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Connection Parenting

"A parenting philosophy is relevant only to the extent that it promotes parenting practices which support secure bonding. Our effectiveness as parents is in direct proportion to the strength of the bond we have with our child. Securing and maintaining that bond is our primary work as parents and is the key to optimal human development."

"Both authoritarian parenting and permissive parenting are reactive. Connection parenting is proactive. Connection parenting recognizes and honors the vital importance of maintaining a secure parent-child bond. Rather than focusing on ways to discipline children when their feelings of disconnection result in uncooperative or unacceptable behavior, connection parenting focuses on ways to maintain connection."

If you are looking for parenting education, help and information, this web site is one of the most important parenting resources available online today.

To learn more, please visit:
Connection Parenting.

To read my review of Pam's new book, please go here:
Read the Connection Parenting Book Review.

Over the years I have followed Pam Leo's laudable work as a teacher of parents and expectant parents. No other issue facing us today is so critical as this work of hers, on re-establishing parental bonding with our infants and children as nature intended. Indeed, our survival as a nation and as a species is dependent on this reconnection. And here is a concise, simple, eminently readable and instructive summary of the knowledge Pam has gained through these years of devoted service. I can't recommend this book highly enough and will surely promote it at every opportunity.

Joseph Chilton Pearce
Author of "Magical Child"

Connection Parenting
Streaming Audio Interview

Pam Leo is a founding board member of the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children (aTLC) and is one of the the primary architects of the aTLC Proclamation and Blueprint. The aTLC has generously posted a free, one-hour streaming audio interview (MP3) on their website. I was honored and delighted to have the opportunity to be the interviewer in this session with Pam. Please click the following link if you would like to hear our conversation:

Streaming Audio Interview:
Pam Leo - Introduction to Connection Parenting.

Pam's book, Connection Parenting has been published and is now available.
To order from Amazon.com: Click Here!.

The Work of Byron Katie

Katie's fundamental premise is very simple: All of our suffering in life arises out of the disconnection between our thoughts and what reality actually is. These reality disconnects happen with ourselves, in our relationships, and in every aspect of our lives. All that discontent shows up because it never occurs to us to question or investigate our thoughts. They happen inside us, and of course, we naturally think they are all true and real. We consider them intangible, without consequence and never consider that there might be a relationship between what we think and how our lives show up.

Many years ago I had a conversation about the nature of the mind with a well known spiritual master in India. He said to me, "When you hold a knife to a grinding wheel, sparks are cast off by the friction between the blade and the wheel. It's the nature of friction to cause sparks. The mind is no different. Thoughts arise spontaneously as a result of the friction between the mind and the world. What is important to remember is that we have the power to choose where to put and keep our attention." I didn't really understand what he was saying to me at the time, but now, having learned Katie's Work, and having done many of these inquiries myself, I get it.

So, our thoughts arise spontaneously. We believe that our thoughts have no power beyond what we give them. Yet thoughts that we DO give power to are the source of our experience and in fact, create every aspect of our path through life. So here is the paradox: thoughts have no apparent physical reality, yet they are the means by which we manifest everything in our lives. Thus it behooves us to pay close attention to our thoughts, as the consequences for not doing so have a profound and significant impact on our lives, for better or for worse.

As a coach, I am often required to support my clients in dismantling what many coaches call the GAIL acronym: Gremlins, Assumptions, Interpretations, and Limiting Beliefs. (I personally would include Erroneous Conclusions as part of that model, so maybe that makes it GAILEC? :) These show up in the form of thoughts, always with deeply attached feelings, rising spontaneously from the negative, critical, judgemental, right/wrong part of our minds. Perhaps they came from the past, from what people around us said to us or did to us. Perhaps they came from those erroneous conclusions we arrived at in ourselves after some unhappy circumstance. In any case, these are simply thoughts that we carry, and we blindly use those thoughts to disempower ourselves and others, causing great misery in our relationships and our lives. If we examine these thoughts carefully, we can choose where to put our attention. We can discover where our thinking is consistent with what is, and where there is a disconnect. Then we can choose what thoughts to keep and what thoughts to discard.

Katie's Work addresses thought in the simplest, most elegant, and powerful way I have ever encountered. She gives us four questions and three turnarounds, and we can apply those to any thought we have. She says, "We are not necessarily looking to change or replace the thought. We are just looking to see whether the turnarounds are as true, or truer, than the original thought." Once we have done the inquiry, then we are free to choose for ourselves what to do with any particular thought. She asks a very simple question, "Does that thought bring you peace or stress?" Whenever you find or notice any thought that brings stress or pain, that's a blazing neon sign pointing to a thought in need of inquiry.

Katie has two books which I've listed below. And like many of our greatest teachers, she gives her core process away for free on her website. You can download the Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet as a pdf file (linked below) and I've also included a link to her Facilitator's Guide.

If you want to be free
Judge Your Neighbor
Write It Down
Ask Four Questions
Turn It Around

Loving What Is:
Four Questions That
Can Change Your Life
by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell

I Need Your Love - Is That True?
How to Stop Seeking Love,
Approval, and Appreciation
and Start Finding Them Instead
by Byron Katie and Michael Katz

Byron Katie's web site main page:
http://www.thework.com/

Judge your Neighbor Worksheet
(pdf)

One Belief at a Time Worksheet
(pdf)

Four Questions Facilitator's Guide

Busting Loose from the Money Game:
Mind-Blowing Strategies
For Changing the Rules
of a Game You Can't Win
by Robert Scheinfeld

Here's another amazing book with a set of ideas that will do exactly what the title says, blow your mind. It's funny how we can learn and understand all the important pieces but never quite put it together until someone like Robert articulates it for you, all in one shot. And then everything changes!

As with some other resources here, if you are a coach, this book can be a template for a process that will help you be much more effective with your clients, not to mention what will happen in your own life as a result of this practice.

If you intend to become my client, this book will introduce you to ideas and processes that you and I can explore together. Remember, knowledge is power. The more prepared you are for the terrain we will travel, the more capable you will become to journey on your own after our work is complete. Oh, and believe me my friend, this book is about a whole lot more than just mastering the money game.

Purchase "Busting Loose from the Money Game" from Amazon.com

A friend of mine once said, "There are no inherent conflicts between any human beings. There is only undischarged distress, unmet need, and lack of resource." If we can learn to communicate effectively, conflict dissolves and we can build connections that allow us to cooperate.

We all want to be heard and understood. We all want to get our needs met. We all want to feel deeply connected to the people in our lives. One of the most challenging aspects of any relationship is learning how to be effective in our communications, so that we hear and understand others, others hear and understand us, and we can all figure out how to get our needs met.

Marshall Rosenberg has created a simple, clear process for effective communication between human beings. Whether your communication challenge is between you and a partner, you and a friend, you and your child, you and your colleagues in the workplace, or even between such apparently oppositional groups as the Palestinians and Israelis, the ideas and processes put forth in these books, tapes and workshops are astonishingly powerful.

Many of the clients I work with have communication issues at the root of their relationship challenges. As a coach, I am finding Dr. Rosengerg's process increasingly important and relevant to the work I do with them. Imagine being able to communicate with anyone in a way that is honest, respectful and authentic, and that does not contain negative judgements, implied criticism, guilt, or coercion of any kind. What kind of transformation would that ability bring to your relationships?

If you are looking to improve your communication skills and/or resolve conflict in any relationship, this web site and Dr. Rosenberg's books are the place to begin.

The Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) is an international nonprofit organization that teaches peacemaking skills across five continents, including a number of war-torn areas such as Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, the Middle East, Colombia, Serbia, Croatia, and Northern Ireland. Their vision is a world where all people are getting their needs met and resolving their conflicts peacefully.

As a coach, I frequently work with clients who are concerned about health, nutrition and exercise, and Dr. Schwarzbein's ideas can be explained very simply. Our bodies need biochemical nutrients for three purposes: energy, structure and functionality. When we don't get those nutrients, or when we get them in improper ratios, the major hormones insulin, adrenaline and cortisol get knocked out of balance. We get those nutrients from our food. We need to replenish and rebuild what we use up every day, and any method of eating that does not provide the essential biochemicals in the proper proportions sets us up for serious consequences to our health.

Most modern diets don't work. Plain and simple. The reason they don't work is that most diets exclude or limit some important food group that contains nutritional elements that we cannot do without. We need appropriate combinations and quantities of food in each meal, and that includes proteins, complex carbs, healthy fats and non-starchy vegetables. If we are eating low carb, high carb, low protein, high protein, low fat, no fat, whatever- sooner or later our health will pay the price. We starve our bodies for essential nutrients and when our bodies can't take it any more, we crash off the diet and there we go again.

This is an exceptional book, with information we truly need, that speaks to one of the most important aspects of living healthy, balanced lives.

Why is it that thousands of generations of our ancestors, on every continent, in every climate, living wild off the land as "primitive" hunter-gatherers, nearly always had perfect teeth, and had extremely low rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, conception or reproductive failures, or any of the other degenerative diseases that are endemic in our populations these days? Why is it that they developed all these diseases, including significant tooth decay, as soon as they abandoned their ancestral food sources and began eating our modern, civilized, refined foods? What did they know about food that we do not? What did they do well that we have dismissed, discarded, forgotten or lost?

In many ways, "Nourishing Traditions" picks up where the "Schwarzbein Principle" leaves off. If you consider that Schwarzbein gives us the hard-core science of food and nutrition, Fallon gives us the art and the history, though there's plenty of good science here as well, along with the references that we can track down and read for ourselves. It's a full-spectrum nutritional cookbook that I've found to be consistent with what Schwarzbein has to say. For instance, animal fats and cholesterol are vital factors in the human diet, necessary for reproduction and normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease, and optimum energy levels.

"Nourishing Traditions" is a compendium of practical information, including methods to prepare grains and many other foods so they become enzyme-rich lacto-fermented foods. We find out what is lost in pasteurization and homogenization and why whole, raw milk and the dairy products made from it provide so many nutrients necessary for health and well-being. The list goes on. Fallon covers every food group, every type of dish from soup to nuts, and every nutrient we need to stay healthy. This book is encyclopedic in scope.

Fallon explains in clear language what is done to our foods, why so much of what we eat is killing us, what we really need, and then gives us the information, methods and resources to do something about it. The modern factory-farming profit machines do not want us to know that:

If you are a coach, I highly recommend that you get these two books and apply their principles to your own life as well as with your clients. If you are thinking about becoming one of my clients, and nutrition and health is part of your agenda for working with me, get these two books and read them before you call me. You'll save yourself some coaching fees and save both of us some time if you understand these ideas before we start working together.

This is an excellent companion book for "Nourishing Traditions." Dr. Ron Schmid speaks from a similar point of view as Sally Fallon: for thousands of generations, native peoples in every environment across the globe have an accumulated cultural wisdom about food and nutrition that has been lost to us in the modern era. In fact, I bought this book because I read so many quotes from it in Fallon's book.

Part One looks at Native foods throughout history and from an anthropological perspective, and includes both research and clinical experience. Part Two looks at Native versus Modern foods and provides a guide to natural eating based on our evolutionary requirements.

As in Fallon's book, there are dramatic insights into the nutritional basis for so many of our modern day ailments. Dr. Schmid explains how a return to a traditional diet can help you reduce your risk of a heart attack by 50 percent; enhance fertility for healthy conception and support optimal fetal development; fight allergies, chronic fatigue, arthritis, skin problems and headaches; recover from colds and flu in a day or two; and increase your life expectancy.

Schmid's book is part of a collection I've built up over the last year or so, and I really wish I had this information 20 or 30 years ago. Other books in this same vein that I highly recommend are:

These are all eye-opening books, full of information that is contrary to the hard-sell marketing spin we've been trained to believe. As I've read each one, I began to put these basic principles into practice in my own life, and the benefits started showing up immediately. If you are interested, I recommend them highly to you as well. If we are working together, I'll be glad to discuss the topics presented here.

Here is a link to the Weston A. Price Foundation website, where they have hundreds of articles, links, and many other references for information about nutrition and our food supply, appropriate diet, and eating practices for vibrant health.

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Life Coaching Resources