Muscle of the Month I hope will be an easy access tool to study or become familiar with different muscles and muscle groups of the body. I’ve added a link to a video that show anatomy and movement for reference here:
https://youtu.be/D3GVKjeY1FM
Thanks Arlando

I must give a huge shout out to The Books of Discovery Team for the use of these lovely images and permission to publish them here . . https://booksofdiscovery.com/product/trail-guide-to-the-body-flashcards-complete-set-6th-edition/ The above link takes to their latest edition. On the site we will using an earlier 4th edition.

We’re gonna start with Muscles of the Shoulder and Arm. These 3 cards give you a complete view of shoulder arm area. Starting next month we’ll be showcasing one or two muscle each month until we cover this complete muscle group. WooHoo!

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I love all the points that the author makes about living with an empath. At one point, Rebecca mentions that empathy is a blessing and a curse, and I couldn’t agree more. Speaking as an empath and operating more from my feeling center than thinking center, these are some observations about how to live as an empath.

1. Honor and appreciate the empathic, feeling state of consciousness.

Empaths often experience pressure for being different. Operating from the heart is a trait which the modern world looks down upon. Being different brings a great deal of challenges. It’s easy to be misunderstood by others, and then to take their disapproval within. Most sensitives that I have encountered try to deny this aspect of themselves at great cost.

Being empathic is a normal human trait. It’s a gift to be attuned within and without. Sensing moods of people and tones in environments is an essential ability for health. I’d even say that it’s a core survival trait: knowing who and what is a danger to oneself and one’s family.

2. Identify how empathic consciousness is different from thought consciousness.

Day and night have obvious differences because they are observable with the eye. Empathic awareness is much harder to identify because it cannot be seen. It is only felt and experienced within. By identifying the differences in how empathy works, its traits turn from a curse to a blessing. By knowing when the mind and its thoughts are dominant, self-knowledge is attained. Thoughts and feelings are different, and recognizing the differences and their internal results is liberating.

Rather than being pulled by energetic tides, observation gives a powerful defensive response to remain centered.

3. Believe your intuition—it is accurate.

Most empaths deny their gut-instinct. Never do this. Your intuition is accurate. This does not mean that the feeling can be fully understood or embraced. The knowledge may be incomplete. Yet, the feeling itself is real and there is a deeper communication occurring that needs to be embraced.

4. Just because it can be felt does not mean the observation is complete or fully understood.

Making assumptions based on a felt observation is a huge pitfall for sensitives. The connection between the feeling and thinking states has just as many complications as communication between men and women. The feeling and mental states are simply different. Reflecting on what the feelings may be trying to reveal is wise. Jumping to conclusions can bring disastrous results.

Because emotions are always in flux and have various depths, the messages may be mixed and hidden. They can change. Details and subtleties may become apparent with reflection and taking time to understand.

5. Notice the changing feelings within and identify key emotional states and what influences them.

One of the biggest gifts for an empath is relating to feelings and identifying different emotional states. This is similar to a musician who can identify different musical tones or an artist who recognizes various shades of colors.

The internal emotional landscape can change based on external influences; different people, environments, foods, sounds, scents and more can alter the empathic response. Being able to know who, what, how and why these feelings change enables empathy to become a gift. Rather than being driven by empathy, it allows responsiveness.

6. Nurture the states of feeling that you want to live with.

In being responsive and knowing which internal emotional states matter, empaths can do what it takes to feel right. A musician knows to play certain combinations to make particular sounds, and an artist knows which color combinations will create the desired form.

An empath can sculpt their emotional landscape by bringing into their life more of what works, and releasing what doesn’t.

7. Empaths are also “feeling” projectors.

Most empaths are unaware that the ability to sense emotions also grants the ability to project them. The influence happens regardless if one is aware of it or not.

An empath can influence the moods and feelings of other people and can alter the energetic climate of a room, eventor group of people. Most empaths do this unknowingly. Once you are able to see how this happens, it enables your mere presence to be a gift to others. It can also become a silent language, speaking disapproval or discontent without saying a word or even moving a muscle.

Awakening to this aspect of empathy empowers the sensitive to take responsibility for their sphere of influence and how their own moods, feelings and emotions can impact their family, friends and environments. This is why it is essential for empaths to wake up to their ability—honoring, appreciating, recognizing and taking responsibility for what happens within themselves.

8. Find ways to be an expressive empath through creative channels.

Empaths often don’t feel heard or understood. It is an internal domain that many people never understand. To rely on others for self-understanding can become a detriment and distraction.

More importantly, empaths often don’t know how to express their spirit. Other channels of communication are essential for getting those feelings out. Art, writing, music, dance, science—any form of active creativity that channels the creative source into tangible results clears the internal channels and is self-nurturing.

To close, I share the words of my most favored wisdom guides.

“May the force be with you.”

~ Yoda

Originally published at elephant journal.
Editor: Cat Beekmans

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BY MARIA POPOVA

Friendship, C.S. Lewis believed, “like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself … has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” But the poetic beauty of this sentiment crumbles into untruth for anyone who has ever been buoyed from the pit of despair by the unrelenting kindness of a friend, or whose joys have been amplified by a friend’s warm willingness to bear witness.

Illustration by Maurice Sendak from a vintage ode to friendship by Janice May Udry
I often puzzle over the nature, structure, and function of friendship in human life — a function I have found to be indispensable to my own spiritual survival and, I suspect, to that of most human beings. But during a recent interview on Think Again, I found myself concerned with the commodification of the word “friend” in our culture. We call “friends” peers we barely know beyond the shallow roots of the professional connection, we mistake mere mutual admiration for friendship, we name-drop as “friends” acquaintances associating with whom we feel reflects favorably on us in the eyes of others, thus rendering true friendship vacant of Emerson’s exacting definition. We have perpetrated a corrosion of meaning by overusing the word and overextending its connotation, compressing into an imperceptible difference the vast existential expanse between mere acquaintanceship and friendship in the proper Aristotelian sense.

In countering this conflation, I was reminded of philosopher Amelie Rorty’s fantastic 1976 taxonomy of the levels of personhood and wondered what a similar taxonomy of interpersonhood might look like. I envisioned a conception of friendship as concentric circles of human connection, intimacy, and emotional truthfulness, each larger circle a necessary but insufficient condition for the smaller circle it embraces. “I live my life in widening circles,” Rilke

Within the ether of strangers — all the humans who inhabit the world at the same time as we do, but whom we have not yet met — there exists a large outermost circle of acquaintances. Inside it resides the class of people most frequently conflated with “friend” in our culture, to whom I’ve been referring by the rather inelegant but necessarily descriptive term person I know and like. These are people of whom we have limited impressions, based on shared interests, experiences, or circumstances, on the basis of which we have inferred the rough outlines of a personhood we regard positively.

Even closer to the core is the kindred spirit — a person whose values are closely akin to our own, one who is animated by similar core principles and stands for a sufficient number of the same things we ourselves stand for in the world. These are the magnifiers of spirit to whom we are bound by mutual goodwill, sympathy, and respect, but we infer this resonance from one another’s polished public selves — our ideal selves — rather than from intimate knowledge of one another’s interior lives, personal struggles, inner contradictions, and most vulnerable crevices of character.

Some kindred spirits become friends in the fullest sense — people with whom we are willing to share, not without embarrassment but without fear of judgment, our gravest imperfections and the most anguishing instances of falling short of our own ideals and values. The concentrating and consecrating force that transmutes a kinship of spirit into a friendship is emotional and psychological intimacy. A friend is a person before whom we can strip our ideal self in order to reveal the real self, vulnerable and imperfect, and yet trust that it wouldn’t diminish the friend’s admiration and sincere affection for the whole self, comprising both the ideal and the real.

It is important to clarify here that the ideal self is not a counterpoint to the real self in the sense of being inauthentic. Unlike the seeming self, which springs from our impulse for self-display and which serves as a kind of deliberate mask, the ideal self arises from our authentic values and ideals. Although it represents an aspirational personhood, who we wish to be is invariably part of who we are — even if we aren’t always able to enact those ideals. In this sense, the gap between the ideal self and the real self is not one of insincerity but of human fallibility. The friend is one who embraces both and has generous patience for the rift between the two. A true friend holds us lovingly accountable to our own ideals, but is also able to forgive, over and over, the ways in which we fall short of them and can assure us that we are more than our stumbles, that we are shaped by them but not defined by them, that we will survive them with our personhood and the friendship intact.

For a complementary perspective, see poet and philosopher David Whyte on the true meaning of friendship and John O’Donohue on the ancient Celtic notion of “soul-friend.”

Special thanks to my friend Wendy MacNaughton for the diagrammatic inspiration

The post Reclaiming Friendship: A Visual Taxonomy of Platonic Relationships to Counter the Commodification of the Word “Friend” appeared first on Heartland Massage & Bodywork Center.

Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing.

It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.

It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day.

A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.

True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to not build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.

And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.

It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.

It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.

The act of self-care has become yet another thing women are expected to be good at. Did you use the right filter for that ‘gram of your impeccably prepared acai bowl? Are the candles you just lit in your Snap story made from organic hand-poured soy or are they that mass-produced factory shit? And how can we stem the inevitable capitalist tide from turning something as simple as self-care into yet another thing to be bought and sold? These are all things I wrestle with as I order Dominos in sweatpants under the guise of ‘being good to myself.’
– quote via Amil Niazi

If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.

It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself… and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.

It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. It means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others. It is being honest even if that means you aren’t universally liked. It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people.

It is becoming the person you know you want and are meant to be. Someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life – not escape from it. TC mark

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BY Jessica Stillman
Contributor, Inc.com@EntryLevelRebel
http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/10-signs-you-have-exceptional-mental-strength.html?cid=sf01002

Just a few weeks ago here on Inc.com we published advice from psychotherapist Amy Morin laying out bad habits you need to break if you want to achieve incredible mental strength. But what if you read the list and were inspired to give your brain a workout, axing unhelpful thought patterns from your life and boosting your resilience? Certainly, you’d want to be able to gauge how you were doing.

Are you average when it comes to mental strength or has putting in some effort made you more resilient than most? In a follow-up piece on Business Insider, Morin offers a huge list of 21 tells that indicate your efforts are bearing fruit and that you’re now more mentally strong than most folks.

You can check out the complete list for a really deep dive, or read on for a taster of 10 signs of mental strength to watch out for if you’re looking to monitor your progress and celebrate your newfound resilience.

1. You balance emotion and logic
You can’t make good decisions without some emotion, but you can’t make good decisions with too much emotion either. The truly resilient strike the right balance. “Mentally strong people understand how their emotions can influence their thinking. In an effort to make the best decisions possible, they balance their emotions with logic,” Morin says.

2. You feel confident you can adapt to change
Change is a constant. That reality doesn’t stress out the truly mentally strong. “Mentally strong people know that although change is uncomfortable, it’s tolerable. They focus their energy on adapting to change, rather than resisting it,” claims Morin.

3. You face your fears
Everyone has fears and not every one of them needs to be conquered, but the very resilient among us “strive to face the fears that hold them back,” Morin says.

4. You learn from your mistakes.
Don’t justify them. Don’t hide from them. Learn from them. That’s what mentally strong people do.

5. You balance self-acceptance with self-improvement
This is tough to get right, but according to Morin, “mentally strong people accept themselves for who they are, while simultaneously recognizing their need for personal development.”

6. You celebrate others’ success
If you truly feel strong, there’s nothing to fear when others do well–in fact, there’s a great reason to celebrate. The truly mentally strong “don’t feel as though other people’s success somehow diminishes their own achievements,” Morin says. So if you sense your feelings of envy are diminishing, take it as a good sign that your resilience is improving.

7. You live according to your values
“Mentally strong people make decisions with relative ease because they understand their priorities and they live according to their values,” notes Morin.

8. You don’t need to achieve to feel good about yourself
It’s natural to feel good when you succeed and bad when you fail, but the mentally strong don’t let the ups and downs of life interfere with their essential self-image. “Mentally strong people feel good about themselves, whether they win or lose,” Morin insists. Next time life deals you a blow, then, notice how deeply it affects you. If you can shrug it off more easily without feeling too bad about yourself, congratulations! You’ve likely achieved a high measure of mental strength.

9. You express gratitude
It’s easy to look around and see all the things you lack, but the mentally strong choose to focus their attention on the things they do have–and feel grateful for them. Do you?

10. You don’t try to hide your weaknesses
Not only does trying to mask your weaknesses waste your energy, it also makes you less likely to put in the work necessary to improve these areas. “While many people work hard to disguise their vulnerabilities, mentally strong people invest their energy into improving their shortcomings,” Morin says.

How many of these 10 behaviors do you exhibit?

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Track illnesses and share them as health warnings for others with the help of Illerts,https://apps.facebook.com/illerts/.
Illerts is a new, free, and easy-to-use Facebook app designed to function as an early warning system of illnesses as they spread across the globe. Developed by Transparent Solutions, Illerts allows you to track everyday illnesses, conditions, symptoms, treatments and immunizations for yourself and the people or pets in your care. All identifying information is removed from reports, so it’s easy to share while maintaining confidentiality. This winter, we hope you and your family are well, but if you do have any illnesses, please take a few seconds to track this in Illerts. Feel free to pass along this information to your friends and family!

Note:

I wish illerts had been around when I was raising my sons . . .  no pieces of paper to lose.  See what you think!

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Simple..place the lemon in the freezer section of your refrigerator. Once the lemon is frozen, get your grater, and shred the whole lemon (no need to peel it) and sprinkle it on top of your foods.

Sprinkle it to your whisky, wine, vegetable salad, ice cream, soup, noodles, spaghetti sauce, rice, sushi, fish dishes. All of the foods will unexpectedly have a wonderful taste, something that you may have never tasted before. Most likely, you only think of lemon juice and vitamin C.

Not anymore. Now that you’ve learned this lemon secret, you can use lemon even in instant cup noodles.

What’s the major advantage of using the WHOLE lemon other than
preventing waste and adding new taste to your dishes?

Well, you see lemon peels contain as much as 5 to 10 times more
vitamins than the lemon juice itself. And yes, that’s what you’ve been wasting. But from now on, by following this simple procedure of freezing the whole lemon, then grating it on top of your dishes, you can consume all of those nutrients and get even healthier.
It’s also good that lemon peels are health rejuvenators in eradicating toxic elements in the body.

So place your lemon in your freezer, and then grate it on your meal every day. It is a key to make your foods tastier and you get to live healthier and longer! That’s the lemon secret!

Better late than NEVER!

The surprising benefits of lemon!
Lemon (Citrus) is a miraculous product to kill cancer cells. It is 10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy.

Why do we not know about that? Because there are laboratories
interested in making a synthetic version that will bring them huge profits.
You can now help a friend in need by letting him/her know that lemon juice is beneficial in preventing the disease. Its taste is pleasant and it does not produce the horrific effects of chemotherapy. How many people will die while this closely guarded secret is kept, so as not to jeopardize the beneficial multimillionaires large corporations?
As you know, the lemon tree is known for its varieties of lemons and limes. You can eat the fruit in different ways: you can eat the pulp, juice press, prepare drinks, sorbets, pastries, etc…
It is credited with many virtues, but the most interesting is the effect it produces on cysts and tumors. This plant is a proven remedy against cancers of all types. Some say it is very useful in all variants of cancer.

It is considered also as an anti microbial spectrum against bacterial infections and fungi, effective against internal parasites and worms, it regulates blood pressure which is too high and an anti-depressant, combats stress and nervous disorders.
The source of this information is fascinating: it comes from one of the largest drug manufacturers in the world, says that after more than 20 laboratory tests since 1970, the extracts revealed that: It destroys the malignant cells in 12 cancers, including colon, breast, prostate, lung and pancreas …
The compounds of this tree showed 10,000 times better than the product Adriamycin, a drug normally used chemotherapeutic in the world, slowing the growth of cancer cells. And what is even more astonishing: this type of therapy with lemon extract only destroys malignant cancer cells and it does not affect healthy cells.

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Benefits, Qualities and Uses of Lemon
The Ayurveda has regarded lemon as a valuable fruit and admired its properties. Lemon is sour, warm, promoter of gastric fire, light, good for vision, pungent and astringent. It checks the excessive flow of bile and cleanses the mouth. It dislodges phlegm (cough) and expels wind from the digestive tract. It helps in digestion and removes constipation. It prevents vomiting, throat trouble, acidity and rheumatism. It destroys intestinal worms.

Though lemon is acidic to the taste, it leaves off alkaline residues in the body. This is why it is useful in all symptoms of acidosis.

Lemon-juice is a powerful antibacterial. It has been proved by experiments that the bacteria of malaria, cholera, diphtheria, typhoid and other deadly diseases are destroyed in lemon-juice.

It also contains some vitamin A. Natural vitamin C is much more effective than the synthetic one. Vitamin C of lemon-juice is very effective because it is combined with bioflavonoids (vitamin P). In addition to Vitamin C, lemon also contains niacin and thiamin in small amounts.

One should not take concentrated lemon-juice. It should be diluted with water before taking it. Pure lemon­juice contains acid which is injurious to the enamel of teeth.

The body is well cleansed if lemon-juice mixed with cold water and honey is taken on an empty stomach early in the morning. Warm water may be used occasionally to get relieved of constipation.

Lemon-juice prevents or restrains influenza, malaria and cold.

Lemon-juice gives good relief in fever. Lemon-juice mixed with water is useful in quenching the thirst of the patients suffering from diabetes. It gives immediate relief in abdominal disorders. Lemon acts as a sedative for the nerves and the heart and allays troublesome palpitation.

Lemon is especially appreciated for its Vitamin C value. When Vasco da Gama made his voyage round the Cape of Good Hope nearly two-thirds of his crew died of scurvy. But at present the recurrence of such a disaster is no longer possible owing to the widespread use of lemon. Innumerable boatmen moving in sea have saved their lives with the use of lemon.

Vitamin P in lemon strengthens the blood vessels and prevents internal hemorrhage. It is, therefore, extremely useful in high blood pressure, in which cerebro-vascular accidents commonly occur.

The most valuable ingredient of lemon, next to vitamin C, is citric acid, of which it contains 7.2 per cent. Lemon contains more potassium than apple or grapes, which is beneficial to the heart.

Lemon is very much useful in maintaining the health of the teeth and the bones. The vitamin C content of lemon helps considerably in calcium metabolism.

Lemon has been used for many years in gout and rheumatism. Lemon-juice is a diuretic. It, therefore, gives relief in kidney and bladder disorders. It has been used in destroying intestinal worms. It prevents vomiting and helps to cure hepatitis and other innumerable diseases.

Lemon has been proved to be a blessing for mountaineers. In the cases of insufficient oxygen and difficulty in breathing lemon comes to their rescue. Edmund Hillary, the first man to put his foot on the top of Mt. Everest, has admitted that his victory over Mt. Everest was greatly due to lemon.

www.vitaminsdiary.com

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Stiff muscles definitely benefit from a rub down, but scientists have never quite known why. Now, a team of researchers has shown that it works by changing your gene expression — quite literally, your body is hard-coded to release pain-easing chemicals when you’re massaged.

If you listen to people in the world of alternative medicine, they’ll normally tell you that massage “releases toxins”. That is bull, and scientists know it. But knowing an answer is wrong doesn’t give you the right one. No, doing some science does.

So, a team of researchers from McMaster University decided to look at what massage does on a cellular level. Their findings appear in Science Transnational Medicine, and they’re actually pretty surprising. In reaction to massage, the body changes gene expression to reduce inflammation and promote repair of muscle fibers.

How the hell did they work that out? First, they rounded up 11 men and made them “cycle to the point of exhaustion”. Then they randomly chose one leg from each guy to massage, and left the other one alone. Just when the volunteers thought the pain was over, the researchers took a muscle biopsy from both the massaged and non-massaged calves both 10 and 190 minutes later.

From those biopsies, they could work out what was happening at a cellular level, by analyzing the level of messenger RNA (mRNA) in the samples. mRNA acts, as its name suggests, just like a messenger: it tells the body to increase or decrease the rate of production of proteins that affect how our body works.

Turns out that the massaged legs had all been informed by mRNA to produce more of a protein called PGC-1alpha and less of one called NFkB. In English? Well, increased levels of PGC-1 alpha leads to the creation of more mitochondria, which in turn generates energy for cell growth. Basically, it increases the rate of muscle fiber repair. Reduced levels of NFkB, on the other hand, reduces inflammation.

So, while it’s not only nice to feel the hands of an attractive masseuse over your body, it also does actually do you some good, on a cellular level. Now you just need to convince your partner. [Science Transnational Medicine via Discover; Image: o5com]

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Watch the video above to find out how far your donated dollar goes at World Vision.[–here!–]
* * *
One of the most practical pieces of advice ever given on the subject of making a difference in the world came from none other than Mother Teresa when she said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”

While we often believe it takes an ground-breaking discovery, a life-saving cure, or a million dollars to change the world, a simple evaluation of our finances can make an enormous difference. When you examine your finances and find ways to give money to worthwhile causes, you can embrace stewardship and a lifestyle of charitable giving.

Start by making a difference in yourself
1. Educate yourself

Before you can help others, you need to help yourself. Read books, read blogs, and learn how to get organized and make a budget. This puts you in a better position to pass along knowledge and to have money available to give.

2. Be honest with yourself

There are more important things in life than having a lot of money, but we often forget this principle. Build a spirit of giving and regularly remind yourself that the most important things in life can’t be bought. To begin making a change, take some time each week to think about how you can better yourself.

3. Establish a budget

Treat money management as a high priority in your life instead of an afterthought. Take the initiative to set up a budget and live by it, rather than going into debt and having to clean up the mess later. Simply put, the more aware you are of how much money you have coming in and how much is going out, the better able you’ll be to manage it and spend according to your priorities, such as charitable giving.

Effective money management helps you succeed and sets a positive example for others, such as your friends and family members who may need inspiration to manage money more wisely.

4. Save money in your everyday life

Look for ways to save money — because every dollar saved is a dollar that can be donated. Here are some ideas:

Use coupons when you shop for groceries.
Replace disposable items with reusable items.
Start your own vegetable garden to save money at the grocery store.
Do it yourself instead of hiring a professional whenever you can.
Utilize the dollar stores for certain products.
Make your own household cleaners and homemade laundry detergents.

5. Save for retirement

Start a tax-advantaged retirement account so that not only will you be able to afford retirement, but so you are able to continue a lifestyle of giving. Contributing to an IRA, Roth IRA, or your company’s 401(k) is a very efficient way to save for your future, since you reduce your taxable income; it’s one of the first steps in preparing and planning for retirement. Furthermore, if you save enough, you may want to pass on your assests to charity at the end of your life.

Make a difference among your family and friends

6. Work as a team within your immediate family

Spouses often don’t discuss finances, and can find themselves on different pages when it comes to money. This may result in an overspending spouse or even financial infidelity.

Instead of avoiding talks about money, work as a team to discuss financial matters on a weekly basis. Furthermore, you may want to involve your kids in some of your financial activities, such as saving change to give to charity or choosing cost-effective meals and groceries.

7. Empower Family and Friends

When you see a friend or family member struggling financially, you may want to loan them money to pay their bills. However, it might be best to avoid lending money to friends or family members, because this could only make their problem worse. They may refuse to repay the loan or find themselves unable to repay. And when you loan people money, you enable their dependencies and poor financial choices.

Ultimately, loaning money can strain or sever a relationship. Instead, sit down with your friend or family member and discuss options to help them handle their finances.

Make a difference in your community and the world

8. Give money to a worthy cause

Give money to a worthwhile cause, and give with joy. Think about what you want to see changed in the world, and look for an organization that supports the cause. This helps you to become more enthusiastic and selfless about your giving. Also, stay connected to see the impact of your gifts — and if you give to an IRS-approved charity, you can deduct the monetary gift on your taxes.

9. Donate unwanted or unneeded possessions

If you cannot afford to give monetary donations, look for other ways to help. For example, you can donate clothing and household goods, ridding your home of clutter and simplifying your life. While you could sell your unwanted items, making the financial decision to forgo that profit makes the world a better place. Here, too, you can claim a charitable donation as a tax deduction. Just make sure you save your receipts!

10. Get involved with organizations

Involving yourself with a charitable organization can be difficult, but it’s also rewarding. You don’t have to give much of your time — perhaps only a few hours a month, or every other month. The key is if you have followed the first few tips and have your own finances under control, you’ll be less stressed and able to give more time and energy to community or world problems.

Regardless of how much time you can devote, giving your time and sharing your abilities really rounds out a true giving of yourself. Additionally, this affords you a real glimpse into an organization that you support.

Do you have other tips for promoting financial stewardship to make the world a better place? We want to hear them — please post your ideas below as comments!

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