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Archives
- January, 2005
Are We
Feeling Stressed Yet? – January 30, 2005
Am I feeling stressed? I could deny it, but a look
at the table of contents for the March/April issue of
Natural Life, which goes to press tonight, would betray me. It is full of articles about how to relieve stress...Laughter Yoga, the revival of knitting, meditating. Maybe I can
justify the stress. I’ve been on deadline for both our magazines;
it’s been bone-chilling cold for weeks here in Toronto; people
continue to die in Iraq; the death toll of the December 26 tsunami keeps
climbing; the news is full of global warming, thawing
icebergs and studies
about ten years until climate change wreaks even more havoc;
I’ve been sick with a cold; my 96-year-old mother has been ill; my
husband Rolf has been working almost 24/7. But no, I can’t really
justify stress. One of the many mid-life lessons I’ve learned is that
stress makes me sick. And I’m old enough to resent the waste of the
minutes and hours spent feeling unwell. So a few years ago, I embarked
on a self-education project to learn all I could about the many ways –
both physical and mental – that exist to reduce stress.
Of course, there is eating well, which I’ve
always done. And there is exercising, which adds to my life in so many
ways once I talk myself into leaving the keyboard for a half-hour.
Perhaps the thing that changed my life the most is learning how to slow
down and live in the present moment. It’s also been one of the hardest
things I’ve taught myself, because I was genetically and/or parentally
programmed to move quickly and multi-task, as well as to rehash the past
and fear the future. But as master meditator Eknath Easwaran writes in an article in the upcoming issue of
Natural Life, “When you bring the rushing process of the mind to a healing
stillness, you rest completely on each moment. You give your very best to each moment, without any loss of vitality to past or
future.” I wish I’d had his wisdom to guide me a few years back as I
was practicing slowing down and paying attention,
but right now it is good to have a reminder.
Posted: 2005/01/30
3:59 PM
Pens
and Bytes – January 10, 2005
For almost 20 years I've been using a computer to write articles, books
and poems. Not for me the antique Remington typewriters favored by some
more Luddite-like writers. I like getting my thoughts down as quickly as
they come (thanks for persuading me to take grade nine typing, mom!), then
being able to sort, delete and adjust later. And maybe I like the
editing process as much as the writing. But I’m not totally a wired
writer. I have kept a journal since I was 17. My shelves now hold a
motley collection of cheap spiral bound scribblers, utilitarian
notebooks and elegant hand-bound books, which trace a history of varying
moods and financial states, and record over 35 years of emotion, problem
solving, observations and everyday trivia. Some years, I seldom missed a
journal writing day; other years, there are huge gaps. Some of that
writing, which often happened in cafés, parks or moving vehicles, has
inspired articles, books and poems later composed on my computer.
I
love the portability of my journals, but not being the backpack sort,
have always sought one small enough to fit in my pocket when I walk. And
now I may have found one. I was recently given a little handheld
computer. I’m using it to write this piece, sitting in my favorite café,
picking out letters on a miniscule screen with an equally tiny stylus.
Nestled soundly in my coat pocket, it let me stride full out on my
eggnog whittling power walk. And when I get back to my office, I’ll be
able to upload my musings directly to my computer, giving me a head start on the
editing process.
I won’t be throwing out my journal anytime soon,
because I am already missing the scratch of pen on paper. Perhaps
I’ll end up separating my therapeutic, documenting type of journaling from
my more professional type writing. Regardless, this will be an
interesting experiment in wordsmithing, with the handheld device no
doubt helping my prose become more concise and precise. And
perhaps it will also get me back into that most pared down form of writing,
which has been blocked over the past few months – poetry. One thing is
for sure: I will write, no matter what tools I have at my
disposal.
Posted: 2005/01/10
11:23 AM
Reaching
Our Potential – January 9, 2005
I had a conversation today with someone who was questioning my posts
about parents putting too much pressure on their kids to perform well
academically and to be prepared for “success” in the adult world.
What, he asked, is wrong with helping our children to achieve their
potential? Plenty, I responded, if our attitude is one of fear that they
won’t rather than trust that they will.
And besides, all this emphasis on performance seems to be sidelining goals
relating to family, love, community, having children, being happy.
Instead, it’s fostering anxiety and self-absorption. And are these
parents really motivating their children or setting them up
for failure? If
success is defined by the parent and not the child, are the goals even
relevant? Will these kids ever be able to meet the standards set by
their parents? And if not, won’t they feel that they’ve failed? And
if they do meet the goals, will they feel they’ve done their best? I
worry a lot about people who feel they are accepted only for what they have
achieved, rather than for who they are.
Sure, our children need to achieve their potential. We all do. And they will,
if they are given the support, respect and trust that they deserve. If
we keep out of their way and let their own innate motivation guide them
to heights we can’t even imagine.
Posted: 2005/01/09
7:59 PM
Disrupting the Flow – January
3, 2005
While
using some of the holiday downtime to catch up on my reading, I noticed an article
published in the New York Times just before Christmas that has
me shaking my head once again in bewilderment. Apparently, one of the season’s
more popular “toys” was a colorful device called the
Time Tracker. Recommended for ages four and up, its stated purpose is to help
children improve their performances on standardized tests. It is supposed to
help them develop a sense of passing time, which will presumably translate
into better time management while test writing. Standardized tests have become
a part of schooling, from primary years through college. And parents are
apparently feeling the stress of wanting to give their kids a performance edge
in such a high stakes world. Poor parents. What about the stress they are
inflicting on their kids with their pressure to perform and with this gadget?!
Aside
from the practice of focusing so maniacally on test scores as a predictor of
anything meaningful, test preparation is not real learning; it is, rather,
practice for regurgitation. In addition, it is cruel and destructive to limit
children’s absorption with their play in such a way and for such a reason. As
psychologist
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has described so eloquently with his “flow” theory, people enter a flow state when they are fully absorbed in an
activity where they lose their sense of time and have feelings of great
satisfaction. Children’s capacity for concentration is huge and that is
precisely how they learn.
Fortunately,
many private schools and, dare I say, most families whose kids learn without
school avoid subjecting children to testing. Unfortunately, the rest of society
is a very large market for the Time Tracker.
Posted: 2005/01/03
2:41 PM
A
Year of Walking Paths of Joy and Sorrow – January 1, 2005
Another
year has gone by and along with it many joys and much sorrow. And now we are
embarking on a brand new year that, at this point, holds nothing more than a promise...of
change, adventure and renewal, or whatever else we might choose.
One of my joys this year has been my family, including my two 30-something
daughters. I have an easy relationship with the youngest and a more challenging
one with her sister. One was here for the holidays, the other was not. But one
of the cornerstones of their father’s and my parenting style has been to
nurture and respect their independence, so I’m proud to see them trodding their own paths so
successfully and happily.
I’m also grateful for the opportunities
I’ve had this past year to share my ideas about parenting and learning with
so many people, through my writing and speaking. It is a rare privilege (not to
mention an awesome responsibility) to be
able to touch lives in this way. I’m grateful for your eyes and ears, as
well as your enthusiastic feedback. Our children are our hope for turning the
world around, and we need each other’s inspiration and support as we walk alternative
parenting paths.
While this may not be the worst time in the history of the world, things are
certainly feeling dark as the new year dawns, with the horrible natural
disaster in southeast Asia, with wars and other conflicts continuing between
and within nations, with the focus on fearing the enemy and offence as defence.
Some days, I find myself wanting to avoid the news feeds, media releases,
newspapers, radio, television and Internet news that are the tools of my
journalistic trade. Turning off and tuning out is attractive, perhaps giving in
to the urge to hibernate like a bear until Spring.
But as well as the doom and gloom and despair, my in-box is also abundantly full of
good news, good works and examples of people making a positive difference or at
least helping us understand. And for that I am grateful. Take Michael Moore, for
example, the controversial and often over-the-top activist filmmaker who is, to
my mind, a breath of fresh air. Check out his essay (currently posted on his
website), “It's Time to Stop Being
Hit”, which encourages progressive Americans to walk away from the cycle of
violence perpetrated by the political right, in the same way that abused women
must admit to being victims of something unacceptable and take action to end
the abuse. “Any battered woman in America, any oppressed
person around the globe who has defied her oppressor, will tell you this: There
is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not
alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: Stop responding to the
abuser.”
Like many around the world, our New Year’s
Eve celebrations were tempered by the enormous tragedy that has hit the coastal
towns and villages around the Indian Ocean, in the wake of the earthquake and
tsunami. As I write, the death toll is pegged at over 150,000 people, with tens
of thousands more affected in a variety of ways. But even in this dark time,
people are coming together, as one family of human beings, to help. Personally,
we have chosen to donate to two groups – Médecins Sans Frontières
(aka Doctors Without Borders),
an international organization which I’ve long admired that provides emergency
medical assistance to populations in danger, and the venerable development and
relief organization Oxfam. I
hope that we all remember to continue to help when the holiday season and the
media blitz wear off. Today, I can’t shake a pesky and perhaps cynical little thought that this
particular crisis is attracting so much Western media space and aid because it
is about us as much as it is about them, since so many vacationing Westerners were victims.
Unfortunately, Western politics and economics probably contributed to the
tragedy.
Life Learning writer David Albert (see
his piece “Stickers” in the
current issue of Life Learning) wrote me a few days ago to say
that he and
his eldest (formerly unschooled) daughter Aliya have left for the tsunami-hit areas
of South India. The trip was already planned, so they decided to go and try to
help. David is quite familiar with this part of the world and says that while
the tsunami that hit the Bay of Bengal was caused by a large earthquake, much
of the suffering was actually caused by industrial shrimping interests that have
stripped the coasts of protective mangrove forests. “These are the places
that World Bank-financed multinational projects in aquaculture have stripped
the area of all natural protection. The wall of water went further, and as it
receded, there was no break on what it carried with it. Homes, children and
livelihoods were all carried out to sea because of the lack of attention to
mangrove conservation by companies out to make a quick buck.” David has
edited a new book written by Laura Coppo The
Color of Freedom ( Common Courage Press, 2005),
which details the work of Gandhian
land-reform crusaders S. Jagannathan and Krishnammal Jagannathan, who are his
adopted parents. By the way, you can follow David’s and Aliya’s trip at
www.shantinik.blogspot.com.
Yes, it takes some extra inspiration and determination to stay positive this January 1.
But I believe that we can all work in our own daily lives to make things
better. And I know that we can enjoy each precious moment we walk on this
incredible planet. I wish you a peaceful, productive, prosperous, passionate,
progressive 2005.
Posted: 2004/12/31
10:17 PM
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