by Debbie Mandel

Everyday I receive at least five artistically photographed catalogues urging me to buy jewelry, evening wear, winter apparel, gadgets, cookware and foods. I get advanced sale coupons from department stores flattering me as a “preferred customer.” Commercials on TV and radio have ramped up the must-have-it consumerism. This is the time of year that I worry about my clients who are closet shopaholics – pun intended.

How can you tell if you are a shopaholic? I’m not going to give you one of those typical quizzes where if you check off even one category, you are diagnosed with a problem. And the way the questions are worded, you will surely have experienced at least one of the categories. You and I are both tempted and we succumb occasionally. However, excess shopping might be associated with:

• Emptiness where shopping fills the void
• Disappointment becomes a trigger
• Debt or at least a financial drain
• Impulse purchases
• Weight control. If you weren’t shopping, you would be eating to fill up
• Competition as you need to possess what others have
• Quantity as you buy the same shirt in five different colors

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by Leah Day

While I was pregnant, I read almost every book I could get my hands on that agreed with my viewpoints on birth. That said, I didn’t waste much time on the books or advise I didn’t want. As you may imagine, this created a bubble around my thinking and expectations.

What were my views exactly? Well, here’s a list:

1) In optimal conditions, birth can be a painless, spiritual act. If you do not fear the act of birth itself, then you may not experience the intensity as pain, and the experience may actually be pleasurable.

2) Giving birth at home under my terms and with my husband helping attend will be a bonding experience we will want to look back on for the rest of our lives.

3) Hospitalized, technocratic births are bad for the mother and baby.

4) Giving birth is no big deal — you will be back to work in no time!

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by Leah Day

Hello! I am back! I have been away from this blog for quite some time now busy giving birth to my son, James Ender Day. The experience has been strange, frightening, thrilling, humbling, gratifying, and almost every other emotion in between.

In so many ways I feel as though my whole world has changed and the resultant alien feeling I have can be quite unsettling at times. Like missing a step going downstairs or the punched-in-your-gut feeling of a fast elevator ride it is as though the ground underneath my feet has fallen away and I feel that I am struggling to get back to some glimmer of normalcy.

I have been reading a book about Buddhism and how meditation can help in times like these. The book advises to stop struggling, to exist with that groundlessness and accept the nothingness into my brain with an open heart. In some ways this is unhelpful, but in others I feel comforted.

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by Leah Day

There’s no better way of knowing how you feel about yourself than listening to your inner voice. What is the inner voice? Quite simply it is the voice with whom you talk to yourself. The words that seem to come from nowhere but can affect your actions, mood, decisions, and feelings.

For most of my life I struggled with a very negative inner voice. It told me I was stupid, worthless, and ugly. When something bad would happen to me, my inner voice would tell me I deserved it, that I should expect such treatment because I was so stupid. This negative voice was entirely my invention. It was my mind saying these horrible things. Why would I think so badly of myself? Did I, in fact, believe that I was stupid, worthless, or ugly. Yes, I did.

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