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Unified Caring Association – Moving Caring Forward

Unified Caring Association

Often shortened to UCA, Unified Caring Association is a care promoting network and resource hub. This hub is filled with resources for others and yourself in the same place. It was founded in 1987 and renamed in 2012, and with 150,000+ members and growing, there is a lot to draw from in this association. As a member of UCA you can find products and services for growth that make your life easier and more fulfilling personally, with others, at work, etc.

The first thing you notice amongst the blues and oranges painting the page when visiting the UCA website is the UCA logo. A cheerful yellow sun in the upper left-hand corner of the page. Next to the logo is the best summary of what UCA is here for. “Moving Caring Forward.” Awesome! Once a member of UCA, you can find offers that include:

-multitude of benefit options for health, self-care, family, and community

-virtual volunteer network

-caring news and inspirational writings

–online shop filled with goodies, and more!

All of these options link back to the core value of CARING. Because being a part of UCA is joining a caring community that shares tools, ideas, and resources.

When a member joins they become a part of the UCA C.A.R.E. program. This is a special C.A.R.E. project team that focuses on providing caring support to benefit individuals who are not able to speak for themselves. These C.A.R.E. partner projects assist non-profits to create meaningful change in the world by focusing on creating improvement through caring in the areas. These caring areas are: Children, Animals, Reforestation and the Elderly.

Unified Caring Association

What is super fantastic is that there is a way to get a daily dose of care through: Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn! The images and quotes posted are cheerful, uplifting and just the right pick-me-up at any moment in your day! Join UCA and follow UCA on social media to feel and share the care!

UCA MEMBERS: PLEASE LOGIN AT UNIFIEDCARING.ORG TO ACCESS ALL YOUR BENEFITS.

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The Caring Movement has the Spotlight!

The Caring Movement spotlight

Thanks to a recent article from an interview with Unified Caring Association President Lane Michel, in the series “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” (published in Authority Magazine and on Thrive Global), the Caring Movement has the spotlight!  The Caring Movement is truly a work that needs to be allowed to “unfold,” with active participation from those people ready, willing and able to make a difference.  

“Unified Caring is one of those big ideas having a huge impact on many thousands of lives…People are invited join the UCA membership community that helps them impart self-care and in turn give care to others. Together, we work to address urgent unmet needs for greater caring. UCA has a special knack for caring for the innocent beings needing so much more from us all: children, the elderly and animals.”

Lane Michel, UCA President

You are Invited to Care!

In true UCA form, the invitation above is a reminder for us to really think about what the Caring Movement is all about.  It all comes down to asking

  • what is in your heart,
  • how you want to give back, and
  • how you can get outside of yourself to bring joy to others. 

At its core, the caring movement is about being actively engaged in building caring communities that truly make a difference.  In the long run, the UCA believes that we can be happier and healthier when we are connected to and serving others. Truly, becoming the humble custodian of such a movement gives grace to all of our lives.

Self-Care is Critical

At UCA we understand that caring for others and being of service also requires a level of self-awareness and care towards oneself.  That is why we are a community where members are encouraged to practice self-care in order to become a stronger player in the art of caring for others.  Members have a variety of self-care benefits they can choose from to begin a self-care journey.  A great example is the Self-Assessment Tools developed for UCA members. Members in crisis can get quick help through their free 24/7 certified counselors hotline. And when they find they are ready to get out and have some fun being of service, our Volunteer Network is an exciting and easy place to get their caring feet wet! 

More on the Caring Movement

To learn more about UCA’s Caring Movement, we invite you to now watch our YouTube videos.

From here to there, and everywhere in between, being a Custodian of the Caring Movement is just the beginning of a life-long journey of fulfillment.  Hope to see you there!

We invite you to discover inspiring and effective ways to care for yourself and to serve others.  Now more than ever, caring is what we all need most. Caring for our self.  Caring for others around us.  Life now demands caring, resilience and compassion like never before.  So, become a Custodian of the Caring Movement and help create the world we need right now, the world we want for our future generations.

UCA resources available to help include the Turbulent Times Resources Center, Virtual Volunteering, radio show, publications and online store offering members huge discounts and always free shipping.

Highlighting UCA’s Self-Assessment Benefit

Self-Care sign

It’s been an exciting year so far for Unified Caring Association (UCA) members.  Now that Spring is here, we are in full swing with major new benefits!  If you are checking your inbox, you may have gotten the news that UCA has partnered with the adventurous organization of “Dear God, Are We There Yet” to bring global virtual volunteer opportunities to our members.  Additionally, we rolled out the exciting new benefit of Pet Wellness and Insurance Plans through Wagmo!  You can read more about that in the article 3 Reasons Why Pet Wellness Plans are Important.

Yes, that’s right, UCA is here to support you in caring for others, including your furry friends!  But we don’t stop there.

We know how hard it can be to put forth your best effort to support the people, causes, and pets that make up your community of caring.  That’s why we specialize in helping you care for yourself too.  Have you ever heard the saying, “You can’t give from an empty cup”?  Well, there is merit to that statement, and we’ve got you covered. 

You may be wondering if you are “good” at self-care. And, that is a great place to start. Why not take your self-care assessment to kick off your journey of filling your cup?  The best part of the assessment is making 3 self-care goals and assigning an accountability partner!  

UCA self-assessment sample

One of UCA’s members shared,

“When I took the assessment, one of my goals surprised me.  Sure, eat well/get more exercise and meditate for 10 -15 minutes every day being on my list were pretty predictable.  But, it was my first goal which surprised me, and even more surprising that it was my first goal.  I wrote “Buy myself new clothes.”  I was honestly surprised at my honesty. It seemed so selfish and unapologetic. Then I thought about it more and read the secondary part to the goal (how I plan on fulfilling it). I recognized the sincerity coming from my inner voice. I said I would put aside money every week to save to be able to buy new clothes. I must really want this for myself!  And it was true. Usually when I bought new clothes it was for my kids — probably a common thing for parents. 

What I gained about this is self-care is about at least recognizing my personal wants and needs, and making a plan of how to fulfill them.  By doing that, it keeps me out of a place of feeling lack.  It helps me to plan for attainment and an abundant life.”

For UCA members that have already taken the self-assessment, we want to hear what you learned. Contact us here (write in the subject line “self-care assessment”) to share how taking this assessment may have surprised you and changed how you look at your self-care. Can’t wait to hear about it!

If you are not yet a member of Unified Caring Association, join us! There are so many benefits for memberships that start as low as $15 per month.

We invite you to discover inspiring and effective ways to care for yourself and to serve others.  Now more than ever, caring is what we all need most. Caring for our self.  Caring for others around us.  Life now demands caring, resilience and compassion like never before.  So, become a Custodian of the Caring Movement and help create the world we need right now, the world we want for our future generations.

UCA resources available to help include the Turbulent Times Resources Center, Virtual Volunteering, radio show, publications and online store offering members huge discounts and always free shipping.

Tips for Ending a Toxic Relationship

toxic relationships

The following short poem symbolizes the effects a toxic relationship can have on our growth. Even if growth isn’t our goal, toxicity in relations can either help our happiness fly or paralyze it.

Toxic Relationships poem by Mona Nyree Stephens

Because we are humans, it’s inevitable we are in relationships. Even if we consider ourselves a recluse, we have work relationships, doctor patient relationship, transactional relationship, and many more. With that fact, it’s important to understand the signs of a potentially toxic relationship, when to distance ourselves from it, and when to end it completely.

Signs of a Toxic Relationship

Before we dive into some key indicators of a toxic bond, it’s important to understand the definition. According to the author of Toxic People, Dr. Lillian Glass, a toxic relationship is “any relationship between people who don’t support each other, where there’s conflict and one seeks to undermine the other, where there’s competition, where there’s disrespect and a lack of cohesiveness.” Here are a few signs we may be engaged in one.

  1. After being around said person we feel drained
  2. A lack of support or desire to see the other one succeed
  3. Grudges or an underlying resentment is present
  4. Dishonesty and lack of trust are present
  5. There is a lack of respect expressed
  6. Being around them feels like we are walking on eggshells

These examples are just a few of the many symptoms, a simple internet search will reveal more.

How to End or Distance Ourselves from These Relationships

So we found out we are in a toxic relationship, now what? Do we cut the person out entirely? What happens if they are a family member? The answers to these questions depends on our personal experience and the level of toxicity the relationship exhibits.

Cutting Out

For the most part, people who we do not share obligations with and whose presence in our lives is strictly by choice, are the relationships we get to consider cutting completely. Those are the relationships that if they continue, will rob us of happiness in the end.

In many cases, the best way is to simply let the person know that this relationship isn’t healthy and because we care deeply for ourselves and the other we are walking away. This can work even in business partnerships but will need to be handled accordingly. The hard conversation of “ending contact” can be done in person, on the phone, through a letter, or any other means of communication and that is something we must determine ourselves. The main points are these:

  1. Be firm and set clear boundaries
  2. Do not engage in the “on again, off again” cycle of behaviors

Then we must forgive and cease contact with said person. In the extreme cases changing our number, getting a restraining order, or moving may be the best way to do this. The number one tip to share is for us to seek professional help to see why we allowed the toxicity in our lives in the first place, to heal, and then to cultivate self-love. The toleration of toxicity speaks volumes about ourselves and deserves to be interpreted.

Distancing 101

In some cases, the toxic person might be our family member, the other parent to our children, or our roommate we are bond to contractually.  In these kinds of cases, cutting the person out of our lives completely may not be possible or something we are not willing to move forward with. What we must do is protect our peace and happiness. The best way to do this is to:

  1. Set firm boundaries and never waver
  2. Spend less time with this person and be honest about the reasons why
  3. Reduce conversations to small talk and avoid triggers
  4. Remember it is not our job to save or try to change anyone
  5. Remember we can love someone from a distance

Another two key tips for ending a toxic relationship are to seek professional help and commit to our own growth and healing. Remember… it’s surely time to grow in an upward direction. So, we must take inventory of the people who help us soar versus the people that keep us stagnant.

By Mona Nyree Stephens, contributing author

We invite you to discover inspiring and effective ways to care for yourself and to serve others.  Now more than ever, caring is what we all need most. Caring for our self.  Caring for others around us.  Life now demands caring, resilience and compassion like never before.  So, become a Custodian of the Caring Movement and help create the world we need right now, the world we want for our future generations.

UCA resources available to help include the Turbulent Times Resources Center, Virtual Volunteering, radio show, publications and online store offering members huge discounts and always free shipping.

Earth Month is April; Earth Day is April 22nd

Earth Month planting trees

Find a Tree Planting Event Near You

Unified Caring Association (UCA) has partnered with One Tree Planted to sponsor reforestation across the U.S. for a few years now.  We love when they get all giddy and super-charged for Earth Month and Earth Day!  This year is even more exciting.

On April 22nd, Earth Day, the world will get greener and healthier.  Volunteer events are being setup and booking fast.  One Tree Planted has events planned in 50 cities around the world. Safety first is part of their motto and are following all local Covid-19 safety guidelines.  It’s a great way to get out into nature. And a great opportunity to teach children about volunteering, about the environment, and giving back. 

An example of teaching all ages about trees is a very recent video, How Do Trees Grow?, released to support learning in Earth Month.

As the busy folks at One Tree Planted say, “one of the most important ways you can support the environment is by physically getting your hands in the dirt. It’s an opportunity to learn about your local tree species, climate, and biodiversity.” The events page is where you go to check it out and sign up.

Happy Earth Month!

We invite you to discover inspiring and effective ways to care for yourself and to serve others.  Now more than ever, caring is what we all need most. Caring for our self.  Caring for others around us.  Life now demands caring, resilience and compassion like never before.  So, become a Custodian of the Caring Movement and help create the world we need right now, the world we want for our future generations.

UCA resources available to help include the Turbulent Times Resources Center, Virtual Volunteering, radio show, publications and online store offering members huge discounts and always free shipping.

Don’t Let Self-Awareness Become a Prison

self-awareness prison

It’s important we set ourselves free from all cages of our own minds’ creation. Put simply, we cannot let our thoughts, tendencies, or habits become the forces that hold us back from the life we deserve or the goals we set for ourselves.

As Aristotle once said “knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom;” it can be the key that sets us free from what within stifles us.  This knowing of ourselves or conscious knowledge of our own character, feeling, motives, and desires is self-awareness. While self-awareness can be the key to freedom from our own internal prisons, for some of us, it’s what keeps us trapped.

The Cage

How does knowing ourselves lead to self-imprisonment? How does it hold us back from a life we truly deserve or our potential?

The answer to both questions is straightforward; we use the awareness reasoning for why things are the way they are or cannot change. For instance, take the person who loses a parent at an early age and fills in the parental role for their siblings as their surviving parent spirals into addiction. This person grows up feeling the need to be in control and due to the addiction also develops co-dependent tendencies. As an adult, this person becomes self-aware of how their upbringing has affected them in their adult life. This person uses it as the reason to define why their relationships have been toxic. They have anxiety when they feel out of control. This person accepts a life of toxic relationships and anxiety, or withdraws from all relationships and only puts themselves in situations they can control.

Circumstances like the previous instance keep us stuck and do not promote growth.

Freeing Ourselves

In order to free ourselves from lives of stagnation, we must use self-awareness as a road map to change. To do this we must follow these steps:

  1. Recognize whether the thoughts, tendencies or habits we become aware of contribute to our growth, goals, or life we’d like to lead
  2. Commit to doing whatever it takes to work on and heal those thoughts, tendencies or habits
  3. Develop an action plan to change
  4. Seek professional guidance and support, when we feel stuck or needed

At the end of the day, knowing ourselves can set us up for either greater life satisfaction and growth, or become the shackles that hold us down. But, we don’t have to let self-awareness become that prison. The choice is ours.

By Mona Nyree Stephens, contributing author

We invite you to discover inspiring and effective ways to care for yourself and to serve others.  Now more than ever, caring is what we all need most. Caring for our self.  Caring for others around us.  Life now demands caring, resilience and compassion like never before.  So, become a Custodian of the Caring Movement and help create the world we need right now, the world we want for our future generations.

UCA resources available to help include the Turbulent Times Resources Center,  radio show, publications and online store offering members huge discounts and always free shipping.

Looking for Hope in All the Wrong Places

hopeful hands connecting

We by and large started life with unlimited hope. We dreamed all day long. Our imaginations took us to places fantastic, exciting and purposeful. We could live with setbacks; experience them and then move on to the next dream.

The only limits to hope as a child were delivered through life experiences. At an early age, life began teaching us that with hope, dreams and imagination comes pain, disappointment and struggle. That is the mistaken view of life learning that confines us all to a perpetual deficit of hope. This is the view where factors outside of us are too negative to overcome. This is also the view of hope as being something requiring immediate positive feedback.

The Source of Hope

In truth, hope comes from our beliefs. It is a thing so fundamentally within our being. Hope can be seen through others, but that is merely a mirror of what we have within ourselves.

Here is another truth: hope needs no evidence to be alive. Hope springs from what we knew as a small child. It springs from a belief in the power we have to shape our world by choice.

Hope needs no immediate gratification because hope knows no time. Hope is timeless.

Role Models for Hope

We can think of someone we know of, living or passed, that is a role model for hope. What gave them the power to go through all of the sacrifices, struggles and hard work to stay true to their dreams? When they faltered as we all do, what was it that pointed them in a direction they believed was right?

If we look deeply and honestly, we’ll see that hope came from within their beliefs. Their beliefs fed their curiosity and imagination. Their dream and the drive to see their dream manifest emerged through the power of hope.

The Right Place to Find Hope

If we find our self looking for hope in the wrong places, we only need to remember that renewing hope simply means going back to our childlike sense of curiosity and imagination. By reigniting our adventure to dream we can again imagine what our heart desires. Our core beliefs then start filling our thoughts with such positive and hopeful ideas. Hope begins to accumulate to fulfill our dreams. 

So, today, spend some time to dream and renew hope. Delight in having a childlike imagination. It’s still there. And so is the true source of hope.

We invite you to discover inspiring and effective ways to care for yourself and to serve others.  Now more than ever, caring is what we all need most. Caring for our self.  Caring for others around us.  Life now demands caring, resilience and compassion like never before.  So, become a Custodian of the Caring Movement and help create the world we need right now, the world we want for our future generations.

UCA resources available to help include the Turbulent Times Resources Center,  radio show, publications and online store offering members huge discounts and always free shipping.

5 Tips for Seniors on Coping with COVID-Related Isolation

generations connecting

COVID-19 has forced many people to self-isolate to avoid infection. Seniors in particular have been advised to stay home because of the dangers they face as a result of the virus. Unfortunately, research shows that all that time home alone can harm physical and mental health, increasing the risk of issues like insomnia and anxiety. As the Unified Caring Association explains, feelings of worry are normal in such difficult times.

It’s important to ward off mental and physical health issues that may arise from isolation. This guide provides actionable and affordable tips for seniors on feeling their best while sheltering in place.

5 tips for seniors coping with isolation

Create a Cozy Space at Home

If you’re going to be spending a lot of time in the house, you might as well be comfortable. Your house is your sanctuary. Insider has tips on creating a cozy space on a budget. Ideas include making a nook for reading or relaxation, embracing the power of aromatherapy with scented candles, and allowing more natural light in. The sun is a natural source of vitamin D, which also brings other benefits. As MSN reports, vitamin D can help boost your mood and combat depression.

Look for Senior-Friendly Workouts to Stay Physically Fit

The CDC recommends that older adults stay physically active to avoid health problems that come with age. There are many senior-friendly workouts you can do at home. Women’s Health has a list of tutorials you can follow for free via YouTube. If you want to get some workout gear to supplement your exercises, such as a yoga mat or exercise bands, you can order it easily online without leaving the home. To save money, the Unified Caring Association recommends looking for discounts online.

Embrace a Healthy Diet With Easy Home-Cooking Recipes

A healthy balanced diet helps older adults get the nutrients they need to maintain optimal physical and mental function. This becomes more challenging with age, as metabolism slows down and people experience decreased appetite. As a result, they have to get sufficient vitamins and minerals while consuming smaller portions. Healthy eating can also be a problem if you find cooking tiring. One solution is batch cooking. Prepare food that you can freeze and reheat. Delish has a list of more than 30 recipes that are ideal for batch cooking.

Use Technology to Maintain Social Connectivity Digitally

If you are able to see family or friends safely in person, make the most of your time together. If you can’t see your loved ones — for example, because they live far away — there are still ways you can connect. You can try eating a meal together via video chat, for example. Alternatively, watch a movie together using apps like Watch2gether and MyCircleTV. Too complicated for you? A simple video chat with your smartphone or tablet will do the trick, too. If you need to upgrade your technology, look online for deals on the latest gadgets.

Pick Up a New Hobby to Stay Busy and Mentally Fit

Technology can also help keep you occupied at home, helping you avoid boredom. Use your tech tools to pick up a new hobby. Develop Good Habits offers a list of options for seniors, like learning an instrument. This is the kind of thing you can do online, thanks to free YouTube tutorials. Plus, learning something new will keep you mentally sharp.

With these 5 tips for coping with COVID-related isolation, you can stay happy at home as you continue to self-isolate because of COVID-19. You will also feel better emotionally as a result.

By Karen Weeks, contributing author

We invite you to discover inspiring and effective ways to care for yourself and to serve others.  Now more than ever, caring is what we all need most. Caring for our self.  Caring for others around us.  Life now demands caring, resilience and compassion like never before.  So, become a Custodian of the Caring Movement and help create the world we need right now, the world we want for our future generations.

UCA resources available to help include the Turbulent Times Resources Center,  radio show, publications and online store offering members huge discounts and always free shipping.

The Youth Who Need Our Caring

foster care hands in heart

Rock-a-bye baby, where did you grow?

How young were you when learned that the world was so cold?

How old were you when you learned what it meant to be stoned?

That your momma couldn’t love you more than she loved the fast life?

When DCS stormed in and took you from her in the middle of the night?

Rock-a-bye baby, how did you feel?

How many promises did caregivers break before your faith in them wasn’t real?

How many times were you alone in the world and in your head?

Did you know it wasn’t your fault and you deserved more when you went to bed?

Rock-a-bye baby, how many foster homes did you see?

Did any one of them make you feel loved and or fill your heart with glee?

Did you wonder why no one adopted you when you aged out?

Was there one person that cared for you through it all, without a doubt?

Rock-a-bye baby, did you know?

Did anyone tell you your story’s not unique in the way it unfolds?

That there’s 20,000 just like you that get to answer these questions when they turn 18 too?

The Sad Truth

The number 20,000 the above poem refers to is the 20,000 children who “age out” of the foster care system in the United States each year. There are roughly 400,000 minors in foster care in the United States.

These children at 2 times as likely to suffer from PSTD as US war veterans. The worst part is there aren’t enough foster homes to help each of them through their rough times. These children grow up to face a plethora of negative statistics that include 20% of them becoming homeless upon aging out, 70% of women becoming pregnant by age 21, and 60% of the males becoming involved with the legal system.

These numbers may seem gloomy. The good news is one caring and loving adult is often all these children need to beat the odds. The number 1 way to help is to become a foster parent, however, that is unrealistic for many of us.

Foster Youth Need Your Care

Making a Difference with Less Commitment

There are ways to show up for a child without taking them on full time. Below is a list of ways one caring adult can be a force for change in the lives of a youth who truly needs it.

  1. Become a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA): CASAs are volunteers who are mentors and confidants for foster youth. CASAs play a vital role because they serve as the voice of the foster child in court and advocate for their wants and needs.
  2. Become a mentor: A quick search for “mentor a foster youth” will reveal all the programs in our areas that allow us to mentor and support foster children.
  3. Become a Respite Foster Care volunteer: Respite volunteers will watch foster children while their foster parents are out. This is sort of like baby sitting and add to the loving adults that a child sees.
  4. Donate supplies and gifts to group homes: Foster youth in group homes often go forgotten. A quick call to a local group home could make a child know someone cares for them.

Remember, to change a life and even the future of our society, all we must do is care. Caring is like throwing a stone in a lake; it causes a ripple effect.

by Mona Nyree Stephens, contributing author

We invite you to discover inspiring and effective ways to care for yourself and to serve others.  Now more than ever, caring is what we all need most. Caring for our self.  Caring for others around us.  Life now demands caring, resilience and compassion like never before.  So, become a Custodian of the Caring Movement and help create the world we need right now, the world we want for our future generations.

UCA resources available to help include the Turbulent Times Resources Center,  radio show, publications and online store offering members huge discounts and always free shipping.

Stop Reliving Glory Days; Create Glorious Days

looking in rear view mirror

With the holidays rapidly approaching so too is the probability we’ll hear a family member relive stories from their glory days for the umpteenth time. The stories we’ve heard so much we can repeat them verbatim, of how they won an athletic award in high school, the time they shared a cab with Cher, the time they saved someone from drowning, and the examples go on.

These stories bring our loved ones great joy to relive and share but we must challenge ourselves to think why do glory days end in the past? Why are there only a handful of glory day stories in our lives’ story arsenal?

The answers are simple, we’ve stopped creating glorious days!

A Period Where a Semicolon Should Be

A time in the past that is remembered for great success or happiness defines what glory days are. We can’t change the fact that time moves on leaving us only with memories of the past. However, as time inevitably changes we do not have to put a period at the end of a time period. When we do such things, it allows us to stay stuck a past we perceive better than our future. It is harmful to our current sense of self and even happiness.

An extreme example of this would be Buzz Aldrin, the second man to step foot on the moon and who uttered the words “one small step for man.” In his autobiography, Magnificent Desolation, Buzz recounted how he became absorbed in negative thinking and emotions on the journey home from the moon. He wondered “what does a man do for an encore.” Meaning how could he top what he just accomplished. Buzz put a period where a semicolon should have been after he experienced great success. After the landing, Buzz, drank his pain a way for 9 years which caused his marriage for 21 years to end. His prestigious military career also took a dive and ended on bad terms.

If Buzz had adopted the philosophy of Condoleezza Rice of “never spend any of your time being the ‘former’ anything,” he would have put a semicolon after the moon landing. He was much more than a former astronaut.

What could he had done differently that we can do currently?

Stop reliving glory days and instead create glorious days

Create Glorious Days

The definition of glory days is simple. In order to keep those days flowing, we must keep creating times of great happiness and success. We know the first step is to never put a period at the end of anything we do that causes us bliss or achievement. Now what do we do?

We get clear on what we need to cultivate happy experiences, even if we suffer a great loss. Get clear on what is needed externally and internally. Journaling and experimentation can help immensely with this process.

Finally, keep setting goals and focusing on growth. Success isn’t a destination, it’s a road we get to travel until the end of our days. Set goals you can be proud of no matter how small or great.

When we keep these things in our lives intentionally, not only does the quality of our lives begin to change so do the glory stories we share.

The only questions that remain are… What will we knock off our bucket lists? What new experiences will we have? What are the glory days we vow to create for of our present and future?

By Mona Nyree Stephens, contributing author

We invite you to discover inspiring and effective ways to care for yourself and to serve others.  Now more than ever, caring is what we all need most. Caring for our self.  Caring for others around us.  Life now demands caring, resilience and compassion like never before.  So, become a Custodian of the Caring Movement and help create the world we need right now, the world we want for our future generations.

UCA resources available to help include the Turbulent Times Resources Center,  radio show, publications and online store offering members huge discounts and always free shipping.

Thanksgiving Every Day of Our Lives

Thanksgiving Every Day

The fall season has many of us feeling like Emily Bronte when she said “every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.” For those of us in the United States, this season can be summed up in crisp weather, beautiful scenery, great food, and precious time with loved ones. With the greatness of Fall amongst us and Thanksgiving right around the corner, what better time to remember all the things we are thankful for this year?

The Best Time for Gratitude to Shine

While Thanksgiving serves as our gratitude mirror once a year, science invites us to reflect on what we are thankful for on a daily basis. 2020 aside, we as Americans are stressed, with 55% of our populations experiencing daily stress, we are among the most stressed out populations in the world! Moving from one task to another, dealing with family pressures, society, and our own mental well-being can feel like a lot to juggle.

With all this going on, it is critical we make time in our days to reflect on the things that are going right in our world.  The Research shows that expressing gratitude can lower stress hormones in the body, however, there are a slew of other benefits of giving thanks on a daily basis.

A Grateful Pill to Swallow

Gratitude is a powerful medicine for us humans. Keeping a daily gratitude has the power to transform the way we see and show up in our lives. These are just a few of the side effects of this amazing prescription:

  • Gratitude improves psychological health: According to Robert Emmons, a leading researcher on gratitude, it “effectively increases happiness and reduces depression. It also plays a key role in overcoming trauma and contributes to resilience.
  • Gratitude improves physical health: According to a 2012 study, grateful people experience fewer pains and feel healthier than others. They are also more likely to take better care of their health than their ungrateful peers.
  • Gratitude helps with goal attainment: Robert Emmons’ research concludes that grateful people are strivers and make more progress towards their goals. This is speculated to be because gratefulness is an emotional regulator of goal-directed action.
  • Gratitude leads to better relationship: Countless studies have shown that those who express their appreciation for others makes acquaintances more likely to seek ongoing relationships. It also improves the quality of the relationships we currently have.

A Last Plea for Daily Gratitude

If any of us are still on the fence about hopping on the daily gratitude train, consider the story of Addison Moore (name changed to protect her identity). Addison is a 26-year-old working for a young nonprofit. Meeting her funding goals keeps her in a constant state of anxiety. For all of 2019 and much of 2020, Addison found herself in a constant state of agitation. She woke up complaining about her life, blew up at traffic daily, and found her solace in sleep.

Addison heard about the power of appreciation in a book and began a gratitude journal in may of 2020. Addison was desperate for a change and began jotting down a few things she was grateful for each morning and before dinner. Addison didn’t think it would help and struggled for things to be thankful for.

By August her mind was racing with things she felt grateful for and she reports that her anger has completely vanished. “I still get frustrated sometimes, although it is extremely rare and it doesn’t boil over into rage like it use to. A gratitude journal gave me my life back!”

Do we need any more proof before we give ourselves the gift of living like it’s Thanksgiving every day of our lives? Take it from the scientists who dedicate their time to this study and take it from Addison who did a 180 on her life. Let’s make this gratitude plunge together for Thanksgiving and beyond!

by Mona Nyree Stephens, contributing author

We invite you to discover inspiring and effective ways to care for yourself and to serve others.  Now more than ever, caring is what we all need most. Caring for our self.  Caring for others around us.  Life now demands caring, resilience and compassion like never before.  So, become a Custodian of the Caring Movement and help create the world we need right now, the world we want for our future generations.

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