“Grandma, don’t! That’s stealing!” I whispered from across the table.

Every time we went out to eat with my grandparents, my grandma would sneak all the jelly and sugar packets from the table and put them in her purse. I was mortified, convinced I had the weirdest grandmother on the planet.

My Grandma Gladys, my mother’s mother, was always doing things I found strange, and often embarrassing. She washed and reused plastic baggies and utensils, saved jars and jars full of extra buttons, kept a can of used bacon grease under the kitchen sink, and ate parts of the animal I didn’t even know existed. (Gizzards, anyone?)

She also canned her own jam, cooked meals from scratch, walked to the store instead of driving, crocheted beautiful afghans without using a pattern, and knitted hats, mittens, and slippers for my siblings and me—skills I now admire but once saw as a waste of time.

Many of the “strange” things my grandmother did, I now know had a lot to do with her life circumstances. Born in 1902, she was a married with three children when the U.S. was in the grips of the Great Depression. Like many who lived through that era, she learned to save all the items she had and find ways to reuse them, rather than throw things away.

I, on the other hand, was a privileged child of the ‘80s who had everything I needed and more. I learned about the Great Depression in school, but it seemed more like a story than real life. Poverty, hunger, and desperation were simply words to me. I didn’t understand why my grandma couldn’t just get with the times and live like “normal” people.

Now the tables are somewhat turned. We’re in the midst of what’s been called the Great Recession, and I’m looking for ways to cut back and live on less. I’m learning that accumulating lots of stuff doesn’t make me happy, nor does working in a boring cubicle job whose main purpose is to generate money so I can buy more stuff.

And I’m not alone. There’s a growing trend toward living simply and sustainably, not only as a way to save money, but for better health, greater happiness, and a cleaner environment. When I think about her now, I see my grandma wasn’t weird at all, she was saving the earth!

Today, I’m the one with the reusable bags, cooking meals from scratch, and fixing things that break rather than throwing them away. My other sustainability ventures include going vegan, growing my own vegetables, and buying more things secondhand. I think Grandma would be proud.

Now that I’m older, I see how much I take after my grandmother. My ear for music, my positive attitude, my love of word games and puzzles, and my passion for animals are all traits I inherited from her.
My Grandma Gladys died when I was 19. I loved her so much, but I hadn’t yet learned to appreciate her because of, not in spite of, her peculiarities. If she were alive today, I bet we’d have some amazing talks. And I’d be able to tell her what a cool grandma she turned out to be.

About Cheryl

Cheryl Breuer is a writer who helps people find happiness by challenging social norms and stereotypes, and encouraging ethical, compassionate living. You can read more of her writing on her blog, Peculiar Girl, join her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter.

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Promises of a better life, a better you. 

There is no shortage of advice on how to improve our lives. Ourselves.  New ways to think.  New foods to eat.  New workouts to try. Tens of thousands of pages, all filled with advice, line the bookstore shelves.  Blogs upon blogs, all filled with advice on what to eat and how to workout.  Podcasts, videos, radio programs – all filled with countless ways to be better.  Thinner. Fitter. Healthier. Have more. Spend less. Do more. Be happier.

I have no problem admitting I am a knowledge junkie.  I love to learn.  I enrolled in a nutrition program – for fun.  And I sincerely enjoy the self-improvement books, blogs, and podcasts.  Now anyways.

I used to feel less than when I consumed this type of content. Too fat.  Too old.  Not pretty enough.  Not smart enough.  Not coordinated enough. 

Not enough. 

Now I take the information the author is sharing, hold it in a space of openness.  Less judgement.  Less taking it personally.  Less overwhelm.  I critically and appreciatively inquire as to whether or not this new piece of information will add value to my life. 

How can this new information serve me? 

I have come to realize that some of it may serve me. None of it may serve me.  All of it may serve me.  And that each of these is okay.  Because I do not need a diet book, a new workout or the latest mind trip to take care of myself. 

I have everything I need to care of myself.  Fully and deeply.

So the next time you feel overwhelmed with content, information, media stop and ask yourself

Am I taking care of myself?

When we are constantly striving, reaching, achieving (and oh do I know about living an achievement oriented life…) we are not focusing on the here and now. We are focusing on the future and then. The future and then robs us of the happiness we could experience in this very moment. And this very moment, this one right here, is all we really ever have.

So buy the books that you feel will serve you well on your journey. Read the blogs that introduce you to foods you have never heard of before. Try new workouts. And when you are uncertain, unsure, overwhelmed, ask yourself

Am I taking care of myself?

You know the answer.

The month of love. The shortest month of the year. Trees glisten and sparkle with fresh, white snow. We all eagerly await updates on groundhogs and their shadows. Days become longer. Sun shines brightly. My birthday kicks off the month.

I heart February!

Other ways I show February some love and affection?

1.  A nice mug of Green Tea Kombucha YogiTea. I love this tea. I also enjoy the uplifting messages. Like this one:

The beauty in you is your spirit

Tea and a great little pick-me-up reminder? Yes, please!

2.  February affords us the opportunity to read more. I am currently reading Brene Brown’s new book The Gifts of Imperfection - fantastic book, highly recommend it.

3.  A long, hot bath. Yes.

4.  Flip through the gardening catalogues and envision your garden.

5.  Try something new. I’m going to try Zumba soon! I can’t dance but who cares, right?

6.  Start your spring cleaning early – it is freeing to declutter.

7.  Clean your fridge. I did this recently. It is very cathartic. I am enjoying Dr. Bronner’s magic liquid soap. Citrus – instant pick me up for the senses!

8.  Try a new recipe

9.  Host a soup party

10.  Create a vision board

How do you heart February?

Engaging in a soul-nourishing regular yoga practice will change your life. It will work its way into your thoughts, your habits & routines. Accept these changes as they are and try not to judge them. Or yourself.

You have to get quiet enough to hear the whispers of what your body is trying to tell you. Listening to your body is an art.

Laugh everyday. Laughing is important. It relieves stress and connects us with others.

Give generously. Of your time, money, and most importantly, your heart.

Embrace your curves. Embrace your body as it is today. Don’t punish it for not being the same as it was 10 years ago or withhold love for yourself until you hit some magical number.

Tell your truth. To yourself. For yourself. Living in denial of your truth will fester unhappiness. When you tell your truth and own it, you stand up for yourself & tell the world you are here to play BIG.

Own your sexiness. Do not apologize for being your gorgeous, sexy self. To anyone.

Kindness matters.

Explore your creativity. Creativity is not just for the painters, sculptors & writers. Living a creative life is for all of us. Creativity is in the details of life – how you arrange your day, how you solve a work problem, how you celebrate a friend’s birthday.

Emancipate your deepest fears. Let them go. Set them free. Refuse to accept them anymore. Fear of failure? What’s the worst that can happen? And really, who cares if you fail? Failing is better than not trying.

Shine your own light. Brightly.

Dump the debt. Debt is the past, it is not living in the present moment. Make a debt elimination plan. Stick to it.

Try new physical activities until you find one you love. Keep trying, there will be one you love. Promise.

Get clear on your core values. Once you do, you will never have difficulty making decisions again.

Move your body as much as you can. We weren’t built to sit at a desk all day. Get up & walk around the office. Stretch. Walk. Run. Bike.

Live simply. Clear the clutter.

Forgive yourself. Forgive others. Carrying around anger & resentment will not serve you well. It serves no purpose. Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

Trust your intuition. It will never prove you wrong.

Respect for self. Respect for others. Respect for the earth.

Have fun.

Love.

Be loved.

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I decided to adjust Joy’s recipe. Here is my recipe, adapted from Joy’s:

2 medium white onions, diced
2 medium sweet potatoes, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp dry basil
2 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 cup organic quinoa, rinsed
1 cup green lentils, rinsed
6 cups of organic chicken stock (you could use vegetable) + water to adjust consistency
sea salt + pepper to taste

Method

1. Sautee the onions & garlic in coconut oil

2. Add spices, quinoa, lentils, sweet potatoes & stock.

3. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the quinoa and lentils are tender – between 20 and 30 minutes. Watch the consistency and add stock or water as needed (I added about a cup of water).

4. Add sea salt & pepper to taste.

In Joy’s recipe she suggests garnishing with cilantro and adding a splash of olive oil for some monounsaturated (good!) fat.

I loved this soup – it turned out more like a stew than a soup. And mine looks different from Joy’s, but it was delicious and filling. I will make this again.

Bon appetit! Enjoy!

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I hope you enjoyed watching the video on the story of cosmetics. If you haven’t watched it yet, you should.

So, what did I do after I saw the video? Well I surfed around the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics Website. I read about the chemicals of concern and read the FAQs. Go on, check them out. I’ll wait right here.

Pretty scary, isn’t it?

I got scared. Really scared. Scared about what I washing my hair with, slathering on my body and putting on my face. It just makes sense to me to do whatever we can to minimize our exposure to cancer causing products.

So I went to Skin Deep. Skin Deep is a safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products brought to you by researchers at the Environmental Working Group. They have a cosmetics database where you can enter your product and it tells you on a scale from 0 (least hazardous) to 10 (highly hazardous) how toxic your beauty products are.

My, oh my. Do I really want to know?

So I started entering all of my products. Here are some of their scores:

• Aveda Brilliant Spray on Shine – 6
• Avon Foot Works Therapeutic Cracked Heel Cream – 6
• Matrix Biolage Color Care Shampoo – 7
• Matrix Biolage Color Care Conditioner – 9
• KMS Flat Out – 9

That’s just some of the product scores my beauty stash had. I threw away everything that was a score of 3 or higher.  Yes, really. Poof – gone!

I then added up how much each of those shampoos, hair products, lotions, make-up, etc actually cost me. In this case, ignorance was bliss. It was enough for a weekend away…

$500 in beauty products gone – because they were too hazardous to my health to keep using

I had mixed emotions doing this. I felt guilty. I felt sad. I felt duped. I felt dumb. I also felt relieved. Relieved to know that I was now aware of what I was actually putting on my body.  Awareness allows us to make informed decisions.

So how did this all come to be, anyways? How did a former product junkie get to the point where throwing out $500 worth of products was somthing she wanted to do?

It’s the yoga. Yoga affords me the opportunity to invite awareness into my life. It has allowed me the opportunity to consider what I put in and on my body. Your yoga may be walking. Or Zumba. Or meditation. Really, at a very basic level, its whatever allows us to reconnect with ourselves.

But, we are still left with the million dollar question.

What do I use now?

I didn’t have a master plan for replacing my products. I saw they were hazardous to my health and got rid of them. But I still had to wash my hair and look presentable. So I started with looking at the products in the health food section of my grocery store and checking my products against the database. I’m still learning. Labels and advertisements mean nothing.

Just like food, you cannot trust the labels.

I also bought Meghan Telpner’s Natural Body Care Guide. I haven’t yet graduated to making my own products in my kitchen, but I am slowly getting there. Don’t worry, I don’t get a kick back or anything from Meghan for this recommendation – I just really like the guide.

$500 is alot to throw away (well, recycled actually. Please, no hate mail about the environment. I’m with you). I think it boils down to this…

Protecting ourselves from toxic, hazardous beauty products does not have a price.

What we put on our bodies is just as important as what we put in our bodies.

You are worth it.

Now go check out your favourite product’s score in the database and leave a comment below with the product name and score!

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Hello my name is Jennifer and I am a product junkie.

I loved all my beauty products. Creams, lotions, make-up, hair wax, oh I could go on and on. Perfume? Don’t get me started. Loved. The smells were so intoxicating. Colours? Deep and rich.

Notice the past tense? Loved. I loved all my products. I still love beauty products – its just a new, deeper, richer love. Its not like my old love that was based on superficialities like smell and colour.

Its a love based on substance. As in what is this actually made of?

Today’s post is part one of a two part series. Today I ask that you take the time to watch this video. In part two I will tell you my thoughts on the video and the action I took after seeing it.

please, leave a comment with your thoughts…

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You all know this role. Its on TV and in the movies. Its in real life too. It might be your best friend. Your coworker. Your sister.

Maybe its you.

Perhaps you have gone through life always being the biggest girl in school. Maybe you were always the best friend of the girl all the boys liked. Your friends and family? Perhaps they are comfortable with you playing the role of big girl.

Hell, maybe you are comfortable in the role of big girl.

It certainly makes life more manageable when we know what’s expected of us socially. We know our place and act accordingly. Supportive friend? Check! Never create ripples with the family? Check! Date whichever guy happens to come along? Check! Don’t have to be our truly radiant selves because we carry a little junk in the proverbial trunk? Check, check and CHECK!

Don’t you know? That’s the role of big girl! No one shall feel put out or uncomfortable in the presence of big girl – we’ll do that for you.

So what happens when you are no longer interested in acting in the role of big girl?

Who are you really, if you’ve always been cast in the role of big girl?

That is a very challenging question to answer. When you have created your identity around being the big girl, it is very difficult to shed that role and take on another. It takes alot of ordinary courage as Brene Brown would say:

“The root of the word courage is cor—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage literally had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” Over time, this definition has actually changed, and today, courage is synonymous with being heroic or performing brave deeds.

Heroics and bravery are important, but I think we’ve lost touch with the idea that speaking honestly and openly about who we and about our experiences (good and bad) is the ultimate act of courage. Heroics is often about putting your life on the line. Ordinary courage is about putting your vulnerability on the line. In today’s world, that’s pretty extraordinary.”

You don’t know what is out there beyond big girl status. You might not know what its like to be treated otherwise. Your friends, family, the people you interact with on a daily basis know you one way. And inside (maybe outside, or not) you are becoming who you have always been. Becoming more of who you are.

Letting your light shine. Like a Northern star.

And that makes all sorts of people uncomfortable. If you are changing (inside and/or outside) what does that mean to our relationship? What does it mean to me if you are changing how you interact with the world? If you aren’t the big girl anymore – who is? Am I?

I have changed. Transformed. Morphed. But if you ask those people in my life who I hold closest to my heart – I have no doubt that they would tell you I have not changed. I know they would tell you I have become more of myself.

Find, know and love your true supporters. If you listen closely, they tell you who they are.

And the people that are threatened by you becoming more of yourself? Well that is simply a reflection on the relationship they have with themselves. It has nothing to do with you. Let them be. They do not at this time have the tools to be part of your inner support circle. And that is okay – just take them as they are.

Lead by example. Do not let the fear of losing false friendships hold you back from shining your light.

Are you ready to leave the role of big girl and step into the role of your true, radiant self?

I promise you – the reward is worth the risk.

Yoga has allowed me to do things that I thought were impossible – on and off the mat. This past summer I committed to practicing yoga everyday for the month of July. Some days, especially the hot and humid ones, I did 15 minutes of legs up the wall and 15 minutes of savasana. But I practiced. Everyday. After I had just moved into a new house. After I had just gotten a puppy.

Practicing yoga has changed my life for the better. I feel like I have come home to myself when I practice yoga – words cannot describe how my soul sings after savasana.

I decided that I would do another 30 days of yoga challenge in November. Fall is a particularly busy time for me – personally and professionally. But my experience has been that yoga helps me deal with life stressors and keeps me grounded.

The first few days went okay – I did my practice and carried on with life, taking my yoga off the mat with me. Then I hit day five and I just did NOT want to practice. I did some breathing exercises while in the bath and asked on Facebook if this was practice (oh yes – I did!).

My mat sat unrolled, for days. I was resisting, with all my might, actual practice of the postures. I love yoga and relish the sweet afterglow of practice.

I could not figure out why I was resisting that which brings me such peace and happiness.

I also had guilt. Here I was, telling the world that I was committed to practicing everyday. And while I did practice, it was not everyday. I have spent time reflecting on my #30daysofyoga experience and my resistance around practicing. Here are the two aha! moments that came up for me:

aha! number one – its about commitment, not challenge

We can commit to ourselves, to our practice. But challenging ourselves is unnecessary. Challenging myself to #30daysofyoga only served to fuel my ego. Consider that to commit means to “give in trust” and to challenge means “a call to fight, as a battle.”

If yoga is the union of our mind, body and spirit would you rather “give in trust” or engage in “a call to fight?”

aha! number two – there is a natural, seasonal cycle for everything

Our bodies have a natural cycle. Some days of our moon cycle we have alot of energy. Some days we do not. And its okay if you want to rest on the days you feel like resting.

Our lives have a natural cycle. Sometimes our life commitments demand more of our time. Time that takes away from practice. I have realized that it is okay to ebb and flow with my practice.

Our bodies sometimes need to adjust to seasons. Daylight savings time happened during my #30daysofyoga. I have never before been so aware of the effects of things around me on my body. This is one of the many gifts of yoga.

The practice of yoga continues to unfold many things for me. I may or may not commit to another #30daysofyoga. In the end, it does not matter if you practice everyday for 30 days in a row. What matters is paying attention and being kind towards oneself. Yoga allows me to pay attention and be a little kinder towards myself.

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” — Mary Oliver

I do not “need” a #30daysofyoga challenge to do that.

Namaste

In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings.

For more about eating competence (and for research backing up this advice), see Ellyn Satter’s Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family: How to Eat, How to Raise Good Eaters, How to Cook, Kelcy Press, 2008. Also see www.EllynSatter.com to purchase books and to review other resources.

Copyright © 2010 by Ellyn Satter. Published at www.EllynSatter.com.