Almost all of us will label 2020 as a year that really sucked when we look back at our lives. COVID-19 made a real mess of things. On top of that, there were economic and political issues that greatly impacted many. On a personal level, quite a few of us faced deep challenges we hadn’t expected to face last year.
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In one of my personal challenges, I briefly encountered a man who did something to me that can be considered a felony depending on the state one lives in. Fortunately for me, the situation was a best-case scenario of the possible horrible outcomes that could have resulted. Given the other traumas I have faced, this one was a small one. However, it still had an impact on me that caused a wound which I had to work on healing. 

​​Many months after this man traumatized me and with no further contact between us, he had the unabashed gall to send me a Christmas card which arrived on January 2, 2021 thanks to the post office delays over the holiday season. I was speechless when I opened it. It was a pretty card, and the message he wrote inside was generic but genuine. Still, him sending me a card was totally inappropriate given what had occurred. When I later shared the arrival of the Christmas card with others who knew the whole story, their universal response was, “He sent you what?!?”

I brought the card in and threw it on my family room coffee table next to the couch where I often sit. After a few hours, I had to throw the card on the back porch. The negative energy coming off of it was awful, and I couldn’t stand to be around it. When I told my mentor and my rolfer this, both of them said what I already knew and had done: “Burn it!”
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Someone on my Buy Nothing list had offered up some coffee cans which I claimed with the intent of burning the card. After photographing the card for this post, I tore it into pieces, said a prayer that its symbolic destruction would represent the departure of all the “bad” things that had happened in 2020 and would usher in a purified new year of 2021. And then I lit it on fire. (Please note the garden hose was immediately adjacent to the coffee can and I was burning it on a concrete patio many feet away from anything flammable.) As I watched it burn, I shifted my position with the wind to stay upwind of the smoke, continuing to pray for the healing of the damage that man caused me. A great deal of peace came over me during this ritual as I let go of some of the pain and moved toward the future.

After the fire burned itself out, I wet down the ashes and then threw the remainder in the trash which is what felt appropriate in this situation; sometimes scattering or burying the ashes in the better resolution. With the departure of those ashes, I said goodbye to 2020 with the hopes that 2021 will bring abundant blessings not just for me and my family, but for all.

©2021 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

video of the card on fire in the coffee can

When I first heard the title of Going Home Grown Up: A Relationship Handbook for Family Visits by Anne F. Grizzle, I knew it was a book I needed to read. Much to my delight, the fabulous content of the book more than lived up to the enticing title. While tackling a difficult and painful subject for many people, Going Home Grown Up also manages to be amusing, engaging, and highly educational. Grizzle knows her subject well and delivers it in a form that is accessible to most readers.

Early in the book, Grizzle points out something that is so amazingly clear that I sat there for quite a bit wondering how I had never thought of it before. We all know that relationships with romantic partners take effort and even work to keep alive and healthy. So why do we expect our relationships with family members to be any different? Grizzle then navigates the reader on a course of learning how to create better relationships with our families of origin and eventually with our families that we create.
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As Grizzle takes the reader through this difficult journey of creating better relationships with often dysfunctional families of origin, she utilizes vivid imagery to help make her points all the more vivid.

References to popular culture such as The Wizard of Oz, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Robert Frost, Pinocchio, and Lenin’s tomb all fill the landscape of her book, helping make Grizzle’s points clear and well-illustrated. She has amazingly keen and highly insightful wisdom peppered throughout the book. Much of it seems obvious yet at the same time, she phrases it in ways that are novel and beneficial for creating true change.

One of the most important premises of Going Home Grown Up is that we cannot change others: We can only change ourselves. Yet despite that seemingly oppressive limitation, Grizzle helps the readers to make very significant changes in their lives which have the potential to create change in the relationships they have with their families. At the same time, Grizzle is also very realistic that sometimes the reactions from family members will be the opposite of what the reader wants. She recognizes that it all can go wrong and it all can blow up in the reader’s face. In those situations, she helps prepare the reader for the worst while hoping for the best.

The book almost becomes a workbook, peppered with questions that Grizzle encourages the reader to think or journal about. Actually doing so allows the reader to stop and absorb the lessons that Grizzle shares while simultaneously applying the information to one’s own life. While the reader may have many “aha!” moments reading the text, other insights will come from working through the challenges that Grizzle lays out for her readers in text boxes scattered throughout the book.

While the book becomes a tad too religious for my taste at several points, the vast majority is such that it is acceptable to anyone of any faith or lack thereof. Going Home Grown Up helps readers accept their families rather than holding them up to unobtainable standards. Grizzle encourages her readers to take vital steps to “grow up” in their own eyes and the eyes of their families so that future family encounters can take a different tone. Even if one cannot create change in one’s family, one can create change within one’s self that will allow greater peace with the lot we have been dealt through our families.

(The file below is a list of questions that can be used for book or discussion groups or for personal journaling.)

©2016 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

One of the causes of conflict around the holidays is the problematic phrase, “This is how we have always done things.” Traditions are wonderful, but there are times when traditions need to adapt and change. Human life is full of change, and as our lives change, so too do our traditions need to morph to fit the new circumstances.

One of the more difficult times for “what we’ve always done” is when a new member joins the family, usually through marriage. As a new family unit is formed, the extended family has to shift its traditions a bit to welcome and accommodate the new member who also is coming from an extended family. However, some families don’t welcome new members with love. Instead, past tradition becomes more important than meeting the needs of the present members.

When I married my now ex-husband, I entered into a small extended family, most of whom lived in the same metropolitan area as my family. My ex has no first cousins as his paternal uncle and maternal aunt never married. The grandparents had no extended relations in the area either. It was just a small family gathering at Christmas time.

In contrast, my paternal aunt’s husband (my uncle by marriage) was one of seven children all of whom had married and had children. For their clan to get together, it took considerable arranging. They had held their holiday gathering on Christmas Day for a very long time in order to accommodate all the involved people. As a result, my paternal relatives gathered on Christmas Eve. There was really no way to change the meeting to Christmas Day if we also wanted my aunt and her nuclear family to join us.

Thus, when I married into my ex-husband’s family, we let them know we would be spending Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with his. His parents protested that we should spend Christmas Eve with them even when we explained the dynamics of why my family could not change their gathering time. You would have thought we had declared his family unworthy of any celebration. The verdict from his parents came down, though: They would be opening presents on Christmas Eve, and if we wanted to partake, we would cancel our time with my family and join them because “this is how we’ve always done it.”  

On Christmas Eve, we joined my family, and his family opened presents without us. There were no young kids involved in his family's gathering: I was actually the youngest one involved in the celebrations in that city. I was clearly able to wait a few more hours to open gifts, but the rest of them were not. What his family symbolically told us that year was that their traditions were far more important than making sure we were included. They were not going to change to welcome a new family member and her extended family into their world. They were going to do what they had always done and it was up to us to show our allegiance. Clearly I was annoyed (at best) by this uncharitable behavior. It had been painful enough to know that I was not welcomed with open arms to the family when we got engaged, but this further drove the point home that tradition meant more than current family members.

I spent the first 24 Christmases of my life in Missouri even though I only lived there for eight of those years. After one miserable Christmas in Austin, I returned to spending Christmas in Missouri for several more years. When my grandfather died, traditions changed again. I’ve never spent another Christmas in Missouri. And that is part of life. When change happens, it’s far more important to figure out what the loving thing is to do rather than trying to force a tradition onto a situation that may not be able to accommodate the ways of the past anymore.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

There is no question that the first holidays after a baby dies are difficult, just as it is with any person who dies. The first year without my grandfather (who died December 8th) at Christmas was difficult for all of us. But with an infant, it’s different. Holidays, especially Christmas, are supposed to be about the kids. It’s about their joy. My daughter Rebecca would have been 6.5 months old at her first Christmas-- the perfect age to love the paper and the boxes far more than anything they contained.

The first Thanksgiving after my daughter died, my now ex-husband and I took the escape approach to the holidays. We didn’t normally visit family for Thanksgiving, so instead we took a week long hotel camping trip to west Texas and east New Mexico to see Big Bend, El Paso, Guadalupe Mountain, Carlsbad Caverns, and White Sands. We spent Thanksgiving Day with a friend’s parents who were on their own, too, since the grown children lived in other cities. When we got about an hour outside of Austin, my ex broke down over the fact we were taking the trip without Rebecca. I tried to point out to him that if she had lived, we wouldn’t have taken the trip because there was no way I was taking a six month old on a float trip and caving, but my point was moot. His distress was just another part of grieving her absence. She wasn’t going to be with us no matter what we chose to do that Thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving day, I got a positive pregnancy test. By Christmas, I was deep in the throes of all day sickness (falsely called morning sickness by some twisted soul). We also had two foster dogs in addition to our two canine family members; one of the foster dogs was very sick with what turned out to be distemper. The message that our families gave us that year was painfully clear: They didn’t want us to come visit them for Christmas. That was one of the hardest parts of the holiday. It felt like no one wanted to see us because it would have forced them to deal with their grief about our absent daughter. If we didn’t show up, they could pretend the whole thing never happened. The following year when our subsequent babies had safely arrived we were welcomed back in the fold. But that first year after her death, we were personnae non gratae. We were harbingers of death.

In years since then, we’ve done various observances to keep Rebecca’s memory alive and part of our family celebration. We have several Christmas ornaments given to us over the years by various friends that commemorate her life. We put an angel teddy bear on top of the tree. When the kids were young, we took Christmas pictures with an angel teddy bear (pictured above) in them, too, to symbolize her absence. We often adopt a child who is the same age she would have been the same age through a social relief organization to provide gifts in her memory.

Honestly, though, that first Christmas hurt like hell. There’s nothing that can stop that pain. All the remembrances help a slight bit, but there is nothing to fill the absence of a loved one. The only thing to do is feel the pain, grieve the loss, and know that one day things will be different. Each “first” is incredibly hard. One day, though, the pain will no longer feel so hellishly deep. There comes a point where if one does intense healing work, the memory of a loved one lost too soon can bring happiness rather than agony.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Thanksgiving Day Gratitude Labyrinth Walk

Canceled due to lack of interest.

When my youngest was three or four, we asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween. He responded quite certainly, “A blue ghost.” We asked him a bunch of questions trying to figure out why a blue ghost. None of the tv shows the kids watched had a blue ghost. He wasn’t familiar with Pac-man at that age. We never really got an answer. But he was certain he wanted to be a blue ghost.

We had an old blue sheet that I’d gotten in a remnant bin at a fabric store for a dollar. I cut it down to size and made eye holes in it, and we had a fast, and easy Halloween costume. It was probably the easiest and cheapest costume for any of my kids in any of our years. It was incredibly unique. I bet he was one of the only blue ghosts in the nation that year!

Many parents would have told a child no to the blue ghost idea, though, and that saddens me. Parents often think that they should be the ones to choose their child’s Halloween costumes, their clothes, their toys, their foods… pretty much any element of their children’s lives. I don’t ever remember having a voice in my Halloween costumes. My mother made what she wanted, and I wore it. I had no voice in such decisions as my clothes until I started buying them with my own babysitting money in middle and high school. I paid for many of my semi-formal and formal dance dresses, too, so that I could wear what I wanted rather than what my mother had selected for me.

Had I come up with an idea as unique as a blue ghost, my mother would have refused because it was too unconventional. She likely would have seen it as a negative reflection on her as a parent in some way. Yet I think the blue ghost showed a great deal of creativity and inspiration for a child that age, and I was proud of my son for coming up with a creative costume. He didn't care if he was different, and I was happy to help him follow his dreams (such as they were at age three). I encourage other parents to do the same. Ask your children for their opinions. Let them make choices. Let their creative voices shine through every day of the year, not just on Halloween.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

For the past 20 years, I have lived in some of the small areas around the greater Austin area that still legally allow fireworks. Unfortunately, since fireworks are illegal in most of the surrounding areas, that means everyone who wants to shoot off fireworks comes to the neighborhoods I live(d) in in order to do so legally. The result is my living space sounding like it is one step short of a war zone during the Fourth of July and New Year seasons. People think I’m exaggerating until they come to my house on these nights, and then they realize I’m not kidding at all. There is no amount of white noise, background noise, ear plugs or OTC drugs that can block out the fireworks going off on all sides of my current house. I’m adjacent to a park which has very useless “fireworks forbidden at the park” signs which are completely unenforced thereby making the park a center for shooting off fireworks. The cul-de-sac on the other side of my house is popular for shooting off fireworks as is the side street next to my house.

Fireworks are immensely popular in Austin and Texas, and unfortunately those shooting them off don’t think about the consequences of their actions. Every single discussion I’ve ever seen on the topic on neighborhood message boards has always had the very erroneous attitude, “It’s just for a few hours, and it’s a lot of fun.” It’s actually every night leading up to and following the event as well. The fireworks started on July 1st by my house this year, and they’ll continue through July 5th, the end of the weekend. In the summer, they start at 9 pm and will go until well after midnight. For New Year’s Eve, again, the days surrounding the holiday are fair game, too. The actual day of New Year’s Eve, the fireworks start around 6 pm when it is dark, and then continue until 2 a.m. This is not “just a few hours.” For someone with PTSD, this is eight hours of hell when one’s nervous system is set to “freak out completely” for the entire time. It’s an experience no one should have to endure in their own home.

When my children were little, I discovered that fireworks can make life incredibly miserable for those with babies. Every loud round would wake up thoroughly exhausted babies whom we had just managed to get to sleep. They were screaming, we were frustrated, and there was no relief in site. One year after we reached midnight, I called 911 and requested that an officer come stop the fireworks. In retrospect, I should have reported the person who took my call. She was clearly very pro-fireworks. Her first response was that fireworks were legal in my area. I agreed, but I pointed out that noise ordinances meant that they were in violation since it was after midnight. She then argued with me that the officer wouldn’t be able to find where the fireworks were coming from. Really? The officer just needed to open his/her/hir ears and drive around my house and would have had no problem locating the fireworks. It was a pointless conversation that justed added to my frustration. I suspect the woman answering the phone never even submitted the order for the police to come out.

Having survived the misery of babies and fireworks, then I faced chronic illness. I discovered firsthand that fireworks can be absolute hell for someone living with PTSD. With PTSD, even if one has not been a soldier in a war zone, fireworks can be a major trigger because one’s startle reflex is so overexaggerated. Someone stealthily walking into a silent room and then speaking when I had my back turned was enough to set me off when my PTSD was out of control. My adrenaline would sore, my body would shake, and I would scream out in fear. It would take almost an hour for me to calm down again. I could not handle any kind of surprise noise. This is because my “fight or flight” response was constantly set on fight due to all the trauma in my body. Thus, even though fireworks are not a danger, they were loud, startling, and traumatizing. They made my life absolute hell several times a year.

I recently saw a photo on Facebook of a veteran holding a yard sign that said “A veteran with PTSD lives here. Please be considerate in your use of fireworks.” I suspect that such a sign in my yard would be absolutely pointless even if I was a veteran. Most people don’t care. Their fun, even if they are traveling to a place that is not their home to set off the fireworks, is more important than the health and well-being of those around them. Our society simply doesn’t have the compassionate understanding to realize that fireworks are not all fun and games for those who suffer from PTSD or who are parenting young children.

This year, if you choose to set off fireworks, consider those around you. Do you have neighbors with young children? Do you have neighbors with PTSD? Will your joyous celebration create a night of hell for someone else? If you don’t know those answers, ask your neighbors how they feel about the situation. Make sure that you are doing the compassionate thing for all around you. Karma is a real pain when it comes back around: know that hurting others with disregard or malice will show up again in your soul’s journey for you to experience the same. The safer, healthier way to celebrate the fireworks holidays includes attending a large, safe, public display that truly is only for a short duration. The results are far more fabulous than anything amateurs can create, and the public displays are always free if you know where to park and watch.

As for me, my startle response has decreased as my healing has progressed. I also finally found an over the counter supplement a few years ago that will dope me up enough to make fireworks tolerable. It leaves me in a very fogged, drugged state, unable to do much besides stare at a tv screen or lay in bed in a semi-comatose but not sleeping state, but this is far preferable to being in hell with the noise of fireworks. Life is short, and it seems wrong to me that I have to dose myself into oblivion to be in my own home several days of the year, but such is my reality until fireworks are finally banned in the area I live in.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

For a long time as an adult, I did not celebrate my birthdays. This was because my deceased daughter’s birthday is only a few days away from mine, and it felt horribly unfair to me that I was getting to celebrate another birthday when she didn’t get to celebrate even one. It took many years of grieving before I finally reached a place where I was comfortable enough with my daughter’s death and to be able to celebrate my own birth again.

Once I had worked through my issues around my daughter’s birthday and was ready to celebrate again, I found out that there were other reasons that I hadn’t been celebrating my birthday, reasons that were almost as painful. What I rediscovered was that my now ex-husband doesn’t want to celebrate holidays, especially birthdays. He says that birthdays aren’t important to him, so he doesn’t do them. Even though they were very important to me, he wasn’t willing to budge on this one.

I talked to many therapists about this issue and about how hurt I was by my husband’s refusal to celebrate my birthdays in the way I wanted to celebrate. I’m not a person who needs or wants glamorous gifts. I don’t even need a store-bought card. I just need those around me to acknowledge that I am special and that they appreciate having me in their lives in whatever way they can. However, my ex-husband was so against birthdays that he couldn’t even do that. Unfortunately, most of the therapists I saw during that part of my life gave me very poor advice: they placed the blame on me, not my ex-husband, and said that the problem was mine alone, not his. They told me that he had made his position clear, and that I only had one option, to accept that he would never be willing to celebrate my birthdays with me. This only compounded my insecurities and made me feel like there was something wrong with me for wanting my partner to celebrate my birthday in some way.

Not surprisingly, I could not accept my ex-husband’s position of being unwilling to even say happy birthday to me most years. I felt as though I was being completely reasonable in wanting a partner who was willing to make that small amount of effort to show me he loved me. I also did have a choice, but it wasn’t one that my previous therapists presented to me: I could leave the marriage to find someone else who was willing to celebrate me as I want, need and deserve. There was absolutely nothing wrong with me wanting to get my needs met. I understand that the therapists were trying to teach me that we can’t change others: we can only control our own behavior. However, in trying to teach me that lesson, they missed the forest for the trees. There was a very fundamental problem in my marriage that went much deeper than the issue of birthdays.

Participating in marriage therapy with a really amazing therapist and reading books like The 5 Love Languages helped me recognize that in a healthy relationship, partners do things that they don’t always enjoy, but they do it because it gives pleasure to their partners whom they love. I certainly acted this way in my half of the marriage, doing things I didn’t really enjoy on a regular basis because I knew they would make my then-husband happy. I even asked the marriage therapist at one point, “Why is it that I always do things to make him happy but he’s not willing to do the same in return?”  For the first time in my life, the therapist gave a great response: “That’s a really good question!” The answer that he eventually helped me to discover was that when both partners aren’t able to meet each others’ basic needs from a romantic partner, it’s not a good relationship, no matter how much they love each other. In this situation and many others, my ex-husband and I were not well-matched, and divorce was the healthiest option for us based on our circumstances.

Now that the marriage has ended, my ex-husband still is unable to say happy birthday or happy mother’s day to me. I can accept it now, though I still wish it was different. I recognize that he has emotional issues of unknown origin from his past that interfere with his ability to celebrate both himself and others. While it certainly is his choice, it’s not my choice for how I want to live my life. There is too much joy to be shared in this world, and I’m grateful that I am now in a place that I can embrace that joy with those who love me and celebrate me on my birthday and on other days, too.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Synchronicity plays out in our lives in interesting ways that we sometimes don’t understand or expect. We also sometimes become the channel and voice for higher powers when we don’t realize it. For me, my most recent experience of this happened on Mother’s Day.

In the past few months, I’ve become an herbal tea addict. Up until this point in my life, I wasn’t a fan, but something shifted in my body recently that not only do I like herbal teas, but I crave them. So when my kids went on vacation for spring break, I asked them to bring me back a tea mug from the Butterfly House for Mother’s Day if they saw something there that grabbed their attention. I was envisioning a mug with butterflies on it.

Two months passed, and on the day before Mother’s Day, my daughter asked me what my favorite animal was. I told her that my lifelong spirit animal is an elephant, but that I’ve been feeling attracted to turtles lately. This was a slip of the tongue: I had actually meant to say frogs. However, it was too late to take back what I had said as my daughter had replied, “Good!” I had no idea what she meant.

The next morning, I was informed that I wanted to drink hot tea for breakfast but was permitted to select a flavor. My kids brought me a cup of one of my favorites, Happy Heart tea, in my new mug. Looking at the exterior of the mug, it was incredibly simple and plain, though it had a pretty handle with polka dots and was larger than the average mug. I opened a card from one of my sons that had two scuba diving turtles on it; above them was a pirate turtle looking over with confusion. My daughter drew me a beautiful illustration of a turtle which I gave her a frame to put it in so we could hang it on the wall. And then, once my tea had cooled a bit, I went to take a sip and discovered two turtles in the bottom of my mug staring back at me.

I really had no clue that the kids had gotten me a turtle mug. The synchronicity of my slip of the tongue seems too uncanny to be just a coincidence. The spiritual meaning of turtle also is incredibly appropriate for me at this juncture in my life, so I am taking this as a sign from above to integrate the lessons of the turtle into my spiritual work. I’m grateful for the message that comes with a reminder each time I use my new mug.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Back sometime between 1995 and 1998, I was a subscriber to Austin’s only daily newspaper which I read thoroughly (except for the business, sports, and classified sections). One year on Mother’s Day, there was a huge article with several large photos in the lifestyle section. The piece described a woman whose three children had been murdered by their father, her ex-husband. I was horrified. I didn’t understand how the paper thought that was an appropriate article to run on a day like Mother’s Day. In hindsight, I understand all too well.

Despite the greeting card and flower vendors’ cheerful endorsements of Mother’s Day which falls on the second Sunday of May each year in the U.S., not everyone finds the day to be one of celebration. For many people, Mother’s Day is filled with painful memories and/or current stress. The reality is that not everyone loves their mothers. Many have endured abusive relationships with our mothers, and thanking them for the “care” they provided for their children seems hypocritical at best. Some people are estranged from their mothers: Sometimes gratefully and sometimes with a lot of pain still attached to the separation. Our society provides a lot of support around divorcing a spouse, but there’s almost nothing there for those who decide to “divorce” a parent.

Other people were blessed enough to have wonderful mothers in this life, but those mothers have died. For those whose mothers aren’t here to celebrate because of death, the day can be horribly painful for surviving children, especially in the first years after their mothers’ deaths. While it will not eliminate the pain of the loss, sometimes doing something to celebrate the deceased woman can greatly help ease the discomfort of this holiday. Making your mother’s favorite meal, going to her favorite park, making a donation to her favorite charity… all of these are great ways to remember a mother. In my belief system, our deceased relatives are aware of us and our prayers, so I believe if you send thoughts to your late mother, she will hear them. It’s never too late to tell someone you love them, even if you aren’t able to hear them say it back.

If you are feeling particularly giving, know that there are always people in nursing homes who are terribly lonely on holidays. Either their children live far away, they have no descendants, or they’ve been abandoned by family. Regardless of the reasons why, these people can always use company, but especially on holidays when others have visitors and they do not. Most nursing homes will be happy to pair you with someone who would love to have you show up with a flower in hand and a willingness to talk for a while. (Please note that food gifts are not always the best with the elderly due to health-restricted diets.) If you don’t have a mother of your own to visit, know that there are many other women who could symbolically stand in her place.

For others, Mother’s Day is painful because they have had miscarriages or have lost a child (or even multiple children) to death. This is especially true when the child who has died was the firstborn but no subsequent siblings have been born. The women in these situations know in their hearts that they are mothers, but they don’t have children here to celebrate with them. Our society is less certain about whether these women are mothers, and people often don’t know how to handle the bereaved mothers. As is our society’s dysfunctional tendency, the usual result is that bereaved mothers are ignored on Mother’s Day (not to mention the other days of the year).

For many women, Mother’s Day is a dagger in their heart because they are suffering from infertility. They desperately want to be mothers, but they are not able to for whatever reasons. To see motherhood glorified all around them can make the women enduring infertility feel even more hurt than they already are by the traumas of infertility.

For biological mothers who have put their children up for adoption, Mother’s Day can also create a great deal of pain. While the choice to let another woman become a mother when one is not able to raise a child oneself is an amazing gift, the child that the biological mother gave up will always be in her heart. For some women, Mother’s Day may be a day of “what ifs” and mourning because they are not with their biological child even if they know they’ve made the best decision. For others, it may be a day of regret for making the choice they did.

Thirteen years ago when my twins were still toddlers, I attended Mass at a friend’s Catholic church on Mother’s Day. In what I’m sure the planners thought was a beautiful ceremony, all of the mothers were encouraged to come forward and receive a carnation at the end of the service. I was horrified. I knew that at least one of the women in the congregation had to want to be up in the front but she wasn’t able to be for some reason. While it’s one thing to pray a special blessing over those in the congregation who’ve given life to others, it’s another thing to bring them to the front so that all the non-mothers stood out like sore thumbs among the sea of men. In a probably unnoticed act of solidarity, I refused to go forward even though I had a toddler in my arms.

For me personally, Mother’s Day used to be a painful day. I am estranged from my narcissistic mother by choice. I haven’t seen her in 22+ years. I don’t miss that particular woman at all, but part of me will always miss the fantasy of the healthy loving mother whom I never had. For many years, I used Mother's Day as a time to pay tribute to the women who were mentors for me and who provided me with healthier role models of what women should be like; they played a role in mothering me in when my own mother could not. I also had many years where Mother’s Day was a painful reminder to me that I had lost a child. I now choose to focus on the beauty of the children who are with me, though it took many years for me to get there. I’m grateful that I can now find joy in the celebration of being a mother, but on Mother’s Day, my thoughts and prayers are always with those for whom it’s a day of pain.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

When my kids were little, they all had multiple food sensitivities including dairy, soy, and corn. One of them was also very sensitive to artificial food colorings and flavorings. As a result, we avoided these items with the kids.That made finding candy for holidays like Easter and Halloween challenging. In addition, we just didn't want to fill our kids up with sugar laden junk food. Cheap plastic toys that were made in China were not appealing to me, either. As a result, we looked for something different to put in our kids’ eggs at Easter. The first year the older two were into the Easter festivities (at approaching age 3, past the oral fixation stage), we stuffed a penny in each egg, and they were thrilled. But as they aged, this didn't seem to be the right thing to do.

One year the Easter Bunny must have been struck by lightning, or at the very least, she was feeling kind of crazed by being homebound. As a result, the Easter Bunny designed a treasure hunt with clues in the eggs. The kids followed the clues to find their hidden gift from the Bunny. They loved it. As the years progressed, the puzzles became harder and harder. Last year the puzzle was a multi-fold challenge that took the kids 2.5 hours to solve. It was a crossword puzzle with the individual clues stuck in the eggs. The clues were about Greek, Roman and Egyptian gods, something my kids are familiar with thanks to the works of Rick Riordan and others. In addition, the number parts of the clues were math problems adding a second layer of difficulty to the puzzle. After they finally finished it, my daughter asked in exasperation, “Can’t we just do a jigsaw puzzle again next year?”

In one previous year, I had created a clue photo in Photoshop and had a company create a custom jigsaw puzzle out of it. I then stuffed puzzle pieces in the eggs for the kids to find and assemble. This year, as I was searching the internet for the best deal in puzzle makers, I found one that makes custom double-sided puzzles. That was too tempting for the Easter Bunny to resist. On one side of the puzzle, there are riddles that describe the hiding places of their Easter gifts. (Each is getting a book of trivia this year.) On the other side is a picture of them from last Easter. The kids had a great deal of fun putting it together.

One of the things I always make sure to do is create a puzzle that is collaborative. There's no competition, and if the kids don't work together, they can't solve the puzzle. When my twins were only a few weeks old and I was spending most of the day trapped under a twin nursing pillow, I read the book Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. The book was life-changing for me. It clarified for me how my parents had done so many things to pit my brother and me against each other. I knew I wanted something very different for my children. Hence, my ex and I have always worked to make sure our kids see our family as a unified team, not a competition, from birth onward. As you can see from the picture above, once the kids pull their clues out of the Easter egg, they put them into a combined bowl and solve them together, each filling out a copy of the puzzle. Crossword puzzles can be easier when you have three brains to use instead of just one!

We also started a tradition when the kids were little that I wrote their names in paint pen on the majority of the eggs. That way each can only pick up 1/3 of the eggs since they can't take eggs without their name on it. It means they end up helping siblings find eggs that they've missed, too. I've since seen a suggestion to use one egg color for each kid; that sounds like an easier solution than the one I'd worked out! It keeps Easter from being a bitter competition about who can collect the most eggs, though it certainly doesn't cut down on the chaos and fun around here!

Easter is a lot of fun for my kids and me. We continue to celebrate despite the fact they are ages 12, 14 and 14 this year. The puzzles are a firmly entrenched tradition for us, one that I half expect my children to want me to continue into their adult years. I suggested a few years ago that we might stop, and my children were horrified at the idea. I’m actually glad. I have to admit I look forward to it, too.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

This holiday season, please think twice before you give scented products as holiday gifts.  Many studies over the years have concluded that between 11% and 30% of the population is sensitive to fragrances at some level; there are probably more who don’t recognize that their health issues are due to fragrance sensitivity.  Those people include Cindy McCain, wife of former presidential candidate Senator John McCain, who though she suffers from disabling migraines, still carried perfume in her luggage and made herself very sick when the bottle broke. 

Periodically, new studies confirm that scented products contain dozens of toxic chemicals that can have dangerous short term and long term effects (including being carcinogens).  These products include but are not limited to synthetic scented candles, air fresheners, perfumes, colognes, aftershaves, lotions, and more.  Those most at risk for short term problems are those with allergies, asthma, eczema, and migraines.  All of us are at risk for the long term problems.

I am one of those who is sensitive to fragrances, and I have been all my life.  I’ve always been at risk of breaking out into a rash if I touched a scented product.  Many years ago when I was a newlywed and not yet sick with MCS and Lyme, one of my new in-laws gave me perfume as a Christmas present.  I politely thanked her, set it aside, and mentally noted that I would send it to Goodwill as soon as possible.  The giver, however, kept pressing my then-husband to tell her how much I liked the gift.  He finally had to tell her, “Look, she’s sensitive to perfume.  She can’t wear it.”  While the gift was given from a place of generosity, it was one that had the potential to cause a reaction for me.

Since Lyme disrupted my health, however, I’ve become one of the estimated 1-2% who are severely reactive to synthetic chemicals.  I have a diagnosis of multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS).  My sensitivities are so severe that I can’t be in a room with a plug-in air freshener or a lit scented candle.  If someone gets near me wearing perfume, I have to get up and move or leave the room depending on its size or ventilation.  If I don’t, I end up with fibromyalgia flares, asthma attacks and migraines.  At one point, the chemical sensitivities were so severe that I became homebound because minor exposures would incapacitate me for days.

So this holiday season, as you think about giving scented products as gifts to others, consider whether or not those items really are the best choice for the recipient or those around them.  Scented products can cause short term pain and long term health issues.   As alternatives, consider attending a local farmers’ market, visiting a craft festival, or shopping at a holistic store.  Investigate options in those places for safer products including natural perfumes, candles, and lotions crafted from essential oils; better yet, consider fragrance free items that are far less likely to cause issues for the person receiving the gift.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Just a reminder that Green Heart Guidance has two Christmas playlists on Spotify:  An Energetic Christmas playlist which is almost three hours long, and a Mellow Christmas playlist which is over 14 hours long.  I continue to add to the playlists as new albums are released, so there are songs that are new this season.

Even though I'm not a Christian any more, I still love listening to Christmas music, and I hope you enjoy these playlists as well.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance.com

Each year around this time, many of my friends begin a “30 Days with a Grateful Heart” project that was started by one of the women in the group we all met through.  Through this exercise, these women post on Facebook or on their blogs almost every day in December about something they are grateful for.  In theory, I can see how this is a beautiful way to bring a positive spirit to a season that has been overly commercialized.  In reality, I used to spend the first week of December fighting anger, depression and frustration related to this project.  I was really bothered.  I couldn’t read most of the posts on the topic.  It took me a while to formulate my thoughts on the subject, and I eventually decided that it was something that others need to hear because my outlook is different.  I formulated this post which I originally posted on Facebook for friends several years ago; I've edited and updated it for this blog.  This post definitely isn’t meant as an attack on those who do the project.  Instead, it’s mean to give the perspective of someone who fights major health issues.

For me, living with chronic illness has changed gratitude from something that can be a project that is confined to one month a year.  Gratitude is something that I have to find every single day.  It is a survival skill.  It is what helps me endure the pain and suffering.  In order to keep myself motivated to keep fighting a seemingly uphill battle, I have to count my blessings daily.  I’m not fortunate enough to only focus on these things for a short time each year.  If I lose sight of the things I am grateful for, I will lose the will to keep going.

My health issues also led me to shift the things that I am grateful for.  To those who do gratitude projects at this time of year, please consider adding “health” towards the top of your list of blessings.  If you can go to the grocery store by yourself; if you can go for a walk in the park almost any day of the year; if you can go to your children’s school pageants; if you can attend weddings and funerals; if you can go out with friends to a happy hour; if you can travel near and far; and if your lack of health does not limit the way you live your life, then you are truly blessed in a way that you don’t realize until you lose all of those things.

In the spirit of gratitude, I am going to share my list of things that I am grateful for.  I don’t give thanks for all of them every day, but I do have to find gratitude for some of them 365 days a year.

• I am grateful for my three living children.  During the worst times of this illness when there was little hope for diagnosis or cure, they were the motivation that kept me alive.  They are amazing humans, and I feel so blessed that the universe has sent them into my life.
• I am grateful to have only endured the death of one of my children when so many women in the world lose far more of theirs due to natural disasters or preventable problems such as starvation and illnesses borne by poor sanitation.  I hope that my remaining three children are blessed with long, healthy and happy lives.
• I am grateful for my metaphysical gifts which have greatly advanced my healing at deeper levels than I ever fathomed possible.  Opening to them has changed my lie in ways I never dreamed of in my younger years.  I am so grateful to be able to use them to help others, too.
  
• I am grateful for my health care providers who work to improve my overall quality of life.  Through years of working intensely with some of them, they have also become close friends.
• I am grateful for both drugs and herbs which help me heal.  I am grateful for the current progress we are making with my healing, painful though it may be.
• I am grateful that I have decent health insurance.  Even though I pay for a large percentage of my health expenses out of pocket, health insurance does cover part of it.  Everyone in the country should be so privileged to have the same or better.
  
• I am grateful that I am able to buy organic food.  Eating organic is not a lifestyle choice for me.  It’s a medical necessity.  Food free of synthetic pesticides prevents me from having reactions that include extreme fatigue (even worse than what I normally endure), breathing problems, and fibromyalgia pain among others.
• I am grateful to have a home where I am safe and able to live healthily.  For many with multiple chemical sensitivities, housing is a huge challenge.  They can’t afford to buy a safe place and finding an affordable safe home to rent is almost impossible.  I am also extremely grateful that the house is still standing and relatively undamaged after a lightning strike in 2009.
• I am grateful for an ex-husband who is such a loving dad to our kids.  I am grateful for our amicable divorce that was completed this year.  I am grateful for all of the positive changes and growth in my life that came through the divorce.
• I am grateful for the beautiful new name that I chose during the divorce.  It makes me smile each time I sign it.
• I am grateful for my intelligence and education.  The disease I am facing requires a large amount of research and action on the part of the patient, and I am able to find and absorb that knowledge.  Without the skills I have, my healing process would not have advanced as far as it has.
• I am grateful for the good (relatively speaking) health days I have.  Any time I get to go for a walk, go to a park,  go to a farmers’ market, or go to a social event, I feel blessed.
• I am grateful for all that photography has brought to my life in terms of stress relief and in giving me a new way to look at the world.  I see new things around me that I never noticed before (especially with my beloved macro lens involved!).
• I am grateful to live in Austin.  Even though I may complain about the heat and allergens and lack of snow, I appreciate the liberal eco-friendly culture that abounds here.  
• And last but not least, I am grateful for the friends, near and far, who have helped me keep some semblance of sanity throughout all of this.    

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Once upon a time much earlier in my life, I participated in the madness of Black Friday, though twenty years ago Black Friday wasn’t quite the consumer event it is now.  Most years, though, I spent the Friday after Thanksgiving happily curled up at home with my nose in a book.  In more recent years, my values have switched greatly, and I no longer have any desire to fight the crowds in order to purchase things.  In fact, my overall attitude towards physical items has shifted greatly.  When I make a purchase, I now ask myself many of these questions:

• Do I really need this?
• Why do I want to buy this?
• Is this practical?
  
• What purpose does this serve?
  
• How will this improve my life?
  
• Will this item damage the environment in any way?
• How many days per year will I use this?  Could I rent it instead?
  
• How will I be able to dispose of it when I am done with it?
  
• Will it increase the amount of clutter in my house?
  
• Will I have to clean it?  Is it easy to clean?
  
• Will this item take too much effort to maintain?
  
• Will this item add joy or pleasure to my life?
  
• If this is a gift, how will this improve someone else’s life?

For some of my purchases, the answer is clear with the first question.  Do I really need to buy new ink for the printer?  Unfortunately, yes, that is a purchase that I have to make.  There’s no reason to go further with the questioning.  With other purchases, I have to figure out if it’s a true need versus something I just want.  Sometimes it’s very easy to figure out that it’s just a want and not a need.  Other times it’s not so easy.  I also have to make sure that the joy or pleasure an item is adding to my life isn’t just a temporary purchase glee that won’t bring me true happiness.

When it comes to gift-giving, I now try to use the same type of philosophy.  As I’ve noted in my seasonal stress blog post, I try to give non-tangible gifts whenever possible.  This might be the gift of my time and energy.  It might be donations to a nonprofit, tickets to events, or memberships at a museum.  I also consider gift certificates for meals, delivery services, or grocery stores for those whom that might be the best approach (including teachers who really don’t need any more coffee mugs).  With individuals who live in small spaces including the elderly who may have downsized to live in a smaller home, physical objects can become one more thing to have to find a place for.  For kids, many of them have more toys than they know what to do with.  In all of these cases, giving something that can bring emotional joy or make their lives a bit easier is the better choice than a physical object that will just end up going to Goodwill or Freecycle in a few weeks.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

For Thanksgiving of 2003, my ex-husband and I attended a gathering of his extended family.  It included 11 adults, five children, and our exclusively breastfed baby all crammed into an apartment living room really only meant to hold six or eight comfortably.  The original plans had been for four more to join us, and I’m not sure where they would have sat if they did attend!

At that time, all of my children and I (as a breastfeeding mom) had food sensitivities.  So when the in-laws declared the menu, I was dismayed at best.  All the food was conventional; the idea of eating organic was ridiculous to them.  The family insisted on having a turkey made by the most popular mainstream vendor which is basted in butter… a problem for those who are dairy sensitive.  Also on the menu were rolls (gluten), mashed potatoes (dairy), gravy (gluten), sweet potato casserole (dairy and sugar), corn bread stuffing (dairy and gluten), green bean casserole (dairy and gluten), apple pie (dairy and gluten) and pecan pie (gluten).  There were a few other sundry items that weren’t part of my family’s food traditions, but they too were loaded with either gluten, dairy, or sugar.  There were no other healthy items, and there was absolutely nothing on the menu we could eat.

To solve this problem for us, I offered to bring food to share.  I was politely told, “No, that’s ok.  We already have everything covered.”  Frustrated, I replied that I would like to bring a salad so that I was actually able to eat something at dinner.  I received a less hospitable “fine” response.  So I brought an organic garden salad that was adequate to share with the entire gathering (plus we brought other foods for our toddlers).  Of all the people there, I was the ONLY one who ate any of the salad.

Such is the way most Thanksgiving dinners in America go.  People love to blame the tryptophan in the turkey for that horrible lethargic feeling we endure after Thanksgiving dinner, but the reality is that we gorge ourselves on an amount of carbohydrates that is sufficient for an entire week, not just one or two meals.  Add in alcohol or soda to the menu above, and I would end up in a coma nowadays if I tried to eat as most Americans do.

So how can one go about enjoying Thanksgiving yet making it healthier?  I’m not saying one has to banish all one’s favorites for sure.  I am suggesting that one moderate and adjust what one eats.  There are many ways to do this. 

For starters, consider limiting the menu to a rational number of items.  Do you really need to eat four different starchy sides at one meal in large amounts?  Yes, they are all so delicious, but they can be delicious at several different meals over the holiday weekend.  Make stuffing on Thursday, mashed potatoes on Friday, and sweet potatoes on Saturday.  Serve one type of pie each day.  This will limit the temptation to eat some of everything at every meal.

Another way to help with this overload, especially if you are not the host and therefore not able to limit what is being served, is to restrict yourself to one plate of food.  You don’t need to go back for seconds.  Start by loading the healthiest available items onto your plate, such as salad or roasted veggies.  Then put on meat (if you’re not a vegetarian), and divide the remaining space between small portions of the carbohydrates that are being served.  Don’t try to overstuff your plate.  You are not starving, and you will be grateful not to feel miserable after the meal.  Only have one small piece of your favorite kind of pie, and limit yourself to one glass of alcohol (or none if you don’t drink) coupled with a lot of water.

Switching to serving organic food can also help make Thanksgiving dinner a little less toxic.  The contents of some of the most popular Thanksgiving dishes are really alarming.  Still, it’s entirely possible to make a very unhealthy organic meal that is loaded with carbohydrates and sugars.  Moderation is still necessary!  There are also many websites for making items gluten and dairy free if you are having guests with special needs.  I grew up in a family which used cornstarch, not flour, to make gravy, so some of the adjustments aren’t even that radical!

As for my house, we’ll be having a simple Thanksgiving dinner.  It’s just my kids and me this year.  Since two of us aren’t big fans of turkey, we’ll be eating an all-natural ham without preservatives like nitrates and nitrites.  We’ll have organic dairy free mashed potatoes made from scratch, organic gravy, and some kind of organic green vegetable.  The kids will drink organic sparkling apple cider, and then for dessert for the kids there will be organic pumpkin pie.  We might make stuffing for them at some other point in the weekend, and we’ve also got plans for a lemon cranberry bread.  I’ll probably make a ham, white bean and kale soup out of the leftover ham and bone.  All in all, we’re not going to eat like this is our last meal.  We’re going to be sensible and yet enjoy foods we love.

© 2014 GreenHeartGuidance.com

(This is a special encore presentation from my archives.)

One of the hidden blessings of chronic fatigue is that the illness forces you to prioritize and recognize what is truly essential to life.  You no longer have the energy to participate in the seasonal chaos that occurs at this time of the year.  It just isn’t a physical option.  And so, with great regrets at first, you learn to cut back on what you can do for Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate. While I certainly don’t advocate getting sick just so you can learn that lesson, I can see the benefits it has brought to my life.  I’m sharing a few tips from my experience that may or may not be of use to you in helping reduce some pressure from your life.

Christmas is a season, not a day.  If you believe the retailers, the season begins in October when they start putting out the Christmas items.  While I think it should be shorter than that, I do think it lasts more than one or two days.  Don’t feel pressured to do everything in a short period of time.  Spread out your celebrations.  I’ve held Christmas gatherings on December 8th because it was the only mutually agreeable date.  I’ve been to Christmas gatherings in early January when weather foiled December plans.  Regardless of when you do it, spread the season out a bit so that you don’t overexert yourself.

Decorate as a group or party activity.  Decorating for Christmas takes a great deal of energy.  My family no longer goes all out for decorating, and I do miss parts of that.  However, I accept that I do what I can.
 
One way to still make this happen is to have parties to decorate and undecorated the house.  Most people like to do a certain part of the decorating but not another (the tree, the lights, the ornaments, the accessories).  Throw a minimalistic party in December and invite a few friends to come help decorate and celebrate the season.  Make it potluck so that you are not providing the food as that takes more energy.  If you have special items you are concerned about breaking, set them aside before the party starts.  That way you can make sure they are safe.

In Catholic culture, the season of Christmas lasts from December 25th to January 6th in many countries.  Celebrate the arrival of the three wise men with another un-decorating party the weekend after New Year’s.  Have friends come over again, bringing leftover fruitcake to munch on, and reverse the decorating process.  Use the time to decompress from all the foibles and stresses of the season that you are now packing away until the end of the next year.

Holiday Baking.  I used to love to make many flavors of cookies just like my grandmother did. However, now I am lucky to just get one made.  Dietary restrictions make this even harder.  Truth be told, I don’t need or want the sugar from the baking, but I recognize many others do consider it a part of the holidays.

Consider hosting a cookie exchange.  Everyone brings several dozen cookies bagged or boxed in dozens.  For every dozen you bring, you take home another dozen.  Everyone brings one extra dozen for the hostess so that you don’t have to bake, but you’ll provide coffee, tea, and milk.  Put out some of the cookies in these hostess dozens so that everyone can sample and munch.  This way you can still have a variety of cookies around the house without doing the baking!

Online shopping.  It is a lot less stressful than facing malls full of perfumed people and products.  True, it doesn’t allow you to have the fun of seeing all the objects you are buying first and experiencing the Christmas decorations, but it does cut down on time and stress.  I really recommend it.  No one knows if that name brand item came from a big box store or online.

Buying ahead.  I try to pick up presents for my kids (especially stocking stuffers) as I see items on sale during the months ahead.  I keep a list on my computer so I don’t forget what I’ve bought.  Where I have hidden the gifts is a separate problem:  I need to add that to the list, too!  

Green gift wrapping.  We use pillowcases and ribbons to wrap presents that aren’t going to others outside of the house.  It is far more green than paper that is going to be thrown away after one use.  It also avoids using tape which was a huge chemical sensitivity for me for many years.  If I can, I use reusable gift bags for others who don’t live here.  Regardless, the pillowcase approach makes gift wrapping much quicker and easier!

Give non-tangible gifts.  The best gifts are the ones from the heart.  While many don’t share that belief, you can use this approach for those who do.  Rather than give gifts that the receiver may not like or that may not fit, consider making a donation to a charity like Heifer International, Kiva, your local food bank, or a charity of the receiver’s choice.

Other non-tangible gifts might include tickets to a community play, a local museum membership, or a donation of your time to take a loved one on an excursion you might not do otherwise, like taking them out to dinner.  For someone with chronic illness or physical limitations, some of the best gifts you can give are spending time with them or helping them with tasks they cannot handle themselves.  For those who are living on tight budgets, you can sometimes make an anonymous payment to one of their utilities by contacting the utility company and using their address to access the account.

Remember the reason for the season.  While I am no longer Christian, I do believe in focusing on the values of this time of year rather than the commercialism of the mainstream culture.  It is a time to remember family, to remember our blessings, and to be grateful for all we have.  Consider attending a worship service at the religious group of your choice or go for an extra hike in nature just to appreciate the natural beauty of the amazing world around us.

How ever you chose to celebrate this season, may it be a blessed, safe and peaceful one for you and your loved ones.

©2014 Green Heart Guidance.com

(This is a cross-post from the archives of my much neglected food blog.)

When my twins were two, we began trick or treating with them.  However, they had food sensitivities to dairy, soy, and corn at that point.  If you read the labels on most mainstream candy, that pretty much eliminates everything.  Furthermore, neither of them liked chocolate until recently.  That was definitely not from my part of their gene pool.  To  top it all off, I did not want to be loading them up with artificial flavors and colors since one of them did not do well with those ingredients.  So we were left in a quandary about how to do trick or treating when they couldn’t or wouldn’t eat anything they received.

That first year, my solution was to plant “treats” for them at a few neighbors’ houses.  Books, pencils, erasers—that kind of thing.  We went to the houses, did our trick or treating, and then my son announced, “This is fun!  Let’s do more houses.”  Um, well, no.  I didn’t have any more “safe” houses for us to go to.  We lured them home to look at their new goodies instead.

The next year, we let them collect candy, but we had prepped them in advance that they would “get” to trade in their candy for a new and wonderful toy when they got back to our house.  Since they never really ate candy, the trade was an obvious upgrade from their point of view.  They were really happy with their new toys.

And so it continued for many years with their younger brother eventually joining in the fun.  They would collect candy and trade it in for toys.  We would take the candy they collected, put it out in a bowl on our front porch, and let the local teenagers take it away.  One year the teenagers took the bowl which irked me to no end, so now we leave the candy in a paper bag.  Another year the teenagers failed to take the candy at all which utterly surprised me.  I offered it up on the free section of Craigslist, and within 10 minutes of posting, a local homeschooling teenager had collected it off of my front porch.  I know there are other options like taking it to a local dentist who collects the candy for sending to troops abroad.  Some years Mobile Loaves and Fishes has accepted donations to distribute with the meals they provide for those in need.  However, with my illness, I just haven’t had the energy to do more than put it on the porch and let someone else take it away!

In more recent years as the food sensitivities have waned and my kids have gotten older, we’ve also started buying organic candy from the bulk bins at Whole Foods and including that as part of the trade-in deal.  They surrender most of their loot for organic candy and a game.

However you celebrate, be safe.

copyright 2014 Green Heart Guidance

Many years ago on Halloween, a group of local public high schoolers came to our front door with a shopping cart.  Instead of demanding candy, they were respectfully requesting canned good donations for a local charity as a part of a service group at the school.  It made a huge positive impression on me.  I thought it was a magnificent way for them to get out and enjoy Halloween as older kids but to turn it into a way that benefited the community at large.  It was also on a night when people were at home expecting people to come asking for food donations anyway!

Fast forward 11 years to 2013, and my twins were at a small private school for kids who lived all across the city.  I proposed to the school that we have a similar canned good drive, and the project was approved.  This school required volunteer hours for students as part of their desire to educate the whole person.  Students were allowed to earn volunteer hours by collecting canned goods which in turn parents helped drive to a local food bank.  We donated the cans we collected to the Capital Area Food Bank; another local organization that would happily accept such donations is Safeplace.

Organizing and preparing for this project really did not take a great deal of effort.  I did most of the preparation from home, and I’ve attached the documents from my work below so that others might use them as templates for similar drives.  I let teachers, students, and families know through the various electronic media for the school that this drive was happening.  I found students to help box up the collected items.  I organized families to drive the canned goods to the food bank and to donate baked goods for the winning advisory (also called a homeroom at other schools).  The afterschool club at the school made posters to hang around the school to increase awareness about the project, too.

The family preparation for my kids to participate was rather easy.  We have a wheeled utility cart that I use for farmers’ markets, so we had a way to carry the canned goods between houses.  We had spare boxes in the garage to put the collected items into.  We were ready to go.

While my kids were hesitant at first, they quickly realized how willing neighbors were to help.  It was very rare that someone did not give us a donation of at least one canned good, and quite often, they gave us more.  The neighbors also always offered the kids candy even though that wasn’t the goal.  Over the course of the evening, we made a couple of stops back at the house to unload the collection so that the cart didn’t get too heavy.

One thing that I had not anticipated was people wanting to donate cash or checks instead of canned goods.  If I run a project like this again, I would allow students to collect checks made out to the organization we were contributing to, and I would figure out a conversion amount (such as $1=1 canned good) for tabulations for the advisory competition we had going on.

When one is homebound and disabled, it can be hard to give to others.  Projects like organizing this canned food drive are something that can be done from home if you have a couple of great assistants helping you. Both my ex-husband and the woman we carpooled with were incredibly helpful in doing legwork for the project that was beyond my physical abilities.   The net result was great.  The kids collected hundreds of meals worth of canned goods and made Halloween a little more meaningful for everyone involved.

© 2014 Green Heart Guidance

One of the hidden blessings of chronic fatigue is that the illness forces you to prioritize and recognize what is truly essential to life.  You no longer have the energy to participate in the seasonal chaos that occurs at this time of the year.  It just isn’t a physical option.  And so, with great regrets at first, you learn to cut back on what you can do for Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate. While I certainly don’t advocate getting sick just so you can learn that lesson, I can see the benefits it has brought to my life.  I’m sharing a few tips from my experience that may or may not be of use to you in helping reduce some pressure from your life.

Christmas is a season, not a day.  If you believe the retailers, the season begins in October when they start putting out the Christmas items.  While I think it should be shorter than that, I do think it lasts more than one or two days.  Don’t feel pressured to do everything in a short period of time.  Spread out your celebrations.  I’ve held Christmas gatherings on December 8th because it was the only mutually agreeable date.  I’ve been to Christmas gatherings in early January when weather foiled December plans.  Regardless of when you do it, spread the season out a bit so that you don’t overexert yourself.

Decorate as a group or party activity.  Decorating for Christmas takes a great deal of energy.  My family no longer goes all out for decorating, and I do miss parts of that.  However, I accept that I do what I can. 
     One way to still make this happen is to have parties to decorate and undecorated the house.  Most people like to do a certain part of the decorating but not another (the tree, the lights, the ornaments, the accessories).  Throw a minimalistic party in December and invite a few friends to come help decorate and celebrate the season.  Make it potluck so that you are not providing the food as that takes more energy.  If you have special items you are concerned about breaking, set them aside before the party starts.  That way you can make sure they are safe.
    In Catholic culture, the season of Christmas lasts from December 25th to January 6th in many countries.  Celebrate the arrival of the three wise men with another un-decorating party the weekend after New Year’s.  Have friends come over again, bringing leftover fruitcake to munch on, and reverse the decorating process.  Use the time to decompress from all the foibles and stresses of the season that you are now packing away until the end of the next year.

Holiday Baking.  I used to love to make many flavors of cookies just like my grandmother did. However, now I am lucky to just get one made.  Dietary restrictions make this even harder.  Truth be told, I don’t need or want the sugar from the baking, but I recognize many others do consider it a part of the holidays.
    Consider hosting a cookie exchange.  Everyone brings several dozen cookies bagged or boxed in dozens.  For every dozen you bring, you take home another dozen.  Everyone brings one extra dozen for the hostess so that you don’t have to bake, but you’ll provide coffee, tea, and milk.  Put out some of the cookies in these hostess dozens so that everyone can sample and munch.  This way you can still have a variety of cookies around the house without doing the baking!

Online shopping.  It is a lot less stressful than facing malls full of perfumed people and products.  True, it doesn’t allow you to have the fun of seeing all the objects you are buying first and experiencing the Christmas decorations, but it does cut down on time and stress.  I really recommend it.  At this point, you’d have to do express shipping, but next year, consider it as a viable option.  No one knows if that name brand item came from a big box store or online.

Buying ahead.  I try to pick up presents for my kids (especially stocking stuffers) as I see items on sale during the months ahead.  I keep a list on my computer so I don’t forget what I’ve bought.  Where I have hidden the gifts is a separate problem:  I need to add that to the list, too!  Again, this doesn’t help for this year, but consider it as something to do next year.

Green gift wrapping.  We use pillowcases and ribbons to wrap presents that aren’t going to others outside of the house.  It is far more green than paper that is going to be thrown away after one use.  It also avoids using tape which was a huge chemical sensitivity for me for many years.  If I can, I use reusable gift bags for others who don’t live here.  Regardless, the pillowcase approach makes gift wrapping much quicker and easier!

Give non-tangible gifts.  The best gifts are the ones from the heart.  While many don’t share that belief, you can use this approach for those who do.  Rather than give gifts that the receiver may not like or that may not fit, consider making a donation to a charity like Heifer International, Kiva, your local food bank, or a charity of the receiver’s choice.
    Other non-tangible gifts might include tickets to a community play, a local museum membership, or a donation of your time to take a loved one on an excursion you might not do otherwise, like taking them out to dinner.  For someone with chronic illness or physical limitations, some of the best gifts you can give are spending time with them or helping them with tasks they cannot handle themselves.  For those who are living on tight budgets, you can sometimes make an anonymous payment to one of their utilities by contacting the utility company and using their address to access the account.

Remember the reason for the season.  While I am no longer Christian, I do believe in focusing on the values of this time of year rather than the commercialism of the mainstream culture.  It is a time to remember family, to remember our blessings, and to be grateful for all we have.  Consider attending a worship service at the religious group of your choice or go for an extra hike in nature just to appreciate the natural beauty of the amazing world around us.

How ever you chose to celebrate this season, may it be a blessed, safe and peaceful one for you and your loved ones.

© Green Heart Guidance