Wordless Wednesday
Naiva Klishta Na Cha Kathina नैव क्लिष्टा न च कठिना
Each week, the Sanskrit class I attend opens with us singing “Naiva Klishta Na Cha Kadhina.” I love the song and it frequently plays in my head during the day and during the night.
Last week I found it on YouTube.
I asked my teacher what the words meant and he suggested that members of the class translate it. One of the other students and I are going to do that. As you can see below, there are lots of verses.
I finished my attempt at translating the first verse. It appears to be a list of some of the qualities of Sanskrit.
Sanskrit is:
lovely, easy to understand, universally agreeable to the mind.
elegant, beloved, to be enjoyed
sweet speech
not obscure and not difficult
I look forward to working on the other verses. And I am also looking forward to seeing what my classmate comes up with!
Weekly Photo Challenge: One Love
I have many loves but the one that I am most immersed in at the moment is my study of Sanskrit. Almost every night, I am dreaming of Sanskrit. In my sleep I’m formulating sentences, reviewing vocabulary, hearing the song we sing in class. I’m learning words faster now and I believe some of that is due to whatever is happening during the night.
Here is a photo from the Samskrita Bharati camp I attended for three days last summer. I’m quite easy to spot!
Written for Weekly Photo Challenge: One Love
Food Waste: More Information to Ponder
I included some food waste facts in my Challenge for Growth Prompt #10: Ending Food Waste post. Below you will find a quote from Gandhi, an abundance continuum from Jean I. Clarke, and some more relevant facts.
1) Gandhi once said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”
2) Jean I. Clarke created an abundance continuum. It looks like this: “too little … enough … abundance … too much”
3) “As of 2013, half of all food is wasted worldwide, according to the British Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_waste.
4) “Food waste that goes to the landfill breaks down anaerobically and produces methane; methane is 21 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.” (Environmental Protection Agency) from End Food Waste Now
5) “Every ton of food wasted results in 3.8 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP)” End Food Waste Now
6) “A single restaurant in the U.S. can produce approximately 25,000 to 75,000 pounds of food waste in a year, according to the Green Restaurant Association.” End Food Waste Now
7) “Every year, consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food (222 million tons) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tons).” Food and Agriculture Organization
8) “Hunger is still one of the most urgent development challenges, yet the world is producing more than enough food. Recovering just half of what is lost or wasted could feed the world alone.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
9) “Around 100 million tonnes in the EU. If nothing is done, food waste could rise to over 120 million tonnes by 2020.” Another source Reported: “Each year, 22 million tonnes of food is wasted in the European Union, according to a new study, of which 80 per cent is avoidable.” (Both studies are reported. I do not know how to account for the discrepancy in numbers.)
10) “With an estimated 70 billion pounds (~32 million tons) of food waste in America each year, we must work together to capture more of this valuable resource for the nearly 48 million people in the United States who feel the effects of food insecurity.” Feeding America
Personal reflections:
Not wasting food has long been a value of mine but I am far from perfect about it. It will be a life goal I think.
I am lucky to live in a city, Seattle, where recycling and composting of food and yard waste has been available for years. Nowadays, if city residents put food or recyclables in their trash cans, they may be fined. The city’s food and yard waste is sent to Cedar Groves where it is turned into garden compost.
I also compost some of my food waste in two worm bins. One is a big outdoor wooden bin, and the other is a Worm Factory bin that can stay inside my house or on my back deck. Vermi-composting creates high quality fertilizer.
I LOVE MY WORMS!
Challenge for Growth Prompt #10: Ending Food Waste
Ending Food Waste
This week’s challenge is:
“Today I do not waste food.”
In 2012, the National Resources Defense Council of the U.S. concluded that Americans waste 40% of their food. Food is wasted at the farm level, between harvest and sale, during processing, during distribution, in grocery stores, in restaurants and in our homes. The study also reported that American’s throw out 25% of the food and beverages they buy. You can learn more about these statistics at: Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill
Many children in my generation grew up with parents who demanded that they eat their food because of the starving kids in China. As a result, many of us learned to tune out that message and disregard the fact that there is some truth to that way of thinking. I believe it is important for us to become responsible citizens of the world.
That does not mean we should force ourselves or our children to eat when we/they aren’t hungry. It is also not about shaming people into cleaning their plates. Instead, I think we should focus on how much food we buy, how much we cook, and how much we put on our plates. Children will be more likely to finish eating their food if they are given small portions. They can always ask for more if they are still hungry after they finish the original serving. That is true for adults as well.
While these are U.S. statistics and may be higher than those in other countries, I doubt we are the only country with the problem. This week, for 1, 2, 3 days or longer focus on not wasting food.
Sometime during the week, write a post about some aspect of this topic or about experiences you had when you focused on ending food waste. Feel free to use whatever form you desire: i.e., prose, story, poem, photograph, etc. (If you don’t have a blog, please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section below.)
General Prompt Information:
New prompts will be posted at 5 a.m. (PST) every Wednesday.
Since it is easier to make behavioral changes if we focus on them one day at a time, each of the weekly challenges will start with “Today, I focus on…….” It will be up to you to decide how long you want to focus on a particular challenge— one, two, three days or even longer. At some point during the week, publish a post that relates in some way to the subject of the week.
Link your post back to this prompt post. If the pingback doesn’t work, then leave the link to your post in the comment section below. Be sure to include “Challenge for Growth Prompts” as one of your tags.
Throughout the week, I will publish the links for the posts that were created as the result of this prompt. I will also post the links from those who participated the previous week. That way they will be seen by anyone who comes to this page.
This week’s contributors to: Ending Food Waste
Challenge for growth/food waste- Annette’s Place
Food Waste: More Information to Ponder- Living, Learning and Letting Go
How about you?
Last week’s contributors to: Message to a Child
I Love You…- Living, Learning and Letting Go
Wordless Wednesday
I Love You…
The Challenge for Growth Prompt that started on February 2 was to say something to a child that you wish someone had said to you when you were young. I practice a developmental form of psychotherapy that derives from Transactional Analysis. It uses a model that says that inside of us we have a parent part, an adult part and a child part. There are subdivisions of these parts as well.
As clients heal from their childhood traumas and learn to parent their inner children in healthy ways, I have plenty of opportunity to talk to their child parts. As a result, I say many things that I wish had been said to me.
There are six stages of development and each one has its own developmental tasks. For example the first stage is called the Being stage. It lasts from 0 to 6 months of life. Two of the tasks children are supposed to learn during the Being stage are that they are loved and wanted and that their needs are important. If those tasks aren’t learned, it may leave a developmental gap that could last throughout life.
Pamela Levin and Jean I. Clarke both created sets of developmentally based affirmations. Pamela’s series offers five affirmations for each stage and Jean’s has seven or eight. Jean includes a “Love” affirmation for each stage. If you look below, you will see the developmental tasks, the age ranges, and the Love affirmations. A child needs to begin hearing the affirmation when the developmental stage starts and continue hearing it forever. For example, we need to hear that we are loved and cared for from the beginning of our lives until the end.
Being (0-6 months)
I love and care for you willingly.
Doing (6-18 months)
I love you when you are active and when you are quiet.
Thinking (18 months to 3 years)
You can become separate from me and I will continue to love you.
Identity and Power (3 -6 years)
I love who you are.
Structure (6-12 years)
I love you even when we differ; I love growing with you.
Identity, Sexuality and Separation (13- 18 years)
My love is always with you. I trust you to ask for my support.
Interdependence (Adult)
You are lovable at every age.
Consider saying the age appropriate Love affirmations to children that you know… and to the “children” that live within you!
***
To learn more about the stages of development, the developmental affirmations, and how to fill in developmental gaps read:
Cycles of Power by Pamela Levin
Growing Up Again by Jean Illsley Clarke and Connie Dawson
Weekly Photo Challenge: Harmony
Harmony: a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts; congruity.
Posted for Weekly Photo Challenge: Harmony
I Love Synchronicity!
A few days before I left for India last year, I found out my friend Prakash was going to be taking the same flight I was on. Six weeks later, I discovered he would be on my return flight as well. That might seem like no big deal, but the reality is I had purchased my tickets for the November 28 to January 11 flights in August, and Prakash’s tickets were booked at the last minute due to family emergencies. He had planned to return to the U.S. after Christmas. As my departure date approached, I had no idea he was still in India. (And he did not know my itinerary.) To make it even stranger, we had ended up on the same flight earlier in the year. There is NO way all of these shared flights could have been chance.
Two weeks ago, I experienced some other synchronicities. I will give you two pieces of backstory before I share those. 1) The Challenge for Growth prompt for that week had been “I Unplug.” I had made the commitment to unplug my computer, phone, television and radio between 9 a.m. and noon each day. 2) I was arranging to place an ad for our local GreenFriends group and had decided to take Tree Planting and Habitat Restoration off of the ad temporarily, since our group hadn’t engaged in that particular activity for more than a year.
On Saturday, February 20, I chose to walk the Cheasty loop (a circular path that starts and ends near my house) during my unplugged time. When I came back from the walk, I would arrange for the changes in the ad. I hadn’t taken that walk for at least two years, because, for a variety of reasons, I hadn’t had the stamina I needed to do it. That day though, I felt full of energy!
About five minutes into my walk, I looked ahead of me and saw a canopied booth. There was a sign on it that read “Cheasty.org.” When I reached the booth, I talked to the people who were standing there. I learned they were a local group who are working to clear out the invasive plants in the Cheasty Greenspace. Once they remove the blackberries, ivy and other invasive species, they plant trees in the new space. The group was in the middle of a work party at that time.
I couldn’t see anything from the road, so one of the leaders, Joel, guided me to the work area.
Joel said they had work parties in this area the third Saturday of every month. He said they also held work parties on the first weekend of each month, in an area a few blocks south of the one where we were standing. When I told him about our local GreenFriends group, he said he would love to have us join their work parties.
After saying goodbye, I continued my walk. I passed an area where Seattle city workers were converting wood into wood chips. A lot of those chips are used by the Cheasty.org group.
Not far from there, I saw the place where the Cheasty group had been working for much longer. As you look at the pictures, keep in mind that all of these fields were covered with blackberry vines not long ago. The area had completely transformed since the last time I walked this loop.
I continued on, picking up litter as I walked. When I arrived back at my house, I discovered I had been gone for two hours! It was not lost on me that this experience would not have happened if I had not been participating in the “I Unplug” challenge. And I chose to unplug on the same day and at the same time that the Cheasty.org group was working in the area I was walking. In addition, all of this had occurred shortly after I had made the decision to remove Tree Planting and Habitat Restoration from the ad. Needless to say, I left it in.
I LOVE SYNCHRONICITY!
Tools for Dealing with Repetitive Thinking
One of the main ways we make ourselves miserable is by repetitive thinking. Very few of our thoughts are new; we recycle them again and again. We ruminate about past traumas, feel indignant over ways we were slighted, or obsess about possible future problems. Repetitive thinking can lead to depression and anxiety.
Below I am going to list many tools you can use when you find yourself trapped in this cycle. They are not listed in any particular order. If one doesn’t work for you at a given time, try another.
1) Say “Be here now” to yourself and shift your focus to the present. Do that every time you find yourself thinking about the past, worrying about the future, or into repetitive thinking of other kinds. You may need to say the phrase hundreds of times a day when you start, but if you continue saying it and bringing your attention to the present, the repetitive thoughts will stop. Remember that you are working to break an old habit and build a new one, and that takes time.
2) When you find yourself into repetitive thinking, bring single-minded focus to every moment. For instance, say to yourself “I am picking up my fork,” “I am holding my fork,” “I am picking up food with my fork,” “I am bringing my fork to my mouth,” “I am putting my food into my mouth,” I am chewing my food,” “I am swallowing my food,” etc.
3) Pick an affirmation and say it at least 1,000 a day, or more, for 21 days. Say your mantra internally, going as fast as you like. If unhelpful thoughts start coming at the same time, speed up the affirmation You can use any kind of affirmation. Some examples are “Be here now,” “I’m competent and capable,” “I let go,” “My needs are important,” “I am enough,” “I am smart,” “My life is unfolding as it should,”etc. Pick one affirmation and stick to the same one for the entire 21 days. It doesn’t matter if you believe what you are saying. What matters is that you want to believe it. If you say the affirmation in the 10,000 a day range, it may start flowing through your mind automatically, during the day and possibly throughout the night as well.
4) Make a 3 second contract with yourself. Since repetitive thinking is a habit, you will probably find yourself in the midst of it without being aware it had started. You don’t break the contract when you find that you have been obsessing or over thinking for some time. You break the contract when you realize you are doing it and don’t start working to disrupt the thinking within 3 seconds.
5) Distract yourself. Go for a walk, exercise, read, talk to a friend, etc.
6) Write lists of what you are feeling mad, sad and/or scared about. Don’t spend time thinking about it; just write whatever comes to your mind in the moment, even if you end up writing the same thing over and over.
I am mad that _______
I am mad that _______
I am mad that _______
I am scared that _______
I am sad that _______
I am mad that ______
I am scared that ______
I am scared that ______
etc.
7) If you are angry with someone and obsessing about that, do some anger work. Journal about your anger, write a poison pen letter telling the person off (and then destroy it), twist a towel and imagine yourself yelling at them, scream into a pillow. Stop when you feel a shift in your energy. These techniques are for the purpose of releasing the angry energy in a way that doesn’t hurt yourself, others or the environment.
8) Write a list of your scares in one column and in a second column write the truth about each situation. For example:
If he leaves me I will die If he leaves me I will feel very sad but I will not die.
I have done nothing with my life I have done many things with my life (and list them).
9) Write a list of all the things in your life that you are grateful for.
10) Each time you have a negative thought about someone else, write or say three positive things about them.
11) Each time you have a negative thought about yourself, write or say three positive things about yourself.
12) Most often fear needs information. If you are feeling afraid, ask yourself what information you need and then go get it.
13) If you find yourself obsessing about a negative event from your past, write a list of the things you learned because that happened to you. Also, identify the skills you have today because that event occurred.
14) A friend recently told me about a process she finds very helpful:
The moment you get a repetitive thought, write down what scares you about that thought; i.e., what is behind it that worries or frightens you? In a stream of consciousness way (don’t go back to read what you write), write down everything you’re afraid of that comes to mind until you run out. Then wad up the paper and burn it [or tear it up] and go about your business. Do this process daily and/or every time you get a thought you don’t want.
15) Think what your life would be like if you were able to stop most of your repetitive thinking. Hold that vision in front of you as you make moment to moment decisions about where you put your focus.
I hope you find these tools helpful. I wish you the best on your journey towards a peaceful mind.
Written for Challenge for Growth Prompt #8: Stop (Repetitive) Thinking
Photo Credit: Wikimedia
Living, Learning and Letting Go 