Words and phrases (power and problems) March 6

WORDS. The power of the words you choose, and phrases to avoid. Pages 196-197 in the book.

On the site, http://sandradodd.com/phrases and http://sandradodd.com/words/words

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Abundance, February 27 chat

Abundance!  

Look at what is in your half-full cup, not at the badillion things that are NOT in there.
http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/2013/02/half-cup.html

In the book, page 195.  On the website, http://sandradodd.com/abundance/

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Feb 20, Becoming the Parent you Want to Be

Becoming the Parent you Want to Be, page 194 in the book.

If you don't have the book, maybe look here:
http://sandradodd.com/peace/becoming

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February 13, Happiness

Text of page 193 on Happiness:
Dark thoughts or light? Worms or sky?

Sometimes dark thoughts are interesting, in spooky dramas or Stephen King novels. I've "raised" and kept and released worms. But if one's waking moments, meals, thoughts, bedtime stories and dreams are dark and negative, their children will be better off in school. It's one thing to go to goth night at the dance club. It's another thing to practice negativity and live (sort of live) in disdain of bright joy or humor.

If you were custom-designing a grandmother, for example, as in "I Sing the Body Electric," by Ray Bradbury, or the related "The Electric Grandmother," would you want a happy one or a cynical, whiney one?

If you're making a decision in some moment, for example, as in the next decision you make concerning your family, will you take the low road and have a low-energy, Eeyore moment? How much energy would it take to have a Pooh moment instead, or even a Tigger moment? Are you reading this from such a dark, cynical mindset that even a mention of Eeyore seems too cheery and upbeat to be endured? Prepare to go back to your black hole, then. Take your children to school, and stop on the way home for some black eyeliner and red eyeshadow. Don't say thank you at the check-out counter, either. Maybe just sleep the rest of the day, because life sucks.

Or don't! Maybe remember that every moment is precious and that you do indeed have choices and that you can for certain take joy in the sky as easily as you can be irritated about the ground.

If you were designing a parent for your child, wouldn't "happy" be pretty high on your list? SandraDodd.com/peace/mama
SandraDodd.com/morning

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February 6 chat on Personal Change

Page 192, Big Book of Unschooling:

Personal Change

So you're your child's partner. You are beginning to see learning and family togetherness as priorities. You're becoming more accepting of your children's interests, and you're thinking of ways to provide them more choices about their own comfort and bodily functions.

Or maybe you've turned randomly to this page without reading anything else and you don't know what I'm talking about. This wasn't a good first-random-page. Maybe flip again, and come back to this page later.

What happens when you see other people differently is that you cannot help but see yourself differently. When you choose to find opportunities to give other people choices, you yourself have begun to make more choices.

When you begin to see learning from new and interesting angles, you yourself are learning about learning (in addition to all the things about bugs or food, bridges or clouds or trains that you're learning with your children, or when they're not even there).

Your softer, clearer vision of the world makes you a softer, clearer person.

Personal change has been touched upon in earlier sections, and will be found throughout my unschooling site, if you follow any of those links. The purpose of unschooling is not to change the parents; it's to provide a personalized learning environment for each child. Doing that does change the parents, though, if they do it wholeheartedly.

SandraDodd.com/change

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Wednesday January 30 chat

Focus, Hobbies, Obsessions

(I tried to get an announcement to go, and it was stuck, so I've made a new one.)

Seeing value in a child's collections or curiosities, hobbies and interests.

In the book, this is pages 186-191 which has links to
Focus
Barbie
Feed Passions
Priorities


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January 23, Gratitude

Page 185, Gratitude

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I've brought that page, as it's short, and important.

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Gratitude is about abundance. Resentment is about paucity. Choose gratitude. It is a choice.

Half-empty cups are substantially different from half-full cups. It's not just theoretical holy water in those cups. The half-empty cups hold a concoction of frustration and need and irritation. The half-full cups contain joy and hope and gratitude.

Ren Allen wrote beautifully about gratitude one day, and I'm glad I saved it.

Washing dishes may not be my favorite activity, I can think of many things I prefer. But I can choose to grumble and feel bummed that I "have to" do this "chore" OR I can choose to be grateful to have hot running water, my loved ones alive and with me to use dishes, to have food to need dishes for etc...there is SO much to be grateful for in the simple act of washing dishes.

Gratitude embarrasses people sometimes. The same aspect of modern life that breeds cynicism chokes out gratitude. It makes people poor, though, to think of gratitude as something archaic or corny or stupid.

The difference between poverty and abundance is sometimes the ability to see what one has. There have been times when I didn't have a car, we had a leaky roof, and the washing machine wasn't working. There have been more times that the car and washing machine were functioning, the house was solid, and I forgot to appreciate it.

People seem naturally to want more, and to want better, and to have the urge to tweak and improve their lives and their surroundings. Don't deny the restless desire that enables people to explore and invent, but while looking ahead with hope and plans, look around with gratitude, too.

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