Hollye Jacobs's Blog, page 10

How to Help Someone Grieving During the Holidays

How to Help Someone Grieving During the Holidays

Please allow me to re-post a piece that I did at this time last year.  Grieving during the holidays is especially hard…adding insult to injury as it were, so I thought that I would share this again.

No matter how recent or far a death occurred, the holidays bring up memories and consequently, the pain of the loss. Family members and friends often have a difficult time knowing what to say or how to support their loved one. Recently, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization published a terrific article with fantastic tips for helping someone who is grieving during the holidays. I hope that these tips help you or someone close to you during this difficult time.

Be supportive of the way the person chooses to handle the holidays.  Some may wish to follow traditions; others may choose to avoid customs of the past and do something new. It’s okay to do things differently.
Offer to help the person with decorating or holiday baking.  Both tasks can be overwhelming for someone who is grieving.
Offer to help with holiday shopping.  Share catalogs or online shopping sites that may be helpful.
Invite the person to join you or your family during the holidays.  You might invite them to join you for a religious service or at a holiday meal where they are a guest.
Ask the person if he or she is interested in volunteering with you during the holidays. Doing something for someone else, such as helping at a soup kitchen or working with children, may help your loved one feel better about the holidays.
Donate a gift or money in memory of the person’s loved one.  Remind the person that his or her loved one is not forgotten.
Never tell someone that he or she should be “over it.”  Instead, give the person hope that, eventually, he or she will enjoy the holidays again.
Be willing to listen.  Active listening from friends and family is an important step to helping some cope with grief and heal.
Remind the person you are thinking of him or her and the loved one who died.Cards, phone calls and visits are great ways to stay in touch.
Follow up after the holidays to check in.  Given the activity of the season, some people may make it through the holidays without any issues, but they might find the post-holiday period to be more difficult. So checking in after the holidays to see how he or she may be doing is helpful.

In general, the best way to help those who are grieving during the holidays is to let them know you care and that their loved one is not forgotten.

More information about grief or hospice is available from NHPCO’s Caring Connections,  www.caringinfo.org, or visit Visiting Nurse & Hospice Care’s Bereavement Support & Counseling website or contact them at (805) 965-5555.

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Coping with Cancer During the Holidays

While I loooooove the holidays, they are also fraught with challenges You know what I mean?  Too many calories. Too little sleep.  Too many errands. Too little time. The year that I had FBC was especially difficult – obviously. DUH. I felt completely out of step from the rest of the world during that holiday season.  I wondered:  How do I take care of myself AND everything else? How can I celebrate when I have so many other things on my mind?  I know that I wasn’t alone in having these feelings.

Here are some additional tips for coping with cancer during the holidays:

Release obligation. This was especially hard for me, but when I did, I felt so much better.  I didn’t “should” on myself. I gave myself permission to pace my activities and to decline invitations when I didn’t feel well or have the energy to participate.
Express your feelings in ways that help you receive the support of the important people in your life. It is incredibly therapeutic to cry. In fact, tears often bring me a humongous sense of relief. Laughter can be simultaneously invigorating and relaxing. Sharing can be comforting.  Let your feelings breaaaaaathe, and talk them over with a loved one, friend or professional counselor.
Make plans to see family and friends. Trying to celebrate alone can be very difficult (especially when you are on Isolation Island!), so accept some invitations from others, or join an organized group activity through your local YMCA, YWCA, church or synagogue. Find the right balance between celebrating with family and friends and spending the time you may need on your own.
Be a creative and innovative shopper or gift giver. When I was sick, I didn’t go into a single store. I shopped entirely online.  This helped me immensely.  I have to say that I have held to that practice! Another idea is to write a short note or make a phone call to let others know that you are thinking about them. The Silver Lining is that this is FREE!
Create a new holiday season tradition that makes the most of your energy. One of my friends who had FBC has about 25 family members descend on her house for Christmas dinner. Many even bring their own tupperware to take food home. Seriously. It is so healthy to change your usual holiday activities so you relieve yourself of some (or all!) of the pressures of entertaining. You could have a “pot luck,” with family members each bringing a dish for the meal, have someone else host the meal, or suggest eating out at a favorite restaurant. Remember: asking for help is a sign of strength not weakness!

Hope that this helps!  What has helped you cope?

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Relaxation During Cancer Treatment

I know that it will not come as a surprise when I say that cancer and its treatment can be stressful for people with cancer and their caregivers. Understatement of the decade, I’d say.  When I was sick, for the first time in my life, I started using relaxation techniques and other mind/body practices to help calm my mind and sharpen my ability to focus. I had never used them before but loved them so much that I have carried them into my life after cancer.  The way I see it, ANYTHING that I/we can do do reduce stress (caused by cancer or just life in general!) are a Silver Lining.

Here are some techniques that can help you cope with the challenges of cancer*:

Breathing Exercises

At the core of life is breath. Anxiety and stress can make us take short, shallow breaths. Shallow breathing, which does not allow enough oxygen to enter our bodies, can make us even more anxious. Deep breathing is calming, energizing and restorative. Laughing and sighing are the body’s natural ways of getting us to breathe deeply.

Try this four-step breathing exercise anywhere, anytime:

1. Take in a deep breath from your diaphragm (this is the muscle between your lungs and abdomen).

2. Hold the breath for several seconds—however long is comfortable for you—and then exhale slowly.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 two more times.

4. Afterward, relax for a moment and let yourself feel the experience of being calm

Meditation

Just this year, I started meditating. It has made a humongous difference in my life. Three types of meditation include:

repetitive prayers are a form of meditation
one-pointed meditation
two-pointed meditation.

One-pointed meditation focuses on a word or sound called a mantra. Many people create their own mantra from an affirming word, such as “peace,” “love” or “hope.” Once you choose a mantra, find a safe, quiet place and repeat it to yourself during 15- to 20-minute sittings. The goal is to relax the mind, which has a natural tendency to jump from one idea to the next—and from one worry to the next. Do not try to force your mind back to your mantra when you notice it has wandered. Simply guide it back gently, accepting that it may stray again. My mind still bounces around – sometimes like a racquetball game – but I patiently guide myself back to my mantra.

Two-pointed meditation is also called mindful or insight meditation. With this technique, you relax your mind by focusing on your breath. As your mind jumps around, practice non-judgmental awareness—simply observe the pattern of your thoughts and gently guide them back to focus on your breath. Non-judgmental awareness allows you to separate yourself from emotions and sensations rather than getting pulled into them. One benefit of this type of meditation is that you can practice it while seated quietly or when doing daily activities. I happen to love this one!

Guided Imagery

When I was in the bottomless pit of chemo despair, an amazing psychologist introduced me to guided imagery. This stress-reducing technique combines deep breathing and meditation. As you practice deep breathing, imagine a peaceful scene or setting, perhaps from a memory. Once you are relaxed, you can create a “wakeful dream” in which, for example, you envision pain being washed away or your body becoming stronger.

Many people practice guided imagery exercises while listening to recordings of ambient sounds. These are usually music or sounds from nature, such as waterfalls or ocean waves. Sometimes just listening to ambient sounds is enough to relax your mind and briefly transport you emotionally to a place in which you feel safer and more secure. One of the biggest Silver Linings of guided imagery is that it often enabled me to go into a deep and wonderful sleep!

Other mind/body practices are yoga, tai chi, and Qigong. These techniques are often taught at cancer centers, health clubs, YMCA’s and senior centers around the country. Be sure to ask your health care team about them!  Oh and another Silver Lining is that they are often FREE!

* Adapted from the great site Cancer Care

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Gift Guide for Thoughtful and FREE Gifts

My inbox seems to be FULL of Gift Guides.  I used to really enjoy them, but to be honest, now they are driving me bananas.  So many of them feel so commercial and disingenuous. I really don’t mean to sound like a grinch, but you all know by now that I’m not one to shy away from saying what I think.  I’m also not one to kvetch without a solution.  So, it occurred to me that there are tons of free (or nearly free) gifts that we can give one another that can lift the mind, body and spirit way more than something purchased at a store.  Here are some of my faves:

Create a personal website for someone, complete with photo montage, if you’re good at web stuff.
Create a picnic for the two of you, or for the whole family or group of friends.
Plan a day trip into nature.
Create a scrapbook.
Find a board game at Goodwill and customize it for the person’s personality.
If you have an expertise, give them the gift of coaching: be their personal trainer, French tutor, piano teacher, if that’s what they’ve been wanting to do, and that’s in your expertise.
Pass along your absolute favorite books
Walk their dog
Clean their house or wash their car.
Bake brownies or a berry pie.
Take a class together (community classes are often free or super inexpensive).
Pass on your digital camera if you aren’t using it and they would.
Gift certificate for mowing their lawn.
Make an illustrated book about how awesome the person is.
Create a video from family/friends with everyone sharing what they love about the person.

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The Illusion of Time After Cancer

Recently, I came across a new blog that I am crazy about.  It is called HerAfter.com. The author, Rachael Yahne, had cancer and is a writer and blogger (obviously) living in New York. After years as a fashion journalist (a girl after my own heart!), she now writes women’s lifestyle articles about life, love, style, and life after not just cancer, but all of life’s big challenges (we are kindred spirits!). Her latest post is about the Illusion of Time.  She had me at the title.  One of the things that FBC did to me was demonstrate loudly and clearly that time is indeed an illusion. Rachel’s blog post on this exact topic is spot on and incredibly inspiring. She generously allowed me to share her piece. Hope that you enjoy it as much as I did!

The Illusion of Time

Have you ever resolved to lose weight, then felt frustrated when, three weeks in, you hadn’t lost every pound?

Have you ever bought a skin cream that promises overnight results?

Have you ever decided to learn a new language or a new skill, then found yourself resenting the snail’s pace of the learning curve?

What an argumentative conversation with time we’ve created; it’s more of a war than a romance. Always feeling there’s not enough time in the day. Always searching for the ‘right time: The right time to have kids. The right time to switch careers.

We are both obsessed with and controlled by our fascination with fast-moving instant results. Because of it, we no longer work in sync with the actual pace of time. A minute to receive an email feels like an eternity. A delivery of a few days is just too long to wait. We complain when our downloads, our uploads, our texts and calls and connections don’t move quickly enough. We’re frustrated and angry when any of our efforts don’t produce rewards instantaneously. We’ve completely forgotten the value of a journey in favor of an end.

In truth, we cannot control the pace to which things naturally move, be they our bodily constitution or our mind’s functioning; in fact demanding any part of life to move to the beat of childish impatience is only an act of disrespect toward life itself. We tell it “hurry up!” “I can’t wait!” when in fact nature is begging of us “slow down, you will see I have a system in place. Every step must be taken in turn.” A bird does not traverse the sky in a single flap of wings. We cancer survivors were given a crash course in ‘time’, not only because the amount we had left on earth was threatened, but also because you wouldn’t believe the extent to which the mind can see an IV’s drip pace as aggravatingly and pompously slow. Drip, you jerk…

Those ‘makeover myths’ of instant gratification, those overnight products and instant slimmers and fast income miracles, they are just dangled carrots, designed to be always out of reach but just tempting enough to chase. Theoretically, yes, you could take the ‘easy route’ of spending your hard earned cash on overnight skin clearers or expensive juice fasts. But these are easy not because they offer the desired results effortlessly; they are easy because they make it so simple to excuse inaction. They make it so simple to stay in the repetitive cycle of the myth.

The alternative? Acquiescing to this moment, appreciating it for what it is, and working with it rather than against it. True emotional freedom from the punishment of our self-conceived concepts of time lies in realizing where you are, right here in this moment, and beginning the work needed right here and now.

I don’t believe in time in the conventional sense of clocks and calenders. I don’t believe in the linear aspect of it because from everything I’ve learned in books and yoga and meditation and fromEckhart Tolle and Rumi and Timothy Ferriss and Elizabeth Gilbert and everyone I respect, there IS no time, not in the counting sense. There is only now.

Every day is every single other day. In other words, everything you do today is a culmination of every day that has proceeded this one. And every single thing you do today influences all future days. If you do nothing today, nothing happens tomorrow. If you do today what you did yesterday, including all the bad habits of every day of every year of your life up until this moment, you will be the same tomorrow. TODAY is habitual equation of every single other day forward and backward and past and future and up and down and in and out.

But this shouldn’t be terrifying; it should be liberating. It doesn’t mean that we are trapped in a cycle. It means we are free of the cycle, because of the cycle. The cycle is our liberation, not our cage. We are not stuck in a rat wheel of repetition forced to do the same things day in and day out. On the contrary! We are free to change our existence every single day in every single moment. We are given that beautiful and perfect opportunity every single day! Because everything we do affects everything we did before (our relationship with the past) and everything we will do (the impact of today’s action on tomorrow) we are free to redefine and redesign and rediscover our lives in every single step of our lives, throughout all of our time.

The secret to true makeovers, mental or physical or lifestyle, is never any product. It’s action. The secret to happiness and reaching your goals is action today. It’s what you do right here and right now. It’s choosing your mood, your behavior, and choosing, with consciousness, your actions in this moment. It’s doing something new that you wanted to do yesterday but didn’t. It’s accomplishing the necessary tasks today to live a life of love and excitement. It’s embracing RIGHT NOW as your opportunity and liberation, not tomorrow. Not yesterday.

Today is the most empowering day of your life. As you read this, you are in your chance to make a difference. To live. To do your work. To make this life everything you want.

Take the steps today, in this moment, to build the life you dream of. Every bite you take, every message you tell yourself in the mirror, every look and touch you give your body and soul is in your full control. Learn to embrace the moment, the journey, and the beautiful pace of time, and realize patience, like everything, is a practice of knowing that this beautiful, fleeting moment will pass. And before you know it, your time to live will pass right by too.

Tips:

Each time you sit down to eat, tell yourself: “THIS bite is my chance to take control and take care of myself.” Relish every flavor. Know that every time you choose something healthy over something unhealthy is a victory. Know that every time you fall off the wagon and give in to the cupcake is just a chance to indulge because rewards are needed too (not a reason to punish yourself) and make a better decision next time.
Each time you begin to doubt yourself your will power, tell yourself: “THIS moment is my chance to train my mind.” Know that will power is built up, not acquired instantaneously. Like everything, it is practice; a muscle that must be strengthened before it can be flexed.
Each time a negative message comes into your mind, gently and lovingly push it out. Tell yourself:“THIS moment is my chance clear out my mind and heart of negativity.” Replace it with gratitude, for any or everything. In every moment that we chose positive gratitude over negative self-judgment, we clear the way for a brighter character tomorrow. And yes, it’s a choice!

You can catch up with her on Twitter ( @RachaelYahne ) and read more of her articles on HerAfter.com

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Public Speaking Tips from a Champion

Public Speaking Tips from a Champion

This year I have had some amazing opportunities to share my story, from small groups to enormous ones, from local television to national. I used to have serious, sometimes debilitating nerve bugs prior to speaking. The Silver Lining is that now, while the nerve bugs are certainly present, I do my very best to redirect the negative bugs into positive energy. All that said, I am always looking for ways to improve my public speaking skills. Recently, I learned about Dananjaya Hettiarachchi who was recently named the World Champion of Public Speaking by Toastmasters International. He went through 7 rounds of competition against 33,000 people from around the world (can you even imagine?). The compeition took over 6 months and ended in Kuala Lumpus, Malaysia where Hettiarachchi gave his speech titled “I See Something”.  And let me tell you… it was nothing short of amazing!!

Here are a few of his pointers:

1. Always start with a message. Instead of starting with a topic (like many speakers do), start with a concise message that you want your audience to be thinking about when your speech concludes. This was keep your audience engaged with the overall meaning of your presentation and not leave them waiting for concluding remarks to get the full picture.

2. Be confident enought to be yourself. Hettiarachchi says “You have to sell yourself before you can sell your message”. The only way to do this is to be as genuine as possible. This means a speech should be conversational as much as possible. Stay away from acting or being theatrical. This also means… PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!! The more you know your speech, the more comfortable and genuine you will be on stage.

3. See yourself through your audience’s eyes. When speaking, it’s important to remember that you are doing it for the benefit of others… not yourself. When you take the time to listen to your own speech as if you were in the audience, you will most likley be able to cut away parts of your speech the audience doesn’t NEED to hear —The parts that you added in because they were only significant to you.

4. Have a forum to practice. The best way to become a good public speaker is by trial and error. Give your speech to an audience that you know will be honest with you and give you accurate and informative feedback. Hettiarachchi says that he loves to give his speeches to children because very rarely do they hold back thier honest opinions.

5. Find the right coach or mentor. This person does not need to be a fellow professional public speaker. In fact, they just need to be someone that knows your personality well and in order to challenge you to push toward your goal of sharing your true self with others.

Here is the video of Hettiarachchi’s winning speech. Watch how quickly he is able to get the audience to laugh, answer a question, and bring them into sobriety all within a matter of seconds. It was clear that Hettiarachchi captured his audience and hit home with his message!

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Musical Monday: Holiday Playlist

Here are my all-time favorite Christmas Holiday songs in my holiday playlist.  I have to admit that I was a little befuddled when the Christmas songs started on the radio before Thanksgiving.  BUT, the day after Thanksgiving, I was ALL IN.  These songs are my Silver Lining of the busy-ness of the season and I have them playing in my office all day.  What are your favorites?

PS – for some reason, Hollye is always misspelled as Holly.  Don’t worry, I have corrected that.  

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Colorful Eating to Decrease Risk of Cancer

Earlier this week, I participated in the Living Beyond Breast Cancer Twitter Chat about eating during and after cancer treatment.  It was a super engaging and interesting “discussion”.  Btw, I’m still amazed that I actually have conversations via social media.  But the Silver Lining is that I DO have conversations and have met some wonderful people on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram!

Anyhoo, I thought that I would share some of the questions and answers:

What is the recommended diet for women who have experienced breast cancer?

Increase intake of fruits, vegetables and whole grains
Decrease fat intake to < 30 percent of calories

Limit the intake of highly saturated foods such as beef, lamb, organ meats, cheeses, cream, butter, ice cream
Decrease food containing trans fatty acids, such as commercially prepared baked goods, crackers and margarine
Increase your intake of poultry, fish and vegetarian proteins (legumes and lentils). Increasing your intake of fish to 3 times per week will increase    omega-3-polyunsaturated fat intake. Research has suggested that these fatty acids may inhibit the growth of breast tumors.


Minimize intake of cured, pickled and smoked foods
Achieve and maintain a healthy weight
Alcohol consumption should be done in moderation, if at all




Which diet is right for my nutritional needs?

A healthy diet is best…for people with cancer, after cancer…and, I would argue, to decrease your chances of developing it in the first place!
This diet, outlined below, promotes overall health and may help protect against different types of cancer and other diseases.

Achieve and maintain a healthy weight. (Survivors who are overweight or obese should limit high-calorie foods and beverages and increase physical activity to help with weight loss.)
Eat at least 2 ½ cups of fruits and vegetables every day.
Choose 100 percent whole grain foods (such as 100 percent whole grain breads and cereals, brown rice, millet and quinoa).
Limit red meat and processed meat. Choose chicken, fish or beans more often.
Limit “bad” fats (saturated and trans fats). These are found in foods such as red meat, fatty deli meats, poultry skin, full fat dairy, fried foods, margarine, donuts and microwave popcorn.
Eat “good” fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats). These are found in foods such as olive and canola oil, nuts and natural nut butters, avocado and olives.
Limit alcohol intake to less than one drink a day for women and fewer than two drinks a day for men.




How do you maintain eating healthy during high stress times?  Ex: the holidays.

Recognize what’s happening. When stressful events or thoughts trigger the urge to eat, stop and evaluate first. Are you hungry or not? Rate your hunger on a scale from 1 to 10. Ask yourself when was the last time you ate, to see if your body needs food right now. “Often, negative emotions trigger what feels like hunger but is really just a habitual response to eat to get rid of negative feelings,” says Elissa S. Epel, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and a researcher on stress and eating.
Call on a substitute. To make stress eating less automatic, you need to find better ways to deal with everyday hassles and ongoing tensions. Choose a healthy stress-busting alternative such as going for a walk or run, listening to music, calling a friend for a chat, brushing your cat or dog, or just sitting quietly.
Plan Ahead: Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. If you plan ahead, you can head off temptation for unhealthy holiday eating. For example, if you’re going to a party or an event where you know you’ll be tempted, eat some healthy food first so you won’t show up starving and have only decadent options at your disposal. Learn your triggers, and have strategies for combating them.
Have a sweet tooth? Fruit provides natural sweetness that can reduce your urge for high sugar items.
Exercise Your Right To Get A Workout: Exercise can be a good stress reliever, and is great for the waistline as well, of course. Another thing that many people have mentioned is that when they workout, they find themselves craving the ‘naughty foods’ less, perhaps if for no other reason than they don’t want to undo the good they did when they were working out. Whatever the reason, exercise brings multiple benefits, and is a great ally in the war against poor holiday eating habits. Enlist exercise, and see the benefits for yourself.




Organic vs. non-organic?  How do you make these food choices? Concern about the possible effects of food additives on health, including cancer, is one reason that many people are now interested in organic foods. Whether organic foods carry a lower risk of cancer because they are less likely to be contaminated by compounds that might cause cancer is largely unknown. Several studies have looked at the nutrient content of organic versus conventionally grown fruits or vegetables, and while some studies suggest a higher nutrient content, others suggest no difference. It is not known if the nutritional differences that have been reported would result in health benefits such as a reduced cancer risk. Vegetables, fruits, and whole grains should form the central part of a person’s diet, regardless of whether they are grown conventionally or organically. While there is not a significant amount of evidence that organic food makes a huge difference in ones diet, it is better to error on the safe side when FBC is in your life!!


How do you get started with and sustain healthy eating habits?

Aim for balance. Most days, eat from each food group—grains, protein foods, vegetables and fruits, and dairy. Listen to your body. Eat when you’re hungry. Stop when you feel satisfied.
Look for variety. Be adventurous. Choose different foods in each food group. For example, don’t reach for an apple every time you choose a fruit. Eating a variety of foods each day will help you get all the nutrients you need.
Practice moderation. Don’t have too much or too little of one thing. All foods, if eaten in moderation, can be part of healthy eating. Even sweets can be okay.
Don’t try to change everything at once
Set an easy goal you can reach, like having a salad and a piece of fruit each day.
Make a long-term goal too, such as having one vegetarian dinner a week.




What foods support immunity or help prevent/treat side effects?

The more color the better!! This means eating more vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, and beans. Plants have more fiber and less fat that most other foods, which is why they are the most nutritious for you. Plant-based foods are low in fat and high in fiber, allowing them to support your immune system and help your body fight off cancer.
Fiber foods!! Fiber is the part of plants (grains, fruits, and vegetables) that your body can’t digest. Therefore, fiber keeps your digestive system clean as well as helps food move through your digestive tract smoothly. This means that fiber also moves cancer-causing compounds out of your body before they can create any harm. So bulk up!! Eat more brown rice, whole-grain bread and pasta, fruit, vegetables, and beans.
Check out my blog post called Anti-Cancer foods. It gives more information about specific foods that are right in disease-fighting and immune boosting nutrients

* Adapted from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine that promotes preventive medicine, conducts clinical research and encourages higher standards in research.

 

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Living Beyond Breast Cancer Twitter Chat on December 3rd

Hi everyone! Tomorrow, December 3rd from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET  I will be participating in a Living Beyond Breast Cancer Twitter Chat about diet and nutrition after a breast cancer diagnosis. (Just in time for the holiday season!!)

Here are a few questions that will be addressed:

What is the recommended diet for women who have or had breast cancer?
Which diet is right for my nutrutional needs?
How do you maintian eating healthy during high stress times? How can I eat healthy during the holidays and other challenging times?
What should I know about organic vs. non-organic foods?
How can I get started with and keep up healthy eating habits?
What foods can strengthen my immune system and help prevent or lessen side effects?
Where else can I get good information about nutrition and breast cancer?

For those of us who didn’t grow up in the social media age… here is how a twitter chat works: Panelists (such as myself and other experts in the subject)  will tweet responses to commonly asked questions about diet and nutrution after a breast cancer diagnosis. You have the opportunity to answer questions along with us as well as pose whatever follow-up questions you have. Anything is game! How cool is that?!

Join me tonight by following me on twitter at @hollyejacobs

Can’t wait to hear from you!

 

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Giving Tuesday 2014

Giving Tuesday 2014

Knowing that today is Giving Tuesday is a Silver Lining start to the day! Since Thanksgiving, we’ve had plenty of days focused on shopping with “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” but now it’s time for the feel good day…”Giving Tuesday”.

I believe that it’s incredibly important to teach children about philanthropy early in life. By the time children turn 3, they begin to understand and respect the fact that each and every person has feelings. Therefore, children can begin to develop a sense of compassion which is the foundation of charitable thinking. Our daughter, a/k/a Excitedly Eight did her first service projects while she was in preschool.

Giving back has always been a core value of our family. We talk the talk and then walk the walk. I believe that it is incredibly important to lead by example. In fact, on Thanksgiving we started volunteering at the Organic Soup Kitchen (only in Santa Barbara, I know!). Their mission is to “provide organic, nutritious food to marginalized sectors of the community while pursuing financial, economical and environmental sustainability.” It is so, so fabulous!

Another favorite place to support is Direct Relief.  As you may know they are distributing The Silver Lining Companion Guide both electronically online and in paperback to 9,000 of their community partners around the country. It is an absolutely wonderful organization that is near and dear to our hearts.

Teaching children about philanthropy, i.e., learning about giving and helping others gives children a feeling of empowerment and healthy sense of compassion. It also cultivates an an attitude of gratitude. How are those for win-win Silver Linings?

If you’re a little stumped on where/how to begin with the children in your life, there is a super cool website that I’ve recently come across that I loooove. It’s called Learning to Give. It provides philanthropy education resources that teach giving and civic engagement.

Additionally, the #GivingTuesday website offers boatloads of ideas for giving back and getting involved. It’s really great. Here is the direct link: http://givingtuesday.org/

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