4 Songs {and other things} I’m Crushing On Right Now

December 21, 2012 By Tara Wagner | The Organic Sister

{We interrupt this Christmas Vacation to bring you some random tidbits of inspiration. Why? Because sometimes the holidays require a bit of interruption, and because I’m still too lost in creating my own quiet space to offer you anything…you know, substantial or coach-y. }

Imagine Dragons – Radioactive: Damn proud to say I loved them before they made it big. {I’m usually way behind the curve to every claim such a thing.}

Mumford & Sons – White Blank Page: This is one of those “behind the curve” artists. Yes, I just found them and I’m working my way through their older stuff. This song = swoon.

Broken Bells – The Ghost Inside: I’m sure what it is about this song that pulls me in, but it IS great for art journaling.

Lindsey Sterling – Crystallize: I love the mix of classic and edge lately.

And some non-music balm to feed the spirit too:

♥ Alanis Morissette On Why America Must Embrace the Feminine: I think I’ve loved Alanis since I was 12. The women seems to speak to exactly where I am, every single time she speaks.

♥ Extreme Parenting Video: The only thing extreme about this is the amount of love, compassion, strength, and courage of these beautiful mothers.

♥ “Why does it hurt you if I don’t hate myself?” – This is an older one I found in my Inspiring Shit folder that I wish everyone could absorb.

♥ The Goddess of Never Not Broken – I’m going back to read this one again; it draws me in like a long, deep breath.

Edited to add a couple more:

♥ 10 Ten Survival Tips for Highly Sensitive People – Something I feel I’ve done too much neglecting of lately.

♥ Susannah Conway’s Unravelling the Year Ahead (free download) – Looking forward to digging into this and having my socks rocked clean off.

Happy Solstice and End-of-the-World Weekend, sweet souls.

Filed under: Inspiration Tagged with links, music, videos

Meet Peter Gray, PhD: Psychologist AND Organic Parenting Contributor! Eeeeee!

September 4, 2012 By Tara Wagner | The Organic Sister

The nerd in me (okay, that IS me) pretty much fell in love with Peter Gray when I found his articles on Psychology Today a few years back.

He’s an evolutionary developmental psychologist and research professor of psychology at Boston College with an interest in alternative approaches to education with an emphasis on autonomous play. (Human nature + asking good questions + alternative anything + autonomy + play? You can see my fascination.)

And then my heart really went all pitter-patter when he replied to my invitation to join the Organic Parenting e-course with “How could I refuse!” ♥

I’d like to introduce him in two different ways:

By sharing snips from our interview, which comes as part of the e-course, and
By sharing some of my favorite articles of his so you can get to know his message.

Let’s start with my favorite articles:

How To Advise and Help Your Kid Without Driving Them (or yourself) Crazy: This is more than just a list of ideas. This is data, knowledge, deeper understanding of our child’s biological needs and how we can meet them.
Video Game Addiction: Does It Occur? If So, Why? I love this man. Logic, reason…without all the fear-mongering. Please read this one for a balanced, non-hyperbole, and educated perspective.
Minimally Invasive Education: Lessons from India: This was one of the first articles I ever read of his, one of the one’s I found most fascinating, yet at the same time just makes total sense.
Kids Learn Math Easily When They Control Their Own Learning: Ah, math. One of those phobic topics we all fear and fear our children will fear. I greatly appreciated this insight from Peter.
Why Young Children Protest Bedtime: A Story of Evolutionary Mismatch: Another one of his older posts that I appreciated. It’s one thing to one something intuitively, it’s another to see the “evidence”….it’s quite another to see the evidence confirming what your intuition told you!

And without further ado, some scenes from our interview in the Organic Parenting e-course:

Have you joined the Organic Parenting e-course?

Mindful. Gentle. Empathetic. Patient. Respectful. Conscious. Centered. Playful. Connected. Cooperative. Wonderful. Authentic. Responsive. Energetic. Deep. Warm. Interest-Led. Autonomous. Engaged. Enjoyable. Challenging (the good kind). Grounded. Friendly. Spiritual. Trusting. Thoughtful. Compassionate. Flowing. Confident. Silly. Shining. Supportive. Supported.

Are these the words that resonate parenting for you?

Do you want them to be?

Click here to learn more about the e-course beginning on September 17th!

Filed under: Organic Learning, Organic Parenting Tagged with autonomy, links, peter gray, Playing, unschooling, videos

May :: Newness, Highlights and Linky Love

May 31, 2012 By Tara Wagner | The Organic Sister

I’m really still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it’s June. I’ve been way too busy over these past two months to properly savor each of them and I’m mindfully working at slowing things down over here.

Being busy sucks, and it’s toxic if it’s not a good busy. Our busy has been both good and bad, full of stress and overflowing with goodness. Ah, contrast…

May’s Newness ::

♥ I’ve tweaked a few things on my site and am loving my new header and the new layout for my tools. I’ve also fixed the annoyng issue of the font not working in Chrome. Since my new design launched in March it’s been nonstop tweaking and fixing. Let me know what you think or if anything isn’t working properly for you!

♥ The Organic Business Mastermind is running again for the third time. We start on Monday!! (There are still last minute spots open if you’re ready to jump in now!) I’m really excited for these groups. Thriving to me means doing what we love and are called to do. Making that happen for myself, helping other women make that happen…it lights me up like no other.

♥ The Conscious Caravan is officially launching for the summer! We are traveling with a tribe of families to inspire, connect and educate families in communities around the country. These families fill my heart so much, I can’t even put it into words yet. (Hop over here to contribute to our outreach and get goodies from me and the rest of the Caravan!)

May’s Highlights

Here are some of the popular posts from this month:

♥ Yes, You Survived – Have you ever had someone reply to you that they “survived being spanked” as a child and so will their children? Send them this post.

♥ Connecting With Children Doesn’t Have To Be Awkward – It used to be awkward for me to connect with children. But then I started meeting children who insisted I get over that.

♥ The Mother’s Day Meditation – If you haven’t grabbed it yet, you still can download it for free here.

♥ Making Time Together :: Yoga in the Woods – I’m sharing this one just so everyone can see my rockstar partner do the wheel.

Inspiration from May

♥ Best. proposal. ever.

♥

This video doesn’t even need an intro:

♥ Okay so this may not be real but it’s a damn good story about how Lincoln thought up Facebook first anyway.

♥ We missed the solar eclipse being on the East Coast but I’m hoping we get to see the transit of Venus next week!

♥ I love personal growth. Bit of a junkie actually. I’m also a bit of an organizational junkie (which you wouldn’t know if you saw my RV right now). Which is why I like this article on developing your own personal curriculum.

♥ I work with so many women (every one of them and myself included actually) on the messages we picked up on as children and how they are still influencing us. Here are three of the most popular we are inadvertently teaching our kids.

♥ Okay, this is just plain cool. You really have to take a moment for your eyes to compute these are NOT real fish! Be sure to read how he creates them – one layer at a time!!

♥ How fascinating is this idea, to find a whole sea of creatures on a moon?

Filed under: Inspiration Tagged with conscious caravan, links

April :: Inspiration, Newness + Highlights

April 30, 2012 By Tara Wagner | The Organic Sister

I haven’t done a post like this since October, which should be an indication of either how much fun we’ve been having or how poor of a memory I have. I’ll let you determine which.

April’s Highlights

Oh man, April both rocked my face off and threatened to overwhelm me.

♥ I started a new weekly series where I take some of the quotes I place on Facebook and expand on them on the blog every Friday. You can find more here.

♥ The Great Blog Comment Debate Everyone has an opinion that really only fits themselves. This one is mine.

♥ Anxiety, Overwhelm, Sorrow :: And All I Heard Was Love It was one intense, exhausting, heartbreaking, beautiful and wonderful weekend.

♥ Feeling Too Drained to Take Care of You? Yeah, I got there this month. Below is the video that got me back.

April’s Newness

♥ I can add headline speaker to my resume. Just sayin. It was scary and intimidating and I loved almost every minute of it (except those moments where I wanted to turn and flee).

♥ Organic Home Health Justin and I have fallen in love with essential oils for the incredible things they’ve done for our health lately and have begin to promote the uses of essential oils on Sustainable Baby Steps.

♥ I’m working on several new projects right now for the coming months and am not sure which to focus on first. I’d love to hear from you on what you’d most love to see. Can you let me know here?

April’s Inspiration

♥ Unschooling on Mothering.com A great article on unschooling. And it was a funny little surprise that I got quoted in it!

♥ Your Child Does NOT Thrive on Routine One of my clients, Patti, is totally inspiring me with her words on parenting this month. Must read.

♥ I’ve Gotta Be Me This just makes me smile.

♥ And the song below is already a fave but this version is just so good.

♥ And this one below by Passion Pit, I can’t even explain how much I love it.

♥ Your 5 Customers For my entrepreneur sistahs out there, I love Naomi’s insights like whoa.

♥ Confidence Coin Necklace Love! In fact, I love just about everything they offer.

♥ Behind the Blog Doh! I think I forgot to share this with you. Or I forgot to delete it from my Must Share list. Either way make sure you check out Erin’s podcast here.

♥ Releasing Relationships A sweet mama friend, Kate, just released her very first ebook and it’s gorgeous and powerful.

♥ Are you a hot woman? Mm, this was just yummy.

♥ Metta in Mantras* And I’m still loving all over this meditation from Jenn. So much so that that’s an affiliate link. Oh yes it is.

What’s Been Inspiring You This Month?

Filed under: Inspiration Tagged with links, videos

8 Strategies to Fill Your Cup, Tea Parties with Fear and RootsofShe.com

January 16, 2012 By Tara Wagner | The Organic Sister

Have you heard of Roots of She?

It’s this gorgeous website offered by this beautiful woman, Jenn Gibson, to help you create connection, joy and solidarity in your life.

I’m part of her Winter Tribe, offering bits of Organic Wisdom every other week. And it dawned on me that I hadn’t shared those links with you!

Post #1: One Last Tea Party With Fear

Post #2: 8 Strategies to Fill Your Cup, Even When You “Don’t Have Enough Time”

There’s four more posts to come before spring!

Jenn has also been my coaching client for the last several months, meaning I’ve had the honor to know her, her vision and her heart and soul deeply and intimately, and let me just say, Wow! Jenn is doing some beautiful things in her world and to watch her and support her has been incredible and inspiring and seriously…fun!

Here’s a peak into what our work together has looked like: