Daily Wisdom: Anger

A Hindu saint, who was visiting river Ganges to take bath, found a group of family members on the banks, shouting in anger at each other. He turned to his disciples smiled and asked.

"Why do people shout in anger shout at each other?"

Disciples thought for a while, one of them said, "Because we lose our calm, we shout."

"But, why should you shout when the other person is just next to you? You can as well tell him what you have to say in a soft manner," asked the saint.

Disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the other disciples. Finally the saint explained...

"When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other to cover that great distance.

What happens when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but talk softly, Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is either nonexistent or very small…"

The saint continued, "When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how close two people are when they love each other."

He looked at his disciples and said. "So when you argue do not let your hearts get distant, Do not say words that distance each other more, Or else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return."

What If Money Was No Object?

After receiving so many comments in response to sharing this Alan Watts video, I've decided it should have a permanent home on the blog... some inspiration for 2014 :)

Guest Post: Avoiding Unnecessary Weight Gain During the Holidays

Holiday parties, coworkers in a baking frenzy, family feasts, and fancy holiday cocktails. Sounds like a recipe for weight gain, fatigue, and hangovers.

The number one new year's resolution is weight related, and only 39% actually achieve this goal!

The holidays do not have to be a time to undo the hard work you’ve built up throughout year. Depending on your usual habits, here are some relatively simple ways to keep yourself in check without feeling deprived during the holiday season.

Throughout the Season

You know that you’re likely to have a few more treats than usual late in the year so planning is key. Be meticulous with your daily meal plans by shopping from a list to avoid impulse buys. Invest in portable containers and keep the day’s meals in them so you will always be prepared, which will reduce the temptation to eat out or grab just one more sugar cookie.

Avoid highly processed foods or anything with added sodium. This will help to reduce inflammation and bloating and therefore make you feel better. When you know you’ve been eating well, the temptations are easier to resist.

Exercise daily. Even if it’s a 30 minute walk, get out and move. Your body will feel healthier and any extra calories burned will make up for the occasional Christmas cocktail.

Drink a lot of water. Water flushes toxins from your body, helps with cell regrowth, and reduces inflammation. A basic rule of thumb is to divide your weight in half and drink at least that many ounces every day.

Holiday Parties

Company parties, your best friend’s annual shindig, whatever it is, holiday events come with the season and generally include lots of sugars, fats, and calories. You don’t necessarily have to deprive yourself. It’s a great idea to bring along some of your own homemade goodies to a party, either something healthy, like a veggie plate, or a reduced calorie version of one of your favorite treats. Then, if you find your self tempted to overeat, snack on those items during the party.

Another surefire way to avoid overindulging is to have a filling snack or small meal beforehand. My preference is a quick Shakeology smoothie because the protein fills me up and the ingredients help to reduce cravings. Other great options are a piece of fruit and a small handful of nuts or veggies and hummus.

Consuming Alcohol

It seems like we get extra creative with our holiday drinks which usually means consuming more calories. Think eggnog, heavy cream, and Baileys. When you imbibe, stick to clear alcohol and low-sugar mixers like tonic water.

We all know how easy it is to fall into the trap of overeating during the holidays. After all, the season of cutting back spending, eating, and drinking immediately follows when January 1st rolls around, promising a year of change. By following these basic steps, you’re more likely to maintain your weight and feel better throughout the holiday season and enter the new year feeling motivated and healthy!

Christa McMahon is a health & fitness coach working independently with people who want to live healthier lives, lose weight, and get ripped, through practical goal setting and accountability. She is a Colorado native married to her high school sweetheart, living in Durango, CO. They enjoy spending time with their families, and taking advantage of the outdoor adventures in such a beautiful state. You can follow her on Facebook.

It's inevitable ... autumn has arrived

Where did the summer go? The speed at which my summer flew by was most likely directly related to having 3+ jobs and moving twice. Actually, I'm glad it's over! The hectic craziness that has been life for the past 6 months since I returned to Boston is finally winding down. Hence the long overdue update. Returning to the states was a tough adjustment. My time spent in Canada made the transition easier, but returning to Boston is always more of an adjustment that I expect. I'm not sure when the city I used to call home started feeling more like where I'm from instead. Nonetheless there have been lots of exciting developments in the past few months. I'm most excited about Yoga Teacher Training at The Yoga Loft in Wilmington. This awesome studio was on my list of places to check out and when I saw a LivingSocial deal I bought it. Two weeks later I was starting their ten month teacher training program. As some readers may know already, I debated doing my teacher training in India when I was traveling in Asia. Although a bit more pricy in the US, it's totally worth it. I don't know how I could have absorbed all of the information in the one month intensive course style most shalas in India opt for. Currently, I'm assisting occasional morning classes at the Yoga Loft, and loving it!

Vendors at the Boston Local Food Festival

Recently I attended the Boston Local Food Festival and the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. I was a vendor coordinator at the Local Food Fest and had a great time at both events!

Next week I start up glassblowing again at the NOCA Glass School. It's been years since I've done any hotshop work but I'm psyched to start again. In Taiwan, I focused on drawing and painting because instruction and materials were so affordable there, and I was never able to make a connection with or even locate any local glassblowers. I'm hoping that once the crazy hectic schedule that took over my summer slows down I'll have more time to work on some of my unfinished pieces from Taiwan. Also on the list is a visit to Paint Bar! Has anyone been there?

Oh, and I can't forget to mention that I just started listening to my first audio book! This was the obvious solution to being bored an average of two hours a day sitting in traffic and having no time to read. I'm listening to Born To Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall. Although I'll probably always prefer the old fashioned method of reading books with actual pages you can turn I will take listening to an audio book any day over the radio. Born to Run is totally inspiring, it was recommended multiple times after I'd mentioned to both avid runners and readers that I liked Murakami's memior What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.  I started listening 3 days ago, I'm already about 3/4 of the way through. Which do you prefer, ebooks, audio books, or good old paperbacks?

During Nicole's birthday celebration we saw Mighty Mystic, local reggae artist :) 

Amor Fati: Love of Fate

This post has been sitting in my "drafts" folder for over a year. I remember writing it after a friend's grandmother passed away, and wasn't quite ready to put it out there at the time. Whenever we hear that someone we know has lost someone it affects us, and lately I've had this on my mind.  In college I lost a very close friend, and it was one of the most difficult situations I had been faced with.  I had been very fortunate, and had really only experienced death as a child when my grandmother and great aunt passed away.  I thought I was completely unprepared to deal with this unexpected tragedy.  But I wasn't.  I can't pinpoint the exact moment I started thinking that there could be something positive found in every situation we encounter, but it was at this time in my life that I started believing it without any doubt.  And, if I hadn't I don't know how I would have navigated the year that followed my friend's death.  More than a few people find it strange that such a terrible event could result in solidifying such a belief, but it is during the most painful times in life that our beliefs and faith are really tested, and if they do not hold up what are we left with?  Finding something, anything, regardless of how small it might be, that positively influenced my life when my friend died was what allowed me to keep moving forward, not give up, and eventually accept what had happened.  I still feel sad whenever this person comes to mind, but it is a sadness I can live with.  The overwhelming unforgivingness that I've seen so many people carry around for years or even their entire life was something I was eventually able to let go of.  The idea that we can allow ourselves to look for something positive, something learned, some growth that came as a result of loss is not welcomed by all.

I also realized how terribly our society deals with death sometimes.  From the moment someone dies until the day of the funeral anything is acceptable, but after that we are often expected to have gotten control of ourselves and moved on.  But really, the process hasn't even started.  Many people don't like to think about death, and aren't capable of supporting someone who's lost a loved one simply because they are unable to just listen.  In the month's following my friend's death, I realized that most of the offers of support from people in my life had expired.  They couldn't talk about it because they were moving on (or so they believed) and even those who didn't know him personally wanted to forget the entire situation had ever happened.  What is moving on anyways?  We don't need to move on.  Years later you can still carry around memories of that person, as long as you can find a way to live with the emotions they will inevitably bring up.

"As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery. The key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger and attachment, fear and suspicion. While love and compassion, a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness."  -Dalai Lama

Community Supported Agriculture

This spring, one of the items on my to-do list for preparing to move to Boston was to find a CSA. I knew it might be too late once I was back and wanted to make sure it got done. In PEI we joined a veggie box program with a local organic farm and it was great. Crystal Green Farms has a flexible system, where they email you the contents of your box the day before and a list of possible substitutions if you don't want or need everything that's offered. We really liked that eggs were included too. I think the rural community of PEI allows programs like this to be more flexible and less structured, because I was completely overwhelmed the first few times I started looking into signing up for a CSA in Massachusetts. One big issue was that the pickup windows were often short and during weekday hours which would be impossible with my work schedule. There were very few that offered weekend pickups. We used to get our veggie box on Saturday mornings at the farmer's market, which could not have been more convenient because we were there doing shopping for the week already.

I finally decided on Red Fire Farm in Granby, MA. I found them through the Clover Food Lab site. It got off to a rough start, due to delayed opening of the Clover site in Burlington and shortly after the restaurant being shut down as a result of Salmonella! Luckily, I was able to switch to another site which turned out to be much more convenient anyways. One advantage of picking up directly from a RRF site (vs. at Clover Food Lab), is that you have more flexibility with produce. For example, maybe you don't want 8 ears of corn, so you only take 6 and there is extra eggplant to make up for it. At Clover, the boxes were always pre-made. I have photographed quite a bit of the recipes I've made, but these will have to wait for another post. A friend who writes Hugging Trees and Shelling Peas has been much better at updating weekly recipes.

Having a CSA is great, you can save money, save time on grocery shopping, and have fun experimenting with new foods. It's a major motivator to eat healthy as well. Some things to ask yourself when singing up:

How far am I willing to drive to pick up my share each week? I recommend choosing a site within 30 minutes of your home or work.

What day/time will consistently be convenient for me? Some farms are very flexible, and will allow you to change your pickup site if something comes up.

Am I willing to experiment with new produce? Picky eaters beware! You will probably not receive tomatoes every week. There will be a lot of greens in the beginning. RFF has a great resource of recipes to help you figure out what to do with your produce. Like Kale Chips!

Each of these sites allows you to search by zip code to find places in your area. Many farms in the western part of the state offer metro pickups in and around the Boston area. Some farms even offer winter and deep winter shares on a bi weekly basis.

MASSGROWN Map

Local Harvest Map

Farm Fresh Map

Perspective

Do What You Love, and Do It Often...

I couldn't agree more ...

Conflicting Choices

Recently, while browsing in a jewelry store I began making small talk with a diamond salesperson. It turns out she is one of the few people who has ever been allowed to visit the Canadian diamond mines in the northern most part of the country. As you can imagine, they don't want just anyone wandering around there! These diamonds are very successful in the Canadian market, to some extent because consumers want to buy nationally produced products. But there is a darker force influencing diamond shoppers today.

It’s become well-known among consumers that many diamonds have histories tied to violence and human suffering. But most people looking for a diamond never receive any more information than these basic words of advice: avoid buying a “blood” or “conflict” diamond. That advice is surely well-intentioned, but it’s hardly enough information to make an educated and ethical choice. The truth is, many so-called “conflict free” diamonds are not actually free from bloodshed and other serious injustices including child labor, worker exploitation, and sexual violence. How is it that reputable jewelers could be misleading customers about such serious issues? Why isn’t the diamond industry being held accountable to a higher standard? The simple answer is that the industry has done a masterful job of setting the terms of the debate – and of encouraging any discussion about blood diamonds to end before it even starts. But if you want a more complete answer, it’s helpful to take a deeper look at what happens in jewelry stores, at the history of the blood diamond issue, and at how the diamond industry developed a marketing strategy that misleads consumers and makes real change a serious challenge. The following information is an excerpt from the Brilliant Earth Consumer Education page.

Ethical Origins

Where do ethically-sourced diamonds come from?

Look for diamonds originating from Canada.

Canadian diamonds are among the most ethically-mined diamonds in the world. In Canada, diamonds are mined in the Northwest Territories in accordance with Canada's strict labor and environmental laws. Canadian diamond mines work cooperatively with local indigenous communities and take great care to protect the Arctic environment. 

Look for diamonds originating from Namibia or Botswana.

Of the countries in Africa that produce diamonds, Botswana and Namibia have done an especially good job of managing their diamond resources. In both these countries, diamonds are helping to pay for investments in education and infrastructure and raise standards of living for all citizens. Mining operations in Namibia and Botswana are violence-free and meet strict labor and environmental standards.

Potential Pitfall: Avoid diamonds from countries including Zimbabwe, Angola, and Côte d’Ivoire.

Diamonds from Zimbabwe and Angola are tainted by killings, torture, beatings, sexual violence, corruption, and the use of forced labor. In Côte d’Ivoire, diamonds are also fueling a lengthy civil conflict. Any retailer who admits to providing diamonds from these countries should be strictly avoided.

Potential Pitfall: Avoid retailers who cannot identify a mine or country of origin.

Retailers should know exactly where each of their diamonds was mined. They should also have detailed information about the labor and environmental conditions in place at those mines. Retailers with incomplete information on the source of their diamonds are not providing a reliably ethical product.

Defining "Beyond Conflict Free"

What does it mean for a diamond to be ethical or go "beyond conflict free"?
Look for diamonds free from all violence, not just civil wars. For a diamond to be ethically sourced, at the very least, it should not have financed a civil war. But diamond-fueled violence often happens in countries that are not officially at war. An ethically-sourced diamond should be mined in conditions wholly free from bloodshed, genocide, and any human rights conflicts, regardless of the cause.

Look for diamonds mined in accordance with strict labor and environmental standards.

To be ethically sourced, a diamond must be mined in keeping with strict labor regulations and environmental standards. Child labor should not be used. Workers should earn fair wages and enjoy safe, decent working conditions. Miners or mining companies must take care to avoid serious environmental harm and treat local ecosystems with respect.

Quality & Affordability

Are ethical diamonds the same quality?

Buying an ethically-sourced diamond does not mean compromising on quality.

Diamonds from Canada, Namibia, and Botswana meet the highest labor and environmental standards. They are also known for their exceptional quality. But it should be emphasized that the quality of an individual diamond depends on objective characteristics such as cut, clarity, color, and carat weight. When considering diamonds greater than 0.30 carats, make sure the diamond has an independent lab grading report from a leading gem lab. 

Are ethically-sourced diamonds easy to find?

YES! Ethical choices are available from select retailers.

A broad selection of ethically-sourced diamonds are available today through verified suppliers, such as Brilliant Earth. Canadian diamonds remained undiscovered well into the last century. When they were eventually discovered, special priority was placed on negotiating mutually beneficial agreements with local indigenous populations and respecting the Arctic environment. A broad inventory of high quality Canadian diamonds is currently available in popular shapes and sizes. Additional sources of ethically-sourced diamonds are available from Namibia and Botswana, where diamonds are fully verified to be mined, cut, and polished using responsible and labor and environmental practices.

You don't have to compromise on price.

Choosing an ethically-sourced diamond does not mean higher prices. Many companies offer excellent value by providing socially conscious jewelry at the lowest possible price, generally lower than many traditional jewelry retailers offer for standard jewelry.

Retailer checklist

Use this handy checklist when checking out diamond jewelry retailers.

		Look for	Avoid
1	Do you acknowledge that there are serious ethical problems in the diamond industry?	Retailers acknowledges ethical problems.	Retailer says not to worry about ethical issues.
2	Where can I find your diamond sourcing policies?	Available on website or in printed form.	No official statement in written form.
3	Do you incorporate ethical considerations when deciding on diamond suppliers?	Retailer selects suppliers based on ethical considerations.	Buys whatever diamonds are available, without regard to ethical origin.
4	What are your standards for ethical sourcing?	Retailer avoids all diamonds tied to violence, child labor, and environmental harm.	Retailer avoids only conflict diamonds. Relies solely on compliance with Kimberley Process.
5	Where are your diamonds mined?	Mines or countries of origin are directly named. Diamonds come from Canada, Namibia, and/or Botswana.	No information available on mines of origin. Diamonds come from countries such as Zimbabwe, Angola, or Côte d’Ivoire.
6	Can you provide specific information on the labor and environmental standards in place at the mines you source from?	Information is aviailable on labor and environmental conditions at mines.	No information available on labor and enviornmental standards.
7	Are your diamonds tracked from the mine, to cutting and polishing, to your store?	Retailer has investigated supply chain and knows exact path diamonds take from mine to market.	No knowledge of supply chain and no tracking ability.
8	Do you stand by your diamonds by providing a written guarantee of their ethical status?	Yes.	No guarantee or just an oral "take our word."

Want to learn more about this important ethical issue?

Check out this months Foreign Policy article: Rough Cut

This post was originally written as a guest post for Farrah Furtado Couture

Happy New Year!

Hoping everyone had a great New Year's Celebration!

New year, new look for the blog! I will be back dating some posts in the next few weeks to finish up a summary of my travels this past summer.  Also, exciting news to come about a new job and a great contest! Eventually, pictures will be posted from 2012 ツ