There is always so much talk about New Year’s Resolutions and we break most of them within hours after we make them. Just what does that say about us? I suspect only that we are human. It seems like a good idea to reflect on why we make New Year’s Resolutions, and then maybe we can figure out why we break them.

Why we make them

Almost all of us have a great desire to do better. We want to improve our lives, be thinner, be nicer, care more. The desire is sincere. The wanting it to be different is what drives so many New Years Resolutions. As much as I hesitate to point this out, we did spend a whole bunch of time last year talking about living in the present. Much of what drives us to make New Years Resolutions is our inability to do just that.

Here and now is nice and everything, but there must be somewhere, sometime that will be better, nicer, richer, happier or whatever. The biggest problem we have is our inability to stop and look at what we have right not – where we are right now – and who is next to us right now. Maybe we would be better off if our New Year’s Resolution would be to be thankful for what we have and where we are right this minute.

Why we Break Them

So – we are driven to make New Year’s Resolutions. Why are we driven to break them? If we think about it, the reason is basically the same. With our drive to be better in the future than we have been in the past we have totally neglected to see the NOW. But now definitely catches up with us. While we want to be thinner or nicer or whatever, all of the things in the present that get in our way of making that happen haven’t gone away. They are still there, staring us in the face (like that wonderful cake at my recent family baptism). Until we stay in the present in order to appreciate what we have and learn how to change what we don’t like, the future we want is only a dream.

To become different we have to embrace who we are now. A little bit of irony.

Here are Underdue Social Services, lots of emails come around during the holidays with great information. Here is one to share with all of you. It’s a bit of really good advice for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Apr 26, 2011 | By B. Lynn

Ms. Lynn is an educator and freelance writer living in Pennsylvania. She has been writing professionally for three years and is a graduate of the Institute for Children’s Literature. She writes for many niches including education, health, and beauty. You can contact her at b.lynn10@hotmail.com.

Thanksgiving is all about giving gratitude for everything you have and appreciating the people in your life. Families come together to celebrate each other, give thanks and have a big feast together. Traditional Thanksgiving meal favorites are turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, rolls and alcohol. Thanksgiving dinner can easily spoil a diet or just leave you feeling stuffed, bloated and unable to partake in the merriment of the holidays. Thanksgiving also marks the beginning of the holiday season, so overeating on this day can set you on course to gain excess weight throughout the next month or two.

Step 1

Eat a healthy, sensible breakfast and lunch. Many people choose to starve themselves through the day so they can have more room for the scrumptious meal. This will lead to binge eating. Instead, have a small, healthy breakfast and lunch. Drink water throughout the day to keep you from overeating or consuming empty calories from soda or alcohol. This will help you feel more satisfied so you won’t overeat at dinner.

Step 2

Chew your meal slowly. Thanksgiving is the ideal time to sit down, eat your meal slowly and relish every bite. You will feel fuller faster, which will help you avoid overeating. Food is a wonderful part of Thanksgiving, but so is spending time with family and friends. Put down the fork for a few minutes, join the conversation, and you will eat less without noticing it.

Step 3

Use smaller plates. Depending on where you go for Thanksgiving it may be impossible, but if you are the host or your family doesn’t mind, consider grabbing a smaller plate for your meal. You will feel like you are eating more than your actually are and will be less likely to overeat.

Step 4

Create a tiny, portioned smorgasbord. Between all of the delectable food, your great aunt asking if you tried her pie yet, and all of the goodies being passed your way, it is easy to be tempted to eat everything. Instead of having a big meal of turkey and potatoes and then trying everything else on top of it, have a little bit of everything. On most days, you should try to eat more vegetables and fruits than anything else, but on Thanksgiving, make your goal to avoid overeating. Allow yourself a spoonful or two of everything you love, pass over what you don’t. You will end up feeling satisfied and will get to try everything you want without stuffing yourself silly.

Article reviewed by Elizabeth Ahders Last updated on: Apr 26, 2011

All of us have memories of various times in our lives.  Sometimes they are of good times and special, fun events.  Sometimes they are memories of sad times or loss.  Experiencing your present moments doesn’t mean that you have no memories.  On the contrary, it is often things that happen now that remind us of things that happened a long time ago.  Memories are important in defining who we are. Letting ourselves remember other times is part of embracing all of our life experiences, good and bad.  We are not trying with these exercises to get you to leave your past behind.  We are trying to get you not to live there.

When you work to stay in the present, you are really working to create memories. I read about a middle aged man who always thought his father should have taken the time to fix the cruddy bathroom in their house. Somehow he never got around to it. Instead they spent time as a family taking trips or enjoying picnics and time together. He decided as an adult that it wasn’t very likely he would have sat around remembering the wonderful bathroom in his home the same way he sat around and remembered those great family vacations. When you stop and pay attention to the now, you are creating memories – for you, your children and your family. I suspect if we thought about that each time we were trying to decide what to do next, we might make very different decisions.

So the point here is to use the present to create the memories that you can embrace as you move into the next present moment. Remember your past, experience the present and create the future. Don’t live in the past and miss the present, thereby creating a future you don’t want. Or, don’t be so concerned about the future that you miss both your past and your present. It’s about balance, folks. If you stay in the present, you can turn and look both directions. It’s kind of a circle of life thing. Yeah, corny I know. But just because it’s corny doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

So, your exercise for today – look at everything you do for the next week and think about how your child, spouse or family will think about that very same event 10 years from now, 20 years from now, when you are talking to your grandchildren. “In every deliberation which must consider the impact of our deliberations on the next seven generations.” This quote is often attributed to the The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy. Maybe we need to start using that rule to measure our present moments.

I am being asked this question a lot lately. Some might say it goes with the territory, as my work involves talking about and understanding feelings. But it’s important to look closer at both the question and my answer.

We all have situations and experiences that challenge us throughout our lives. When we face illness in our family, problems with a spouse or child, or difficulties on our job. The most common question we will get asked during those times of challenge is some version of “How are you feeling?” It may come in the form of the simple “How are you?” or it can be more direct, such as “Are you OK?” The main point of the question is to find out how you feel.

Some folks, including children or other family members who really want to know how you feel are very reluctant to ask. So they watch you. They pay special attention to your body language or they listen to how you go off the handle about really, really stupid stuff when you didn’t used to do that. And they then assume they know how you feel.

You are probably asking yourself when I plan to get around talking about staying in the present. Well, this is it.

If we were interested in stopping and being in the moment, we would answer the question. Instead, we keep moving, or distract the conversation to something else, or offer the single most common answer to the question – “Fine.”

What would happen if we sat down and really answered the question? I have been very guilty of using the “Fine” response. In fact, I probably have more ways I can say that word than most of the people I know. And it’s never an answer. It’s an excuse not to be in the present. It lets me put off looking at my feelings, avoid sharing with a friend or family member who cares about me, or actually letting myself feel.

My mother was diagnosed some years ago with a terminal lung disease. She has managed very well for the last several years, but we are now beginning to see a deterioration. I am amazingly impressed with my Mother’s style as she faces the last stage of her life with directness, dignity and humor. After watching her for a few weeks now, I have decided that I can no longer just answer “Fine.”

Part of a willingness to be in the moment is to recognize that those moments are sometimes painful, but when you allow yourself to experience them the reward is beyond measure. I am embracing my sadness as I spend these precious present moments with my Mom. I wouldn’t trade the present for anything.

Stop, Drop and Breath

There is simple fire safety technique called Stop, Drop and Roll. You remember it. You probably heard it yourself when you were in school. If your (or someone else’s) clothing catches on fire, it’s important to keep your wits about you and remember to “stop, drop and roll”. The concept came about because people faced with this situation felt panic and started running around frantically, thereby making the situation even worse. Pause and remember the saying. Stop, drop to the ground and roll to put out the fire.

I am sure at this point you have to be asking yourself what this has to do with saying in the present. Well, I have decided to change the saying just a little and we are going to try a month of “Stop, Drop and Breath.” Today we all spend a great deal of our time running around like we are on fire. We have to get the children to the next event, game, or lesson. We are late for our choir practice or our community meeting. We have to get home to help our teenager with their homework (after we study up on the subject ourselves a bit first). We are constantly in motion.

When you are constantly moving it is very difficult to experience the present. Your mind is on the next place you have to be, the location of your car keys, the directions to the meeting, or the list you have to be sure gets accomplished. You are either thinking about what you haven’t done yet or what you will be doing next. But what are you doing right NOW?

So we are all going to begin using “Stop, Drop and Breath.”

First you stop. I know, I know, you are late. You don’t have to stop for 3 hours, just 3 minutes. Then you Drop. This could mean a lot of things. You might just drop that arm full of stuff you have been carrying around because you know you have to have all of it with you at all times. You might just drop into a chair. I know, I know, you are late. You don’t have to drop in the chair for 3 hours, just 3 minutes. After you drop into the chair you have interrupted the constant motion that has been moving you up to this point. Then you breath. Now, the breathing thing may seem obvious to you. “I’m already breathing, you are thinking.” Well, sort of. Most of us breath using a small portion of our lung capacity. We really mostly puff. Small little shallow breaths that we know won’t take a lot of time and will just get us enough energy to get to the next place or complete the next task.

I have gotten much more aware of breathing since my Mom developed a lung condition. She would love to be able to take deep breaths. It’s made me much more aware of breathing deeply. That’s the kind of breathing I am talking about here. It’s the kind of breathing where you count to 10 on the inhale and 10 on the exhale. Try it. You will find that we breath that way very rarely in our everyday routine. You might find it feels kind of good.

When you breath – that is really breath – you are forced to notice your present. You hear things you hadn’t paid any attention to when you were moving. You notice how your shoulders feel and how tight your neck muscles are. Depending on where that chair is that you “dropped” into, you might actually hear the wind, or a bird, or even children playing. And you just might find out something about your surroundings or yourself. It’s amazing what happens when you experience you precious present moments.

I know, I know, you are late. You don’t have to breath for 3 hours, just 3 minutes. And trust me. This may be the best 9 minutes you have spent in awhile.

When we had all storms and tornadoes in the spring, I bought a weather radio. I heard about people who were sleeping soundly and suddenly found themselves in the midst of a terrible tornado. That sounded pretty scary, so I thought I should be warned if one was approaching.

After about 2 months I was wondering if it was such a good idea. The warning would go off, waking me up from a dead sleep or shooting me off my chair in my office while I was working. I started looking forward to summer when we had fewer spring storms and the radio wouldn’t go off as much.

Then summer came, and it was unbearably hot. Everyone talked about how hot they were at least once a day! Worst heat in years! We started having dreams about cool weather and gentle snow fall (maybe some of us). The plants were being seared, the grass was getting brown and I was really tired of sweating. One morning I even thought how wonderful it would be to hear that weather radio go off again.

In the last 48 hours the temperature has dropped 20 degrees! Wow – finally it would cool off and we could be comfortable again. I walked outside this morning and thought about how cold the wind was! Man, it’s great that it’s cooler, but what happened to that moderate temperature??

This is a great example of not living in the present.

Almost all of us have some trouble living in the present. We think about things we did (or didn’t do) in our past, or perhaps just wonder how things will work out in the future. Why didn’t I say that better to my child or teen or spouse? If only I had thought before I spoke to my mother. Why did I say that to my boss? Will I get that promotion I really want? Will I get a job? Does my teen have good enough grades to get into college? Can we afford college? Are we putting enough away for our retirement?

There is a lot going on in our world right now that causes us to have concerns and to wonder about our future or second guess our past. Our mind is often anywhere but in the here and now.

For just a moment, though, I would ask you to consider what you miss when you spend your time in this way. You miss the joke your teenager just told (when they don’t tell jokes very often). You missed that story your 8 year old was sharing about the new thing they learned in school. You missed your spouse’s look of disappointment when you didn’t hear a word they said. You missed the rainstorm that cooled off the weather, the sunshine on a butterfly’s wings, or the trees swaying in the breeze. You are missing the present.

I know this probably sounds like that old Pollyanna movie. But just take a minute and stay in the present. Listen to all of the sounds around you. Take a deep breath and smell all of the smells around you (even if you are at work). Let your shoulders relax and feel all the muscles in your neck. For just a few moments, be in the present.

I would like to suggest that we can all gain a great deal from spending just a few moments each day in the here and now! That means you force all of those worries, or to do lists, or appointments out of your mind for just a little while. You might be surprised what you find. I believe you will find yourselves doing it more and more, for longer and longer periods of time. Try it when you children come home from school – or your spouse from work. Try it when you answer the phone.

Living in the present is the best way I know to truly appreciate the wonder of our lives. The next series of posts will be about how to keep living in the present.

It’s not a topic we like to think about very much, let alone talk about. And yet, 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18. As adults, parents and professionals, we are all committed to protecting children. However, we all feel a little lost about how to talk to our kids about the issue. Unless we have these conversations, our kids are not safe. Since we are spending some time on our blogs about talking with your teen, it seemed like we needed to tackle this area as well.

There are something called “body safety rules” that our children must learn. And we are the best people to teach them. But that means we have to get comfortable with the conversation ourselves first. As I looked around at what is out there, I came across a wonderful article recently about how to talk to your children about this issue. It’s based on a full book (referenced in the article), but I thought the author summarized the steps so well, I decided to share it with you. She discusses body safety rules and how to communicate them to your child. It’s a great resource. Just click here to read the full article.

It’s also important to know about child sexual abuse whether or not you are a parent. The Prevention Project of the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy offers workshops on Child Sexual Abuse Prevention. They utilize a curriculum developed by Darkness 2 Light. Take a look at the program and think about signing up for one of their workshops. You won’t be sorry that you did.

There is a lot of talk out there about talking to your teen. You should tell your teen about drugs, you should tell your teen about sex, you should tell your teen what you expect. It seems that most of this advice is what you should tell your teen. We thought it might be a good idea to focus on talking with your teen.

So we wrote Teen Talk…Ten Tips. This FREE E-Book includes 5 types of talk and 5 talk topics for you to use with your teen. It’s like a toolbox, with a little humor thrown in.

We will be introducing each of the 10 tips in our Parent Talk Blog for the next 10 posts!!! Or, if you can’t wait for all of the tips to come out there, just go to our Facebook page and pick up the FREE E-Book there. All you have to do is like us and click on the FREE E-Book tab in the left side of our page. Feel free to use these tools and share them with family, clients, friends and – most of all – your teen.

Look for our first “Type of Talk – Less Talk” on our Parent Talk Blog this week!

Even in the summer we still keep working for kids and families. However, we also try to take care or ourselves as well. In our latest July News we talk about everything going on at Underdue Social Services right now. You can see that work for children and families never stops. But in this post we also wanted to talk about the importance of pausing and taking care of yourself.

Summer is a time for play in our culture. That doesn’t mean the whole summer, obviously, but we have a slightly different attitude toward taking a breath during the summer. This is our vacation time, time when kids are out of school, and imagining sunshine and sand makes our minds wander. We think that’s a good thing.

It’s also true that money is tight right now. None of us can afford to be extravagant in our summer planning. Taking care of yourself doesn’t have to involve a lot of money. A good friend made me define the word vacation before I took my last one. The point she was trying to make is that a vacation isn’t when you take your smart phone, computer and spend large blocks of time working on things long distance. A vacation is when you stop and take a breath. Here are some ideas on how to stop and take a breath in your life.

Read things you don’t normally read

If you are someone who reads nonfiction books all the time, read some fiction. If you only read novels, read a biography. Get your brain taking in different information so that you are forced to think about something on an entirely different level.

Watch thing you don’t normally watch

All of us probably watch some TV. We won’t do a survey on how much here. Just think about watching a program that is totally different from anything else you have ever watched. I promise it will get your mind moving in another direction. Only watch old movies? Watch PBS. Only watch reality TV shows? Watch the food channel. I think you get the idea.

Just sit

The most critical think involved in taking a break is letting your mind be blank. I know that sounds pretty radical. However, you can’t let new things into your mind if it is already full. Before you can truly let go and relax you have to empty your mind. Yoga and various forms of relaxation talk about this all the time. But if you don’t want to be quite that radical, just go somewhere and sit quietly. Don’t take your phone or your book or your computer or your newspaper (what, something in print?). Just sit. It will be hard at first and you will fidget. Some of you won’t succeed in doing it long enough. But if you can hang in there, eventually you will realize that your mind is beginning to wander. And if you stop to notice where it went and what you were thinking about, you will earn a great deal about yourself and what you might like to explore in your life.

So – it’s time for the Summer Pause. Take advantage and enjoy it.

There are over 156 million public blogs on the Internet as of February of 2011. When searching for blog posts or comments on parenting I got 95,000 links to posts or messages (I got 150,000 when I searched for teens). You have to be asking yourself – “Who are you and why are writing this blog?”

First – Who is talking?

Underdue Social Services and Embracing Arms offer services to children, teens and families. Each time the staff reaches out to a family, their hope and belief is that they will make a positive difference in their lives. My job, as the blogger, is to bring the story of that belief and effort to the Internet.

Most of the blog posts you read will be my voice telling the stories of others. You will see my byline, Dr. Peggy, and know it’s me. We think it’s really important when you come to a blog that you know who is talking to you. If you go to this link, you can learn a little about me.

Sometimes you will see other people posting on this blog, such as Kimberly Underdue, our Executive Director. You may hear from our program staff or other professionals in our organization. If you go to this link, you can learn little about the staff. You will always know who is talking by the byline after the post. There are a lot of blogs out there where folks give out a whole lot of information. We want you to know where ours is coming from.

Second – Why are we talking?

Our first job at all of our blogs is to give you good, solid and helpful information. We will be raising issues for you to think about, giving you tools that could help you cope, and keeping you informed about issues affecting your family. But we don’t want to have this blog be article after article of “tips” on conquering one challenge or another. Our goal is to make the information real.

Our second job is to keep you informed about Underdue Social Services and Embracing Arms. There are lots of wonderful things happening at our agencies and we want you to know about them. For instance, did you know we are involved in the Summer Food Program through our nonprofit arm – Girls First, Inc.? (More about that in our next post) Did you know we were recently approved to provide services in Butts, Cherokee, Cobb, Clayton, Dekalb, Douglas, Fayette, Henry and Spalding counties? Bet you didn’t know! Keep reading this blog and you are sure to learn more.

Third – We hope you will talk to us

We are looking for a conversation. We hope that many of you who know us or have worked with us will come here to ask a question or give us your opinion. For those of you who don’t know our organization or services, we hope you will learn a little, laugh a little, and perhaps find a place for some information and conversation.

Feel free to comment on our blog posts. Ask us questions in your comments and we will work hard to get your the best answer we can. Let us know what you think.

So that’s the who and the why. We hope you enjoy your time with us.