Awesome Stories 259

/ February 6, 2016

This week Awesome Stories brings you inspired writing, breastmilk healing, simple living, car sharing and compassion.

Miraculous Breastmilk

Being a single guy who never had children, I’m out of the loop, but this article blew my mind. I knew there are a lot of reasons to breastfeed our children, including better health, less sickness, bonding and intelligence, but now researchers are showing that a mother’s milk actually adapts to the needs of the child. Through saliva from the child entering the mother’s system, signals are sent telling the body what the baby needs. The breastmilk creates antibodies to balance pathogens found in the saliva! In other words, breastfeeding makes it possible for babies to tell mothers exactly what they need through this miraculous feedback loop. And researchers found stem cells in breastmilk that might be used for regenerative medicine. Wow!

Adventures in Words and Spirit

Michael of Embracing Forever has a beautiful and unique way of nudging us toward lives of love and unity. Reading his posts, sometimes I feel like a sweater being tossed around the washing machine, trying to shake off the drudges of life. Other times his posts lift me to the stars with gentle love and humor. Here is Michael’s latest adventure with Hafiz called The Delicious Letdown of Losing Oneself.

Living Large with Simple LivingGiving Large, simple living

Here’s a different approach to living large. Jeff Kaufman and Julia Wise are a young couple in Boston who give a large portion of their incomes away to charities. They realized that they don’t need a lot of stuff or income to be happy and feel good about making generous contributions to people and organizations they want to help. Despite a combined income over $100,000, they live on about $15,000 and give away most of the rest. I too value simplicity and am considering starting a business to help people downsize, live simply, starting with decluttering their lives to free up time and energy to enjoy life. Have you experienced the joys of living simply?

GM Car Sharing

GM (along with Ford and BMW) has jumped into the car-sharing business with their new Maven service in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They understand that less young people feel the need to own a car and many of us would prefer to share our resources, including cars. GM estimates that over 5 million people use riding sharing services like Uber or Lyft, and has partnered with ride service company Lyft. I have friends who both use Uber and drive for Uber. The world of cars is changing rapidly. Experts predict that we will have autonomous self-driving cars on the roads in mass in the next few years, and GM seems to be working towards integrating as many approaches to mobility as possible.

Storm the Media with Compassion

This was a hard video to watch for me. I had to quiet my judgments and preconceptions about Monica Lewinski, which of course reinforces her point. I didn’t know her side, only the mass hysteria put out by the media and internet. I admire her courage to talk about her story and public shaming. I’d like to hear more about the solutions and agree wholeheartedly with her main points. Her perspective is that we need to be intentional in our use of words and the web, offering much more compassion. Our media feeds and thrives on fear, negativity and attach. Let’s take back the media and use it to understand and uplift, like I strive to do here on my blog.

May we hold each other in gentle arms, offering kindness and compassion.

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31 thoughts on “Awesome Stories 259”

  1. Have to say, I am glad Monica got to have her say, I agree with a lot of what she had to say and I believe her TED talk will give many people food for thought.

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  5. The breast milk story blew me away and reminded me a lot of what I learned while studying herbs – the herbs I grow will develop the chemical components that I personally need for improved well-being. Same story with mother’s milk. Tell me what kind of higher intelligence is at work here….

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  8. Hi Brad,

    The breast milk article was truly fascinating. Reminds me of a talk I had once with a water researcher from Japan, who predicted the day would come when we would be creating different energetic signatures in water based on the daily needs of the body. Nature, of course, is way ahead…

    Thanks for the link!

    Much Love
    Michael

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