Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Hope, Help & Heart

As we enter October—aka: National Breast Cancer Awareness Month—be sure to schedule an appointment with your doctor to have an exam. 

Men need to remind their doctors, as well as it is not longer only a women’s issue. Remind your close friends to do the same and maybe schedule appointments for the same time so you can go together and have moral support. It is important for us to be educated about all forms of cancer and to take the necessary steps to stay healthy. Visit www.breastcancer.org to answer any questions you may have. I am a breast cancer survivor and deeply grateful. I remember getting the diagnosis and just going completely numb. I was like a zombie going through motions of my life, getting up and going to work, cooking dinner, trying to focus but all I could think was “I have cancer.” My friends and family got me through it also a genius doctor who “got me” and understood that for me, it would be a physical, emotions and also spiritual journey and had deep discussions about all that. I am lucky in so many way, being “free and clear” for over a decade now and also that I bonded with my female physician and she asked me to stay involved in her practice as a counselor for the newly diagnosed. I am honored and each time I work with someone who has just found out they have cancer, I offer my story and all the success stories I have witnessed while listening to their fears, dishing out lots of hugs and helping them in any way I can. This is one of the best things I do with my life- using my wisdom to help another.

Friend a Family: The Box Project

We all hear about people going hungy; what can you do to help? Turns out, a lot!

Sponsor a Low-Income Family via www.boxproject.org The Box Project joins struggling families in depressed regions of rural America with individuals or groups. The idea is not just to provide financial support (volunteers send about $50 worth of food, clothing and medical supplies monthly), but emotional support as well; most participants develop long-term relationships over many years, cemented through letters. In addition, the organization encourages volunteers to learn about where the family they help lives, so they can impact public services and local policy. I know this is helping a lot of people in my home state of West Virginia where hard times remain.

Give Someone’s Grandfather or Great Aunt What They Always Wanted

I was talking to a Swedish gentleman the other day and he mentioned, "America has forgotten about the old people. There is so much to be learned from our elders. That is a big mistake." He is right!

 

So, start learning and spend time with these wise ones. Also, what can you offer them in return?

Grant a Wish to a Senior Citizen. Volunteers for the Twilight Wish Foundation grant wishes by donating items (like a home computer requested by a grandmother who wanted to e-mail her grandkids) or by contributing their time. Learn all about it at www.twilightwish.org  Some wishes—like one from a retired postman who wanted to go over his old route one last time—require planning instead of money, and volunteers tend to choose items or actions that most speak to them.

Take Action Against Hunger: Gift a Fishing Kit

How can you help people to help themselves? Action Against Hunger makes it easy!

 

We all remember the Biblical parable about teaching a man to fish so he can provide for himself and his family. Two thousand years later, we can do exactly this. My dad taught me how to fish in a pond back home on the farm in West Virginia and, even as a 7 year-old, I could not help but notice that we not only got a couple day’s worth of yummy trout for our efforts but my papa, a former Marine with many battle scars to show for it, seemed so relaxed after an afternoon at the pond. You can gift in a loved one’s name a $49 fishing kit or up to $100 for a daily goat to Action against Hunger (www, ActionAgainstHunger.org), which feeds over 7 million, people each year. Go fish!

Kindness is Love Made Visible

The world can seem so crazy now that we should be even kinder to each other.  

When life gets you down, remember to look on the bright side (and there is always a bright side). Be strong not just for yourself but for those around you as well. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “It is better to light a single candle than it is to curse the darkness.” Look into the meaning of this quote: focus on the light in your life—and if there is none, try to be that light.

“Attitudes are contagious. Make yours worth catching.” –David Mezzapelle

Life Is Your Choices: Make Good Ones:

This is your life, only you can truly control your choices, and choosing happiness is the best way to achieve being a good to yourself as well as the world. 

Here are some suggestions for how you can ensure simple joy in your life:

·  Be the best you can be by your own standards

·  Surround yourself with people who inspire you and make you feel good

·  Focus on what you have, not what you lack

·  Optimism trumps pessimism every time!

·  Smile often and genuinely

·  Be honest, to yourself and to others

·  Help others

·  Embrace your past, live in the present, and look forward for what is yet to come

Give Away Your Old Stuff: Keep Only What You Love

Said it before and I’ll say it again, we have too much stuff which might be  useful to others

Do a favor for those in need and give away some of the things you no longer need or use or wear.  Others would be happy to have it and it will help you simplify your life and enjoy your time more.  Find a few locations that you can drop off your stuff or call an organization that collects your goods to redistribute to those in need. There are Goodwill’s or Salvation Amy centers in every town, large or small so you can donate there to help others and quickly.

ation Amy centers in every town, large or small so you can donate there to help others and quickly.

You should only have possessions you really love; don’t let your things possess you. I have a neat-looking “outbox” on my front porch I fill during the week with items I can take to the Reuse Center at my neighborhood recycling center. As the days go by, magazines, extra pots and pans, odd cups and dishes, old electronics and anything that no longer has a place in my home goes there.  My partner and I go there at least twice a month and it simply feels wonderful.  The center has a lot of regulars and we are now recognized as purveyors of 100% discount bounty such as scented candles, barely-worn scarves, office supplies, crockery and superb magazines as we are a household of voracious readers. I have seen amazing trades at the Reuse Center and witnessed a musician sit down and play a free sitar  with virtuosity while a family with young children got a sorely needed washing machine and dryer. Moments like this remind me of the visionary pagan teacher and writer, Starhawk’s novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing,  depicting a future where people return to a barter system and live harmoniously in community.

Take only what you need and share anything extra with your own neighbors