By Debra Bokur
Five women who are helping heal the world
Be the change. We’ve all heard the expression, but how many of us actually apply this principal to our daily actions and exchanges with others, the products we purchase, or by supporting the causes we say we believe in? Today, it’s not enough to simply hope for the best when it comes to finding solutions to the problems that confront society and our planet. The five women featured in the following pages are using their voices, resources, and individual strengths to help create a better world – even when other paths might have been easier to follow. If you’ve ever doubted your ability as an individual to affect powerful change, may you find inspiration here.
Christiane Northrup, MD – Changing the Way We Care for Ourselves
The daughter of a holistically oriented dentist and a mom who made her own yogurt, Northrup grew up eating organic foods and embracing a philosophy of wellness. Today, she is recognized as a world leader in women’s health. A respected author and lecturer who has garnered multiple awards for her work, she travels frequently, leading seminars and speaking at health conferences around the word. The host of several acclaimed national television specials, her books include The Wisdom of Menopause (Rev. ed: Bantam, 2006), Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (Rev. ed: Bantam, 2006), and Mother-Daughter Wisdom: Creating a Legacy of Physical and Emotional Health (Bantam, 2005). When asked what led her on the specific path of exploring, celebrating, and furthering the well-being of women, Northrup explains that it was witnessing the birth of a baby while in medical school that set her on the path of holistic healing for women.
“I’d never seen anything so moving or beautiful,” says Northrup. “Originally, I had planned to do a residency in family practice. I liked the [idea]of caring for the whole family, the community, because I knew that the family unit was the unit of individual health. But when I saw the baby born, it was all about women’s health. I realize now that a healthy woman is the basis for a healthy family, a healthy community, and a healthy planet.
“We’re a culture that loves to grind ourselves into the pavement – and then give a trophy to the one who ground herself the most. But here’s what I know from studying the processes of the female body: they don’t work unless you have cared for yourself, and unless others are caring for you.
“The late feminist essayist Audre Lorde, who died of breast cancer, lived with it for eight years after it had metastasized to her liver. The medical profession gives you six months. In her book Burst of Light (Women’s Press, 1992), she wrote, ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.’ A woman absolutely has to care for herself. Women are too easily taken off the trail by being called selfish. We think, ‘Oh, I’m being so selfish, there’s so much pain and suffering in the world, I’d better not be so self indulgent as to get a pedicure.’ When in fact, if women went in once a month, and let someone take care of their feet, and make them feel special, there would be less illness, fewer migraines, and less cancer.
“If you want to make the world peaceful, you become peaceful. If you want to make the world healthy, and you want to clean up pollution, you clean up your own body and your own life. Each of us is a cell in the greater collective whole, and when we change, the whole world changes. So you begin with yourself, and that’s what takes it out into the whole.” www.drnorthrup.com
Allison Slade – Changing the Way We Learn
Principal Allison Slade of Namaste Charter School in Chicago, an independent public school, has helped to raise the bar on quality education, including the way learning skills are developed and celebrated. Certified in bilingual education, she has served as a teacher, professional developer, mentor, and curriculum designer in both urban and suburban settings. As a member of Teach for America, Slade taught in inner city Houston, embracing the challenges of teaching in underprivileged neighborhoods. Today, her mission is to improve the educational opportunities for young people in Chicago. At Namaste, the curriculum blends instruction in traditional subjects with the importance of nutrition, personal fitness, and the development of social and cultural awareness. A dual-language program is offered, along with classes in yoga, and the Peaceful People Curriculum, a program designed to help facilitate a peaceful learning environment with skills that can be transferred to the world at large. Slade explains that the impetus behind the founding of Namaste was the recognition by herself and a group of like-minded teachers of the need for higher quality educational opportunities for children.
“We thought of what the perfect school would be like,” says Slade, “and that is how we created Namaste. We compiled the best practices we saw in other schools, such as balanced literacy and dual language teaching. We also attacked the barriers to students achieving at their true potential: lack of healthy food, lack of recess and adequate physical activity, parent involvement and support, peaceful problem solving, and lack of access to high quality enrichment programs and year-round programming. Namaste will continue to evolve as it grows and additional needs are identified.
“We work with our staff and students to help them understand and articulate that the holistic philosophy at Namaste is really an avenue for reaching the highest student achievement possible, and that subjects or topics that may seem ancillary – like physical education, nutrition, or peacefulness – are really integral to students achieving at high levels throughout the more traditional academic subjects.
“Peaceful People has been phenomenal for us. The most important facet for us is that it gives the adults and children in the school a common language with which to communicate, and provides adults with language by which they can effectively help students change their behavior, rather than simply reprimanding them. It provides students with the opportunity to safely talk about differences, and work with each other to solve their problems peacefully. It creates a deliberate time and space for the teaching of these tools, and the creation of the students’ skill sets so that they can be successful not only in school, but in life. I actually believe that the world would be a better place if there was a curriculum for adult peaceful people.” www.namastecharterschool.org, www.namasteshares.org
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