Category: Empowering Discussions

Empowering Discussions

Be a Pro

Impower You

Be Pro-peace, Pro-organic food, Pro-education, Pro-community involvement, Pro-knowledge, Pro-love,  Pro-acceptance, Pro-tolerance, Pro-individual choice, Pro-civil rights, Pro-gay rights, Pro-women’s rights, Pro-animal rights, Pro-equality, Pro-freedom. What is missing from this list? Add it in a comment below.

Be whatever you want to be. Stand FOR everything that will make the world a better place. Let go of being AGAINST hate and be FOR peace instead.  You don’t need to have any negativity in your life at all. If someone is destroying the environment where you live, be proactive and make a positive change in a cleaner direction. If someone is physically hurting you, be proactive and leave. If someone is threatening you, figure out how to turn the tables and stop them from making that threat a reality.

It won’t be easy, but I challenge you to find at least one thing that you are against and find a way to be pro the results you want.

WHAT KIND OF PRO WILL YOU BE?

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Empowering Discussions

What If It Costs The Same?

Impower You

If you can’t convince people to eat healthy, make junk food expensive. That is the idea behind soda tax.  Why not? If it is true as this article from Mother Jones states that 21% of medical expenses are from obesity than I say tax away the fat.

Would you be more likely to buy a healthy drink (with little or no sugar and no additives and no food coloring and no corn syrup) OR a soda if they cost the same?

For me it is an easy choice.  I had a root canal years ago and decided to stop drinking soda and to cut back on my sugar intake.  I can’t say for sure that my teeth are okay now because of that decision, but the rest of my body sure feels great.  It wasn’t easy, but I don’t miss all those sugary sweet drinks.  Actually, my cravings for sweets has diminished a lot since I cut back on sugar and went cold turkey on soda.

Empowering Discussions

Beautiful Bloggers

Impower You

I was given the Beauiful Blogger award by The Unpredictable Life. Visit their BLOG.

The nominated recipients are asked to:

~ Thank and Link-back to your nominator;

~ Nominate 7, 6, or fewer (or more) other blogs that you enjoy to receive this award as well;

~ Post a comment on each of your nominees blogs with a link to your page for the details;

~ Paste the Award image somewhere on your blog, if so desired;

~ And, continue blogging all your beautiful thoughts, suggestions, and musings. More readers are coming!

Here are my choices for the top 7 beautiful blogs. I encourage you to check each one out. Bookmark this page and come back to it later if you can’t sit still that long.

Lifestyle 30, http://lifestyle30.wordpress.com/

Totsymae, http://totsymae.com/

Artsy Forager, http://artsyforager.wordpress.com/

Helping Women Helps the World, http://hwhtw.wordpress.com/

Fierce Buddhist, http://fiercebuddhist.org/

Somkritya, http://somkritya.wordpress.com/

Kimberly Harding, http://kimberlyharding.wordpress.com/

 

(PS, if you copy the URL of this photo above, you can than add it to the sidebar of your site so readers know you were given this award)

Empowering Discussions

Where is the Smoothie Bar?

Impower You

I was inspired by this post by Rebel Grrrl Italiana, http://lachristagreco.com/2012/05/26/youre-no-fun-living-sober-at-26

I tried drinking a lot in High School to make friends, but I never enjoyed it and once HS ended, so did drinking. It’s not an activity that my family is really into either. I did not grow up in a home where alcohol was present. I did have an alcoholic father, but only saw him once a year. I also see a lot of people who at older ages drink and do drugs so much they are not healthy and not all there anymore. It seems like such a waste.

A few years ago while working at a job I would go out drinking with co-workers. It was fun, but I got bored fast and when that job ended so did my friendships. Finally I am at a point where I don’t want to be around people who drink and definitely not anyone using drugs. It isn’t because I feel it is wrong, but rather because it’s not something I enjoy nor do I like how it makes me feel. These days I only have fun on my terms and while I am willing to try new activities, changing my state with drugs/alcohol is not one.

It is rough finding new friends that want to be sober. I REALLY miss going out and being sociable with a drink in hand, but that won’t happen again until smoothie bars are open till 2am.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT DRINKING OR RECREATIONAL DRUG USE?

Empowering Discussions

Favor Your Strengths

Impower You

I see a lot of people self hating and putting themselves down. This isn’t something new, but since until last year that was MY favorite activity it seems especially poignant now that I am aware of how often I participated in this useless action. I constantly stop myself from thinking or saying anything negative about myself or my situation. I just cannot do it anymore. There is nothing THAT bad or THAT wrong with me. Sure I have flaws, so what?  I have a lot more strengths.  All around me are victims who focus on their flaws.  Here’s a wild and crazy idea, let’s remember what is good instead of all this focus on what we perceive as wrong. Because it is a perception. Whether we feel too fat, or too dumb, or too (insert your flaws here) is relevant to what we choose to think.

I have met a few incredibly ignorant people and dangerously overweight people.  The key here is  “A FEW”. Very few. Most people I meet are so intelligent  or at least average. The majority of people I know are not even close to fat. So where is all this self hate coming from? Why the alarm over misguided beliefs?

Favor your strengths. Do it because you can and because you deserve to feel good about yourself. Do it to show the next generation how much life improves after we stop trying to be perfect.  The best way to get rid of self hate is to stop cold turkey. Just stop saying or thinking anything bad about yourself.

I heard my friends 11 year old yesterday say she wished she was skinny like the girls in her tween clothing catalog. I asked her not to be one of those people because  she was more than how she looked.  I really did not know what else to say. She is only 11 after all. I have already told her about airbrushed models in magazines.  I hope she understands and I hope she can remember to always favor her strengths.

WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS?

WHAT ABOUT YOU IS GOOD, GREAT, AMAZING?

HOW CAN YOU FOCUS ON THOSE AND GROW IN A POSITIVE DIRECTION?

Empowering Discussions, Social Action

What Is Your Intent?

Impower You

Throughout the years my intent has changed so much.  As a child I intended to play with my friends, snuggle with my mom, read book, go on adventures and have lots of toys. As a teenager I intended to have fun, be popular, be treated like an adult and be rich.  In my early twenties I intended to finish school, get a career where I made lots of money,  become a world traveler and fall in love. In my late twenties I intended to  change the world, fight injustice, show people how I was right and they were wrong, and start a family. Now in my early thirties my intent has changed course once again.  I am the same person and a lot of the intents I had still hold sway with me. I still want to have lots of money, but I want to earn it on my own terms. I no longer wish to be famous. Thanks to our celebrity obsessed culture fame now seems like a game with far to many traps and haters to seem fun.  I no longer vie to have the coolest toys and gadgets because I see how all our waste eventually becomes all our pollution and all our crippling health problems.

My main intent these days is inner peace. I am no longer looking for fights where I can be the victor and prove others wrong. I wish to be for peace, love, personal responsibility, tolerance, respect and acceptance for everyone and everything in our world. I do not intend to be against anything. Negativity holds no interest to me anymore. Gone is the drama entertainment, gone is the judgement of right and wrong, gone is wasting time hating and changing others. The world is way too many shades of dazzling colors to be only this or that. So as you fight against the pain, the media influence, the governmental control, and any injustice you face, I will fight for your right to be intelligent, compassionate, a critical thinker and an individual. I believe in you.

What is your intent?

Empowering Discussions

Altruistic Anniversary

Impower You

I found Cecily’s Closet on Facebook and was immediately hooked. They are a small, but loving volunteer corporation that lends a hand to families of special need children. It was started by a mother who was so thankful for all the help she received with her own daughter that she wanted to give back to others in the same situation.  I love being able to share their altruism and inspire you to put more good into our beautiful world.

In the past two years they have accomplished quite a lot:

– 22 room makeovers with 2 more currently in progress
– Provided just shy of a hundred belly bands to children with feeding tubes
– Recycled durable medical equipment to children in need of resources to help them achieve their goals
– Provided Christmas baskets to 80+ children with special needs and their families
– And shared various donations with families in need – toys, books, and lots and lots of love and encouragement!

Follow the Cecily Closet Blog   or their Facebook Page.

 Remember only you can make today great.

Empowering Discussions

From Pajamas to Documentaries

Impower You

Jaz Gray has been actively making  a difference in the world from a young age. She has done this wile also excelling at school, graduating from college and having 32 surgeries since she was a child.  Jaz is a survivor of AVM, Arteriovenous Malformation. This birth defect affects hundreds of thousand of people around the world. It causes health problems ranging from disfigurement to death. But this has only inspired Jaz to work harder and move past being a victim to being a survivor.

There is no cure yet for AVM and Jaz looks different than most people because of her deformations.  But what you will notice and love about Jaz is her spirit. In high school she started pajama drives for other children who spend an unreasonable amount of time in hospitals. She expanded to give pajamas to children in homeless shelters as well. Today she is creating a documentary to bring awareness about AVM. Her ultimate goal is to fund a cure and rid the world of this debilitating disease once and for all.

Her pajama drive video

Her documentary film teaser:

It starts with one person, one idea, one passion for change.  You can be the next person to change the world. You don’t have to be a president, an actor or a billionaire to make positive change.  You are powerful, intelligent, compassionate and important. Let these people inspire you to create positive change in your community. It all starts with you taking action.

Empowering Discussions

Women Making Change

Impower You

I have read several articles stating that women were the driving force behind the middle east protests in 2011. This makes sense to me, since the civil rights movement in the USA was started by women(african american).

hwhtw's avatarHelping Women Helps the World

Dalia Mogahed reminds us that “30 percent of those who braved the tanks in the Arab Spring were women.”

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Empowering Discussions

god and gender don’t mix

Impower You

God and Gender don’t mix!  For me this is just like the saying “Drinking and Driving don’t mix! ” How can you have a peaceful equal world where only one gender is considered powerful or holy?  No wonder women have a history such low self esteem. No wonder we have to fight so hard every day for a right to have power over ourselves!

If I had been raised in a church where there was a holy, all powerful, all knowing father and son, but no holy, powerful, all knowing mother or daughter I would think that women were pretty lame and not powerful. I suppose this is what really bothers me about organized religions.  Actually the whole “don’t think for yourself because I am right and you are wrong” part bugs me a lot too. Why is the only mother a virgin and what does she do other than give birth to a son? This is a rhetorical question.  For me this whole ” obey your heavenly father” line has always seemed like a pathetic excuse to control women.

This is not an “anti-male” post, it is a “pro-equality” post. I was inspired to write this by my friend and mentor Jane Claypool. Read her blog post about women and new thought here:  http://janeclaypool.com/2012/04/19/women-and-new-thought/

Believe what makes YOU happy, but don’t let your beliefs put you down.  Do you think you are worthy of being loved and supported?