On the adventure of life, we have a slew of emotions that can be difficult to understand. Unified Caring Association (UCA) has a tool to help us all out: Moonbeam Feeling Pack. Moonbeam is a way for us to begin understanding and harnessing emotions, to reach goals, and to connect with others in new and enlightening ways that can fill out hearts with joy!
Moonbeam Feeling Pack
UCA has a wonderful and caring tool to help us identify feelings. Creative cards depict a range of emotions from sadness to happiness and stressed to enlightened. Moonbeam, the easy-to-remember name of the character, helps illuminate connections between emotions we are having. The deck of cards includes 144 emotion cards with Moonbeam images. This deck has 72 heavy emotions and the corresponding positive emotions to help the user learn how to transmute our emotions. To further assist the user, there is a feeling dictionary with definitions of all the emotions in this deck of cards. When we “face” our feelings, we can use them for good. We can find our way to better self-care, wellness, happiness, and wisdom.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence (E.Q.) is a field of study that can be thought of a lot like intelligence quota (I.Q.) in the sense that we can develop and train our minds to become increasingly smarter and our hearts to recognize emotions. One example of E.Q. in action is through the ability to keep emotions, like stress, from overtaking or disrupting our lives. With clear understanding of what E.Q. is, we are better equipped to manage life and all stressors it can contain. There are many different models designed by psychologists for emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman’s is the one that is most often referenced. Five key areas of emotional intelligence are outlined as: self-awareness, self-management, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Understanding our emotions ties into self-management. This skill involves the ability to reflect upon your emotions and better make choices.
To help grow caring children, teens, and skills sets like E.Q., UCA’s Moonbeam Feeling Pack is a key resource. This pack is available online in our Caring Community Store. This tool will help develop life skills in communication with others and ourselves. Once we can own and harness these feelings, we can promote healing, authenticity and positivity in ourselves and our caring communities. “Being emotionally smart means being able to feel and deal with emotions [yours and other people’s].” (Unified Caring Association)
Developing E.Q. is a lot like meditation, gratitude journaling, or other healthy habits. They all take conscious practice with the intention to better our lives. Try these steps for 21 days to develop a habit of strengthening your emotional intelligence skills.
OR at the start of each morning….
Emotions can be confusing for us in the moment, but with time and practice we can better navigate them. One resource that we can use is the Moonbeam Feeling Pack and Dictionary found on Unified Caring Association’s website. With this tool, we can practice identifying and transmuting emotions while strengthening our emotional Intelligence. Once we begin to understand emotions (ours and those of others) we can more fully and honestly communicate with others, our caring communities, and the world.
First we see the world; then we crawl to explore; next we walk to share how much we care; then we run, experiencing all we can. But what happens after we run? Mid-life brings up a slew of new questions. We at Unified Caring Association (UCA) celebrate each stage of life, the adventure that can happen, and strive to have caring tools and resources for our UCA members. During the stage of mid-life, we can have a very different adventure than running head-long into crisis.
A majority of UCA’s members are entering or in this time of life.
Often when we arrive to ages 45-65, we can enter a “mid-life crisis.” So much research has gone into this phenomena, and this mid-life time has become much better understood. There are ways to thrive during this time. What an exciting thought to have a mid-life NO crisis! We can by learning our needs at this very stage in life.We developed a simple tool called “Mid-Life NO Crisis” that helps people focus on being strong and powerful in their Mid-Life stages. This is a time of changing needs, and attitude plays a big role. Choosing to be vital and thrive makes all the difference to emerge strong into the next stage of life.
The 5 Areas
Five areas demand our attention when we are entering or going through mid-life. These focus on nutrition, caring for our minds, our relationships, and more!
Mid-Life NO Crisis
UCA’s Mid-Life NO Crisis is a kit of 4 x 6” high-quality cards. These cards cover the five areas listed in the infographic above that demand our attention in mid-life. Accompanying this deck of cards are instructions and suggestions for their use. This is a caring resource for UCA members at no cost! What a great deal and addition to all of our caring tools and resources that our members have access too!
Soon, the Mid-Life NO Crisis kit will also be made available for purchase to the public. Watch for it in the Caring Community Store.
We at UCA are always looking for new ways to share caring with our UCA members and caring community. Whether it is caring apps for growing caringchildren and teens, self-care tools to energize our minds, or resources for caregivers who help care for seniors we are growing and love sharing it all with ur caring community! With caring tools, tips and tricks, and resources we can travel our life’s journey with little or not crises.
Unified Caring Association (UCA) upholds the philosophy that education is one of the important ways to help bring more caring into the world. To see this happen we hold scholarship contests throughout the year. We are excited to say that we have one currently open and have so much excitement as the essay applications are arriving in our mail. We have been seeing requests from our caring community asking us to tell you more about our scholarships.
CLICK HERE for information about our current fall 2019 scholarship for high school juniors/seniors.
Prompt:
If you could change one thing in the world to make it a more caring place, what would you change?
Entrants:
US High School Juniors and Seniors
Essay Requirement:
We require an original essay answering the prompt “If you could change one thing in the world to make it a more caring place, what would you change?” Each submission must clearly explain why they feel this change would make a caring impact in the world. Essays must be at least 500 words.
Fall Scholarship Awards:
First Place:
The top 10 winners will receive a scholarship award of $350.00
Honorable Mentions:
The next 10 best caring essays will receive scholarship awards of $100.
Deadlines:
Opens: 10/1/19
Closes: 11/29/19
Winners Announced: 12/13/19
Essays arrive by the day and we are bursting with joy to read each fall scholarship. Often we have a buzz of excitement in the office with each one! Thank you to all of the teenagers who enter their essays. We are celebrating each of you and will be hard-pressed to pick out the winners! Best of luck!… and we are looking forward to reading your essays.
So much of today’s conversations are around the pursuit of happiness. It seems to be intangible but important to most of us. If we take a step back and ask ourselves one root question we can begin a journey filled with happiness. What is one thing we can do to increase our happiness that also helps us be more healthy? The answer: Giving with care. We at Unified Caring Association (UCA) love to share research, ideas and inspiration on how we can harness giving to help promote happiness in our lives and the lives of others.
Giving with Care Helps Us Feel Happy
UCA has many ways to share caring near and far, with ourselves, and those we hold close to our hearts. Some of these are in the forms of gifts, resources and tools, and the gift of time. All of these options help us feel happy. It is our joy to hear that there have been numerous studies on this very subject. These studies conclude that giving to others actually helps promote happiness. “Happiness expert Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, saw similar results [in comparison to her colleges] when she asked people to perform five acts of kindness each week for six weeks.These good feelings are reflected in our biology.” (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/5_ways_giving_is_good_for_you) What else is great is that happiness can be increased by acts of caring and kindness. For example, the giving and receiving of Swedish massages reducing anxiety, depression, and stress hormones.
Researching Happiness
There are many studies out there on happiness and many are very informative on the impact of caring acts. One such study was done by researchers from the University of Zurich in Switzerland. In this study the researchers wanted to see if there is a difference of happiness levels in the brain between just saying that you will give verses actually giving. “(They) told 50 people they’d be receiving about $100 over a few weeks. Half of the people were asked to commit to spending that money on themselves, and half were asked to spend it on someone they knew.” (https://time.com/collection/guide-to-happiness/4857777/generosity-happiness-brain/) What is interesting is that the researchers began the study by asking each participant to think about someone they would like to give a gift to and place a monetary value on that generosity. Then they scanned the brains of the participants with an MRI machine to measure the activity levels of areas in the brain that are associated with social behavior, decision-making, generosity and happiness. “Their choices—and their brain activity—seemed to depend on how they had pledged to spend the money earlier. Those who had agreed to spend money on other people tended to make more generous decisions throughout the experiment, compared to those who had agreed to spend on themselves.” (https://time.com/collection/guide-to-happiness/4857777/generosity-happiness-brain/) Ultimately, it didn’t matter how much the participants spent on others. The results showed that giving helped with increased feelings of happiness. We are happy to read that the participants in this study reported higher levels of happiness upon completion of the experiment. There was an additional surprise for the researchers during these scans. The participants also had more interaction between altruism and happiness!
Altruism, tell me more please?
Altruism is when we put the needs of others before those of our own. Some examples are holding the door open for someone entering or leaving at the same time as you, offering your bus seat to a senior, or our favorite is offering to pick up coffee our colleagues. These care-giving acts have positive effects upon our mental wellbeing and helps reduce stress.
If we feel happier, then we tend to be healthier too! In his book Why Good Things Happen to Good People, Stephen Post, a professor of preventive medicine at Stony Brook University, reports that giving to others has been shown to increase health benefits in people with chronic illness, including HIV and multiple sclerosis. (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/5_ways_giving_is_good_for_you) This evidence is backed up by a 1999 study led by Doug Oman of UC Berkeley in California. He found that of the seniors who volunteered for multiple organizations were almost 50% less likely to die than non-volunteers. “Stephanie Brown of the University of Michigan saw similar results in a 2003 study on elderly couples. She and her colleagues found that those individuals who provided practical help to friends, relatives or neighbors, or gave emotional support to their spouses, had a lower risk of dying over a five-year period than those who didn’t.” (https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/5_ways_giving_is_good_for_you) Why is this connection between giving and happiness so strong? Most of the research published on the web shows that when people give and volunteer, it activates areas of the brain connected with pleasure, trust and social connection. We often feel this as a warm glow or what is often referred to as the ‘helper’s high.’
Ideas on Ways to Give
Giving with care is a great way to promote happiness in our lives and those we encounter. Now the question comes into play, how do we pick one or more ways to give? Do we start big or small? With those we know, or with someone we pass on the street? The truth is that we can start giving in so many ways. Since there are so many ways to give, we at UCA want to list some ideas.
Happiness comes in so many forms. Giving is a great and easy start. We have big smiles at UCA when ever we have a chance to give with care. We are happy to be able to share this blog with our readers and members. Thank you for the gift of your time while reading this blog.
Unified Caring Association is constantly striving to help create a more caring world. We love sharing more caring information on our website and through blogs that share caring in our community, activities, and reviews. We also send out caring posts on our social media accounts (Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Twitter) to give inspiration throughout the week.
In most communities there are times when we are faced with challenges, negativity or bullying. The internet has not been spared from this, especially on social media platforms. This newest form of internet harassment is often referred to as cyberbullying. We at Unified Caring Association (UCA) want to help source tools and share resources to help others and our children learn the skills needed to stop current forms of bullying and prevent any future bullying from happening.
Cyberbullying History
Bullying and forms of hate or discrimination have been around for most, if not all of human history. With the advent of the internet in the 1990’s there came a new form of bullying: cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is the use of electronic communication to harass, trash talk, or bully a person. Often times this is typically done by sending messages that can be intimidating or threatening in nature. One of the first pervasive examples of this is seen through Monica Lewinski’s experiences. At this time her private life became public, and people began to ridicule her as fast as a wildfire in dry grass. Since then she has become a prominent anti-bullying advocate, even giving a strong TedTalk on the subject.
Cyberbullying has become a more common issue in households and schools, especially for children and teens. Often we hear about messages that are hurtful or degrading left on one or more kid’s social media account from their peers. This begs the question: what tools and organizations can we turn to to help our children dispel cyberbullying?
Stomp Out Bullying
UCA has aligned itself with Stomp Out Bullying, a leading national nonprofit that dedicates itself to changing to a caring culture for all children. This organization works to prevent and reduce bullying/cyberbullying. Also Stomp Out Bullying educates people against LGBTQ discrimination and racism in an effort to deter violence in schools and in communities (online and offline) across the U.S. This organization teaches effective responses and solutions to bullying, cyberbullying, etc. They do this using in-school and online education programs for kids and teens. In addition to their education programs, Stomp Out Bullying provides help for people in need or at-risk of suicide. They raise awareness through public service announcements, peer mentoring programs in schools, and social media campaigns.
October is National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month. Every year the first Monday of October is World Day of Bullying Prevention™ where students, communities, and schools raise awareness by wearing the color blue. Stomp Out Bullying has unique blue shirts to commemorate this day and further bring this national challenge into the spotlight. But, we can all just unify under the color blue to show support as well. This strong unified voice will help the world hear and see that our culture needs to change to be more caring. This is the 12th year that Stomp Out Bullying has began this quest and they have a wonderful slogan for their shirts: ‘Make Bullying History.’ This event will help “…speak for all of our youth who are tormented by bullying, cyberbullying, cruelty, hatred, racism, homophobia and LGBTQ discrimination…[we] stand together to MAKE BULLYING HISTORY!” (Stomp Out Bullying)
Unified Caring Association is constantly striving to help create a more caring world. We love sharing more caring information and resources on our website and through blogs that share caring in our community, activities, and reviews. We also send out caring posts on our social media accounts (Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Twitter) to give inspiration throughout the week.
There are many things as aspects of our lives that we care about: caring for our family, our performance at work, or even our physical fitness and health. But we can often find ourselves with little desire or in a struggle to improve. There are many ways we can strive to be better at what we care about. One of the best ways to begin a self-care or self-improvement journey is with mind, then follow with action.
Growth Mindset
Growth mindset is an idea wherea person can adopt a practice where their most basic abilities can be continually developed through dedication and hard work. Brains and talents are just a starting point, continually learning and growing is the ‘maintenance’ so to speak. This perspective often fosters resilience and a love of learning which can lead to success. This means that the brain is always growing, building new neural pathways, more resilient, as well as getting stronger.
A Tale of Two Zones…
In his TedTalk Eduardo Briceño breaks down how to get better at what we care about. He begins talking about two zones that we must go through to get better at one or more skills. The first phase, the learning zone is the desire for improvement and is where the growth mindset lies. To do this “… we do activities designed for improvement, concentrating on what we haven’t mastered yet, which means we have to expect to make mistakes, knowing that we will learn from them.” (https://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_briceno_how_to_get_better_at_the_things_you_care_about)This is in contrast to the second zone called the performance zone. The performance zone is where we execute our task, exercise our skills, “…do something as best as we can…[and] concentrate on what we have already mastered and we try to minimize mistakes.” (https://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_briceno_how_to_get_better_at_the_things_you_care_about) Briceño mentions that often those who are perceived as highly effect and successful deliberately set the intention to alternate between these two zones. The goal for getting better at what we care about is to be clear about what we want in each of these two zones: learning and growth followed by the maximum benefit and success during implementation. Rinse and repeat.
Seems simple, right? The struggle is that many of us don’t improve even if we work really hard. According to Briceño this is because most societies have the mindset that we must stay in the ‘performance zone.” We can see this in many companies where results are the way to be successful, or in classrooms where getting the ‘A’ or ‘100%’ is all that seems to matter. We seem to be missing the learning and experience of failure that makes it possible to get better at what we care about; “…this hinders our growth, and ironically, over the long term, also our performance.” (https://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_briceno_how_to_get_better_at_the_things_you_care_about) The learning zone consists of what “…Dr. Anders Ericsson calls deliberate practice. This involves breaking down abilities into component skills, being clear about what subskill we’re working to improve, …giving full concentration to a high level of challenge outside our comfort zone, just beyond what we can currently do, using frequent feedback with repetition and adjustments, and ideally engaging the guidance of a skilled coach, because activities designed for improvement are domain-specific, and great teachers and coaches know what those activities are and can also give us expert feedback. It is this type of practice in the learning zone which leads to substantial improvement, not just time on task performing.” (https://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_briceno_how_to_get_better_at_the_things_you_care_about)
Often we see a trend of our abilities plateauing during our first five years of an activity. This happens when we think and feel we have become ‘good enough’ and stop spending time in the first zone — the learning zone. We move on to the second zone — the performance zone — where we often remain. While in this second zone we are just doing to get things done as best as we can. If we are practicing mindfulness and taking notes (literally or mentally) we can then go back to the first zone and work on learning and strengthening in the areas that did not work out as well as we had hoped during the performance zone.
To set ourselves up for success we need to do four things according to Briceño: 1) adopt a growth mindset, 2) want to improve a specific skill, 3) have an idea or plan on how to improve said skill, and 4) “…we must be in a low-stakes situation, because if mistakes are to be expected, then the consequence of making them must not be catastrophic, or even very significant. “ (https://www.ted.com/talks/eduardo_briceno_how_to_get_better_at_the_things_you_care_about) If we are able to keep the stress and stakes low for a good amount of the time, we can develop an environment that allows for nurturing a growth mindset. A good take-away from the two zones and how they interact to help us get better at what we care about is to think about it like washing your hair: wash-rinse-repeat. (Click here to watch the full TedTalk video.)
Brain Chemistry
Ok so we have a good idea about growth mindset and how to continue getting better at what we care about. But what is actually happening with the brain? The key is in how our brain has been evolving from the purely animalistic, instinctive and reactionary wiring that focuses mostly on survival even if our nobel goal is to emphasize the positive and intentional things today. How the brain remembers negative experiences is often through the body producing cortisol during a stressful event. (That T-Rex ate Bob, it was scary, and I remember that! I also remember my friend Bob. He was a cool dude.) “The bad feeling of cortisol has its own survival purpose. It alerts you to an obstacle on the path to meeting your needs so you can navigate your way to good feelings. But once you do that, your brain finds the next obstacle. You will feel bad a lot if you follow your survival brain wherever it leads.” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2016/12/21/how-to-train-your-brain-to-go-positive-instead-of-negative/#66ccd9005a58) Fast forward to 2020 and we have a brain that is tuned into looking out for obstacles, and has become very skilled in remembering negative experiences.
It probably takes about three times repeating most positive experiences to make as deep of an impression in the mind as one negative experience. This is based on practices for building self-esteem and self-confidence such as through pep talks like repeating positive sayings to yourself multiple times while looking in the mirror. Doing this will ingrain a pathway and memory in the mind based on positivity, effectively training your brain to look for the positives and not the negatives. A suggestion is to “…spend one minute looking for positives, three times a day for forty five days…Any positives, no matter how small, will build the pathway that seeks and expects positives.” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2016/12/21/how-to-train-your-brain-to-go-positive-instead-of-negative/#66ccd9005a58) This will create a healthy habit, and promote the development of a healthy brain.
…AndHeart Happenings
Having healthy and learning minds helps us cultivate strong emotional bonds with others and ourselves. It feels good to be successful in endeavors we care about. Previous blogs we have written talk a lot about how positive feelings are good for our us, such as Caring Through the Gift of Time and Volunteering for Health. We see this when we achieve a goal — we and those who support us often are smiling. We feel the positivity. When a positive outlook is adopted a higher frequency of success is achieved. This in turn creates a positive circuit the feeds itself, and generates more connections during our learning time. An example of this is the saying ‘you’re on fire!’ when someone is just having successful achievement after successful achievement. The excitement is palpable and the momentum is fast.
From what we have been reading and blogging about, this is the ongoing goal of a growth mindset. Most of the time we are happy when we are learning and growing. And one thing is for certain: change is inevitable. This means that it is important to continue to get better at what we care about.
Enjoy what you have been reading? Unified Caring Association has more blogs with caring UCA topics, Caring Action, and Caring the UCA Way! Would you like to keep up with UCA activities? Check us out on Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter for updates throughout the week!
Unified Caring Association (UCA) strives to continue promoting caring around the world. But how can someone start performing caring acts? One of the best ways is to start close to home. Help out at a local food bank or shelter or donate clothing or personal care items to those in need. UCA did just this in our local community where our headquarters are located.
UCA jumped into action when we learned about an urgent need for supplies at Great Northern Services (GNS). GNS serves about 10,000 lunches over the summer months to school aged children up to the age of 18 years old. GNS sponsors the USDA Summer Food Service Program donates bag lunches during the work week (Monday-Friday) in the summer months of June, July and August with no cost to the children’s families that receive the lunches.
Supplies that were needed included kitchen utensils, pots, food containers and lunch bags for every child and every lunch all summer long. These supplies were needed by the teams to put the lunches together and deliver them to the kids. We are happy to report that smiles were on everyone’s faces as the lunches were served up. It was a huge pleasure to help support the caring efforts provided by GNS and the USDA Food Service Program to serve up nutritious meals in the community of Siskiyou county. We continue sending our best wishes to all of the teams and every child they serve!
Have you ever felt so good after helping someone else? If so you are not alone! There are so many ways to volunteer your time and skills to help others while giving yourself the gift of self-care. Unified Caring Association (UCA) gives more than three cheers for volunteers.
Along with creating a healthy, caring social network “…volunteerism was associated with a markedly lower risk of dying. Depending on the study, the decrease in death rates ranged between 20 to 60%.” (https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/why-volunteers-live-longer-science-of-kindness/?fbclid=IwAR0xw41uqf5GZK8oyRS6pKCLUzkZgliOe0GTFf0qpNnlfaCOCaDEbnskURM) This lower risk of dying can be linked to how those who volunteer take care of their own personal health. Often times those who volunteer make a larger effort to take care of their well-being. An example is regular preventive care visits to their doctor.
Sharing caring through connection
When we are volunteering we are likely exerting “…its positive health effects by connecting people to others and to an activity that they find meaningful. Achieving connection, purpose, and meaning is critical to attenuating stressors of life—particularly loneliness. Since stress is a major cause of disease, especially heart disease, the ability to quench the need for connection, purpose, and meaning can bring about beneficial and salutary changes for people. And when there is [a] purpose and we are connected to others, we take care of ourselves.” (https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/why-volunteers-live-longer-science-of-kindness/?fbclid=IwAR0xw41uqf5GZK8oyRS6pKCLUzkZgliOe0GTFf0qpNnlfaCOCaDEbnskURM)
When UCA held a recent scholarship contest. One of the questions asked was in regards to if there is one thing you would change in the world, what would it be? We are still moved by one response written. This was by TiAnna Olivas. She writes, “Volunteering not only has a positive impact on the people and organization, it reshapes the way you view life as well. Volunteering provides the opportunity to meet new people, gain new experiences, and make a productive influence on the world around you…I have gained so much from my personal experiences with volunteering. I volunteer with the local pantry and the people there are so kind and have taught me so much. Volunteering with them, I have witnessed how they live an abundant life, filled with making the people around them happy. I strive to be like them, being a light in this dark world. (https://www.unifiedcaring.org/tianna-olivas/)
Unified Caring Association has suggested resources to begin, continue or expand volunteering. One resource is the National Volunteering Caregiving Alliance. Through this network members can connect to about 700 communities throughout the U.S. This network is to help provide volunteer caregivers by connecting community programs and organizations to those in need.
A second resource available for UCA members is access to The Corporation for National and Community Service. This organization plays a key role in supporting the culture of service in the U.S.A. It is here that you can find a volunteering opportunity. There are so many volunteer categories, the sky’s the limit! For example we could search for volunteer opportunities in food banks and soup kitchens, collecting clothing and items in need for the homeless, or spending time assisting the elderly.
In short, volunteering is not only helpful to those you are spending time with, but helpful in our own self-care journey as well. Let’s give many cheers for those of us that spend time volunteering. Thank you for all you do!
Would you like to know more about Unified Caring Association? Check out our blogs on UCA, Caring Action, and Caring the UCA Way! Would you like to keep up with UCA activities? Check us out on Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter for updates throughout the week!
At Unified Caring Association (UCA), we value taking care of each other. But where does this all start? We once blogged about how “It All Starts With Self-Care.” And UCA members have access to many tools that help with just this! One of these tools is the Self-Care Assessment! This is an easy, quick assessment that you take at any time anywhere as often as you want to check in with how you are doing.
What to expect while taking this assessment?
After making sure you have 5-10 minutes of uninterrupted time, you will see five charts that cover the key areas to score yourself on self-care: Body, Mind, Emotion, Work, Social/Family. Each of the sections has five questions that you rate your own activity levels from 1 to 5, one being “it never occured to me” and five being “frequently.” Just like the example from the body section of the assessment below.
Once you have your ‘score’ you can see the areas that would help you improve your self-care, starting you on a path to self-care success!
The next section asks you to “choose the 3 most important statements to improve right now. What is you plan to improve each?” And finally a spot to name a friend, family member, or someone you trust to be your accountability partner. This allows for a well formed plan of action to assist in holding you responsible for your self-care plan.
Should the assessment be retaken?
Yes is the simplest answer. Because we are always growing, changing and life around us is ever shifting, this assessment can apply at most times of our lives. We recently were told about a member’s journey. This member had an initial low score, then retook her assessment two months later, and had a score that was 4x times better! The main thing to remember is to continue to move forward with your self-care, even if there are areas that you are taking baby-steps in. Once we heard a saying, “Progress, not perfection.” This is so true for self-care. The goal is the progress in improving and maintaining your self-care.
Will I struggle?
There are many times we struggle with our goals. This is why there is plan and someone your trust to help hold you accountable. UCA also has tools to help! Unified Caring Association has Nutrition and Fitness tools, Meditation and Mindfulness recordings and videos, as well as a 24 hour counseling hotline!
Results will show as you grow!
As you continue on your self-care journey you will begin to see results. The consistency in practicing your personal well-being plan will yield results that grow just like when we nurture a seed.
Self-care is like nurturing a seed and watching it grow.
We are excited to see and hear about our UCA members success. We are happy to be able to provide tools and resources like the self assessment to do so! If you would like to read more blogs on caring action, caring the UCA way, or about UCA we have more information available. Also, we can be found on Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter for a bit of caring sprinkled in your day!
Unified Caring Association (UCA) loves helping people of all ages. We see this each year Unified Caring Association holds scholarship contests to help college bound students. This year for one of the scholarships we asked high school juniors and seniors to write short essays responding to the question, “If you could change one thing in the world to make it a more caring place, what would you change?” We received hundreds of applicants and noticed a trend in some of the responses. Many scholarship award winners targeted the use of social media.
These impressive teenagers want to help make the world a better and more caring place by limiting social media exposure. Their common drive is to help prevent the spread of negativity and cyberbullying.
Cyberbullying is similar to bullying seen outside of social networks. When we Google search the word ‘cyberbullying’ the definition is, “the use of electronic communication to bully a person, typically by sending messages of an intimidating or threatening nature.”
Not all online pictures and interactions are negative. There are a fair amount of positive and caring posts online. It is as Cameron M Russell states at the beginning of his essay, “The portrait social media paints of the world can be a beautiful and elegant painting or could be a gruesome and unjust picture…” And this is echoed by Eva McCauley when she states that “… it gives zero insight to how someone’s life actually is.” When there is a disconnect from reality, which we see through the facade of social media and the lack of interaction with people and peers, there is a delay in mental and emotional development that allows for a person to treat others with compassion. Many of the essays submitted also give a remedy for this: true face-to-face connection over digital interaction. “Social media affects one’s identity and empathize (sic) face to face interaction” (Adamaris Cruz Santiago), this is a way we can share our own authenticity.
In recognising the authenticity of others as well as our own we begin to see others as human. We will begin sharing human experiences. We believe that Isabella Peluso says this in a wonderful way. This movement “…would allow the world to be a more caring place through people connecting more in the real world and catalyzing a shift towards change instead of just acknowledging that it needs to happen.” In this positive and caring shift we would see people promoting and celebrating kindness, and caring in all forms of communication. We would also see an increase in celebrating diversity. Kassandra Ruiz mirrors this in her essay. She states, “This is why I believe that if we teach students different cultural traditions and morals, they will understand that everyone is unique and that they must accept each other in order to become successful.”
Acceptance of everyone’s individuality is a key to making the world a better, more caring place. And this shows why acceptance is so important. Through this we will all become more successful and happier people. This is achieved through caring acts and words, personal interactions, and supporting and celebrating diversity. With all of these in mind, things like cyberbullying will be reduced or even eliminated. What a wonderful world we can make! And this quote from the last part of Cameron M Russell’s essay exemplifies how was this caring consciousness can be, “…every step I take and every post I’ll make is to feed my positive energy to the world and my job as a human is to take care of my home and the humans on it.”
We are so proud and moved by all of the essays that were submitted for the scholarships. Thank you to everyone who submitted their essays. If you would like to read more of the submissions for this scholarship, visit our Unified Caring Association’s website. Then click on the Scholarships tab to read scholarship submissions. For further reading about UCA scholarships, we have a blog titled, UCA & Scholarships. Or to read more about making the world a better place, check out our other blogs on caring:How to Improve the World By CARING and It All Starts with Self-Care.
