TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS
Launches Podcast
First Episode, "You're Not Alone"
Featuring Jamie Tworkowski,
Out Now: http://bit.ly/2CakbGq
Melbourne, FL - October 10, 2018 - Nonprofit To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) has launched the TWLOHA Podcast, a podcast for anyone who is struggling, anyone who feels like they can't talk about the hard parts of being human, and anyone who wants to start conversations about mental health. Each episode will cover topics people tend not to talk about, including depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. The first episode, "You're Not Alone" featuring TWLOHA founder Jamie Tworkowski, is out now and can be heard here: http://bit.ly/2CakbGq
"As an organization, the primary thing we do is communicate. We communicate a message of hope with the goal of moving people," Tworkowski shares."We want to move people out of pain and shame and isolation, into a place of getting help and finding healing. The TWLOHA Podcast will allow us to bring our message of hope to thousands of people all around the world. We're super excited."
To Write Love on Her Arms is a nonprofit dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. It exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery. Since its start in 2006, TWLOHA has donated over $2.2 million directly into treatment and recovery and answered over 200,000 messages from over 100 countries.
The organization recently wrapped their 7th annual campaign to honor World Suicide Prevention Day (WSPD) and National Suicide Prevention Week (NSPW). With the help of supporters from around the world, TWLOHA was able to raise more than $200k for treatment and recovery, surpassing their initial goal of $100k, as well as their follow up goals of $150k and $175k. Over 3600 people donated to this year's "Tomorrow Needs You" campaign, in addition to the sale of 4655 World Suicide Prevention Day packs. The money raised will help sponsor nearly 4000 counseling sessions and connect 55,000 people to local mental health resources.
As part of the campaign, TWLOHA shared an inspiring video featuring actors Chris Sullivan (from This Is Us) and Jaina Lee Ortiz (from Station 19), country music star Hunter Hayes, who raised $23,000, writer/artist Morgan Harper Nichols, and singer/songwriter Matt Wertz, along with a number of clips submitted by TWLOHA supporters from around the world. To watch the video, please visit: youtu.be/aEzUMnBHHK0.
Additional posts were made throughout the week by Cleveland Cavaliers player Kyle Korver, actor Jared Padalecki, American DJ Bassnectar, US Women's National Soccer Team players Christen Press and Ashlyn Harris, actress Susie Abromeit, and Norwegian DJ/producer KYGO, who personally donated $30,000 to the campaign, amongst others. Joining them were sites like Billboard, EDM Tunes, Country Music Tattle Tale, Your EDM, Hollywood.com, and more sharing the message of hope and help.
For more information on To Write Love on Her Arms, please visit: www.twloha.com
===========================
CLIMATE CHANGE AND COLLECTIVE SALVATION
By Robert C. Koehler
943 Words
In the wake of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation, as white male privilege reclaims its desperate grip on our future, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report comes out, informing us that we haven’t got much future left in which to avoid . . . I mean implement . . . serious change
Meanwhile, the midterm elections percolate.
Our quasi-democracy —rife as it is with voter suppression and mainstream media determination to trivialize the issues at stake —remains, nonetheless, the country’s primary means of manifesting public values. Inconvenient as it is to the powerful, this thing called voting is how collective humanity expresses its will —and I believe this will, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, bends toward sanity.
I hope so.
This is about more than numbers and individual “interests.” As the U.N. report is trying to tell us, this is about evolution. We have to become a civilization that is not at perpetual war with planet that sustains it. As Avi Lewis writes, “The only thing that can save us now is the total transformation of our political and economic system.”
The U.N. report warns, in essence, that “humanity has only a dozen years to mitigate global warming and limit the scope of global catastrophe,” as Amy Goodman says on Democracy Now! “Otherwise, millions will be imperiled by increasing droughts, floods, fires and poverty. The sweeping report . . . urges immediate and unprecedented changes to global policy in order to keep global warming at a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius.”
And the primary urgency here is to stop emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which means, to wean ourselves from burning fossil fuels.
How is change at this level possible? I truly do not know, but I refuse to succumb to cynicism. I refuse, as I have put it in the past, to remain trapped in the comfort zone of helplessness. Our political system may seem to be caught up in the trivial interests of the powerful and the manipulation of the fears and prejudices of everyone else, but deep values are managing to emerge nonetheless. The Kavanaugh confirmation fiasco is an example of this, as women by the hundreds of thousands publicly opened their wounds, many for the first time, and challenged politics as usual at its core.
This is democracy beyond the ritual of voting, and it must continue. The infrastructure of privilege and exploitation is being washed away. This is not a simple process. Confronting paradox never is.
The transition we have to make is described with clarity and succinctness by Kevin Anderson, a professor in climate change leadership in the Department of Earth Sciences at Sweden’s Uppsala University, in his Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.
Noting that about 70 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide come from about 20 percent of the world’s population —that is to say, from those who live in relative wealth and comfort —he hones in his focus on what must change:
“. . . we have to move the productive capacity of our society from building second homes for professors or private jets or private yachts or large four-wheel drive cars — moving from that to building public transport, electrification, improved homes for everyone. So it’s a shift of that productive capacity, the resources and the labor from the . . . luxury for the 20 percent to the essential low-carbon infrastructure for all of us.”
What he’s describing here is a profound social shift, only partially because it seems to curb the rights of the relatively wealthy to live the way they want —from zooming cross-country in their gas-guzzling SUVs to taking a private jet to Saint Barthélemy. The essence of the change he is describing isn’t simply a parental or autocratic no-no to those with money. It’s a consciousness shift: from individual to collective decision-making in how we use the planet’s resources.
And the change Anderson describes ultimately holds not merely the consumers accountable for the destructive use of the planet’s resources, but the corporate, multinational producers as well. The two are, of course, interlocked.
What Anderson doesn’t mention in the interview, but what must be added here, is that militarism and war are also seriously part of the environmentally destructive wastefulness that must be curbed. Whatever its mission, whatever its strategy, whatever its tactics, war is ecocide.
The paradox here is that those who must give up their “rights” —their rights to create climate change —are those with the money and power to declare: no way. No ruling authority is going to suddenly emerge from the great beyond and outlaw private jets or Mar-a-Lago or, my God, defund the Department of Defense.
Facing up to climate change requires human cooperation at an unprecedented level. Avi Lewis puts it this way: “Transforming our economy and society on the scale this crisis requires is the most powerful opportunity we’ve ever had to build a more caring, livable planet.”
Could such an opportunity ever be seized? Perhaps . . . if failure to do so means the end of humanity. The rich have to see beyond their own comfort and profit. The politically powerful have to see beyond war. And we have about 12 years to make the shift.
This seems beyond the realm of the possible, except for the fact that something at this level is necessary. This brings me back to the uproar and the humanity that flowed from our wounds as the Kavanaugh hearings staggered to their conclusion. People see the need for change at the deepest level —change that nurtures the injured and the vulnerable. I can only hope that such change is reflected in the upcoming elections.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~end~~~~~~~~~~
Robert Koehler, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. His book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound is available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.
======================
3 Tips For Overcoming ‘Hidden Growth Killers’
That Harm Your Business
A key part of any CEO’s or entrepreneur’s role is to make the “right” decisions, and then ensure they are enacted to advance the business. Yet their decisions and actions often miss the mark, frustrating the achievement of their aspirations.
It’s the voice in their head and other invisible factors at work.
“All CEOs and entrepreneurs have habits, beliefs and motivators – such as fear – that affect what they do, often unconsciously,” says Mark E. Green, a speaker, coach to CEOs and author of Activators: A CEO’s Guide to Clearer Thinking and Getting Things Done (www.Activators.biz).
Green says these “hidden growth killers” interfere with a business leader’s ability to make optimal decisions and then see them through via day-to-day choices and actions.
“This is why leading your business feels challenging, frustrating and even maddening at times despite the fact that you generally know what to do and how to do it,” Green says. “Your motivators, habits and beliefs influence how you think and act.”
Any CEO or entrepreneur who ever put off having a critical conversation or justified retaining a poor-performing employee has experienced their own “hidden growth killers” in action.
And it’s not just those at the top who are susceptible.
“Motivators, habits and beliefs operate similarly in the minds of your leadership team and every other person you employ,” Green says. “The cumulative cost is staggering.”
Fortunately, he says, there are research-backed techniques to counteract the “hidden growth killers” and more consistently align our decisions, choices and actions with our ultimate aspirations. Just a few of those are:
Reduce fear. “Until you identify and debunk your fears, they’re guaranteed to drive your thinking and behavior,” Green says. There are ways to prevent fear-based decision making. One is to name a specific fear and explore the logic and realistic probability behind it. In most cases, you’ll realize that it isn’t real enough to warrant impact on your thinking and behavior. Next, don’t rush into decisions. If you take the time to gather information and weigh logic more than emotion you minimize fear-dominated decisions. Finally, you should surround yourself with more accomplished people who are willing and able to challenge you to grow beyond your fears
Slow down and get rational. “How we think and what we do are largely the result of habits, some good, some bad,” Green says. Those habits are engrained and automatic, so one way to overcome negative habits is to slow down. For example, many business leaders are in the habit of being seduced by their own busyness. Instead of working on the big-picture – such as assessing customer needs or thinking strategically – they become focused on solving something in front of them that seems broken. “Rather than give in to that urge, you can slow down and get rational,” Green says. Compare the value of one activity to another, weighing which has a better long-term payoff. Or determine if someone else could handle the immediate issue and be sure to get over any fear associated with proper delegation.
Leverage your past, both good and bad. “Your interpretation of the past affects how you view the present,” Green says. “Our perception of past events skews either negative or positive, which is why two people often remember the same event differently.” If you have a past-positive orientation, your past experience will tend to bolster your confidence. But if your orientation is past-negative, you might approach the same situation with fear and dread. Green says you can better leverage your past by contemplating a few questions. What good came from a bad prior experience? Are there alternative explanations for past events? How else can you look differently at what happened in your past? Shifting your thinking can be the key to your future success.
Green cautions that no matter how deliberate you are in your efforts to improve, even the most seasoned CEOs make mistakes and experience setbacks.
“Remain purposeful and take it in stride,” he says. “In the marathon you’re running to scale your business, your willingness to stretch and grow, to do the work and to stick with it are what really matter.”
About Mark E. Green
Mark Green, author of Activators: A CEO’s Guide to Clearer Thinking and Getting Things Done (www.Activators.biz), is a speaker, strategic advisor and coach to CEOs and executive teams worldwide. He has addressed, coached and advised thousands of business leaders, helping them unlock more of their potential and teaching them how to do the same for their teams. He is a Core Advisor to Gravitas Impact Premium Coaches
