JANUARY 6, 2021
New Year, New Beginnings!
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Videos included in all sections! Let us know what you think. Feedback
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FEATURED ORGANIZATION
Can't Stop Columbus
Remote Hugs Project
John Cairns
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Thursday January 21 2021 is National Hugging Day
Hug (n.)
a close embrace with the arms especially as a sign of affection
Do you remember your first embrace?
Hug (v.)
to cling firmly or fondly to; cherish:
Will you cherish the moments with the people you remember?
During times of isolation, which have amplified during this pandemic, we have all suffered as greetings with warm smiles, embraces, and fond moments of human connection have transformed into arrivals with masks, temperature checks, plastic barriers, distance, and sterile clipboards with paperwork.
To support those in emotional need we are asking everyone to share a hug again in this new year. Post your expressions of human emotions, connections, embrace, love, and joy through illustrations, photos, sculptures, etc., to your social media platforms and use the hashtags:
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#HugsForHomelessYouth
#NationalHugDay
#ArtHug
#VirtualHug
#RemoteHugs
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See how to use the hugs app physically-distanced or remote. (40 sec)
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Let’s make a difference and share your care!
In coordination with the social media effort; please use the Hugs App found here and in the app store (Type in "hugs" and we are the HUGS APP). Pass it forward!
Every virtual hug you send will benefit you, the receiver, and will also provide recognition and financial support to Columbus’ local homeless shelters for youth.
Helping those who need support during these tough times.
Please support this important cause with your creative talents and learn more about the hugs team, our story, and the connection to Columbus’ Homeless Youth Shelters at https://hugs.care/.
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VIDEO PODCAST
Diet & Mental Health
Part 1 of 3: Our Conversation with Nutritionist, Author, and Consultant Lori DePeitro-Standen
Mat Hargett
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In this first part of a three-part series, we talk with Lori DePietro-Standen, a plant-based nutritionist, on how government subsidies and food engineered to the “Bliss Point” impact us.
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Follow Lori by joining her Facebook group with almost 14,000 members: Plant-Based Weight Loss & Vibrant Health with Lori DePietro-Standen.
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With almost 20 years of experience in the health and wellness field, Lori DePietro-Standen specializes in helping her clients to achieve true and lasting transformation through diet and mindset work. She personally lost 60 pounds and recovered from debilitating, chronic illness 13 years ago through adopting a whole foods, plant-based diet. Using that experience as well as her personal issues surrounding an eating disorder and long-term depression, she began studying nutrition and thought pattern changes. After much education and research, she created The PlantPower Revolution - a comprehensive, physician-approved program. She’s now helped thousands of people transform their diets and move forward on their journeys to wellness.
A 51 year-old mother of three, Lori resides in Vermilion, Ohio with her husband, Executive Chef Jon Standen, her teenage son, their rescue dog and two beloved potbelly pigs.
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DELIGHTFUL BITES
Peanut Soup
Makia Singleton
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Sweet potatoes are a source of beta-carotene (vitamin A), vitamin C, B6, and fiber. Chickpeas (or garbanzo beans) are hearty and high in protein. Both of these versatile vegetables are ingredients in this month’s recipe for Peanut Soup.
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Watch Makia make this delicious soup.
Warning: the cooking sounds coming from the pot will make you hungry!
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Ingredients:
- 1-2 teaspoons of oil for sautéing
- 1-2 yellow onions, chopped
- 3-4 tablespoons of peanut butter, tahini, nut butter, or seed butter
- 3 sweet potatoes, cubed
- 1 can of chickpeas (or 2 cups cooked chickpeas), drained
- 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
- 1-2 tablespoons of ground cumin
- 1 carton/large can of vegetable broth (or 32oz of vegetable broth)
- 1/8 teaspoon of salt (or use a salt-free seasoning)
- 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper
- A pinch or two of cayenne or chipotle powder (optional)
Instructions:
- Heat oil in a pot over medium-high heat.
- Add onion and sauté for 5 minutes or until lightly browned.
- Add all other ingredients, mix well, and bring to a boil.
- Reduce the heat and allow the soup to simmer, uncovered, for about 30 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are tender. Stir soup about every 8-10 minutes.
- Turn off heat. Sauce will thicken as it cools.
- If you want this to be spicy, add some cayenne or chipotle powder.
Enjoy!
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NATURE ESCAPE
Glacier Ridge Metro Park
Yi Han
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2021 is finally here, and I can’t wait to start fresh with a New Year’s resolution!
I know a lot of people would say that making a New Year's resolution never works. I feel you. So, my strategy is to create multiple small, achievable goals. Imagine the goals are like apples on a tree. I don’t want the apple on top of the tree that requires a ladder, rather I want the apple that I can’t reach when I am standing up on my toes, but I can reach when I make a small jump. For example, going to a new park every month. Going to the park may be easy, but going to a new park every month may require some planning and research. If you want to make this your 2021 New Year’s resolution, make sure you check out our monthly Emotional Health newsletter, which will give you some inspiration! If you are busy, we got your back. Beginning with this newsletter, we will include a virtual tour of each park we review.
This month, I want to introduce you to Glacier Ridge metro park. Over the years, a lot of improvements have been made to the park. If you haven’t been there for some time, it is a great idea to make another visit. Besides the nice, smooth paved trail stretching over six miles, it also has a five-mile-long horse-riding trail and a new dog park, offering your pets the perfect place to run around and make new friends. Additionally, the natural play area with cedar structures with towers, ramps, ropes, and ladders is great fun for kids. When I saw the zipline, I wish I was a kid again. But don’t worry. The four-acre obstacle course could be the play zone for adults. Crawling through tunnels, climbing up poles, ropes, and over logs made for challenging exercise opportunities all year long. The number of people playing disc golf has been surging during the pandemic and Glacier Ridge has a full 18-hole course with six holes in the woods and 12 in open fields.
Don’t forget to check out the park video. I hope it will help you get out of the house and take your first step in meeting your first goal of 2021!
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Glacier Ridge Metro Park Virtual Tour
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MIND & BODY
Starting Over, Over & Over Again
Angie Never
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I am quickly sliding into the dawn of the new year, an optimistic time of buying new planners, daydreaming about what’s to come, and committing to leave the nonsense of the past year behind me. Some people hate this type of energy, but I’m a giant fan. There’s nothing I love like a clean sheet of paper, a flipped calendar page, a chance to get it right this time.
Approaching 2021 is uniquely difficult, because there’s so much I really, really want to be done with. I want to welcome people into my studio again, I want my finances to stabilize, I want to experience the arts in my community in person, breathing with other people again. I’m hopeful about vaccine development but also facing the reality that turning the pandemic around in America isn’t happening on the calendar’s timeline. As much as I would like to abandon this way of life as soon as the clock strikes midnight on December 31, I know I’m being called to act with patience, to hold out just a little longer, and to bring some of this old news into my new beginning.
And this is the truth of time anyway, right? The coach doesn’t turn back into a pumpkin at midnight.
So how do we start over, when we can’t really start over? I want to share a practice that’s been a lifesaver to me over the last month, in the hopes that it’s helpful to you as well. For the sake of giving a simple practice a fancy title, let’s call this The Ten Minutes of Nothing.
Part of my experience of the past eight months has been dealing with COVID-19 long haul symptoms. A fairly mild experience with the virus in April left me with headaches, a pounding and spiking heartbeat, shortness of breath, dizziness, and an unbelievable fatigue. I’m an active person, a dance and yoga teacher by trade, I love a long city walk and using a bicycle for transportation, and for almost a decade I went to the gym 3 - 4 times every week, right up until they all closed down. So when these frustrating symptoms showed up, I fought them in the way I best understood - by pushing - by trying to do a little more.
I used what had always worked in the past, the challenge of breaking through to the next level. And it failed. The harder I worked, the more symptoms I had. For someone wired to overcome, this has been a really hard lesson to internalize. And to be honest, I haven’t done a great job of it. It’s hard to let go of your habitual responses, no matter how useless they’ve become.
It wasn’t until I found an article comparing long haul COVID-19 with chronic fatigue syndrome that I ran across The Ten Minutes of Nothing. A person interviewed in the article said that sometimes they just have to lie down for ten minutes and do nothing. No reading, no checking email, no listening to music, just nothing. I’m a person with a busy mind, so even when I’m resting I’m usually doing something. I sometimes forget that the brain is part of the physical body, and that it might need a rest and reset as well. This was something I hadn’t tried, so okay. And it worked.
There’s no fancy technique here. Go lay down. Set a timer if you like, if you’re under a time constraint of some kind. Set your phone aside, turn off the lights, lay down, and do nothing. In the middle of the day, whenever.
Now, when I begin to feel overwhelmed, when the headache starts to creep in, I do Ten Minutes of Nothing. (As an active person, it’s ridiculous how much more comfortable I am saying I’m doing something instead of saying I’m doing nothing.) It’s not a cure, but it turns the volume down. And more importantly, it gives me a chance to start over again.
Ten Minutes of Nothing has become a reset button, a pathway for me to leave behind the old junk and step into what’s really healthy, what really serves me. It’s like cleaning the windshield of your car so you can really see what’s in front of you instead of responding to insignificant smudges and dead bugs. Doing nothing has become the great prioritizer, reminding me to reserve my energy for the important things I really want rather than letting myself buzz around in circles all day.
I want you to know that you don’t have to wait until January 1, 2021 to start over. You don’t get one big chance and then have to live in the muck until the wheel turns over again. Close your eyes, let everything go, take a little mini-vacation in the darkness. Take as long as you need, as long as you have. And then get up fresh, and start again, clean.
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Yoga with Angie Never: Softness Meditation
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Angie Never is a local instructor and performer who is currently teaching classes in Yoga, Breathwork, and Bellydance. She has found strength, balance, and self-care in her many years of teaching and performing. Angie is passionate about helping others practice self-care and discovering how amazing they are.
During the pandemic, her classes are being offered via Zoom. You can find her class offerings on her website https://www.angienever.com/.
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FEATURED RESOURCE
Mental Health First Aid
Hosted by Us!
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Columbus Emotional Health is proud to announce this informational session that will give you an overview of the upcoming Mental Health First Aid program.
Mental Health First Aid is a tool that can be used to help an individual experiencing a mental health challenge to connect to appropriate supports and treatments.
You do not have to be a medical professional to learn it. The pandemic has created mental health challenges for many, if not all of us.
We are working with MHA Ohio to offer a FREE Mental Health First Aid training online.
It’s a one day program, with a self-paced section to be completed ahead of time.
The training is open to the public.
CLICK HERE to join the Jan 13th information session.
If you want to register for the January 30th FREE Mental Health First Aid training, please register by CLICKING HERE.
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