"Mindful Living NJ's community events have really made an impact on my life. I've learned so much about holistic health and can be more empowered when it comes to my family's health.” – Amy G., Millburn>> more testimonials
The question I get asked most often as founder of Mindful Living NJ is:
“Do you know a holistic…
MD? OB? Dermatologist? Dentist? Pediatrician?”
The follow up question to that is: Do they take insurance?
We know many holistic health and wellness practitioners in this great state, and we’re happy to refer you to them. (We also love www.wellnesspossibilities.com a web site directory populated with a lot of NJ wellness practitioners.)
And while we do know a handful of conventional physicians (MDs or DOs) who take a holistic-approach to practicing medicine, we’re sad to report that the list is too short for our liking. How do we build that list? With your help.
Mindful Living NJ wants to hear about your doctor. The seemingly conventional MD who takes a holistic approach to your health. Whether he or she allows alternative vaccination schedules, or is extraordinarily supportive of VBAC, or encourages you to wait out a cold rather than medicate it. Does your doctor use alternative forms of diagnostic tools? Unconventional blood tests or saliva testing? Is your doctor specialized in caring for chronic illness from a holistic approach, such as approaching ADHD and autism through diet or environmental causes?
If you are currently working with an MD who takes a holistic approach to your wellness, please let us know.
My husband said to me the other day, upon observing our seven year old walking through the door at the end of a day at camp, “Doesn’t he look like he lived life today?”
And he did.
Blonde streaks highlighting his tussled hair. Hat on sideways. A touch of sunburn beneath his eyes, despite the SPF 30 Badger Balm applied and reapplied. You could tell he committed himself to the day’s activities. He put himself out there and reaped the benefits of playing hard.
Of course, he was tired and spent. Energy depleted. He was emotionally fragile in the hours leading up til bed. You could tell he needed time to recharge; a freedom and luxury you don’t get in a house with a little brother and baby sister demanding your attention. Rules still to adhere to and schedules to follow. We actively tried to give him some space and slack.
I’m thankful that with the help of our family, we’ve been able to send our son to a local camp that provides him not just with the opportunity to spend the summer playing outdoors, but also teaches him values that are important to us. Most of which are taught simply through play, and not through lesson plans.
What if we all lived life as if it were summer camp? Spending each and every hour learning and living? Connecting with our community and our Earth? Giving of ourselves and receiving love and light back?
We adults could use a little bit of the magic that summer camp supplies, don’t you think?
They say that everything you needed to know you learned in Kindergarten. Perhaps. But the sequel to that book might be “Everything You Need To Know to Live Life Fully, You Learned at Summer Camp.”
Mindful Girl welcomes NJ-native Catherine Delett to the blog. Cat, the voice behind ConsumeThisFirst.com, is pissed and wants to shed light on a misconception that eating healthy is reserved for rich-folk.
By Catherine Delett
I’m a fairly calm, rational, and tolerant person, but this blog post, Why I Don’t Eat Organic, got under my skin like a stubborn chigger.
The author, Lasara Allen, calls organic food a “luxury” and eating healthy “elitist.” What?!?
To call the way I feed my family luxurious and elitist would be laughable if it didn’t piss me off too much to laugh. It’s this “poor me” attitude that perpetuates our poor food culture and abysmal eating habits.
By telling yourself that good, healthy food is a luxury reserved for the elite, you’re telling yourself a lie designed to rationalize your complacency about making hard changes to your lifestyle.
In fact, my lifestyle and meal choices allow me to budget more for organic fruits and vegetables, grass-fed beef, pastured eggs, and organic poultry and milk. We’re very thoughtful about other aspects of our lifestyle: We don’t have Gameboys or HBO, our kids don’t have tons of clothes and shoes, most of my kids’ wardrobe is from the consignment shop or hand-me downs, I don’t color my hair or get my nails done — you get the idea. (My dear Ms. Allen, that’s not hubris showing, that’s my gray hairs — the same ones that lead kids to ask if I’m a grandma or wonder aloud why I’m so old, or my favorite, make me the “something black and white” in my kids’ game of I Spy. Hubris? No way.)
We choose how to spend our money and time. I choose to spend more money on quality food and less on processed calories and lifestyle extras. If you are truly “worried” about not eating organic, or healthier, then adjust your shopping list and the meals your family eats — and maybe other parts of your lifestyle, too.
Here’s a peek into my luxury-elite lifestyle:
• Meatless dinners (with beans, lentils, chickpeas, eggs, or cheese) at least twice a week.
• Leftovers for 3-4 meals a week.
• I buy whole chicken, bone-in meats, cheaper beef cuts that get slow-cooked.
• Grains, beans, lentils, etc. come from the bulk food bins.
• Soup for dinner in the winter (and sometimes the summer).
• I try to buy produce in season, which is cheaper. (Sure, I hate not having oranges in the summer and strawberries in the winter, but I hate eating pesticide more.)
• No soda, sports drinks, or juices in the house, except for special occasions.
• I do a lot of baking and cooking from scratch, not because I have gobs of free time and/or love it, but because it’s cheaper and healthier.
• I can count the name brand food products in my house on — hey look: there aren’t any!
Not very luxurious, huh.
I actually think eating non-organics, cheap meat, and crappy processed food is the true “luxury” and “elitist” lifestyle.
For example:
• Buying boneless and skinless chicken, tenders, steaks, and other expensive cuts of meat on a regular basis.
• Drinking soda every day and sports drinks after every practice.
• Eating a meat every day, sometimes twice a day.
• Having a variety of snack foods in the house at any time.
• Buying bottled water.
• Eating dessert every night.
• Giving kids juice boxes every day in their lunch box.
• Eating berries all winter, shipped from far way places.
• Buying individually packaged snack foods for lunches.
• Buying heat-and-eat meals or ready-made foods
I know families who have plenty of money and still choose to eat processed foods and non-organics. I also know families of various incomes that buy organic and wear it like a badge of honor that inducts them into a secret society. But healthy food isn’t a secret society or reserved for the wealthy. Please don’t lump everyone who buys organic together. If I had my way, I’d help every family figure out ways to eat healthier within their budget.
Cat Delett is the voice behind ConsumeThisFirst.com, a blog dedicated to sharing food intelligence with families who eat. She spends her spare time poking her nose into nutrition and wellness issues at her kids’ schools and browsing the supermarket in horrified dismay. You can contact her at cat@consumethisfirst.com with comments, rants, or questions about how you can start eatinghealthier.
Springtime pollens should not be toxic to our bodies, says Michael Magwood, D.C. of the Chiropractic Wellness Center of Clifton. So why do we and our allergic children suffer so? Below hear the perspective from a chiropractic point of view. (This is part 1 of a two-part series.)
Dr. Magwood sees pediatric patients and their parents in his center in Clifton with the hopes of both caring for and educating the entire family. Each Tuesday at 6:30 pm, he offers free educational workshops in his center ranging from nutrition to asthma to digestive wellness. For more info, visit www.drmagwood.com
Yesterday, a friend sent me a link to a trailer for “Race To Nowhere,” a film that “examines the pressures faced by young people and educators in our achievement obsessed education system and culture.”
As you know, “saying the unsaid” about our schools is a topic that is front and center for me. As a community educator and advocate for families, I’m motivated to engage parents and teachers in an open dialogue about how we can take steps to make a change in our schools and our society. Whether that change focuses on creative, out-of-the box approaches to education or integrating wellness regimens like meditation and yoga into our every day curriculum or changing from toxic, chemical cleansers in our classrooms to green, non-toxic cleaning products.
But, as a parent of three young children, I live in the now, not in the beautiful, green, non-toxic future. And I am terrified. And talking is not enough. I need action. And I need it now.
During a conversation last week, my son’s preschool director (whose forthcoming opinions I value) reassured me that no matter where my children go to school and whatever their educational environment, they’ll be extraordinary human beings and citizens, in large part because of the type of household they are being raised in. I believe this and agree with her to some extent.
On the other hand, I know that my elementary age child spends the majority of his day and the majority of his week and the majority of his life with people other than me.
What does “other than me” look like?
Good, bad, and indifferent, depending on the person and depending on the day.
Other than me is his teacher. It’s his baseball coach. It’s the kids in his class or on his soccer team. It’s his hebrew school teacher. His grandmother. His dad, brother, and sister.
I’m thankful for the other influences in my son’s life because I can’t be and don’t want to be solely responsible for shaping him.
But I’m also aware that many of the most impactful experiences in his life will likely happen at school. And I’m also very present to the correlation beteen his school experience and his health.
So where does that leave me? Right now, I feel powerless and insignificant in shaping the philosophy of my son’s school experience. (For the record, he’s in public school in New Jersey. I think that parents in a private school setting may have a slightly different experience.)
In our busy, modern society, I think many parents have walked away from being responsible for the type of community their child’s school fosters. In my own school, the PTA desperately struggles to get more than 10 people to show up for monthly meetings. And, I contibute to this apathy! I’ve been to one PTA meeting in two years. For me, the apathy stems from a feeling of disempowerment. In general, though, I wonder if parents simply don’t make the time to be actively involved in influencing school philosophy because they’ve placed blind trust in our school boards, in school adminstrators, and in teachers.
In NJ, many of us have started to voice our opinions and outrage about school budgets, but how many of us are looking beyond teacher’s paychecks, layoffs and cutbacks and speaking out about philosophy? Wouldn’t it be great if we could apply our energy into really reshaping they way we look at our educational system and the way we approach guiding our children into adulthood? What is our intention for this generation of children?
