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Anne Yarwood

No.28 – Wake Up to the physical and psychological value of touch

By Wake Up

The last year has made us really value touch.

Years ago I wrote an article about the children in a Romanian orphanage (the shocking conditions made the news at the time); the children were left in their cots all day, left to cry, left unhugged.  We can only imagine the damage this will have done to them psychologically, but Lockdown has given us some idea.

The Power of Touch | Jane Anderson | TEDxUofM – YouTube – Jane Anderson, The Power of Touch Ted Talk looking at why touch is so vital for us.

BBC Radio 4 – Anatomy of Touch – Nine things we learned from the world’s largest study of touch – Radio 4’s Touch Test results and what was learned from the world’s largest study of touch.

What the bleep do we know – the movie – YouTube  – seeing the body and life in a very different way, looking at the power of self hate….. and self love

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The Power of Touch

By Blogs

While we all vary in terms of what kind of touch we need, studies have long shown that expressions of affection — whether you give or receive them — have real and measurable health and wellness impacts on our physical and mental health. A variety of touches — from hugs to handshakes, a pat on the arm, back or head, kisses on the cheek, or hand-holding — can:

  • Calm the nervous system
  • Boost the immune system
  • Activate oxytocin, sometimes called the cuddle hormone, that’s critical for bonding, especially between a mother and child at birth. Research shows oxytocin also affects our general well-being, induces calm, and enhances relationships.
  • Reduce the stress hormone cortisol
  • Lessen pain, improve healing, and lower blood pressure and heart rate
  • Improve mood and reduce stress, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, loneliness, isolation, and more

“We understand touch as essential. It’s a universal need and natural method of communicating joy and intimacy,” “Touch is powerful on so many levels. For many people, it is a source of healing relief. For others, it’s an attempt to comfort.”

By Jennifer Clopton. How to cope when covid steals loving touch and hugs

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No.27 – Wake Up For Two Young Song Thrushes

By Wake Up

Yesterday we woke
To two perfect young thrushes
Lying together motionless

Outside our back door
Not even a year old
Pristine white breasts
Delicate spots not fully marked
Beaks never to feed again
Eyes never to see
Voices never to be heard

They are buried now by the old garden shed
Soft earth surrounds them
Leaves cushion them
A twigged cross
A sprig of rosemary in remembrance
A bunch of bright red berries
To mark their resting place

A Taisé song of Peace sung for them
In place of all the songs they will never sing to us…

Let us do all we can to protect our birds…
Food throught the year
Clean water
ice broken when frozen
In harsh cold weather
Places in the garden for shelter
Wormy lawns and bits of dead wood
Untidy corners for foraging
Bird-friendly grasses, flowers, plants, trees,
Seed heads left to over winter
All providing food and shelter.

No poisoned land which in turn poisons them

We wake to dawn choruses
We go to sleep with the curlews crying
Across the bay
We watch a myriad of birds throughout each day

Searching

Scratching
Serenading
Nesting
Nurturing
Gathering
Coming and going

Let us make sure this continues
May we always wake to the sounds of these amazing companions🙏

Two Organisations who inform on and protect birds in the UK and Ireland:

www.rspb.org.uk

www.birdwatchireland

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For a New Beginning

By Blogs

I came into this world with the name Louise Newbegin.

I think it gave me a certain view of life, a curiosity and slight excitement about the next moment. How fortunate is that!

Every moment can be seen as a new beginning, another chance…how wonderful!

May we welcome the endless possibilities of the Present Moment and New Beginnings🙏

 

For a New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,

Where your thoughts never think to wander,

This beginning has been quietly forming,

Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

 

For a long time it has watched your desire,

Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,

Noticing how you willed yourself on,

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

 

It watched you play with the seduction of safety

And the gray promises that sameness whispered,

Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,

Wondered would you always live like this.

 

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,

And out you stepped onto new ground,

Your eyes young again with energy and dream,

A path of plenitude opening before you.

 

Though your destination is not yet clear

You can trust the promise of this opening;

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning

That is at one with your life’s desire.

 

Awaken your spirit to adventure;

Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;

Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,

For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

 

~ John O’Donohue ~

 

 

 

 

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No. 26 – Wake Up to what’s going on, educate yourself and Act with Imagination

By Wake Up
  • Wake Up … to a lot of work profiled over 4 years which shows people CAN do something.
  • Wake Up is the essence of what the TIA website is about.
  • Be one of the Wake – Up’ed.
  • Wake Up to all that’s going on in the news.
  • Wake Up to questioning what’s going on.
  • Wake Up to your own judgement of the news / info being put on and sent out.
  • Wake Up and Act with your Imagination.
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Whoops ! What’s this about ?

By Blogs

Anne –

Being an enfeebled 82 year old meant that radical educating and action were down the pan. Change its Vehicle !

Into the empty space dropped the website inspiration…any topic…any place, could be explored.

And to make the idea HAPPEN … there is our daughter Sally.

I have delighted in this powerful means of getting to know each other and marvelled at her skilled editing of the material which I find.

Sally –

At first …. TIA was a collaboration with my mum to capture wonderful legacies of her projects past. Soon developed into its own creation – very happy times working together – her, with her unique creative eye and enthusiasm for finding interesting content and encouraging friends and colleagues to tell their inspiring stories. And me, uploading the website. We’ve created a real treasure and shared journey – will be ever precious to me.

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No. 25 – Wake Up – you are a powerful creator !

By Wake Up

What we focus on gets bigger – on the world stage it’s created by mass hypnosis!

Basic law of our Universe, ever loving and giving, simply gives us more of what we focus on. Doesn’t judge or condemn, it gently accumulates more and more of ‘stuff’ we’re putting attention on – wanted or unwanted!

Media People understand how the brain works. ‘News at Ten’ is a classic example:

  1. Spinning discs, colour red, dramatic music draw us in, starts hypnosis process.
  2. Headlines announce dramatic scene, followed by loud noise (anchors drama to brains).
  3. Serious faced presenter tells us bad news (adrenaline – addictive – floods body).
  4. We’re mesmerised by photos of other peoples’ suffering (relief it’s not us).
  5. …ends on short story of something light hearted (body – endorphin hit – addictive cycle completes).
  6. We crave more!
  7. Our collective attention makes the whole situation worse.
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”I have a dream”

By Blogs

The chaos theory has never worked for me ! When I dive into the ocean and see an octopus unfurl its limbs, rippling luminescent lights across its skin, or watch a bird heading south for the winter with a secret inner navigation system directing it to fly thousands of miles towards the sunshine, I cannot believe that this has evolved by chance or random luck.

There must be an organising force that orchestrates all life force and co-ordinates this life experience we all share together. There is nothing about our Universe that looks random. I sense a loving presence that is logical and kind. I feel each individual has the freedom to create, and that we are so free, that we can create freedom and joy or we can create suffering and bondage.

So how is this creation orchestrated ? The law of attraction.

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No. 24 – Wake Up to helping your community

By Wake Up

Mosques and temples are helping to assist the elderly and the vulnerable in their towns and cities.

As the countrywide lockdown takes hold within the first week many religious and community organisations have been helping ALL members of their community. 

The army of volunteers have been collecting food and essentials to ensure those people that need the most help at this time of crisis are being cared for. 

At many times they are putting themselves in harm’s way.

The Bolton Hindu Forum said they are leading ‘a joint Coordinated Community Help Program to look after elders living alone and who have no immediate family and those who have family but they are out of town and not able to help as they would in normal circumstances’.

The Masjide Noorul Islam (Blackburn) have already recruited 250 people to help the elderly and vulnerable in isolation.

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Cover My Back or Cover My Face !

By Blogs

In my job working with families I had lots of restrictions on what I could do or not do… call them professional boundaries, maybe for the right reasons, but most of the time fear generated “what if this goes to court… cover your back “.

In the end of March this year someone contacted me about a Closed Case. This young mother, who suffered from mental health issues, was struggling with two children under three and one 12 year old. Her parents couldn’t help her because of Covid19 and their age and health issues.

I contacted a few organisations and explained the situation. Thereafter, hot meals were delivered every day for the month of Ramadan and also milk and groceries were delivered every week.

This helped to reduce her anxiety and improved her sleep. She is now helping people over the phone passing INFORMATION on how to get help.

Cover My Back or Cover My Face !

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