Archive for April, 2006

What this book’s about
Jo Frost, TV’s Supernanny, shares with us her philosophies and techniques designed so we can get the best from our kids. She doesn’t say it but I can tell you that this book can also help to keep harmony (or create it) within the marriage as well.

Summary
The book is broken down into two sections: Basic Techniques and Troubleshooting. Definitely read the whole book (I even read the chapter on Toilet Training even though my daughter has used the toilet successfully for years. I thought here might be some tip I could use to help her be even more successful during her trips to the bathroom.) The Basic Techniques are separated into the following chapters: Ages and stages; Routines and rules; and Setting boundaries. For Troubleshooting you’ll find chapters on dressing, toilet training, eating, social skills, bedtime and quality time. By all means skip directly to a troubleshooting chapter if you have an immediate need for help but make sure you circle back around and read the whole book, there are tips and techniques that are essential for successful use of the Supernanny methods. Keep reading the book to help you keep the momentum going, keep it in your memory and achieve ultimate success.

What’s good about this book
(1) The bedtime troubleshooting ideas are wonderful and kind. They work. Within a week your child’s bedtime troubles will be over. You’ll have your evenings (and sleep) back. (2) It has an index for reference later; (3) I especially like the “Top Ten Rules” at the end of each chapter. It makes it easy for a quick reference or for the spouse that hasn’t read the book come up to speed on the methods that are working so well for you. (4) The information on breastfeeding is good except that Jo recommends not expressing milk when weaning. I found it much more comfortable, in addition to cutting down on the chances of mastitis, by expressing a little to relieve the pressure while weaning my children from breastfeeding. It was defiantly more comfortable. The milk supply will decline and eventually stop with less discomfort. Even if it takes a little longer, it’s worth it. And who’s to say it takes much longer anyway? (5) I agree with talking to the child in a positive way such as “After you are in your jammies we’ll read the book,” instead of “No book until your pjs are on”. See the difference? I think most of us were brought up being told the negative and assuming the positive. I tell my children the positive and let them assume the negative. (6) I like her suggestions for eating but would only encourage children to eat until they are satisfied (no longer hungry), not until they are finished with their plates. I would NEVER encourage them to finish everything on their plates. It’s an unhealthy habit that will last into adulthood and cause many people to overeat. If my child eats a lot or does finish her plate I say, "You must have been hungry." I was told to clean my plate as a child. As an adult I decided it was healthiest to stop eating when I wasn’t hungry anymore and I decided to stop eating when I was satisfied. That was 15 YEARS ago and I still feel compelled to finish everything on my plate and sometimes finish my daughter’s plate too. She never eats past the point of satisfaction, we’ve taught her well.

What I didn’t like/would change/wouldn’t recommend about this book
(1) Sometimes before bedtime Jo will tell a child what events are happening the next day. I don’t think this is a good idea. The techniques in this book are designed to work best with children 5 years and under. Children of this age live totally in the NOW, time is a concept they just don’t understand. I choose to talk to my young child about what is happening now. I don’t tell her what’s going to happen tomorrow since she will expect it to happen now. Compound this with telling the child right before they are expected to go to sleep and they might be so excited they won’t go to sleep or have trouble falling asleep. (2) Instead of telling a child that a “new” baby is coming I would change the words to say that a brother or a sister is coming to join the family. As adults we usually throw out the “old” when we get something “new” and we don’t want our children to think they are being replaced. We want them to know the family is being augmented and they will have a very important part to play. (3) I disagree with praising. I understand Jo’s point that you need to do something to reinforce the child finally acting in an acceptable manner but there are other ways it can be done.  If you read Dumbing Us Down : The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling you know that praise can have a long-term detrimental affect on ones’ own sense of self-appraisal. Sure, it might make your job easier in the short-term and your child might do what you want more readily because they know you will withhold your praise if they don’t but it isn’t worth the long-term affects. There are ways of encouraging our children, to do their best and to help, without praise. I thank my children for helping and let them know what their help meant to me: “Thank you for helping. We got done faster by doing it together.” I’ve also had a lot of success with the book, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. (4) I don’t think children should watch television at all until they are much older. Jo isn’t keen on it but some parents are so I’ll share with you something you may not have known. Television, whether a movie, cartoon or whatever else, adversely affects the development of the child’s brain. The Waldorf Schools know this and try to help the child’s brain develop in the most optimal ways. (5) I disagree with not giving children raw foods. I ground up sunflower and buckwheat greens and the children loved them. Maybe certain children’s digestive systems aren’t ready for solid foods at all if they can’t take raw foods. On a side note, you can really give your children a great start in life by keeping their bodies clean of mucus by offering them mucus less or mucus lean choices. (6) On page 173 she recommends, when you are out at a park, telling the child to “stay where I can see you”. The child doesn’t know if you can see them or not. I recommend telling them to stay where THEY can see YOU. That they CAN do.

My own suggestions
I also suggest keeping in mind the adage “Observe more and interview less”. I learned this one when my 15 year old was 2. It’s been great for her self-esteem and ability to try new things. From birth to seven-years-old children learn by example. We can be more “wordy” with our children after they are seven and can process information in that “wordy” manner.

Especially good sections to read
Troubleshooting chapters for any problems you might be having.

What to skip
Nothing, read it all

When to get this book
With enough time to read before your child starts walking. Basically, before behavior problems can start.

Final comments
All-in-all this is a great book that will make your life as a parent better. Make sure you read, in this review, what I like and dislike as well as the accompanying suggestions and ideas and see what feels “right” to you. I think this is an essential book to have in your library if you have young children or are a care provider for young children. It will make your life easier, create happy, confident children and adults, both now and when they’re older. It worked for me.

View book details at Amazon.com: Supernanny : How to Get the Best from Your Children

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Summary
Utilizing HeartMath Solution this book has exercises and techniques that, if practiced regularly, relieve stress, worry, tension, fatigue and related problems. I’m greatly oversimplifying this book. There is so much more to it, I’ll just get into the techniques and the book will tell you how and why they work. The techniques can even help you sleep better. Quite a promise, huh?

Stress related illnesses
These methods, after several weeks of practice, have been proven to eliminate mild depression, anxiety attacks and other stress related illnesses. You would be surprised by what illnesses are caused by stress and how they can be relieved and/or reduced through these HeartMath techniques. It just might increase your quality of life, get you to slow down (and slow down time as mentioned in Home with God), be in the NOW and have a happier life.

Practice
It is recommended that the techniques, all involving variations on breathing through the heart, be practiced regularly starting with Quick Coherence. After practicing for a few days or so you can add another technique and so on. I practiced Quick Coherence first as recommended in "Setting Up a Practice Program" on page 128. I practiced that one technique several times a day for about a week. After that I added the Hearth Lock-In and did those two techniques for about ten days before adding Attitude Breathing. Attitude Breathing is a much faster way to "change your attitude" as many of us have been told to do through the years.

My experience
Visible difference
With all of this practicing I got into quite a regular routine and found myself doing the techniques throughout the day. After practicing for a few weeks other people around me started to notice a change in me. After visiting us my parents called to say that they noticed how I handled things more calmly during their visit and how they could really see that I was using it and it made a difference. They are the ones who gave me the book after using it themselves so they could tell what made the difference. My husband even commented on how east I was to get along with and how nice the energy in the house felt.

It made me feel awesome
I was feeling great and was in bliss quite frequently. I would spontaneously become aware of my heart and feelings of peace and joy as well as a connection to the Divine. It made such a tremendous difference in my life and how I handled things that came up for me. Things that previously got me stressed and overwhelmed were taken in stride and I was so pleased with my progress.

Example
Well, I’ve used these techniques now very successfully in various situations. One night I was sleeping very restlessly. I had eaten things that I don’t usually eat, Day Light Saving Time had started and in changing the clocks buzzers were going off in the middle of the night and my sleep was suffering. After being woken up the third time I did the Heart Lock-In technique until I fell asleep and the rest of the night I slept well.

Suggestions
Since there isn’t an index you might want to make notes. For your convenience I’ve supplied page numbers for the techniques since you’ll need to refer back to them later.
Practice Program Techniques:
Quick Coherence is on page 44
Heart Lock-In is on page 80
Attitude Breathing is on page 103

Also mentioned in the book is a technique called "Freeze-Frame". It isn’t described in the Transforming Stress book but I see the author devoted a whole book to it: Freeze-Frame. There is also software, Freeze-Framer® v2.0 Interactive Learning System with Patented Heart Rhythm Monitor, if you want to take your practice to a whole new level and monitor how you’re doing. (The software includes the Freeze-Frame book.)  The Journey to Wild Divine software program also provides feedback on how calm your energy is. It’s my understanding that the Freeze-Framer® software specifically uses the HeartMath methods and provides feedback on your HeartMath practice. See what works for you. I haven’t read the Freeze-Frame book or used the software so I’ll leave it up to you.

Conclusions
If you have trouble sleeping, feel stress, feel anxious, are nervous, depressed or just want to slow down and enjoy life more than I strongly suggest testing these methods for yourself. You will be pleasantly surprised. Included in the book are techniques and exercises to help you sustain and maintain your new calmer states of being.

View book details at Amazon.com: Transforming Stress

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Summary
In this, his latest and last book in the Conversations with God (CwG) series Neale Donald Walsch gets into the nitty-gritty of death and finds that he died at birth. Huh?! Well, that was in another reality, obviously, as we know he is alive and well in this reality. Home with God : In a Life That Never Ends has been touted as the most important book he’s written so far. Quantum Physics come into play as well as techniques on being wholly present in order to experience the Divine while still in the body. The principles from the other CwG books are repeated again in this book. You might ask why we keep having to go over the same things again but you could also ask why we aren’t living as if we know them already, couldn’t you?

Time
Consider that time is a tunnel. We can go forward and backward, up and down in this tunnel. We can go faster and we can go slower. Don’t you sometimes feel time is going slowly and other times it’s racing by? I’ve noticed that I can slow down time by being in the moment: paying deep attention to what I’m doing, take my time and not think about time, looking into my daughter’s eyes intently while she is talking, or just deciding I want time to slow down. Cool, huh? It works for me. We can also go through this tunnel of time more than once. Surprised? Doesn’t it explain déjà vu better than The Matrix? "I’ve been here and done this before!" It’s funny how I never have déjà vu about the spiritual stuff I’m doing. I probably wasn’t into this the other times I went through this life-time. I don’t think I lived this long in most of the other alternate realities of this life-time. I guess my spiritual path kept me from ending my life early.

Suicide
Speaking of ending one’s life early, don’t do it. You’ll be going nowhere fast. Basically, we came to this lifetime to have experiences. If we decide to end our lives before we have experienced what we came here to experience we’ll just have to start all over again and experience that. We might as well make the most of it instead of trying to "get done" early. It’s also very upsetting to those we leave behind.

Manifesting our futures
We are totally in control of the experiences we have in the "future". What we say, think and do all creates opportunities in the future. Keep your thoughts, words and deeds positive and uplifting to create positive and uplifting choices in the future.

Death
This book is about death and dying and life and living. Once you understand what death’s all about and what’s on "the other side", you can really start living. How about this, death is reversible and no one dies unfulfilled? Kind of makes all those seemingly "meaningless" deaths meaningful, huh? God shares with us a total of 18 things we need to remember about death and dying, 18 "Remembrances" he calls them.

Remembrances
Remember, there is nothing we need to learn here, only remember. We don’t have to learn about death we just have to remember about it. There are 18 remembrances everything from you die for yourself, to remembering we all have free choice. Don’t ask me to explain them. It took God a whole book. Do you think I can do it faster?

What this book’s for
This book is meant to help you find your own truth. Neale found his truth while writing this book and the hope is that this book will help others find what’s true for them.

Questions I had People are coming up with all kinds of questions after reading this book. The CwG foundation has been inundated with letters and emails in response to this book. Neale has even developed a new retreat called Conversations with God: The Retreat Home with God, in a life that never ends to help people who have questions and want to understand this information better.

Here are my questions:

1. With the information you brought in where does that leave other teachings like Eckhart Tolle and Paramahansa Yogananda? Eckhart said if we miss all the other opportunities for enlightenment during our lifetime that another portal to the Divine will open upon our death. It’s a bright light and all we have to do is go through it. So far so good, right? But then he goes on to say that… “most people see the light, turn away in fear and lose consciousness. What happens after that is automatic. There will be another round of birth and death because their consciousness was not strong enough for conscious realization.” (Or something along those lines.) And where does that leave enlightenment? Paramahansa, among others, said that once we achieve enlightenment we will “go out no more”, as in not be born into a physical body any more. And where does the consciousness go when in Samadhi?

2. How do we go around the “tunnel of time” in a spiral? How do we go backwards? I can already tell when I’m going more slowly or quickly forward and can slow myself down but how do we achieve spiral or backwards movement? And do we want to? What would be the benefit and affect of each?

3. What are ghosts? If everyone goes through the “death” door, remembers who they are and creates life anew on the “other side” then what are ghosts? Is the door still open for them and they just haven’t gone through all the way yet? How long would that go on?

4. Are our guides the same as angels or are our guides different voices of God?

5. Is it possible to come back as another person in the same life to help yourself or someone else?

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh, now I bet you’re really intrigued.

Addendum
Neale mentioned the possibility of writing an addendum to the book. If he does I hope he writes an index for the book as well. I have found the indexes in the other books very valuable and really miss not having one in this book. I made sure I made notes as I went along.

Suggestions
In addition to taking notes while you’re reading the book you can take further steps to ingrain this information into your consciousness. By taking the basic principles of teaching the mind a new truth from John Randolph Price‘s The Abundance Book we can create our own study of the 18 remembrances about death. John says it takes 40 days for the mind to learn a new truth. His method calls for meditating on one "remembrance" for our purposes. Each day we meditate for 15 minutes on one "remembrance" then write down the thoughts it brings up. I suggest doing numbers 1 through 16 twice each and then doing 17 and 18 four times each. This takes us 40 days. I’m getting started tonight. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Further endeavors
Neale has developed another website which combines the efforts of all the other websites in a united purpose to change the world in 10 to 15 years. It’s called The Group of 1000. Check it out to see if you are inspired to join. It’s intense. You could say the other organizations he’s created, Humanity’s Team, ReCreation Foundation and The School of the New Spirituality have been waiting for this final website to bring them into their full purpose and manifestation. It’s powerful stuff.

View book details at Amazon.com: Home with God : In a Life That Never Ends

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What this book is about
The adventure continues in this next book in The Celestine Prophecy series. At the end of The Celestine Prophecy the main character has found 9 insights and this is the tenth.

My experience
Once again James Redfield has outdone himself. This book has action, adventure and activisms.

View book details at Amazon: The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision (Celestine Prophecy)

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I went and saw The Celestine Prophecy Movie on opening weekend. It was wonderful.

Movie evaluation
It wasn’t a big budget Hollywood movie, which might have been to its benefit. It managed to conveyed the principles introduced  in the book The Celestine Prophecy without going crazy with special effects.  I got a real sense that they were really being seen by the one who was in the position (in the movie) of viewing them at the time. It added to my understanding of what they were trying to teach the main character. The setting was absolutely beautiful.

Story evaluation
Shortening
It’s been a long time since I read the book but I remember things happening a little differently. If I’m correct, and the story was changed for the movie (I can’t find my book to check for accuracy – I think I lent it to someone years ago) the writers seem to have adhered to the basic plot line while changing events a little in order to deliver a movie of normal length. I honestly don’t recall all that was in the movie but not the book.

Special effects
The special effects were used to show the energy of all living things. How everyone and everything has its own energy and how this energy flows between all of us and all living things. Energy can even help guide us, if we know what we’re looking for.

Character development
I think there could have been more done to give us a better sense of who the characters were, why they were involved, what their abilities were and how they got those abilities. I think this was attempted in the manner in which the characters interacted with each other during certain scenes and through various dialogs but it seemed a little contrived. I don’t know how it would have come across to someone who hadn’t read any of the books or if they were able to follow it.

What I got out of it
I had forgotten a lot of the principles from the book. After all, it was 1994 when I read it, 12 years ago. It makes me want to read it again and study the Insights. What I’m calling "principles" they call "Insights", so I’m switching to "Insights" now. One thing I had forgotten was one way in which relationships can be more harmonious. In the book, the Insights explain how people get their energy from the Source of all Life. What happens in a relationship is we stop getting our energy from Source and start looking to the other in the relationship for our energy. Well, no one wants to lose their own energy so a battle for control of the energy ensues. One way to avoid this battle and make all parties much happier is to send the other person loving energy all the time, no matter what. When this happens the other person can’t steal your energy. How can something freely and lovingly offered be stolen? It really changes the dynamics of the relationship. I started doing it right away, sending love from my heart to whoever I was with. It’s powerful stuff! (Now I just have to remember to do it all the time.)

Conclusions
If you haven’t read the book I do suggest seeing the movie. If you like the movie then you’ll probably want to read the book. You’ll love that book so much you’ll want to read the sequels: The Tenth Insight : Holding the Vision, The Celestine Vision : Living the New Spiritual Awareness and The Secret of Shambhala : In Search of the Eleventh Insight. By making the story shorter the writers were able to be more succinct in their explanation of the Insights contained in the original book while offering a movie that isn’t too lengthy.

Supplemental
If you like the movie you might even be interested in The Making of the Movie. You can also find out what else James and Salle Redfield are up to.

See or download the trailers online for The Celestine Prophecy Movie

View movie details at Amazon: The Celestine Prophecy

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