Deedee Cummings's Blog, page 7

Mothering and Teaching Ourselves

The month of May is a time when we commemorate and appreciate both mothers and teachers. For so many people, it was with their mothers and teachers that they learned the importance of empathy. They learned to treat others the way they wish to be treated. They learned the importance of apology and forgiveness.

But we can think about teaching and mothering more broadly than just individual mothers or teachers since not every mother-child or teacher-student relationship is or was positive. For some people, the idea of associating teaching and mothering with specific people is painful. 

Let’s think about the ideals we associate with teaching and mothering: compassion, love, gentleness, loyalty, commitment. Someone who cheerleads for us. Someone who wishes us the best in our efforts. 

The hope is that eventually if we’ve been lovingly mothered and taught, we can mother and teach ourselves. We don’t need someone else to do those things for us. 

Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world. Many of us struggle to treat ourselves as an ideal mother or teacher would. We aren’t compassionate, loving, gentle, loyal, or committed. We doubt ourselves and have an internal dialogue with ourselves that is simply brutal. 

This month when mothering and teaching are celebrated, think about how you mother and teach yourself. How do you love yourself? How do you believe that you are worthy of love and self-care?

Are your remarks to yourself cutting and cruel, or do you speak to yourself with gentleness? When you try something new or do well, are you your best cheerleader who celebrates or do you make biting negative comments? Are you loyal to your needs or do you forsake them to make other people happy at your expense? 

Also, consider whether you are ensuring your physical, emotional, and intellectual needs are being met.

Do you feed yourself nutritious food, make physical movement a priority, and treat your body with care? Do you surround yourself with people who care for you? Do you make an effort to always learn something new about the world and yourself? 

This month, recommit to mothering and teaching yourself in the best possible ways. The miracle of the universe is that the love we need to give ourselves does not always come from the people who should have been the early providers of that love. The love we need to give ourselves comes from the universe. It is all out there, just waiting on you to grab it and feel yourself up with all the love and care you can handle.

It’s in the warm yummy bowl of maple and brown sugar oatmeal you eat. All that comes from the Earth. It is there, waiting on you to pour into yourself.It’s in the flowers that bloom all over the planet. Those flowers bloom for you ! Consider planting your own small garden of flowers that will bring a smile to your face when you pull in from work or are washing dishes in the window.It’s in a million things that we often take for granted like a child waving to you from a school bus, a stranger paying for your coffee, or a call out of nowhere from a friend who says, “You were on my mind”.

Here are more tips on how to deeply love yourself. This is how you mother and teach yourself for life. Give yourself all of the love and care your heart desires. Believe you are worthy of all the beautiful things this life sends your way.

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Latino Books for Your Shelves

Reading enhances and improves one’s empathy. What better way to understand people’s experiences and cultures than to immerse ourselves in their lives via our imagination for 10-, 15- or 20-minutes a day (or more)?

The American Association of Publishers has designated May as Latino Books Month to help promote books written by Latino/a authors among librarians, publishers, and anyone who loves to read. If you haven’t dipped your toes into books by Latino/a authors, May is a great time to do so. We’ve got some suggestions for where to begin.

Luna Oscura, written and illustrated by Heidi Moreno, is an English/Spanish book about a black cat who is isolated from other cats because they have superstitious beliefs about black cats. If you’re looking for a picture book that shows the power of acceptance and belonging, this would be a great book to check out from your local library or purchase from your local independent bookstore.

A book for middle school readers is Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall, which is a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey but from a Mexican-American viewpoint. The four protagonist sisters must make a journey; while on it, they discover magic and strange mythological creatures and learn a lot about themselves. 

A book for high schoolers and young adults that tells a compelling story is I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez, a finalist for the National Book Award. It is a story told from Julia’s perspective after her sister Olga is accidentally killed in a traffic accident. She learns that Olga carried some heavy secrets that could tear the grieving family apart. 

If you have a young person in your life who enjoys science fiction, they may find The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera to be right up their alley. This Newbery Award-winning novel is about a girl named Petra who travels into space with her family when the Earth is dying. But the plan for how things will be when they awake from deep sleep is much altered, and Petra learns that colonization of a new planet may not happen as she expects. 

An important reminder: these months are never “just” for the group mentioned in the tagline. We should all be reading stories with characters who do not look like us. Encourage this as a practice in your own home, schools, and communities. This is how we make the world a more loving, accepting, and inclusive home for all of us.

 

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The Power of Reading

I know you have heard this before, but it never hurts to be reminded: Reading is Powerful. And books are magic. We live in a noisy world that is getting louder all the time. Sometimes I feel like books are the only safe place I have.

Even if you already know the magic and the power of reading, I want you to take some time to be mindful– you know– really sit with how books have touched your life. You may have a beautiful memory of being read to as a child, or of being introduced to books like Oprah often shares about one of her favorite teachers and her grandmother. Maybe you were going through a bad time in your life and books literally saved you or maybe a book was the first time in your life that you were able to piece together that you were not such an oddball after all. Yes, there are other people in the world who are just like you.

Reading has meant so much to me in my life that I founded a whole book festival to highlight all the things that books, and the people who write them… and the people who read them… mean to me.

I cannot urge you enough to intentionally slow down from the chaos of this crazy fast-paced world and fall in love with a book. If you have never fallen in love with a book I promise you there are a few books out there with your name on them. You just have not found them yet. But you can and I hope you do.

I hope you will use books as a special way to bond with others in your life. Do you have a grandchild that lives across the country? Send them a book you have read. Ask them to read it. Then set up a date for a Saturday afternoon where you both make tea, have special cookies, and just talk about all the things you loved about the book (or maybe even the parts that drove you both crazy). Are you looking for ways to get out and do something different? Maybe even meet new people? My local indy bookstore right here in town holds a monthly Banned Books book club! It really is a blast because the people who come to these things are funny, witty, and best of all welcoming.

Look for something local in your area to get into. But best of all, just put down the phone, turn off the TV, stop arguing with that person who wants to argue the same things, and pick up a book that speaks to you. Do it for you because you will learn so much about the thoughts in your head. Some thoughts you may not have known existed. I think that my brain actually gets smaller when I watch TV, but when I read a book my mind grows. The whole world opens u to me in a way I could not see before. In a way, I could have never imagined.

And it will for you too. You owe this time to yourself to slow down and find some peace in this hectic world. We do not have to be robots on autopilot. We do not have to waste hours of our time mindlessly scrolling on a phone. You can find your peace, grow your brain, and get your life back through the power of reading. This is my wish for you. Let me know how it goes.

Love, Deedee Cummings

Founder of Make A Way Media

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Daring to Dream: This Is The Earth

Sometimes dreams come from the most unlikely places. This is The Earth was written by Make A Way founder Deedee Cummings after she was watching the news and became discouraged by the political unrest in our country. “Peace is a language,” Deedee says, “and we are not teaching children how to speak it.” She did not plan to write a book that talks about taking care of the Earth, but it was a natural fit. When we take care of ourselves, we take better care of those around us and the spaces we live in.

Earth Day is April 22nd. In honor of this day we are talking about a beautiful book published a few years ago by Make A Way Media called This is The Earth.

This is a book written for kids all about taking care of one another and our home, the Earth. The book is beautifully illustrated by Charlene Mosley and even has a discussion guide in the back. Children need to understand that it is important to take care of the Earth, but it begins with us believing that Earth is home to all of us. We have to commit to taking care of one another. This book is an example of a dream come true. A dream that was born from something that was not pretty, warm, or fuzzy. It is an example of how you can be surrounded by darkness and choose to be the light.

Last year, Deedee was honored to be asked to participate in the annual Read Your World classroom kit. What was last year’s classroom kit about? Environmental Justice. If you have not already signed up for access to this free kit, please do so here. Anyone can use the information generously provided by this nonprofit agency (formerly called Multicultural Children’s Book Day) to talk with children or entire communities about the importance of understanding that the Earth is our home and we that we must take care of it and one another.

Why does Make A Way have a book that aligns with environmental justice? Because environmental justice aligns with empathy. We believe, as Mother Teresa so eloquently said, “We belong to one another”.

We have these days of remembrance like Earth Day so that it causes us all to stop, even if only momentarily, to talk with one another about issues that are important to us. Books are also a great way to begin this discussion with your family or to keep it going. We hope you love the imagery from this book and we are grateful to be able to highlight these topics for children and in our communities. It is a dream come true. Let’s celebrate Earth Day together!

 

 

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Hope In the Nick of Time

I have decided to write a third In the Nick of Time book. Seems I have lost my mind on the holiday book tour. I just love Christmas. My family and I always have. We have all kinds of holiday books, we make lots of cookies, and we do things as a family to support families in our community.

Five years ago when I wrote In the Nick of Time it got a lot of publicity. It was important to me that my children have a character in a Christmas story that they could identify with. This was hard to find. There just were not a lot of holiday books featuring Black characters, but there were even fewer featuring Black Santas and little Black boys.  Three years ago when I wrote In the Nick of Time Too, there were only about 20 or so books that featured a Black Santa available to buy online. Less than twenty-five books! In the world. Can you believe that?

This work is important. People of color (Black people especially) celebrate Christmas too!!! Why are we not represented in children’s stories?

During this past Christmas season, the real-life Nick and I went to New York to see the real-life Princess Kayla. It was a beautiful trip. Kayla was in the hit Broadway show Some Like It Hot and I wanted to see it one more time before the show closed. It is hard to explain to a child why there are so many people in need side by side with people who are carrying bags aplenty from Macy’s and Footlocker. How do we explain to children the generosity of Christmas with the despair of the real world?

Hope is in desperate need. It seems like we are at odds more than ever. Yet we have always needed one another and we always will. As Mother Teresa said, “We belong to one another”. I hope that you will keep your eyes and ears open for the release of this third book in the series. I am excited about contributing to an important discussion about how we take care of one another and how we foster hope for everyone regardless of their beliefs, their socioeconomic status, or the color of their skin. As always, we will announce new book releases here on our website and Instagram! Thank you all for supporting our mission to spread a love of diversity and a deeper understanding of empathy.

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Daring To Dream: How To Dream – Part 2

Make A Way Media is celebrating TEN YEARS of Make A Way all year long. At Make A Way we talk a lot about diverse stories, the importance of reading, empathy and… following your dreams. We have spent ten years talking about this so you know it must be important.

Why do you think it is so hard for us to listen to a dream and try to put it into action?

You would think that dreams would be something that are celebrated, but they rarely are until the dream comes true. Then, everyone holds the dream up and marvels at how wonderful it is. But dreams that are only budding rarely receive that kind of warm welcome.

Have you ever shared a dream with someone and they immediately gave you a list of ten reasons why your idea would not work? I tend to believe that the people who do this are the people who could not make their dream come true. Be careful who you share your dream with because not everyone has the vision or the fortitude to do something that has never been done before.

But people do do this all the time. People dream. they plan. They work hard. They execute their vision. And dreams come true all the time. All you have to do is look at the road you drive down every day. Every single sign you see is evidence of someone’s vision… someone’s dream.

And your dream can come true too, especially when you are willing to show yourself a little empathy and believe in your ideas. This Spring I am going to be releasing a new book called How To Dream where I will share the actual steps I take to make dreams come true. Not only my own, but for those around me too. Dreams are the reason we are here. Dreams are what life is made of. A really good dream does not just bless you- it blesses everyone around you too.

If you have a dream and don’t know where to start be sure to follow our Make A Way Mindset web page here and also our Make A Way Mindset Instagram account where I talk daily about the importance of having a dream and working towards bringing that dream to life. It is important to surround yourself who believe in your vision and can help push you along when you get stuck.

The best advice I can give you for following your heart is to just take one step. Just do one thing. You will see that one thing will lead you to the next thing. Just start with one step. Put your dream in motion.

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Daring to Dream: The Importance of Being Empathetic

Did we mention we are celebrating ten years of Make A Way Media? All year long we will be highlighting why we exist. Empathy is a big deal here at Make a Way Media; we talk and write about it a lot and try to support others as they develop their empathy skills. But what is empathy?

At its most basic, empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes; to see how a situation or event impacts them. Empathy also involves withholding judgment and allowing others to be their authentic selves.

Empathy is very important. It is a crucial life skill that impacts a person’s ability in all sorts of arenas, including work, friendship, and marriage. Like a lot of skills, a person can strengthen their empathy with effort, practice, and discussion. 

One of the best ways to increase your empathy is through reading, which is another big deal at Make a Way Media. Reading is an easy way to build your curiosity and expose you to people and situations that are different from yours, thereby improving your ability to put yourself in their shoes. Reading fiction especially allows you a safe space to experience life in a completely different vein. There is a concept in children’s literature called mirrors and windows which truly highlights the basic tenant of reading as it relates to developing a more empathetic spirit. There is a wonderful article on the PBS site which I will share here if you would like to go really in-depth on this subject, but in short, the concept of windows in mirrors means that readers should both see themselves, as well as see the lives of others in the stories they read,

Another way to improve empathy is to find common ground between yourself and people who differ from you. This can feel challenging, but there are usually ways in which we are similar even to people from vastly different worlds. Maybe you both value time spent with family or have a spiritual practice in common. While seeing and understanding differences is important, so is seeing the connections we all share. 

Focusing on others is another way to build empathy. Set down your phone and really listen to people. Look them in the eyes. Hear their journey. Ask questions. Getting a firm grasp of what they are relating to you is essential to really get to know where other people are coming from. This is the basis for developing feelings of connection and compassion. 

What are you doing today to strengthen your empathy muscle? It is just like a muscle– so take active steps to work it out and become the best human you can be.

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How Social Media Can Impact Our Brains

As a nation, we’ve gotten better about talking about our feelings, which hopefully means we’ve gotten a little better about paying attention to our feelings. It is important to acknowledge how we feel about things and plumb those feelings to understand where they come from. But sometimes, especially on social media, we allow our feelings to get carried away, and that may make our fingers type things that aren’t kind or accurate. 

It isn’t abnormal to first feel, then act. Especially when it comes to an emotion like fear. This is after all how our human ancestors survived. Of course, now, lives have gotten much more complicated and nuanced. While being threatened by a saber-toothed tiger is a pretty bright-line situation, the things we deal with in modern life, such as immigration policy, homeowners’ associations, and unemployment insurance, may not be as clear-cut. 

Have you ever seen an article on Facebook or X and read the comments that people make? There is, of course, nothing wrong with commenting, but the nature of social media makes it darn near impossible to have a healthy, deep conversation about any topic, especially with strangers. This is partly because people tend to react, rather than think. Sometimes people react and respond to comments about an article without ever reading the article at all. Or they react and respond, forgetting )or maybe not even caring) that a human being is on the other side of the article or comment. 

You may have had a thought similar to these when you’ve read an online post or news story:

I’m shocked. How could someone do that?What are these people thinking?Are they bananas?

Our initial reactions can cause us stress, or make us angry or fearful, and if we type a comment while we’re feeling this way, it can be hurtful. 

Taking time to step back and think can be really helpful, not only to our mental health but to the entire experience of social media. Asking ourselves some questions can help calm us down and prevent us from lashing out at others in online forums. 

It is helpful to think about how social media can make us feel and how this power that social media has to affect our esteem, our mood, and our ability to slow down a little and think about whether it is even worth making a comment to begin with. When you feel bad, you may act badly and this is something we all need to reflect on.

One of the best questions to ask oneself is “Why would I think this person (or this group of persons) is different from me?” It is easy to lump people into categories or to fall back on prejudices or preconceived ideas.

Most people have a lot more in common than differences. Most people want to work and take pride in a job well done. Most people love their families. Most people want to go about their lives and not hurt others. And the rest… welllllll… it’s not worth arguing with them anyway.

Taking a moment to pay attention to how you feel in the moment, and not react to our first feeling, can help us have more empathy for ourselves and for others. 

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3 Diannes and the Importance of International Women’s Day

My parents are an interracial couple who married in 1970- in a climate then was nowhere near as accepting of that love as we are now. I did not grow up with Cheerios commercials. Schools in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky were not even integrated until the year I entered Kindergarten. My parents have many stories about the way the world (and even their own families) treated them as a married couple.

And yet, despite all of their hardships and adversity they somehow raised three smart, popular, funny, and caring daughters.

Deirdre “Deedee” Bianca Cummings – Author, Lawyer, Therapist & Entrepreneur, and Founder of Make A Way MediaAmanda Ella Compton – Attorney & Law Professor Louisa Lucia Pecchioni – One of the very few female vascular surgeons in the country

My mother was a Mast. My father, a Pecchioni. Two very strong and respected families in their communities. Pecchioni [pronounced Peck-ee-oh-nee] is Italian and means “keeper of the bee.” The Pecchionis were beekeepers in Northern Italy. A severe drought forced them to migrate South. They eventually settled in Sicily and continued to raise bees. Bees to this day have been significant symbols in our family.

I mean… this alone… this is something to uphold, cherish and celebrate.

But here’s another significant family fact: My maternal grandmother named my mother Andrea Dianne Mast. Dianne was the name of a very kind nurse who helped my grandmother give birth to my mother. This name has been continued throughout our family. The three oldest daughters– of the three strong Pecchioni girls– are named Kayla Dianne (my baby), Sofia Dianne (Louisa’s baby), and Ella Dianne (Amanda’s baby).

Just last month I was talking to my oldest niece, Sofia and she was unaware of the significance of her middle name. I know for a fact she was told when she was much younger, but over time she had forgotten how significant her middle name is to our family.

Almost all families have some rich treasured history like this. I feel so proud to know that we are paying tribute to our grandmother, our mother, and a beautiful and kind nurse who we never got to meet, but touched our lives so directly through the birth of my mom. I think she would be blown away by the three beautiful eldest granddaughters of Andrea Dianne Mast Pecchioni who all now carry on this memory.

These are the stories you may never hear, but that does not mean they are not special or inspiring. It just means you never heard of them. When I think of International Women’s Day, a day that is intended to highlight the resilience, achievement, and sheer power of women, I think of women like my sisters, my nieces, and my mother, even though she passed away from breast cancer exactly 21 years ago.

You don’t have to look to the sky or to the library shelves to find heroes. Sometimes you are raised with them. Sometimes you are raised by them. And sometimes you raise a few heroes of your own. Celebrate International Women’s Day by celebrating the women in your life. There is nothing they cannot do.

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Spring Break Mindfulness

Spring Break is a great time to either begin or reinforce a practice of mindfulness. Many people think mindfulness is difficult, but it is just something that has to be learned and practiced like most anything else. If you have tried mindfulness before and found yourself kind of forgetting about it as the day gets going, sticky notes and other reminders are a great way to commit to the practice and stay on track. And there are so many benefits to being more mindful throughout your day.

It really does seem like the world intends to keep us on autopilot. Have you ever arrived at work, but not remembered how you got there? How about promising a good friend that you will call them, yet the whole day flies by and you never gave it a thought. You are not a terrible person. You are a machine. Our days are set up with 24 benchmarks: we go to sleep, wake up, shower, dress, drop kids off, head to the office, come back home, and go back to sleep almost all without a thought. It is only once someone cuts us off on the road or we have some other unusual event that we even look up from our coffee cup and notice that the sun is shining.

We are missing out on our entire lives.

Mindfulness looks different for everyone. You have to find the tools that work for you, but there are definitely techniques that will work for you. Tips that will help you slow down a little and squeeze a little more of the good stuff out of life. We do not have to be robots.

I found a really useful article about practical steps you can easily take to incorporate more mindfulness throughout your day here. I couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s important to slow down and get better control of your life and your emotions. You will find that a few moments of adding mindful techniques to your day will pay off in dividends. You will be more calm, more focused, and better in touch with your wants, needs, hopes, and desires. You also may end up being a little more kind and patient with yourself which will help you live a happier life. Give mindfulness a try as you picture all of the parts of your mind and spirit growing and emerging from the long winter break, in the same way, the flowers and the trees around you are also doing. Enjoy the time to stretch and grow as the weather warms up. Promise yourself a life in full bloom.

 

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