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The Support4Change Newsletter |
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February 6, 2007 |
Arlene Harder, Editor |
Volume 1, Number 1 |
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 Why a Newsletter? Why Now?
Last month I decided to launch the Q-and-A Club for people around the world who are curious and courageous enough to question their most dearly held assumptions. The questions would cover four general topics: expanding your horizons, understanding yourself, exploring social and political issues, and deepening faith and spirituality.
How were people to learn about these questions? The easiest way was to put one question a week in my blog and Support4Change. But some people are too busy to read blogs or to remember to check a website each week, so this newsletter is being reactivated to become a monthly vehicle for telling you about the weekly questions.
Also,
each month you'll get the regular features listed to the right, and others I will sometimes throw in for the fun of it. Then the last item will be articles I am highlighting for those who are new to Support4Change and may have missed them.
Arlene Harder, Founder and Editor of Support4Change |
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 Q-and-A Club Questions:
From January 21 to February 10
Read Community of the Curious and Courageous to learn more about the Q-and-A Club.
Category: Expanding Your Horizons
See intro to this question |
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To add to your knowledge of the animal kingdom, what animal would you like to learn more about, including the name of the offspring? What is it about that particular animal that would make it interesting to study, or at least to learn one or two facts about it?
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Category: Understanding Yourself
See intro to this question |
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True Beauty Always Shines Through |
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What qualities of the human spirit might you need to develop, and express more consciously, so that you might bring beauty not only to yourself, but to others?
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Category: Exploring Social and Political Issues
See intro to this question |
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The Nitty-Gritty of Progress |
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Recognizing that positive change comes about through small, incremental steps, how have you helped improve life for others in your community? Especially, were you willing to sit through meetings that may have been boring, but managed in the end to get things done? What tangible results came about because of your involvement?
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Today's Gratitude
Life and a River
Last November I created an entry in my blog called Gratitude in the Morning in which I shared thanks I give for specific things that enrich both my life and the life of others. For example, here is what I gave thanks for today:
I give thanks for life.
I give thanks for those who work with foster children.
I give thanks for those who are working to rebuilt a more natural flowing Los Angeles river.
Periodically I add thanks to the list and invite you to share your thanks with me and my readers. Here is my gratitude page. You can share what you are grateful for in your life by contacting me at Support4Change contact us page.
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An Idea from Someone I Admire
Twelve-Step Program for Financial Stressaholics
Chellie Campbell gives financial stress reduction workshops and has created the Dolphin Club. Check her site for why it's more fun to swim with the dolphins than be eaten by a shark or feel disheartened by the complaining and blaming of ordinary fish. After speaking recently at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, she came up with a "Twelve-Step Program for Financial Stressaholics." Here are the first three steps.
1. We admitted we were powerless over money—that our checkbooks had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Budget greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will, insurance, checkbooks, and retirement accounts over to the care of a Financial Advisor that we understood.
Read the rest of the steps at Twelve-Step Program for Financial Stressaholics. I've put this in the creativity section of Support4Change because it's creative flavor gets you to think differently about a problem. Do you have something in your life around which you have created (or could create) a twelve-step program? Send me your idea and I'll publish it on the website.
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A Book for Children and Grandchildren
Alphabet Under Construction by Denise Fleming
With many alphabet books using nouns to introduce the alphabet (A for Apple, B for Bear, etc.), this delightful tale uses verbs. They are used by a buck-toothed mouse who has 26 days in which to construct the alphabet with the help of his toolkit. So he airbrushes the A, buttons the B and carves the C on his way toward finishing the project in 26 days (which covers a month by giving him two weekends off and a day of celebration when he comes to the middle of the project). The author and illustrator’s handmade paper artwork is playful and draws the reader (or listener) into a fresh view of the alphabet.
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Books for Adults: Especially Those Who Want to Have Successful Careers, Whether in Their Twenties or Their Fifties or Sixties
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  My Reality Check Bounced! by Jason Dorsey is "The Twentysomething's Guide to Cashing In on Your Real-World Dreams." The book addresses the issues of people in their twenties who are coming-of-age and want to live life on their own but don't know how to make it happen. For more on the book, read my review and an excerpt titled Twentysomethings, Make No Excuse: Success is Within Reach.
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  What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith, with Mark Reiter, looks at what happens when twenty-, thirty- and fifty-somethings finally become successful—up to a point. That when they want to move further up the ladder, they discover that some of the very traits that got them there are holding them back. Read my review and an excerpt titled Be Your Own Press Secretary.
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An Idea From the Blog:
Proposed Constitutional Amendment
I hope you will want to read my blog from time to time, so I won't repeat that material here. But once-in-awhile there may be a journal entry that I don't want you to miss. So in this section of the newsletter you can check out special blog entries, such as A Constitutional Amendment for Candidates. Learn how I would require candidates for national office to have experience in foreign travel so they can bring to their office a broader understanding of people around the globe. Would very much like to know what you would do to amend the national constitution.
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Getting a Different Perspective:
Solving Problems Inside a Santa Fe Dam Picture
 Today I had a massage from Lynne Fearman, a talented artist (and great masseuse), and when she showed me pictures from the pages of the Segil Art Gallery website, I got an idea for a new feature of the newsletter. It's something I had thought of before but hadn't quite gotten around to doing.
Now I've decided that each month I can include one of her pictures (or a picture of another artist) with the suggestion that you imagine you could use that scene to help resolve a conflict with someone in your life. For example, right now imagine you and another person are standing or sitting in this picture of the Santa Fe Dam from her gallery of pictures. What would you say? What would the other person say? How might the place in which you find yourself contribute to greater understanding?
Go to Stepping Into Pictures to see how you can use this technique and the start of a new feature on the website.
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Five Articles You May Have Missed:
From No Diet to Family Rules
 The Diet I Never Give Anyone
By Jill Place, MA, RD
A registered dietitian discusses how diets are empty promises that
are unsuccessful for at least 95% of those who try them.
Do Your Own Set — Operating Honestly from Your Own Perspective
By Lea Brandenburg
Doing your own set in life means telling your story from your unique perspective and voice, not that which others would have you present.
The Magic of Appreciation
By Joyce and Barry Vissell
Pointing out beauty and strength in someone you love adds depth to relationships, heals wounded relationships and renews tired relationships.
What Are Your Family Rules?
By Arlene Harder
Discover how hidden family rules continue their influence for many years, especially those rules we followed unconsciously.
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If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, please go to the Contact Us page on Support4Change and send a note saying you'd like to be taken off the list.
© Copyright 2007, Arlene Harder, MA, MFT |
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Q-and-A Club Questions: 
This door of a middle class apartment house in Rome caught my attention because the worn paint is testimony to the thousands of people who have pushed it open over the years.