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

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!

Register a loved one for the Sexy Witch Teleclass experience!!!


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

The Gift of Recognition

Altruistic Fostering: http://balneus.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/chimps-altruism-and-helping-with-the-kids-of-others/

This week in my teleclass series, A Course in Deep Acceptance, we’re working on the theme of “Family”. Here I’ll share one of the exercises from the course materials with you.

The Gift of Recognition

Sometimes when I’m in the middle of a project it’s hard to hear a request for my attention as anything other than a distraction. And the less I pay attention, the bigger my child’s need gets for a moment of connection.

Soon, the chant of “mom! Mom! MOm! MOM!” begins, and my edge starts rising.

The energy shifts the moment that I remember this is an opportunity for presence and a chance for a moment of divine interaction. All I need to do is come present in love.

Today, I invite you to consciously enter into interaction as a moment-to-moment opportunity for the experience of pure presence. Bring your whole self into your heart, and connect from there.

Recognize the inherent wholeness, integrity, perfection in your loved ones, in strangers, in yourself. Make “love” a verb.

Want more? Read The Devotion of Presence and The Presence of Devotion; Dilemmas of a Householder.

Nahalin – Memories of a World Apart

sunset outside nahalinSince 2007, memories of Palestine have been resting, sometimes silently, sometimes urgently, beneath the day-to-day breath of my life.

Having made a new friend who walked some of the same roads I did, the memories rise again to the surface, unanchored:

Sunset on the edge of the village of Nahalin, a family gathers on the rooftop of their cement and rebar home. Two ancient women. A beautiful young mother, striking yet modest in dark hijab, her child climbing onto her lap. Simply-dressed, elegant-limbed young men.

I smell the Arabic coffee from the car as we drive by, cardamom and sugar mixed with the earthy, deep smell of the Middle Eastern roast. I ask the men I am riding with, “What’s the occasion do you think?” They say, “Evening.”

The moment stops for me, a freeze-frame set in my mind’s eye. “This is what the world is like when it slows down,” I think.

Riding from a peace gathering outside Bethlehem back into town with a car full of Arab men I don’t know, I am grateful for having taken the road less traveled by.

The driver is jovial. He drives fast. The three men sing boisterously along with an Arabic pop song on the radio, laughing, for a moment entirely carefree.

I watch ancient terracing and olive trees flit by outside the window. The evening turns a deeper shade of shifting gold, horizon molten and the air dusky.

“I will remember this moment for the rest of my life,” I think.

This is only one petal, of one rose, of a garden of roses. Too many stories to tell. But slowly – shwaya, shwaya – some of them will find their way to my lips, ensh’llah.

How to be Transparent in Parenting by Lasara Allen

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.

Lasára Allen…author, educator, activist, coach.

Lasara Firefox AllenTopics: parenting, relationships, family, advice, fitness, yoga, health & holistic well-being, gratitude, compassion, and spiritual practice, gratitude games, gratitude journal, science of gratitude, health benefits of gratitude, family, parenting, communication, compassion, spirituality, health, wholism, sustainability, positive globalism, giving, health and fitness, running, fitness, exercise, yoga, Pilates. Nonfiction, self-help, how-to, advice.

Thank you for visiting my site! I look forward to interacting with you. Check out the articles. Read, comment, reprint (with credit and links intact!), enjoy!

Use any of these articles as copy for your blog, website, newsletter or e-zine. Let me know about the reprint by sending a note to lasara.allen.mpnlp@gmail.com. Please include all links and Lasára’a bio (below) in all reprints.

You’re always welcome to contact me with thoughts, requests for info, invitations to present at e-conferences, teleseminars, seminars, for speaking engagements, or other reasons I may not have thought of! Please drop me a note at: lasara.allen.mpnlp@gmail.com.

Bio:

Lasara Firefox Allen is an internationally published, best-selling author, educator, and activist. Her book Sexy Witch (Llewellyn, 2005, under the name LaSara FireFox)) is published in four languages and distributed globally. Lasara’s latest print publication is The Pussy Poems, which is both a personal and political statement on the state of the cooch (and a women’s right to reproductive choice) in the USA. Her writing is feature in numerous anthologies, textbooks, and print and on-line journals and zines.

Lasara’s writing covers a range of topics including relationships and intimacy, family, parenting, communication, sex and sexuality, feminism, media literacy as it relates to body-image and self-esteem, writing, yoga, health & holistic well-being, mental health and bipolar disorder, gratitude, compassion, and spiritual practice.

She is a respected speaker, teacher, and facilitator, and has a selective and thriving coaching practice.

Married to the love of her life, Robert Allen, and mother to two amazing daughters, Lasara and her family live in the wilds of northern California. They surround themselves with a community of loving, like-minded souls.

Find out more at www.tattoosandtomatoes.com, https://www.facebook.com/lasara.firefox.allen.mpnlp, www.tarotwithlasara.com, and www.thepussypoems.com.

MORE ABOUT LASÁRA:

Read more about Lasara at Wikipedia.

Listen to Lasara’s Raising Grateful Children Teleclass here.

Lasara’s past podcasting:

Yoga Mama Satsangha
Some topics: The Quiet Revolution – Beyond Sharing the Housework * The Importance of Daily Practice 
Yoga Mama Satsangha; When Values Clash…
 * LaSara interviews Anna Getty of the illustrious Getty Family, and founder of Pure Style Living and Pregnancy Awareness Month (PAM). * and more.

Wisdom Being in Work
Wisdom Being in Work, LaSara interviews Ariel Gore, prolific author and founder and former editor of Hip Mama Magazine. * LaSara interviews Christine Comaford-Lynch.

Winner:
Hot Mommas Project – mentoring for women and girls; international case study competition, 2008 – 2009

Nominations:
Shorty Award, #literary category, 2010
S
Shorty Award, #gratitude category, 2009
Persevering Business Woman of the Year, 2009
California Outstanding Women of the Year, 2009

Neuro-Linguistic Programing Affiliations:
Pure NLP/Society of NLP with Richard Bandler; NLP Trainer Training
Hawkridge Training Institute with Phil Farber; NLP Master Practitioner Training
NLP California with Tim Halbom; NLP Practioner Training

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

Keywords: — The Answer to the Season’s Biggest Question; Yes, Santa IS Real!, santa claus, santa clause, god, christmas, family, values, generosity, mysticism, children, santa is real, holiday season, hard questions, faith, christmas spirit, jesus, belief , magic, miracles, christmas miracles, question, santa, spirit, babbo natale

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.

The Benefits of Gratitude in Family Life

Sol, Lasára, and Ror, 6.14.08The Benefits of Gratitude in Family Life

Gratitude increases health dramatically on all levels; there are health benefits to gratitude on the physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual levels. It’s been scientifically proven that the regular practice of gratitude can improve your level of overall happiness by 25%!

Practicing gratitude with your children encourages both humility and empowerment. It offers easy recognition of your family’s wealth and abundance – no matter your financial picture – and a desire to share that abundance with the world. This Raising Grateful Children teleclass recording teaches you how to inspire and instill the practice of gratitude in your child, while honoring her or his experience of life.

Cultivating and nurturing gratitude in our children is the beginning of a journey towards health, well-being, fulfillment, and generosity of spirit.

Gratitude offers benefits that range from the physical, to the psychological, to the spiritual, and affects both our inner and outer lives. Gratitude practice, in and of itself, bring us into creative co-creation with our day-to-day reality, our family and friends, the world, and colors our experience of all those things. Gratitude-colored glasses make everything look brighter!

In this look at why making a psychological and spiritual practice of gratitude in your family is such a good idea, we’ll just scratch the surface of some topics. For a deeper look into the pragmatics of the scientific angle, read The Science of Gratitude. For tips on creating more community- and service-based, interactive gratitude practice with your children, read 5 Ways to Engage Your Kids in Grateful Giving. For ways to bring gratitude, and the practice of it, easily and joyfully into the life of your close community, see How to Host a Gratitude Gathering.

If you’re ready to delve deeper into the subject matter, you can find all these articles in one package in the Gratitude Games Pro package.

Physical health benefits of gratitude:

Gratitude cancels out stress.

When your kid is facing some kind of trouble at school, or feeling your stress when you’re stuck in traffic, or feeling guilty for having done something they were reprimanded for, just like any of us, they’ll start thinking about all the reasons it’s horrible that they’re in the circumstances they’re in. If they’re anything like my younger daughter, they’re also very likely to begin thinking of all the other times that a similar thing happened.

Thoughts flock together, “…like birds of a feather,” as my mom says. As your kid starts playing free-association with how bad things are, it’s easy enough for them to start thinking, feeling, or even saying, as kids are known to do, “Why does this ALWAYS happen to me?” The thought cycle in a vicious circle, and your kid is left standing, or sitting, stewing in their own stress, discomfort, or sadness. Often it ends in heartbroken tears.

All the while, stress chemicals are streaming through your child’s body. Now, in some cases stress can be a positive thing. Stress is designed to get us out of emergency situations. Stress makes it possible for us to run faster, jump higher, lift more weight than we normally could, see more clearly. Acute stress can heighten the senses, and our physical capabilities.

When stress chemicals – which produce what’s known as the “fight or flight response” – are put to use immediately, there’s nothing that can stand in for that jolt of dopamine, adrenaline, and noradrenaline, and cortisol – also known as “the stress hormone”. Getting out of mortal danger is the most extreme example. More often, it’s less intense moments that benefit by the stress response; making that last sprint in a race, or even (when well-prepared) stress can help you finish a test or an exam in record time, without losing accuracy. When prepared to use the process of stress to your advantage, it’s more than helpful; it can be the difference between life and death, success and failure, goal completion or falling short of those goals.

However, in the case of chronic stress there’s no benefit. Without fail, the negative effects of long-term stress ravage the system. Stress bad for the heart, anxiety levels, digestion, skin, sleep patterns, and more.

Most of us are not prepared to put stress to positive use. This is especially true for most children, who are sitting at desks with an abundance of energy that needs to be capped up daily and (ideally) used later. Often this in itself is a stressful situation. Add in the fight-or-flight stress chemicals crisis situations like regular pop-testing and exams, school-yard politics, and potential bullying produce, and you have a very little system on pretty major stress-overload.

When you notice stress creeping up on your child, you can help him or her gain resilience with many tools including relaxation techniques, positive visualization, and turning their attention towards gratitude. The refocus will allow your child’s system to cancel those stressful responses and turn towards a healthy thought process that leads to empowerment, focus, positivity, resilience, ease, and even joy.

This refocus is a practice, but the great thing about any practice is it that it gets easier over time. But like playing piano or becoming an athlete, or healing from stress or past trauma, there’s never a “best” – always a “better.” Healing is a process and a path. There is no final destination.

Gratitude heals the heart.

Less stress=healthier heart! Stress hormones wear the heart down. Gratitude is proven to stop the production of stress chemicals and to increase the body response that leads to – and is caused by – happiness. Why not choose a happy, healthy circle of emotional thought instead of that “vicious” one I mentioned before?

Gratitude makes your body “happy”.

Gratitude is known to increase enthusiasm, alertness, determination, and other happy, positive, empowered feelings. Happy feelings lead to happy hormones and chemicals. Happy chemicals lead to a happy physiology. Happy leads to happy, basically. Start where you are, and grow your happiness, bit by bit.

Gratitude is a highly effective way to increase the happiness in your life. In fact, a study conducted in 2003 found that the regular practice of gratitude increases happiness by 25%. This fact can be seen as both a physiological and psychological benefit of gratitude, so it’s really a great place to jump to the next category of benfits; psychological benefits.

Psychological Benefits of Gratitude:

Gratitude allows us to repattern what we expect.

Whatever we pay attention to gets bigger. This is one area where we can absolutely count on a “return on investment.” Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “Worrying is like praying for something you don’t want.” If you think about that statement, you will begin understanding why reconditioning what we expect is so important.

To illustrate this point, think of a search engine like Google. Say you don’t know how a search engine works. You type the first thoughts that come to mind into the search box. Say those thoughts are poverty, war, despair. And you get page after page of hits, all showing how awful the world is.

This is very much how our thought process works. The thoughts that are the first to arise when we think of things we want, things we need, even things we’ve experienced in the past, we create an expectation of what we’ll find or experience next. One of my mentors says, “We don’t get what we want, we get what we expect.” That’s where the whole praying for something we don’t want analogy comes in. my reverend says, “If you spend five minutes a day praying for what we want, and the rest of our 24 hours in a day worrying we won’t get it, which do you think wins out?”

Negative in, negative out. We walk through the world predicting what will happen next, and we notice how our experience almost always delivers exactly what we expected to find.

There’s no big magical “secret” about it; you notice what you’re prepared to notice. If there is any sort of secret, it’s this; the hidden truth is that every moment holds a potentially infinite number of possible outcomes. You wil choose the one that allows you to be most right, stay most comfortable in your assumptions, and reliably predict your future experiences. This is often referred to as “staying in your comfort zone.”

Even when you think you want the opposite of what you keep predicting, expecting, and experiencing, the world delivers it – merely because it’s what you are more prepared to notice. And, noticing that which confirms your expectations makes you – you guessed it – comfortable.

Birds of a feather flock together; thoughts travel in packs.

Instead of investing in the possible negative outcome of your fears, gratitude helps you notice the good iny our life. And by noticing the things you’re grateful for – instead of steeling yourself against your fears – you seek, and find, more and more to be grateful for.

This is not only an amazingly liberating experience for you; it’s also wonderful modeling for your children. Moods are contagious. Habits are contagious. So is gratitude.

Gratitude may reduce the likelihood of depression.

Gratitude leads to a happier, healthier life. People who practice gratitude, or to whom gratitude comes naturally, have been found to have larger networks of support, and a more full life.

One risk is what psychologists call “hedonic adaptation.” Hedonic adaptation is a fancy term that means that we get used to the things that initially excite us. That’s why it’s important to always step-up your practice of gratitde. Just like building a muscle, learning how to play an instrument, or becoming more healthy, there’s always room for a new level of commitment and development.

The good news about adaptation is that it also happens with negative experiences, like loss, trauma, or any kind of emotional or physical pain. Over time, we get used to the state we’re in. Gratitude can help with the adaptation even more easily. Finding gratitude for the negative experiences we’ve experienced in our lives can speed the process of recovery from any kind of traumatic or painful experience.

Gratitude is linked with forgiveness, which is linked with healing from emotional scars.

Forgiveness is a key to recovery from psychological or emotional injury. Forgiveness may occur purely inside of yourself – through therapy, meditation, compassion exercises, prayer, or other practices – or through interaction with the one or ones that have been involved in any wounding you have experienced. The act of forgiving – yourself, as well as anyone else who has hurt you – allows you to grow through, and past, the pain.

Spiritual Benefits of Gratitude:

Gratitude opens the heart to the good in any situation, and the good in humanity.

When we begin seeing good in our experience, it’s easy to see it in others, and in their experience. Gratitude can lead to more trusting interactions, which lead to more experiences to be grateful for. It’s the act of noticing the good that already exists that allows the good to flourish in our lives, and in the world.

Gratitude offers solace in times of tragedy.

When heartbroken, finding the good in our experience can be a challenge. However, just as gratitude heals the actual tissue of our actual heart, gratitude can also heal the metaphorical heart, as well.

When we find gratitude for a lesson learned, we begin to heal. When we find gratitude for the influence a lost love has had on our lives, we can heal from the loss.

Gratitude refocuses your path to the greater good.

Gratitude grows in the act of spreading, and it’s contagious, just like any state, or mood is. When we see how much good there is in our experience, it becomes easy and pleasurable to create more good in the world.

Resources:

Easy to understand and comprehensive explanation of stress: http://www.mtstcil.org/skills/stress-definition-1.html
The science of stress: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catecholamine
Cortisol and stress, positive and negative: http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/cortisol.htm
What is cortisol, and stress management: http://stress.about.com/od/stressmanagementglossary/g/Cortisol.htm
Easy guide to stress that will help kids, teens, and parents learn both positive and negative, and what to do about stress when it becomes chronic: http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/emotions/stress.html
Women and stess, including PTSD: http://www.medic8.com/healthguide/articles/stress.html
Gratitude> stress. (Gratitude cancels stress): http://www.realage.com/the-you-docs/you-being-beautiful/a-few-ways-to-appreciate-and-share-your-gifts
Emotional contagion: if you smile you feel happy. If you smile, others smile back. And then THEY fell happy, too. Mood and Emotional Contagion: http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Emotional_contagion
Hedonic adatation: http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/910
Quitting smoking is contagious: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/108373.php
“Are Your Friends Making You Fat?”, NY Times Sunday Magazne: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/magazine/13contagion-t.html
Heart research, including the neurology of stress -or “the brain of the heart”: www.heartmath.org
Gratitude and health, theory and scientific basis: www.acfnewsource.org/religion/gratitude_theory.html
Physical, emotional, spiritual benefits of gratitude, positive psychology, economics and gratitude, gifting and gratitude, spirituality and health, emotional understanding of children, forgiveness, greatfulness – the heart of prayer – Harpham, Aafke Elizabeth Komter, Michael E. McCullough, Solomon Schimmel, Charles M. Shelton, S. J., Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B.: http://www.templeton.org/humble_approach_initiative/Gratitude/

5 Ways to Engage Your Kids in Grateful Giving

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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