It’s FASCINATING. I mean, we know that breathing is a powerful relaxing tool, but who would have thought it could have such an impact on other aspects of our health, too? Read up!!

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/06/131734718/just-breathe-body-has-a-built-in-stress-reliever

Breathing my way to a healthier body,

Leah

In honor of the end of my first semester at college (yikes!), I want to talk about something called the “stress game”. This is something I became aware of my sophomore year in high school, when the new head of the Judicial Committee gave her first speech to the school. She shared with us some words of wisdom about a phenomenon that I had never really been aware of before, but now I hear it all the time!

There’s a game people like to play. It’s called the stress game. The goal of the game is to one-up the person sharing with you how stressed they are. This is an example of how the game would go:

Person A: “Oh man. I’m sooo tired. I had 2 papers due today, and I was up until 2am working on them!”

Person B: “You think that’s bad? I had a test, a quiz, AND 2 papers due today, and I didn’t get to go to bed until 4am!”

Sometimes the game is disguised with an attempt to make the first person feel better, as in “You know what should make you feel better? How much worse my night was!” but no matter what, the stress game has begun, with everyone constantly trying to prove themselves by how stressed they are. It sounds a little ridiculous, I know. But listen for it! It happens all the time. There is nothing wrong with sharing your stress with others, or needing to vent a little frustration, but the problem with the stress game is that it begins breeding negative attitudes. Instead of people being supportive, everyone commiserates with negativity. Misery loves company. Don’t let it overtake you!

It’s so easy to use the amount of work we have, or the hours we stay up at night, to try and prove ourselves or our worth. It can be hard to remember sometimes that how stressed you are is not a measure of how successful or hard-working you are. Stress is destructive; be positive and proud about your accomplishments instead of continuing to live in the struggle it took to get it done!

And now, back to my work! The end of the semester is in sight, with a lot of relaxation and good times just around the corner. =)

All my love,

Leah

I’m so sorry it’s been such a long time since my last post, but I haven’t forgotten about you, I promise! =)

Happy vacation/Tuesday/soon to be Thanksgiving, everyone! I know not everyone is on vacation, but I just wanted to send a reminder to take some time for yourselves in the next few days!! Treat yourself well, whatever that means for you. Slow down a bit. Breathe. Meditate. Go for a walk! Whatever makes you feel good and relaxed, do it, baby.

I am looking forward to some quality time with my family, and good food and cheer!

And oh my goodness…it’s almost my favorite holiday because of it’s name…Thanksgiving!! Woohoo for appreciation! Now more than EVER we can be gracious for all the blessing, big and small, we have in our lives. Tell everyone you love that you love them! Let your appreciation for the beauty that is life shine through you!

Sending you all my warmest wishes for a happy, relaxing couple of days,

Leah

This video has gotten pretty viral lately, so I’m sure a lot of you have seen it, but it’s so great! It’s silly, but is a really great reminder of appreciating even the littlest things we have in life.

I love her enthusiasm and her unabashed love for herself! I think we could all use a little of Jessica’s spirit in our day-to-day lives.

“I can do anything good”,

Leah

Here is a picture of my stone garden. It sits on my windowsill right next to my desk. I love it, not just because of the irony, but because of the message it reminds me of every day.

When it comes to life, I truly believe that nothing is written in stone. The world is constantly changing and evolving, and so are we. Everything passes. We have experiences, and then we have new ones. I love having this reminder, because when things aren’t going the way I want them to, it’s easy to feel stuck sometimes, like I’m in this rut and things are never going to be different. When I look at this stone, it reminds me that where I am right now is not where I will be forever. Nothing that I am or that I do right now has to be permanent if I don’t want it to be. If I’m unhappy, it won’t be that way forever. If I’m in any way dissatisfied with what I’m doing in my life…I can change it! Nothing is the way it will be forever. Everything has the ability to change. Nothing is written in stone.

I love my stone garden! A whimsical reminder of an important philosophy.

Forever changing,

Leah

Though we may be separate from it, there some pretty awful stuff going on in the world.

Now when I look at the community around me, I find myself surrounded by thoughtful, compassionate, and rational people. And these people are there to support eachother. Individually we do make mistakes, but as we lean on others, we become driven and inspired to do good in the world. As the optimist that I am, I believe that all people inherently share this quality.

So why, as fellow human beings, aren’t we doing all we can to help those who are locked in war, people who are forced to kill and spread hate? Now I’m not pointing any fingers, I’m just making an observation. I know I’m not doing much for Congo, despite the relatively simple solutions that organizations put forth, solutions that could be put into action quite easily if we pool together the our collective resources.  Part of the answer must be ignorance. Because we are so distant from the damage wars inflict, or can’t feel how a mother feels when she loses her son to a war, we simply don’t care enough to extend a hand to those in need. This must change.

All in the span of decades,  we’ve put men and women into space, built dizzingly immense cities of steel and glass, and have developed a globally encompassing and instantaneous means of communication, buisiness, and  self-expression. Why is this frontier any different? We have the means, why not build the close-knit global community that I know we’re capable of? And it all starts by spreading awareness and eliminating ignorance.

So pass this video on to a couple people, or at the very least think about how lucky we are to live without the immediate threat of oppression or violence. But above all, don’t forget:

the sun shines on.

Much love,

max

Today is SuperForest’s birthday!!! What a wonderful day it is! I hope you are filled with joy, love, and hope. In honour of SF’s bday, we over at SuperForeset have put together this video! Thank you to everyone who took part, and thank you for watching, reading, and loving! Most importantly could you go on and SHARE this video with anyone and everyone  you think would love it! Share the video, share SuperForest! Thanks everyone! Aloha.

Hello SuperForest,

As you may have read or heard on the news many children in the recent months have been taking their own lives because of homophobic bullying. City Council member Joel Burns recently gave this talk, and it is spreading around the internet, and I thought it only right to pass it on here. The issue is saddening, but there is hope. Joel reflects this brilliantly. I do warn you, though, that this can get emotional, and you may cry (I certainly did).

I am sending love (and I hope you join me) to all families and friends who have lost loved ones, and sending love to those who might be afraid right now, know that we love you.

~SFM

“Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

When it comes to inspiration, there is no shortage of demand.  Fortunately, kindness carries an innate synergy that spins upon itself until each gossamer strand is woven into a more complex and grander web.  So it is that I first started this weekly series, to highlight individuals who in their own small ways are causing tremendous positive ripples across the globe.  And two months ago, I featured one particular kindness crusader, Secret Agent L, a highly trained ninja of jubilation who has created a worldwide network of undercover operatives all engaged in top-secret missions to spread random acts of kindness.  It was through Secret Agent L that I was then introduced to Nate St. Pierre and his incredible online community ItStartsWithUs.

The idea is very simple.  Every week Nate sends out an email to the thousands of subscribers that form his global team.  The email outlines a mission, should you choose to accept, with a specific positive-oriented goal.  Past missions have been as specific as writing a letter to a terminally ill child, or as abstract as fix something that’s broken (a lightbulb, a relationship, etc…).  Each assignment is geared to consume no more than 15 minutes out of every participants week.  But when hundreds of random letters pour into a hospital, imagine the impact that combined community power can make in a person’s day/life.

“For some people, the smile you give them while talking may be the only measure of positive human emotion they had all day” –Nate St. Pierre

It all started for Nate a little under two years ago.  He was a web developer, recently turned 30 with a loving wife and two kids.  And yet, something felt absent from Nate’s wholesome picture.  His whole life he’d been scolded by parents, teachers and peers to stop squandering his talents and live up to his potential.  One day, while attending a leadership workshop for work, Nate found himself filling out a standardized form which asked questions such as “what are your strengths, passions, etc…”.   He quickly plugged in his answers, without much thought.  But then he hit the following question: “Next year I will…”  and stopped.  For twenty minutes he pondered this question before finally filling in the blank — “next year I will change the world.”

As lofty a goal as that may be, Nate determined to achieve just that, but tapping his un-mined potential, building on his strengths and starting small.  In April of 2009, he launched his first blog post.   He worked every night from 10 pm to 2 am, spending 30 plus hours a week on top of his fulltime job and the responsibilities of raising his family.  The hard worked paid off.  Within a year his site exploded, with well over 3500 people from over 100 countries signing up to participate in his weekly missions.  And it keeps growing all the time.

“When we change lives, we change the world.” – Nate St.Pierre

One of my favorite offshoots of  ItStartsWithUs, is dropalovebomb.com.  Every thursday the LoveBomb team comes together to lift the spirits of someone struggling with hard times, by inundating their  personal website/blog with hundreds of anonymous, uplifting comments.  The effects are instant and astounding.  One teenage girl wrote on her blog about contemplating suicide because she felt so alone and unloved.  The next day she found over 400 comments filled with kind words of encouragement.  It was more than enough to turn her whole outlook around.

Not only does  ItStartsWithUs work as a means to promote individual outeach, Nate’s also found a way to apply his community model to better business practices.  Major companies source Nate’s missions as ways to inspire their workers and positively engage their customers.  For example if you’re Applebee’s and you have 100 stores participating in the mission for the week — “take one of your regulars and find a way to make them feel special”, suddenly you’ve made 100 people’s day.  You’ve generated positive PR that builds through word-of-mouth, and each store has created it’s own way of making customers feel special, so now the company can source 100 different new ideas to better serve their clientele.

It’s such a terrifically simple concept, with such tremendous application that can be applied to most anything.  Everyone can spare 15 minutes a week.  It’s nothing, a drop in the bucket of our daily lives.  But when you connect that to a web of community, that bucket overflows pretty quick.  In more concrete terms:  15 minutes times 20,000 individuals is 5,000 hours of community service a week!!

And the personal joy it creates in knowing you’ve made a difference can’t be quantified in word.  As Nate himself admits: “I’m a better person now, I know that.  You can’t help but be when you start helping other and you see all the touch points that they have with other people and you start making conduits for people to use their own lives for good.  It matters.”

I highly recommend all Superforesters check out Nate’s site,www.itstartswith.us, and sign up for the weekly missions and LoveBombs.  It’s often easy to forget to pay our good fortune forward.  But these weekly emails keep us honest while serving as gentle reminders to keep our eyes open to the good we can do as we walk through this life.

Thanks Nate for continuing to live your potential and inspiring so many in the process!