Knitting Circle Charity Project

By Jennifer Perry

The Knitting Circle at The Resiliency Center has been working on a project, named 'Warm Hugs', to deliver 170 lap blankets (36"x36") to patients in a local Nursing Home.  Our goal is to benefit nursing home patients by providing physical and emotional warmth.

Warm Hugs was inspired by the mother of someone in our Knitting Circle. She spent the last three months of her life in a nursing home. Her family visited throughout the week and gave her love and care she needed. Not all the residents were as fortunate and she noticed that some did not have the benefit of care and visits from relatives and friends.  While no one can take the place of a caring family, Warm Hugs hopes to show love to the patients by providing them with a colorful, warm and handmade reminder that someone cares.

So far the Resiliency Knitting Circle has completed 60 lap blankets which will be handed out to the nursing home patients in January.  When we go to the nursing home to deliver the blankets the Activities staff will identify the patients who do not have family or visitors so they can receive priority in benefiting from our 'warm hugs'.

This has been an effort of love and caring by people in our Knitting Circle.  They have given much time and love to make this a reality. This is an on-going project.  There are 170 patients in the Nursing Home.  Our goal is to continue to provide their patients with our 'Warm Hugs' on an on-going basis.

If you like to crochet or knit or would like to learn, we could use your help to make lap blankets for even more patients.

Join us at http://www.meetup.com/resiliencygatherings/events/219738506/

The Knitting Circle meets the Second Saturday of every month at 10am.

Listening to the Body

By Dana Barron

The human body has the innate capacity to heal, given the proper conditions. While outside interventions may facilitate healing, the body is doing the actual healing work. The more we can tap into and enable that innate capacity, the healthier and more resilient we will be. The first step is to learn to pay attention to and respect the body’s messages. Symptoms are signals, guides. They indicate that our system is out of balance, that we need to take action to return to equilibrium. Pain is a message to stop. Fatigue is a message to rest.

This all may seem obvious, but it is not what we are conditioned to do. We are more likely to fight our symptoms than to heed their signals. We live according to clocks and calendars, not the rhythms of the body. And so we learn to “power through” discomfort. We treat symptoms as nuisances to be overcome or quieted. We respond to pain with medications, fatigue with food or caffeine, and use antacids and gas pills for indigestion. And medicine – with its focus on procedures and pharmaceuticals -- is based more on fighting symptoms than on asking why they are there in the first place. Quelling symptoms may allow us to continue to function, but over time the cost of ignoring what the body is telling us can be very serious.

As a health coach, I start with helping clients reorient their understanding of the body’s messages. We look closely at symptoms, physical sensations, and emotional reactions. We enlist them as clues in the search for root causes. This is the first step in creating an environment where healing can happen. We start discovering correlations and patterns, many of which point to easy solutions. Often we find that removing something can be more powerful than doing something or taking something.

Listening to your body is also of way of regaining power and control over your health. Many people see their bodies as a “black box,” a machine that requires an expert to repair.  There are certainly times when medical intervention is essential and miraculous. When symptoms get strong or persistent, it’s wise to seek expert guidance. View it as a partnership – bring your knowledge and wisdom into the exam room. Enlist health professionals as allies in your search for the reasons behind symptoms. Be cautious about interventions that just mask symptoms.

If something is bothering you, give this strategy a try. Track your symptoms along with your diet and your daily activities. Try pausing when a symptom arises, and think creatively about what your options are. Can you rest briefly rather than reach for something to perk you up or relieve an ache? Try a dietary or lifestyle change and see if it helps you feel better. Over time you will cultivate your intuition and wisdom and the benefits will multiply.