Earth Month is April; Earth Day is April 22nd

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 22^nd, 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.

March 24, 2021

Looking for Hope in All the Wrong Places

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.

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.

March 8, 2021

3 Steps to Resolving Conflict in Your Life

Is there any day that passes without a crisis? Your life does not have to be chaos, crises or so turbulent. The key is learning new tools for resolving conflict in your life.

Your life today can feel out of control. Emotions such as anger and frustration can take anyone over in an instant. Unresolved emotions feed nearly all conflict. Stepping out of truth undermines resolution and fuels more conflict. Conflicts become crises when you ignore emotions and step out of your truth.

Life isn’t about avoiding or denying conflict. So, what’s the most powerful thing you can do? You can learn how to deal with conflict quickly, consciously, effectively and truthfully. You can learn intelligent responses to conflict, rather than reacting. You can decide to take actions that lead to peaceful solutions. You can feed your own power to resolve conflicts.

Building your powerful skills to resolve and avert crises takes three steps:

1) Becoming aware of your emotions
2) Seeking the truth
3) Creating peaceful solutions

Becoming Aware of Your Emotions

You can gain the tools for naming and taming your emotions. All day long you experience feelings that create emotions. Your heart sends messages to your brain constantly, leading to physiological changes moment to moment directly tied to your emotions. Some emotions cause you to feel depleted or weak. Other emotions have the opposite affect, renewing or strengthening. If you are unable to identify the source and how to move out of depleting emotions, conflict is sure to follow.

Choosing to leave a depleting emotion to get back to a neutral space immediately and sustainably moves you through and out of conflict. Even better, you can choose to move to an opposite renewing emotion and blast right out of conflict. Knowledge about your emotions is power.

Seeking the Truth

Being truthful allows repeated conflicts to end. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses with speaking your truth gives you immediate access to find more of the truth of any situation. Everything begins with understanding your part of a conflict, your part of a missing truth and your part of any resolution. Too often, we all begin looking to every one but ourselves to find cause, blame and judge. Looking at others merely masks the truth and moves us farther away from where we should be seeking answers. One thing is sure: if you are embroiled in any conflict, you had a part in making it happen.

Five elements of truth must be explored in order to start resolution. These five elements when clearly understood open your perception to the truth behind the words being spoken. When you find yourself in conflict, feel conflict or are reviewing past conflicts, solutions unimagined before emerge when you are honest about these questions:

Where do I live my truth the strongest?
Where am I the weakest in living truthfully?
How do I usually step out of my truth?
What are my most truthful qualities?
Do I know anyone that is a great example of living truthfully?

The more time you put into these five questions, the faster you become at checking for your truth about what any conflict is really about.

Create Peaceful Solutions

You can see patterns in the way you create conflict in your life. These patterns emerge from your mind. Your mind is an efficient engine for learning ways to get the things you want.

Your ego works hard to protect you from its perceived dangers. Obvious signs of conflict are when your fight, flight or freeze automatic mechanism is triggered. The emotions that cause a flood of biochemical reactions in your body are produced to give you the best chance of surviving an immediate threat. However, today you have little reason to react in this ancient unconscious programmed survival reaction mode to the kind of conflicts and issues present in your life.

Your behavior patterns go beyond ego and survival responses. These patterns also include unconscious beliefs and judgments that generate negative thinking. Let’s just say that “negative thinking” is the constant presence of thoughts that undermine or sabotage your success. Repeating experience-driven memories condition your thinking and responses to all situations you encounter daily. They can haunt you during restless sleep. But, these negative patterns don’t have to be your master. You can reprogram your mind to focus on new thoughts and experiences that are supportive and positive.

Patterns also exist in how you look to resolve conflicts. As you look at the conflicts you have dealt with, a picture emerges of your strategy for resolving conflict. Like an impressionistic painting, all the little blots and strokes of paint add up to a picture when you observe them from a little distance. You have to become aware of how you unconsciously manage conflict. A simple model you can use to determine your default strategy to resolving conflict is called the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument shown here:

Source: Thomas-Kilmann

Accommodating — cooperating to a high-degree often at own expense and against own goals, objectives and intentions. This approach can be effective when the other party is the expert, has a better solution, or for preserving relationships.

Avoiding — This is simply avoiding the issue. No one’s goals are being achieved. This strategy can work when the issue is not significant, too costly for everyone or when there is no chance of winning. It’s also effective when the atmosphere is emotionally charged and you need to take a pause.

Collaborating — This is where partnering is the approach to achieve both party’s goals. This is breaking through and out of a win-lose approach to conflict, instead working for the win-win. This is where new, previously impossible solutions appear.

Competing — This is the win-lose approach prevalent today. The winners in conflict assertively and aggressively work to achieve their own goals, commonly at the expense of the other party. This approach delivers quick, decisive action at the expense of relationships or even integrity.

Compromising — This is the all lose something scenario where no one achieves what they want. Everyone has goals and this appears to be an easy way to at least meet some amount of goals. However, it leaves no room to produce a better solution that meets longer-term needs for everyone.

Once you are aware of your default strategy in the pattern of conflicts you experience at work, home or in any part of life, then you can choose to take the third step in resolving conflict in your life: empowering peaceful solutions. Peaceful solutions have at their core both the awareness of everyone involved in a conflict and the intention to keep everyone in their power. When people are in their power, they are aligned with their purpose, integrity and intentions

A person who empowers peace is one who:

Maintains a good sense of humor
Maintains humbleness and humility
Maintains integrity
Quells the ego and stays in the heart
Is not attached to outcome
Is not afraid of feelings
Does not avoid conflict
Listens intensely
Speaks directly and tells the truth
Is non-judgmental

Empowering peace also includes an awareness for everyone involved by:

Modeling self-respect and respect for others
Having a sensitively toward the other person(s)
Having an inclusive attitude rather than excluding others
Allowing mistakes for self and others

You don’t have to be perfect at all or most of these attributes for empowering peaceful solutions. You simply have to become more aware of yourself, your default strategy and begin modeling these empowering attributes to begin seeing previously impossible solutions more easily emerge.

Enabling a New Paradigm for Resolving Conflict

The three steps that build a new paradigm for resolving conflict are simple and deliver immediate results without needing perfection or a regimented process to follow. These steps better help to resolve or avert unnecessary crises in your life. They have the impact of reducing stress, building your resilience and increasing harmony in a world full of conflict, chaos and uncertainty.

The choice is yours to spend a little time outside of conflicts to reduce the impact they have on your life.

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.

October 23, 2020

Local Communities are Vital for Tree Planting Success

The ecosystem benefits of reforestation get talked about a lot—and with good reason! Healthy trees support entire ecosystems—and planting them helps nature to regenerate lost landscapes, increase biodiversity, and offset carbon emissions. But if done thoughtfully, reforestation can also have profound socioeconomic impacts by improving food security, protecting livelihoods, and helping to heal communities. In fact, local communities are vital for tree planting success.

UCA sponsors One Tree Planted who maintains a 80% success rate goal for tree planting in reforestation projects. With UCA’s care for communities being a priority, we asked them to share why local communities are an important part of that success rate.

local communities are vital for tree planting success

Involving local communities in reforestation efforts is essential to the success of any project with One Tree Planted, but with our agroforestry initiatives, it takes center stage.

When asked what trees they want to see planted, locals usually request species that will help them support their families and get food on the table. By focusing on the intersection between natural restoration and community needs, we also decrease the risk of subsistence-driven deforestation in surrounding regions. In impoverished areas, deforestation is often driven by the need for income or fuel. By working with local communities as active partners that help to shape projects, we increase the likelihood that the trees we plant will reach their full potential.

Agroforestry is agriculture that incorporates the cultivation and conservation of trees, and it’s gaining attention as a productive, feasible practice that enriches soil and strengthens local environments rather than depleting and degrading them. When compared to conventional farming practices, which lead to diminishing returns, agroforestry shines by providing a more sustainable and net-positive solution. And it has real, on-the-ground benefits for smallholder subsistence farmers and their communities by improving their food and income security.

Project Highlight: Reforestation in Rwanda

In Rwanda, where 70% of the population farms, One Tree Planted recently worked with a woman-led farming coop to plant approximately 25,000 trees on over 380 acres, most of which were Grevillea Robusta, a species preferred by agroforestry farmers because it grows relatively quickly and doesn’t require a lot of water to thrive. We also planted tree tomato, lemon, and avocado trees, which will provide cash crops for farmers and directly benefit 180 households.

While agroforestry and food security were the primary objectives, these reforestation efforts will also help to reduce soil erosion, landslides and severe floods downstream, benefit environmental restoration, store carbon, and ensure that more families thrive. A separate but related project here will also help educate communities about the importance of biodiversity, so they can work to reduce the threats to Gishwati-Mukura National Park and re-integrate indigenous species into their agro-systems.

Planting Trees After Forest Fires

As you probably know, wildfires are burning at unprecedented rates around the globe. In Australia, where a devastating 21% of temperate broadleaf and mixed forests were burned in late 2019 and early 2020, we’re working to plant 1 million trees over the next 5 years. The process will begin with establishing and supplying nurseries, and will rely on close monitoring of fire damaged ecosystems to assess when they’ll be ready for planting. The project will help rebuild habitats for those that have been most affected by the fires, including koalas and the glossy black cockatoo.

In British Columbia, a historic rank six wildfire consumed 230,000 hectares of land, devastating iconic forests and displacing the wildlife and indigenous communities that rely on them. We worked with the First Nations people to reforest the area with carefully selected species including Lodgepole pine, Douglas fir, Hybrid spruce, Western larch, Ponderosa pine, Trembling aspen, and Black cottonwood. In addition to reforesting, we teamed up with Canada’s Forest Carbon Initiative to support carbon modeling to determine how much carbon is sequestered as the forest continues to grow and recover.

Furthermore in California, we partner with conservation districts, The US Forest Service, and local watershed organizations to reforest after forest fires – including after the devastating Camp Fire of 2018 which severely damaged the town of Paradise. When such disasters occur, reforestation is conducted very thoughtfully so that that right species of trees are planted in appropriate locations to reduce the risk of future fire spread while helping nature recover.

How One Tree Planted Plants Trees Around the World

Reforestation can restore damaged ecosystems, stabilize soil, support the water cycle, protect biodiversity, and slowly recover the vital ecosystem services that we all depend on. So how do we do it in so many different countries around the world? Through a network of carefully vetted and knowledgeable on-the-ground partners. Once we’ve connected with a partner, we carefully vet them to make sure they will be able to deliver on their goals. Then, we work with them to develop a plan and get the logistics into place. Meanwhile, we’re spreading the word about these amazing projects and securing the donations necessary to support these efforts. Once the funding is there, the planting site is prepared, supplies are procured, and seeds are collected and grow into strong seedlings. Then, when it is the rainy season and environmental conditions are ready, the trees are planted! After planting is done, the trees are carefully maintained and monitored by our partners until they can survive on their own.

While the size of projects vary, it takes dozens of people on average to execute any single reforestation effort to make it a success. Between the donors who help with funding, internal staff to help with planning and coordinating global projects, and local partners to get the trees in the ground, and the local communities that are vital to tree planting success, we recognize that every person who contributes plays an important role.

By Diana Chaplin, contributing author and member of One Tree Planted

May 13, 2020

Give Yourself a Break with Compassion

Many of us are sheltering at home, and taking time to re-find a natural balance in our lives. While we are setting up new routines for our week, working from home, and even possibly teaching our children at home, we are feeling a bit more tired. We at Unified Caring Association (UCA) are searching for caring resources, tools and tips to help people in our caring community to be successful. One thing we want to make sure to touch on is that it is more than ok to give yourself a break! What does that mean? It means holding a compassionate space for yourself.

Compassion

There are many ways to show compassion for others, but we often forget to show ourselves the same compassion. Doctor Shauna Shapiro, PhD, talks about “…three components that make self-compassion put forth by her colleague Kristin Neff. Number one is to simply to witness what we are feeling and seeing in ourselves; this requires mindfulness. We suggest taking time when you are feeling stress or fear building to meditate. “The second is to be kind to ourselves, approaching that pain with the intention to actively soothe and support ourselves as we would a friend.”

Last, but not least, is to recognize that we are all in this together. Each person needs compassion from others, and needs compassion from themselves when they are giving their all. Shapiro calls this common humanity, and thinks that this is the most important element to hold in our minds and hearts. “When we acknowledge our common humanity… we feel a sense of connection that allows us to practice kindness not only for ourselves but also for all the other people who are in similar situations. …And that in itself is healing.”

Self-Compassion is Born of Mindfulness

As mentioned above that starting a journey into self-compassion requires mindfulness. We can continue the cycle and strengthen our self-compassion when we are mindful. With this positive cycle we continue to discover reserves of strength, wisdom, and resilience. “This is one of the alchemical powers of self-compassion: It simultaneously soothes the negative and grows the positive.”

If mindfulness activities or meditation are not your cup of tea, we have another suggestion for our caring community. Try journaling your thoughts and feelings. Once you have those emotions out, you can better understand actions, like increasing self-compassion, that need to be taken. A tip from Shapiro that we agree with is free-writing. This is a writing technique where we try not to think too much about organizing our words or thoughts while writing. “Simply write from your heart.” It will amaze and possibly shock you when going back over what you wrote.

We want to celebrate self-care through self-compassion. Compassion is something we all need more than ever today. We are all being called to do extraordinary things for the collective caring of our families, communities and the world in response to the unique coronavirus pandemic. Whether home bound or providing critical services, everyone is stretched to adapt like never before. All of us are in this together. Now more than ever, caring is what we need most. Caring for our self. Caring for others around us. Life is going to require new routines, resilience and compassion. We invite you to join us in creating a caring movement to respond to local needs.

Would you like to read more about UCA caring resources? We have other blogs on Unified Caring Association, caring in our communities, and caring the UCA way! If you would like caring messages throughout the week, follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter!

April 3, 2020

Working from Home- Tips for Success

Recently people and businesses all around the world have been restructuring their lives with the recent quick shifts to maintain the health of people and communities. Many of us are all settling into new routines while being homebound. One of the new challenges most of us are facing is how to set ourselves up for balance and success while working from home? We at Unified Caring Association (UCA) are sharing caring information to help people who are working from home.

Create the Environment

The first step on this new journey is to create a productive and comfortable environment at home to work in. While working from home you will need a space to call an office. Set up a desk or office space to be your zone for work. Set up all of the technology and tools you will need. Some of these tools, like a laptop or printer, you might have at home or brought to us from our office. If you have a window, try opening it up for fresh air to keep you alert. A bonus to having a window is that you can look outside. Greenery helps us feel more relaxed and stay healthy. Lastly, when setting up your work environment, limit any distractions. This means turning off unnecessary technology, such as the television or silencing notifications for social media, keeping your work space clutter free, and letting your family and roommates know that you are working. Limiting the interruptions can help boost your productivity.

Scheduling Your Week and Day

Now that you have space to work and be productive in, it is time to set yourself up for success. Setting goals and scheduling your time becomes very important. (Trust us, it is easy to bake cookies while answering work emails!) Think about what days of the week you will be working; many of us it is Monday-Friday from about 9 am to 5 pm. Be sure to include untouchable days or days off to recharge and spend quality time socializing with loved ones. Goals help us plan our lives, and setting good goals throughout the week help us with our success. Goals also help us build habits. For example, setting a goal of taking a lunch break each work day to clear your mind, and say hi to your family. Each day’s schedule should include a healthy chunk of time around lunch where you are away from your office/desk and your computer. During this time you can do anything else, like go on a virtual museum tour with your kids!

An interesting thing that can be carried into each day is setting up a morning routine. Get yourself up at a decent hour, brush your teeth, eat, and get dressed in something other than pj’s to rev up your mind and get those brain cells going. Healthy habits help us feel in control and less stress over time.When you review your schedule for the day, tackle big tasks first thing in the morning. Maybe that big task is writing annual reviews for your team, or an important meeting with board members for a new project. Once that daunting task is over, the rest of the day will feel like a snap. The rest of the day’s schedule should be set up by grouping related tasks together. One example is to have the hour between 2 pm and 3 pm for responding to emails. Or 10 am to 11 am checking in with your team for the day. Overall, know your productive times of the day. Each person is unique, and setting a schedule should reflect that. One key is to adjust your schedule as needed; especially these days, we might need to adjust our schedule midday due to telecommuting or global events.

We are all being called to do extraordinary things for the collective caring of our families, communities and the world in response to the unique coronavirus pandemic. Whether homebound or providing critical services, everyone is stretched to adapt like never before. All of us are in this together. Now more than ever, caring is what we need most. Caring for our self. Caring for others around us. Life is going to require new routines, resilience and compassion. We invite you to join us in creating a caring movement to respond to local needs.

Would you like to read more about UCA caring resources? We have other blogs on Unified Caring Association, caring in our communities, and caring the UCA way! If you would like caring messages throughout the week, follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter!

March 31, 2020

Schooling at Home; Practical Tips for Stressed out Families

We have officially begun the first week of homeschool for our kids as many of us are homebound and practicing health and safety routines for ourselves and our communities. We at Unified Caring Association (UCA) have been receiving questions about how to set up a routine for schooling at home. With some research we have come up with a few ideas that can help grow caring children and create a thriving educational environment at home.

Two Tips for Getting Set Up

One of the first challenges that can occur is the task of explaining to our kids about the coronavirus pandemic. This can be a bit difficult at times because there is some uncertainty about how long each school district is closing. It is important that we practice taking a deep breath to help us be center while calmly speaking with our kids. “The easiest rule of thumb is to try to be direct and honest and brief.” (Mathew Cruger)

The second tip is to set up new routines and goals. These routines do not have to be perfect off the bat. An example of a good place to start isa morning routine. In the morning, everyone wakes up at a reasonable hour, eats nutritious breakfast, brushes their hair and teeth, and gets dressed for the day. Another idea is to block out time for physical activity in the day, like a mock-recess. (Bonus points for joining in on the physical activity to help reduce your stress and boost your physical health!) If you need an example, check out fitness instructor Joe Wicks video series, P.E. with Joe. Each video is a daily 30-minute workout that kids can do at home.

Also, when setting up your new daily routine, it is important to set aside quality time with your family. This time requires you to put away other responsibilities in an effort to focus on playing with members of your family. A suggestion on LiveScience for “when you need to do another task, [is to] stay nearby and tell the child to play by themselves, but to let you know if they need help.” Sometimes we can have family bonding time through doing chores. Most of us have that moment of groaning when we think about dusting and mopping, but it can become a fun family activity. Try cranking up the tunes to boogie as you clean. Or have a relay race for who can fold the most laundry in 2 minutes!

Schedules are important to help kids understand what life will look like day-to-day, reducing stress and confusion. Additionally, a routine helps with student success for kids that still have school work to turn into their teachers remotely during the school closure.

Educational Materials For Homebound Kids

There are so many resources for keeping your kids’ education at its top game. Recently, many educational foundations and organizations have released tools and activities that are great for the brain while we are schooling our children at home. Some of these resources are available for free. K- 12 kids activities can be found on Kids Activities Blog where dozens of activities and educational materials.Other educational resources for schooling at home, such as audiobooks, e-books, videos, multimedia materials, are also available on the Open Culture website, like Google Learn at Home for example.

Scholastic Learn at Home has daily lessons in a variety of formats: videos, stories and prompts for drawing and writing activities. These are lessons that are great for grade levels pre-K to 6th grade and up.

“Khan Academy, a free online learning resource offering lessons, exercises and quizzes, has daily schedules for organizing at-home learning for students ages 4 to 18 years.” (LiveScience Kids Activities) On weekdays, this academy offers livestreams on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to help parents and educators best utilize the website’s tools and resources while schooling at home.

Speaking of Youtube, there is a channel called Crash Course that offers engaging educational videos on a wide range of subjects that are great for high school students.

PBS KIDS and PBS LearningMedia are showing their support as well by offering tools to help support learning at home. Some of these tools include educational videos and games from favorite series, as well as related skill-building offline activities that will help us grow caring children while running their education home.

Virtual Museums

We are completely into this next topic; virtual field trips! Recently penguins touring Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium took Twitter by storm! Now we can join in on the fun by taking a virtual tour of more than 2,500 museums around the world. These museums have made their collections accessible online through Google Arts and Culture. Additionally, we can get an outdoors feel by accessing virtual tours of national parks in the U.S.

If we are looking at specific museums, The American Museum of Natural History in New York City offers all ages online learning materials that are perfect for schooling at home. We took a look at their Ology science website, and it has games and activities in a range of science topics like archaeology, astronomy, and marine biology.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum has a tour too! The Air and Space Anywhere webpage provides virtual tours of the museum, educational podcasts, games and activities that are all about aircraft and spacecraft. This is a great way to get some STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) lessons, activities and videos on topics, like flight and space.

Science!

Craving more science in your family’s life? (Bill Nye the Science Guy would be pleased as punch!) We found out that the California Science Center is livestreaming “Stuck at Home Science” Every weekday at 10 a.m. PDT. This is a new video series of science activities you can do at home.

Miami’s Frost Science Museum is helping out with remote science activities as well. Frost Science@Home helps curious and inquisitive minds plenty to do with fun science activities and DIY science experiments.

Nova Labs at PBS has sciences for teens! These virtual science educational experiences come together through multimedia experiences that combine video, animation and games to delve into fascinating scientific topics. Teens learn about hot topics like polar ecosystems, solar storms and renewable energy to get your teens brains engaged and ready to help bring more caring into our communities.

NASA also has Teachable Moments for K-12th grade. This brings NASA to your home by connecting homes with resources for investigating the latest discoveries about our universe. To add to this, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is another source of free online content. When visiting the website, digital educators share live videos that pair with hands-on activities. These activities use materials that can be found at almost any home. Two examples of topics are living in space and on Mars, as well as basic rocketry.

For our kids that are ready for more and complex sciences, Physics Classroom is a great resource for beginning physics students. There are teacher toolkits for parents who are now learning how to be teachers. These toolkits supplement the site’s online lessons with videos, animations, simulations and exercises to give a full classroom experience.

Want to have a family Q&A with a scientist? Sign up at Skype a Scientist and get matched with an expert. This expert will live Skype chat with your family about real scientific research.

With all of the remote education and being homebound, we are craving some connection! stemCONNECT is a great answer that uses video conferencing to bring together students and experts in STEM industries. Also, the site has a free video library. This library contains Florida-based STEM experts to help with your child’s understanding of practical applications of a STEM career.

Creative & Fun

We have talked a lot about sciences and logical education resources. Now we get to flip to the other side of the brain. Ready to run some fun and creative activities at home? Creativity is a huge part of learning and having a fulfilling life adventure. Much like our Caring Coloring Contest, organizations are bringing to homes creative education as well!

Teaching the value of mindfulness to your kids can be a creative and interactive activity too! Monterey Bay Aquarium hosts “MeditOcean.” Help build your kids resiliency with a soothing guided meditation video featuring several aquarium jellyfish.

If your children need a more hands-on activity, they can hone their artistic side with artist and writer Mo Willems. Williams is hosting Lunch Doodles video sessions weekdays at 1 pm EDT. These sessions have an activity page reflecting the doodle session. If you happen to have a 3D printer, access to blueprints of digital 3D models from NASA. It can be fun and educational to print and construct miniature models of satellites, asteroids, spacecraft, and more!

Add a little ancient history and anthropology to the schooling at home curriculum with the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada. Kids in 3rd-12th grade can learn to write their names in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs with a step-by-step guide. If they get really good they can write a whole story for you!

Is reading and storytime built into your kids’ education at home? There are variety of videos where celebrities and professionals in multiple industries read books aloud. It can be a thrill to watch and listen to Story Time from Space. Listen to stories sent to the International Space Station (ISS). These stories are read aloud by astronauts as they orbit far above Earth.

It is during this time that we come together with our families to help each other learn more. Setting up new goals and routines so that our children can do their schooling at home can be confusing. UCA is here to help and share caring resources. We are all being called to do extraordinary things for the collective caring of our families, communities and the world in response to the unique coronavirus pandemic. Whether home bound or providing critical services, everyone is stretched to adapt like never before. All of us are in this together. Now more than ever, caring is what we need most. Caring for our self. Caring for others around us. Life is going to require new routines, resilience and compassion. We invite you to join us in creating a caring movement to respond to local needs.

Want to read more about Unified Caring Association and UCA benefits? We have other blogs on caring topics like: ‘R’ is for Reforestation, Caring Communities to Help Stop Cyberbullying, and Is My Child Resilient? Or follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter to receive caring updates during the week!

March 26, 2020

Taking a Break to Recharge

In a world where many of us are running around and working hard, we are more prone to being burned out. What can we do to prevent this from happening? Well, Unified Caring Association (UCA) is here to share caring resources to help out our members and community. One way we have found that helps us become more resilient is taking a break to recharge our batteries.

Work to the bone no more!

Most of us learned that the harder we work the more success we have. The secret is, that this is not the best way to travel our life’s journey. What we tend to do after working this hard is shutdown when we get home. However, when getting home after work, many of us want to soak in time with family, friends, and hobbies. Not to mention, when we are burned out we are far less productive. This feels like running harder up a slippery hill and getting nowhere fast. For Harvard Business Review’s Neil Pasricha, what most people “…needed was a practical way to get more work done without taking more time.”

“Untouchable Days”

Enter a revolutionary self-care concept, untouchable days. “These are days when I am literally 100% unreachable in any way…by anyone…I look at my calendar sixteen weeks ahead of time, and for each week, I block out an entire day as UNTOUCHABLE.” This gives us time to unplug, journal, and recharge to be better able to tackle our work, and be more present in our lives.

Pasricha comments on his ‘untouchable days’ and what he gets from them. “I think of them as having two components. There is the deep creative work. When you’re in the zone, you’re in a state of flow, and the big project you’re working on is getting accomplished step by step by step. And then there are the nitros — little blasts of fuel you can use to prime your own pump if you hit a wall. These unproductive moments of frustration happen to all of us, and it’s less important to avoid them than to simply have a mental toolkit you can whip out when they happen.”

Being 100% out of reach is not for everyone. However, the concept of getting up and taking a break from work or a frustrating situation holds true. We often can compose ourselves with deep breaths or mindfulness activities. Then we can return to our day with new eyes and a can-do attitude. Ultimately, taking time to unwind is key for achieving self-care and success in all areas of life!

Would you like to read more about UCA caring resources? We have other blogs on Unified Caring Association, caring in our communities, and caring the UCA way! If you would like caring messages throughout the week, follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter!

March 17, 2020

Championing Mental Health

With so many emotions and stressors in our day it can be hard to maintain a mental balance. We at Unified Caring Association (UCA) have a special place in our hearts for mental well-being. To share the caring we have tools and resources, such as a 24 hour counseling hotline, available for our UCA members. In our research online, we have come across a wonderful TedTalk by Sangu Delle championing mental health.

What does the word “Mental” Mean

When defining the word mental, we are referring to the mind or brain. Delle brings up a definition rooted in his culture. “Growing up in West Africa, when people used the term “mental,” what came to mind was a madman with dirty, dread-locked hair, bumbling around half-naked on the streets.” This stigma came from his youth, where “normal” people do not have mental health problems.

What is astonishing is that some of the areas in the world that have the highest need for mental health support and care, have a very thin system in place with few professionals.

According to the World Health Organization, mental health is about being able to cope with the normal stressors of life; to work productively and fruitfully; and to be able to make a contribution to your community. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well-being. Globally, 75 percent of all mental illness cases can be found in low-income countries. Yet most African governments invest less than one percent of their health care budget in mental health. “Nigeria, for example, is estimated to have 200 — in a country of almost 200 million. In all of Africa, 90 percent of our people lack access to treatment. As a result, we suffer in solitude, silenced by stigma.”

Mental Health Hits Close to Home

As we listen to this TedTalk, we wonder if there is a solution to the lack of care, acceptance and support for those who are affected by mental distress or illness. Delle shares the turning point for him. “For me, the stigma is personal… My best friend in the world — a brilliant, philosophical, charming, hip young man — was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I witnessed some of the friends we’d grown up with recoil. I heard the snickers. I heard the whispers. “Did you hear he has gone mad?” (Kru English) “He has gone crazy!” Derogatory, demeaning commentary about his condition — words we would never say about someone with cancer or someone with malaria. Somehow, when it comes to mental illness, our ignorance eviscerates all empathy. I stood by his side as his community isolated him, but our love never wavered.”

Our ignorance eviscerated all empathy; that phrase really hit home. We have seen and heard about so many ways that people can be bullied. One way that we can begin caring and supporting those who need mental healthcare is to bring awareness to the issue. Delle inspiringly did just that. He helped found the mental health special interest alumni group at his college. “And during my tenure as a resident tutor in graduate school, I supported many undergraduates with their mental health challenges.” Every person needs to be more aware about mental struggles. If we begin to accept mental health as important as physical health, we will become better individuals.

This awareness is not only for others, but for ourselves as well. Delle references his internal struggles, and how he could not bring himself to speak with a counselor, or even a friend. This reluctance was due to the stigma that still resided within himself. This was an eye opener for Delle. “We need to stop suffering in silence. We must stop stigmatizing disease and traumatizing the afflicted.”

Raise Awareness and Champion Mental Health

Delle calls us all to action by encouraging us to talk. “Talk to your friends. Talk to your loved ones. Talk to health professionals.” In communicating how we are feeling, we are allowing ourselves to better connect with others and ourselves. “[When talking] do so with the confidence that you are not alone. Speak up if you’re struggling. Being honest about how we feel does not make us weak; it makes us human.” We can champion others and ourselves through one common thread, we are all human and we all can take charge of having better mental health.

Would you like to watch the full TedTalk? Click HERE!

Would you like to read more about UCA caring resources? We have other blogs on Unified Caring Association, caring in our communities, and caring the UCA way! If your would like caring messages throughout the week, follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Twitter!

February 27, 2020

How to Have Better Conversations

Each day we interact with friends, family, and many other people. During these interactions we often strive to make meaningful connections. There are so many ways we can connect, and one is the most prominent: talking with each other. We at Unified Caring Association (UCA) have recently seen a wonderful TedTalk by Celeste Headlee about 10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation. This is a wonderful speech that helps us understand different ways to connect with others through conversation.

The World We Live In

Celeste begins her speech talking about the shift in how we hold conversations with each other due to the integration of technology. Many people spend most of their time communicating through emails and texts. Celeste makes a good point: this world we live in has great potential but can quickly devolve into arguments. Think about how a text that is misread triggers us to feel a wide range of negative emotions. This communication trend is especially prominent in children and teens. “Pew Research did a study of 10,000 American adults, and they found that at this moment, we are more polarized, we are more divided, than we ever have been in history. We’re less likely to compromise, which means we’re not listening to each other. And we make decisions … based on what we already believe.” If we are not holding balanced conversations and listening to each other, we are losing out.

A VIP Skill-Communication

A high school teacher, named Paul Barnwell, gave his students a communication project to teach them how to speak on a specific topic without notes. It became apparent that conversational competence might be one of the most underdeveloped skills for students. This difficulty is partly due to kids spending hours each day engaging with ideas and each other through screens. Rarely do these kids have an opportunity to develop interpersonal communications skills. Barnwell asks, “Is there any 21st-century skill more important than being able to sustain coherent, confident conversation?”

How to Have a Great Conversation

Most of us have an idea of how to actively listen and participate in a conversation. Some of these tips are: look the person in the eye, think of interesting topics before you meet, smile, and repeat back a summary of what you heard for further clarification. Celeste Headlee argues that we should forget all or most of this in an effort to have not just good conversations, but great conversations. We all have had interactions that we walk away from craving more. This drive to have a longer interaction is a sign of a great conversation. These connections allow us to feel engaged and inspired, and that we are perfectly understood.Headlee has ten great tips to achieve this result almost every time you hold a conversation.

Right off the get-go, Headlee hits the ground running! We all should avoid multitasking. Juggling your “to-do” list with the argument you had with your significant other three days ago while talking with your best friend is not devoting caring time with your best friend. When we do not multitask, we are present and in the moment with the person(s) we are having a conversation with.

Next, Celeste strongly recommends not pontificating. When we pontificate we become predictable and have a harder time keeping an open mind. “You need to enter every conversation assuming that you have something to learn.” This can mean setting aside your personal opinion for the time being, allowing the speaker to have room and encouragement to open up.

Thirdly, when asking questions, use open-ended questions. Part of this technique is psychological. When we have a strong word prompt, such as terrifying, we respond to it and formulate a comment that reflects the same intensity and mood. To hold a better conversation let the speaker identify the thought and feeling. “Let them describe it. They’re the ones that know. Try asking them things like, ‘What was that like?’ ‘How did that feel?’ Because then they might have to stop for a moment and think about it, and you’re going to get a much more interesting response.”

Number four: Try to let go or go with the flow. Thoughts will appear; even if these thoughts do not relate to the conversation, let them go out of your mind. Sometimes these thoughts are lists of groceries, or a really great question we DO want to ask the person we are talking with. The issue can be that we are not actually listening, and maybe that really great question was already answered.

Five: If you don’t know an answer, admit it, and move forward. This surrender to not knowing everything helps us become more relatable to the other person we are talking with. Also, it can help us build or maintain our credibility, and hopefully strengthen our relationships. So, say that you don’t know in an effort to err on the side of caution.

Next, is an important note to remember. We do not want to equate our experience with the other person’s. Each experience and feeling is unique to the person it pertains to. We can never feel exactly the same. Think about the proverb: You can never step in the same river twice. This is true because the water is constantly flowing, and therefore never the same in any spot. “More importantly, it is not about you. You don’t need to take that moment to prove how amazing you are or how much you’ve suffered.”

Number seven: Try our hardest to not repeat yourself. The repetition can become boring to the listener, and possible condescending. Take a moment during your next conversation to count how many times you repeat yourself, and you might realize that we tend to repeat ourselves a lot.

We are coming to the home stretch of Headlee’s list. Eighth in line is advice for many situations outside and inside of conversations: try to avoid using too many facts. Most people are less interested in how many years you did “such-and-such” or the names and dates of your 20 second cousins twice removed. What truly matters to others is the genuine you; what you are like and have in common.

Ninth in line is VIP: LISTEN. Most of us equate active listening with holding a great conversation, and truly listening takes many of the state steps into account. Many successful people believe and share that listening is perhaps the most important skill that you can develop. Headlee paraphrases Buddha with pizzazz. “If your mouth is open, you’re not learning.” Why is listening so hard when it is so important? Well, it can come down to controlling the conversation through talking, especially if we are afraid. There is an additional reason: We have short attention spans (a.k.a. we get distracted, easily). On average a person talks at a rate of about 225 words per minute. However, our brains can listen to 500+ words per minute. In the 275 gaps between we tend to fill in or lose focus on the conversation. As another example, think about how quickly we lose interest in a video on Facebook or YouTube? If the content doesn’t grab us within the first 20-30 seconds, we move on. It takes a great amount of energy and effort to pay attention to someone while holding a conversation with them. Otherwise, you are just shouting monologues that might overlap with each other.

Last but not least, number 10. Celeste Headlee keeps it simple as she shares a quote from her sister: Be brief. “A good conversation is like a miniskirt; short enough to retain interest, but long enough to cover the subject.”

What is the basic concept?

What is the common thread we find in all ten of Headlee’s tips? The answer: “Be interested in other people. …assuming everyone has some hidden, amazing thing about them.” We can be amazed at all our caring community has to offer when holding truly great conversations with each other. We encourage our caring community to share the caring by connecting through conversations. And remember, caring conversations with ourselves can be a form of self-care!

Watch the full TedTalk by clicking HERE!

Would you like to read more caring blogs? We have other blogs on topics on UCA benefits: Medical Bill Negotiation, Nutrition to Help Prevent Depression, and Gut-Brain Connection! If you would like caring messages throughout the week, follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Twitter!

February 21, 2020

Author: Lane Michel

Earth Month is April; Earth Day is April 22nd

Find a Tree Planting Event Near You

Happy Earth Month!

Looking for Hope in All the Wrong Places

The Source of Hope

Role Models for Hope

The Right Place to Find Hope

Local Communities are Vital for Tree Planting Success

Involving local communities in reforestation efforts is essential to the success of any project with One Tree Planted, but with our agroforestry initiatives, it takes center stage.

Project Highlight: Reforestation in Rwanda

Planting Trees After Forest Fires

How One Tree Planted Plants Trees Around the World

Give Yourself a Break with Compassion

Compassion

Self-Compassion is Born of Mindfulness

Would you like to read more about UCA caring resources? We have other blogs on Unified Caring Association, caring in our communities, and caring the UCA way! If you would like caring messages throughout the week, follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter!

Taking a Break to Recharge

Work to the bone no more!

“Untouchable Days”

Would you like to read more about UCA caring resources? We have other blogs on Unified Caring Association, caring in our communities, and caring the UCA way! If you would like caring messages throughout the week, follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube, and Twitter!

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