. I am growing more committed and successful in it everyday. Especially with the half marathon I’m training for. :-) My asana yoga, running, Pilates, boot camp, the sweat, the gentle burn, the increase in lng capacity, my heart growing stronger, the stabilization of my body chemicals; I would can’t live without it.
  • My increase in self-directed honesty and insight about bipolar disorder and how it affects my life. Again with much gratitude to my Mr. and to my girls, I’m learning how to manage a condition/disorder/disability that will be a part of my world for the rest of my life. My man truly understands how bipolar disorder affects me, and he’s learning to hear and notice my symptoms, and understand and support me me without judgment.
  • Opportunities to advocate for understanding of bipolar disorder like The Hot Mommas Project case study competition – and, like this one, right now. THANK YOU for listening/reading.
  • A final willingness to accept the help that new classes of medications can offer people who live with bipolar disorder. Even when I my meds feel like a block instead of a baseline, I find my gratitude for the stabilization they offer. Sure, there are things I’ve had to give up – like the Super-High of mania. But the manic high, just like many forms of “high” do, affected my judgment and made me a real bit*h to live with. I’ happy to becoming happy, trust-worthy, and trusting. Even if it means I’ve turned down the volume of life by a few clicks. The white noise got kinda loud sometimes anyway.
    • My new year novena., santa teresita

    My new year's eve novena; a flowery and easeful, trusting prayer to Santa Teresita.

  • My growing comfort with and honesty about my conversion experience, and my conversion itself polytheism/pantheism (the religion I was raised in and practiced into my 30s – even to the extent that I was ordained as a Priestess of a Neo-Pagan church at 29) to monotheism. It’s bee a huge shift, and in the process I’ve lost touch with much of my community. (This part of it was somewhat unavoidable, though sad, and an area I would like to somehow mend.) But on the positive, there were many moments of growth, awareness, and unarguably miraculous experience  that are traced in light and grace and tattooed on the surface of my cells in this romance with God, and the slow dawning of my true change of heart. This mystical transformation has been a grand, glorious, at times tumultuous love affair with my own wholeness. Ibn ‘Arabi says it perfectly; “My heart has become capable of every form:/it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,/And a temple for idols, and the pilgrim’s Ka’ba,/and the tables of the Tora and the book of the Koran./I follow the religion of Love, whichever way his camels take…“
  • My relationship with God. How “It” is (I am) there (here) even when I forget that it is/I am.

For me, 2009 was an awe-inspiring, heart-shaking, challenging, revelatory, heart-opening, dream-manifesting, intense, liberating, life-changing year. Through it, I’ve grown into a new me. My marriage has tempered me, and revealed me. My children have grown me up through their own amazing growth. After two years in a shared cocoon, the Mr. and I emerge, pupua to perfectly paired butterflies.

It’s a whole new world.

I hope that your 2009 has been as amazing.

I trust that 2010 will bring more of what we all desire from seed to flower, in our abundant gardens of dreams.

Happy 2010 from Lasára and the Allen Household!

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Robert and Lasára Allen, Dec. 25, '09Tired of New Years Resolutions? Why Not New Years Commitments, Intetionstions, and Fun?

Have you made any resolutions? Many of us make resolutions and then fail. Many of us make resolutions and then fail. I’m choosing to make intentions and commitments. But always with one cautionary caveat, which I encourage YOU to adopt as well; remember that while today is the first day of the rest of your year, this is also the first day of the rest of your life! And, this moment is the first moment of the rest of your physical existence. Every breath is a chance to make a new choice.

When you “fall short” of that commitment, offer yourself compassion instead of self-denigration, and gratitude instead of blame.

This new year, I’ll be making three lists. Each has a higher level of commitment 1: Commitments; 2: Intentions; 3; My “WHY NOT?” List.

List One; Commitments:

  • To recognize that every area of practice towards my own health is an act of dedication to the liberation of all sentient beings pervading time and space.
  • To recognize that serving my husband, my children, my family and my friends are part of my spiritual practice, and to treat it as such. And, to remember that this also serve the liberation of all beings.
  • To continue following the path that my gratitude practice opens for me.
  • To train towards my physical and fitness goals with passion and dedication. Failure is not an option.
  • To remain open to the idea, realization, (fact?), that love can be easeful, and that I am safe in it. And, safe in the arms and grace of my Mr.
  • Without expectation, to celebrate every anniversary and celebration that my Mr. and I can count as momentous; Valentines day when he moved in, reconfirmation June 26 in Seattle, August 12 when we eloped, Oct 3rd when we reconfirmed our vows, and Christmas when he was delivered to me – my greatest Christmas Miracle ever.
  • To build a circle of similarly minded friends here in the area, and to actively commitment to this as a practice of faith, desire, and love.
  • To continue working in acceptance of the choices I have made to support my growing balance and mental health, even when those choices feel like limitations.
  • To continue sharing my gifts with the world in whatever ways I am capable of at any time.
  • To continue trusting that God has a plan for me that is greater than I can see, and that every day I’m fulfilling that plan by living my life in as much consciousness as I can achieve.

Ror, Dec. 25, '09

List Two; Intentions

  • To begin praying and meditating again in a way that serves to ground and inspire me instead of making me too high and open.
  • To allow financial, desired, perfect abundance to enter and flow in my life, and have less attachment about how that flow occurs. To trust that God knows best how to deliver this abundance.
  • To follow the attraction and direction of my heart with grace, trust, and joy.
  • To invest in and develop forgiveness for myself and and the harm that occurred in my past.
  • More and more, to allow the support I so deeply desire.
  • To take what I have learned of trust, honesty, and openness from my husband and begin generalizing it to the rest of the world.
  • To hold regular gatherings as part of my community building adventure.
  • To close at least one book deal.
  • To write my next book, or books.
  • To shop Gratigories to a card publisher who may also want to publish my gratitude books.
  • To take trips outside the area more regularly.
  • To begin reading more books again.

List 3; My “WHY NOT?” List (next year and beyond):

  • Plan a belated honeymoon to Europe (Italy primarily) with my Mr.Sollie, 12.25.09
  • Run a half marathon.
  • Work toward my best comprehensive health in my life.
  • Get yoga instructor 200 hour certification.
  • Trust that love and sexual sharing can be exactly as I hope for it; easy, safe, based purely in shared desire and trust.
  • Explore new religions. (Catholicism, traditional Tantra, deeper into Tibetan Buddhism and Tantric teachings and ritual.)
  • Explore excavation of darkness and shadow, in the light.
  • Go dancing.
  • Take a dance class (again after all these years).
  • Take a voice class (again after all these years).
  • Visit different churches just to see what part of me the services sing to.

And, my final commitment; to visit this page at least once every three months, and mark off the things that actually have a completion point, and star the things I’m doing well on that are a path without destination.

What are your commitments, intentions, or WHY NOTs? I look forward to seeing what you have to share.

And with wishes of joy, abundance, and greatest gratitude, a very heartfelt prayer for a 2010 that is beyond your sweetest dreams, from our home and family to yours.

In GRATITUDE! (heart here!)

5 Ways to Engage Your Kids in Grateful Giving

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When funds are tight, giving reminds us of how much we have, and how fortunate we are.

While coming face-to-face with money problems can be a challenging experience, being able to do something about it is a saving grace. Especially or children, a sense of empowerment is a key factor to viewing the global situation of “have and have-not” with compassion instead of fear.

The power to create solutions, even in small ways, is both a learning opportunity, and a healing act that serves both giver and receiver. Generosity is a balm that soothes the soul.

With our nation in the grasp of some hard financial times, many of us are holding back on the consumptive aspect of our former lifestyles.

What better way than giving, to remind us what we’ve got?

1. Cull/weed household belongings and take them to the local shelter, women’s center, or philanthropic thrift store.
An easy starting point to cultivating generosity in your family is to cull or weed your belongings. While you get rid of household items, suggest that your kids do the same with their things. Have them decide what they’re willing to part with to help a kid in need.

Call your local shelter and see what they need, and what they’re willing to take. If you’re flush you can throw in some new items like toiletries and such. The shelter will be grateful.

If your kids are ready for the experience, they may want to participate in the delivery of items, too. When my older daughter was 11, she asked me to bring her with me on a drop off.

We took our piles of clothes and toys to a local “free store” for struggling and homeless families. She still talks about how rewarding it felt to participate in the gifting. I’m sure it will be a memory she holds for life.

2. Host a Potlatch and take all leftover items to the charity or service of your choice.
The potlatch ceremony is also called a give-away. Potlatch comes from the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest coastline. In a potlatch, you give away your belongings as a celebration of your abundance.

In north-western native culture, the potlatch consisted of every home in the village putting belongings outside for the taking. The one who GAVE the most, as opposed to the family who had the most, gained the highest status in the community.

In native culture, this ceremony was undertaken for many reasons. All of them had to do with the redistribution of wealth. Wealth was not only measured in belongings, though. Not everyone in the community had material possessions to offer, and some offered dances or songs instead. These offerings were just as valued.

Invite your friends to bring belongings to offer, and to take what they need from what others are giving away.

In addition to being an achingly beautiful traditional ceremony, this is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint. A give-away is a way to reduce waste, clean out storage and closets, and it saves each participant the money, time, and by-product of a shopping trip, by way of new-to-them belongings.

At the end of the potlatch, invite your friends to leave all extra items, and take them to your local shelter or favorite charity.

3. Help your kid come up with ways to help humanity.
Food drives, clothing drives, penny drives, quilt drives, coat drives, and more. There are so many ways to help. What are some creative ways your child can come up with to gather resources together and offer them to those less fortunate?

For maximum impact on your kids’ sense of service, allow them to offer ideas, and do your best to support them. The more empowered your kid is to participate in grateful giving, the more organic and integrated the experience becomes.

One year my older daughter decided to bring her change jar – a huge pickle jar with a good start on coins – to her classroom for a change drive. Start to finish, it was completely her idea.

She wasn’t sure where the coins would go once the jar was full. With a little encouragement from me, she decided that her classmates will all bring suggestions of different local charities or services, and the class as a whole will decide together where the money will go.

I suggested that she choose the parameters; local, national, international? And other guidelines; a charity, a service, a fund? Buy items with the money and give them directly to the shelter? There are so many options.

The by-product of this course of action was that my daughter and her classmates researched the local charities and services, and learned about the network of support that they could plug into to offer service.

4. Offer service at your local soup kitchen.
Our local soup kitchen offers a family lunch service before the general lunch. While the general service might be a little risky to take kids to, the family meal is a great way for kids to put a face on those they’re helping.

Ask the kitchen if you can bring a dish, or home made cookies or something easy. Your child’s sense of accomplishment and generosity will be even larger if they’ve had a hand in creating the food they’re offering out.

5. Want to make it international, yet very personal? Microfinancing is a great option!
Microfinancing is a great way to involve your family in the international picture of wealth distribution, resources, and generosity. Getting into microfinancing is a great opportunity to talk to your kids about currencies, and how an American dollar goes a lot farther in a third-world country.

It’s also a great opportunity to illustrate the dire financial conditions in other countries, while still illustrating the fact that we are not powerless to create change.

Your family is unlikely to be able to fund an ecologically sound start-up for a poverty stricken American family. But, for example, $150 goes a long way in the Philippines. The listing below is from Kiva.org:

“Vicenta Duron is 52 years old … She tills a small parcel of land, which she inherited from her father. Her life is in farming and she loves growing crops, especially rice. …Vicenta needs a loan of $125 to purchase sacks of certified seed and fertilizers. She also plans to open a store where she can sell her farm produce, and increase her profits to support her family.”
-Kiva.org loan request

Kiva.org is designed so you can choose the project you most want to fund. And, you can make a loan of any amount and contribute to a larger fund, or choose a smaller one and make the whole loan yourselves.

For information on other microfinancing options, check out www.microfinancegateway.org.

About the author:
Lasára Allen is an author, an educator, and an advocate. Her articles cover a range of topics including gratitude, parenting, relationships, fitness, yoga, health & holistic well-being, compassion, and spiritual practice. As an advocate, Lasára writes and speaks about living, parenting and working with bipolar disorder. In 2008 she designed GratitudeGames..

Over the years, Lasára has helped clients and students find balance in their lives, and alignment with personal and family-held values. She has taught, spoken, and coached internationally.

Lasára is mom to two amazing daughters, and wife to Robert Allen, an outstanding man.

Find more of Lasára’s writing at http://www.LasaraAllen.com, and more about Lasára’s gratitude projects at http://www.TheGratitudePlace.com.

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