Life & Health – Worldwide Organization for Women

Mixed Messages About Anxiety & Fragility

November 23, 2021June 23, 2021 by Nicholeen

The subject of anxiety can be confusing. Anxiety seems to be part of everyday conversation these days. I’ve heard some people shake their heads and call anxiety a “contagious, modern epidemic,” and yet I’ve seen many real, intense anxiety attacks that leave people worn out and hopeless. Some people say that anxiety is something a person can’t overcome, yet I see people, including myself, not give in to anxiety all the time.

Anxiety is real and can be hard to handle sometimes. But, are we using anxiety as an excuse not step out of our comfort zones, thereby encouraging fragility? Who is at risk for anxiety? And, what can we do to lovingly help someone not become fragile or debilitated by their anxiety episodes?

Who Is At Risk For Anxiety?

Everyone is at risk for anxiety, but especially children because their brains aren’t fully developed, which makes them less able to solve their own problems. If everyone experiences anxiety, then why does it seem like we’re having a harder time with anxiety than ever before?

Problems are more pronounced when they are labeled. Nowadays we label anxiety and every other processing difficulty. Our society loves putting people into boxes based on what they think, feel, believe, desire, how they process, or their emotions. The term anxiety is a very common box we put others and ourselves into.

We all experience excitement, stress, fear of the unknown, or lack of knowledge sometimes. Anxiety is less of a diagnosis and more of a moment to get through when it’s called butterflies, nervousness, and stress or concern instead of anxiety. Since overcoming anxiety is common, let’s not use anxiety as an excuse; let’s think of it as an opportunity to step out, overcome, and grow.

It was 1992. My teenage heart seemed to be pounding extra loudly in my chest, my breathing was quicker, my thoughts were racing. What was my line again? I couldn’t remember. It was almost time to go on stage and I wasn’t sure I would even remember my cue. At this point a fellow actor asked me, “Do you ever get nervous before you go on stage?”

This question brought me back to reality. I took a deep breath and responded with, “Yes, I guess I do. I seem to be having some butterflies right now, in fact.”

I was having butterflies, also known as anxiety, but I knew I had to go on that stage and take action despite my anxiety. Long ago I made taking a deep breath and a leap of faith my go-tos for butterflies and anxiety.

After countless plays and singing and speaking opportunities, I don’t get stage anxiety very often, but it occasionally still happens. A few times, when I was young, I completely shut down because of the anxiety, but I eventually learned how to keep going and get myself to calm down and focus.

Playing piano in public was and still is my scariest action to perform. At multiple piano recitals and performances, my brain shut down completely. I didn’t know what line I was on, what the notes were, or where my hands were supposed to go. I really didn’t know. I was overtaken with anxiety. It’s awfully embarrassing to sit at a piano in silence in the middle of a song with people looking on or trying to sing and know my brain has shut down due to stress. By age 21 I taught myself a useful skill; don’t listen to the music or watch the hands, just read the notes and trust. This stopped me from focusing on my anxious feelings.

**There’s Anxiety and Then There’s Anxiety!**

Normal anxiety, like the kind I experienced before going on stage and when publicly playing the piano, is common, but clinical anxiety is not. If a person has clinical anxiety, it will last for a long period of time (6 months or so), the episodes will be extremely intense compared to normal anxiety, and the person will likely be impaired in some way (i.e. not behaving at age level).

How To Help!

For years I did treatment foster care for youth, and many of them had issues with anxiety. No matter if they had clinical anxiety or normal anxiety, the solutions were the same.

This was the recipe I used to help my foster children, and I have since used it to help my biological children and others that I’ve been privileged to be able to help get through anxiousness.

Create a strong bond with the person.
Treat people like people, not conditions.
Do not coddle anyone. Coddling leads to entitlement and more fear.
Think about how much you love the person, even if they are being difficult right now. Make sure that love shows in your eyes, body, and tone of voice.
Remember and remind the person that they can do more than they think they can when they are feeling anxious.
Anxiety can be useful for survival, but it can also stop a person from thriving. Is this person really in danger or just stopping themselves from thriving? If the person is wisely averting an actual danger, then discuss that. If a person is stopping themselves from thriving by not stepping out, then they might need a nudge, an assurance, and a skill to fall back on.
What does a developmentally normal person do to overcome this fear or problem? Even if the person has clinical anxiety, the same skills will work. One important skill I usually teach youth is how to “drop the subject” in their mind.
When a person makes a mistake or fails, that is still a success because they tried. All successful people “fail forward.” Praise their effort and talk about the increased confidence they gained for pushing through the anxiousness or stress.
Help people have a can-do attitude. Doubts hold us back and are often nothing more than lies. Focus on the truths you know instead of the lie that the anxiety is creating in your head.
Help people become anti-fragile by recognizing the signs of anxiety that inhibit thriving and teaching them to say to themselves, “That’s just anxiety. I choose not to think those thoughts anymore. I’m going to take a deep, cleansing breath, and take an action step forward.”

Catering to Anxiety Leads to a Fragility Mindset.

When I was young, people didn’t label or diagnose my panic; they just told me lovingly that panic/anxiety happens sometimes and to keep trying. It used to be commonplace for people to promote mental toughness. It’s true that sometimes people erred by not understanding or showing compassion when trying to teach mental toughness. But, most people taught that as every person learns and grows, they must try new things, occasionally fail and freeze up, and try again. This was the pattern for success. Society and adults didn’t save a person from their mistakes or baby them. Instead, they understood and then helped them make new goals to try again to beat their fear or accomplish their goal. This was motivating and led to increased maturity and problem-solving skill development.

There are three options when anxiety episodes hit us. First, be fragile and allow the anxiety to stop us from doing new or hard things permanently. Second, don’t do a new or hard thing, but then be resilient and decide to try again next time. Third, be anti-fragile by knowing how to regulate anxiety and do that hard or new thing. No matter what, new actions, situations, and changes are hard, but people were engineered to adapt, overcome, and have faith that they can do hard things.

Nicholeen’s free Calm Parenting Toolkit is a great resource for helping you and your loved ones learn the skills of calmness to combat their anxiety.

Making Pedophilia the New Normal?

August 13, 2020August 12, 2020 by Yvonne Averett

Overpriced Furniture?

Facebook owned Instagram recently shutdown an AZ couple from questioning and speculating why human names were attached to particular pieces of furniture and selling for tens of thousands of dollars at an online retailer, which appeared to be ridiculously overpriced. The couple had concerns it could be a front for child or human trafficking. News media outlets quickly responded in domino effect decrying the couple’s suspicions as conspiracy, and then flipped the narrative in trying to make the couple appear suspect. This type of news spin, circling around the media carousel leaves the spectator unsatisfied and more suspicious of something afoul. After all, most online shoppers have come across ridiculously priced items, which apparently if you now question or try to investigate yourself, you are labeled a conspirator and told “nothing to see here.” But the AZ couples’ suspicions are not really so unfounded.

Rumors

Years of rumor are turning out to be factual with the recent allegations of child sex abuse and trafficking in the case of Jeffery Epstein to which the extent of its reaching may never see the light of day. Accusations in the Epstein now turned Ghislaine Maxwell case extend beyond the local red light district and into an international highbrow crowd, who are scrambling to clear their names.

Berlin Authorities Systematically Placed Children with Pedophiles

Germany’s sweeping investigation is making European headlines after it was exposed that in West Berlin, foster children had been systematically placed into the homes of pedophiles over a 30 year span. The nefarious practice was initiated by professor of psychology, Helmet Kentler (1928-2008). He acquired support for his project that reached all the way to the Berlin Senate. Kentler, like Alfred Kinsey, was able to fund the sexual abuse of children as university research, even pairing the sexual predator to the victim in his experiment. Kentler advocated normalizing sex with children, and promoted ideas such as, “sexual contact between children and adults is not harmful,” calling them acts of “love.” The last documented Kentler placement of a child into the home of a known pedophile was in 2003. A valid question yet to be answered is how could a policy of institutionalized child sexual abuse be kept concealed for 30 years? It had to have involved a network of university staff, lawyers, social workers, judges etc. There were rumors over the years with some reporting, yet they remained un-investigated and unanswered until either the statute of limitations came into effect, or after the death of principal participants.

https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-authorities-placed-children-with-pedophiles-for-30-years/a-53814208

Testing the Waters

It was in the 1970’s, during the height of the sexual revolution, that Kentler began his pedophile placement program in Germany. As if on queue, media support in the US and abroad of Kinsey’s fraudulent science on human sexuality, coincided also with two pedophile organizations, North American Man/Boy Love Association, NAMBLA, and British Paedophile Information Exchange, PIE to openly campaign for “children’s sexuality” and laws to lower the age of consent. Today, the same policies are again being repackaged and promoted under such terms as “child sexual rights,” which is a pillar in comprehensive sexuality education now being taught in schools across the globe.

The current legal and political unraveling of sexual norms is again encouraging NAMBLA types to test the waters, and a resurgence of propaganda advocating sex with children has been popping up in social media hangouts, even neighborhood flyers. It seems the uninvited pedophile has aims of inclusion into the alphabet mix of sexuality. Conditioning the public is always part of the process for acceptance. Many have now exposed the Hasbro Troll doll, Poppy, as a possible deviant attempt at grooming children for abuse. Hasbro has since pulled the troll dolls from shelves. The doll had a button between her legs, right where her private parts would be, that could be pushed and sounds like sexual enjoyment would come out of the doll. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF67ZQYWZgQ

Doublespeak

Word choice like “child sexual rights” is very calculated, especially in the political realm. When documents, proclamations, or resolutions contain new language or words that appear obscure or undefined, it is usually a red flag for doublespeak- a combining of Orwell’s “newspeak” and “doublethink.” Ageism is one of those new words. It sounds compassionate to promote communities free from ageism, but it’s not just the elderly that’s included under such ill defined language.

Online Pandemic

The sexual abuse of children may actually be the online pandemic affecting children today, and the internet is the fastest, and easiest means for abusers and traffickers. Germany is now investigating more than 30,000 suspects in an online pedophile probe. Justice Minister Peter Beisenbach in support of the cybercrime unit in Germany’s North Rhine-Wesphalia said, “I did not expect, not even remotely, the extent of child abuse on the internet.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53224444

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45096183

Solutions

This is a difficult subject, because child sexual abuse and sex trafficking is a perpetrator’s attempt to rob the innocence, and to steal the soul from the victim. Just reading about it can induce overwhelming feeling. Thankfully known percentages of abducted missing and exploited children remain low at less than 1%. A large percentage of sexually trafficked youth are runaways, that have been exploited. You can find additional facts at https://www.missingkids.org/footer/media/keyfacts. Unfortunately the exploits of sex abuse in regards to the production and exchange of child pornography remains largely unknown.

Please download two free e-books from WOW’s website, “Simple and Safe” and “Before They Connect” to find out how to keep your family safe.

https://worldwideorganizationforwomen.org/education/before-they-connect/

https://worldwideorganizationforwomen.org/education/simple-safe/

To Learn more about comprehensive sexuality education, and how to keep it out of your child’s school go to https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/

Contact local law enforcement if you have grounds to suspect abuse. A youth that is carrying all their personal belongings, doesn’t know where they are, and appear in distress may be a youth in trouble.

File official complaints to corporations that sell, or social media platforms that promote adult sex with children, or the sexualization of children. Take screen shots, and send to your friends and family, especially if they are an influencer and have them launch complaints also. The media too often calls a case open and shut, playing judge and jury, with social media platforms like Facebook & Youtube enforcing the gag orders. Passage of the EARNIT Bill is a first step in holding social media conglomerates accountable.

Contact your Senator and encourage them to support the EARNIT Bill 2020.

https://worldwideorganizationforwomen.org/government-policy/earn-it-act-of-2020-is-worth-supporting/

If You Love Me, Smile!

August 11, 2020August 10, 2020 by Nicholeen

Smiles are healthy and healing.

There are more sources for comedy than ever before with online video platforms, social media memes, and GIFS, yet people aren’t happier. In fact, depression and suicide statistics that are increasing all the time show us that people are sadder and more hopeless than previous generations. No program, hotline number, or amount of money or worldly goods will make society happier. Happiness is a condition of heart that is created by connection, purpose, truth, and hope.

Love Like Dianne

Years ago, while attending an event for my son, I saw my friend Dianne do something in just a few short minutes that gave my daughter, Londyn, connection, purpose, truth, and hope. Dianne was in charge of a multi-day event that hosted hundreds of boys for training on how to be a knight of freedom. She was scheduled to speak to the boys and their parents on the final evening right before the final event. Shortly before her speech, she noticed me and my youngest children playing on the playground. Londyn was four years old and Porter was two.

When she saw us, she casually came over and climbed onto the playground. She smiled at me. I smiled back. She smiled at Porter and got him to smile. And then she smiled at Londyn and sat down next to her. Londyn, who normally wasn’t comfortable around people she didn’t know, seemed to feel instantly easy with Dianne. Dianne started asking her things about what she liked and what games she played with her baby brother. Then Dianne started playing on the toys with Londyn. It was as if Dianne was a child and just knew exactly what Londyn wanted to do next. They talked and played and I watched with great interest as this grown woman didn’t even seem to notice me. She only noticed Londyn. Everyone felt comfortable and loved.

After a few minutes of play time, one of Dianne’s assistants came to tell her that they needed her to come speak to the group now. So, Dianne said, “Londyn, it was so nice to play with you and get to know you better. I’ve got to go play with some other people now. I hope I get to talk to you again sometime.” She climbed down from the play set and smiled at me. Then she said, “Nicholeen, you have such beautiful, thoughtful children.” And she walked off to speak.

Dianne is probably one of the most sincere people I know. She doesn’t fake who she is to impress people. She doesn’t seek for advantage. She just loves everyone she’s with. I was always the kind of mother who played and talked with my children, but I was inspired that day to bring some Dianne into every play time, work time, and moment of my life.

Dianne connected with all of us by smiling. She connected with Londyn by looking into her eyes, talking and listening to her, and playing. This moment of connection gave Londyn the truthful message that she was valuable. Dianne didn’t talk to her mommy, she talked to her. Dianne didn’t even seem to see anyone else around her but Londyn. It was very clear that Dianne thought Londyn was important enough to stop everything she was doing and ignore everyone else around her just to spend time with Londyn. Londyn was more comfortable with adults after this encounter. Dianne showed her truth that adults and people she didn’t know didn’t have to be scary. In this one brief connective moment, Dianne helped Londyn find more purpose as a young girl and have hope that the world was a safe place. And, it all started with a smile.

Smiles Can Heal Hearts And Give Hope

In a recent Facebook live post, Hollywood produce and writer, John Paul Rice, blew a whistle on corporate America protecting child traffickers. He spoke openly about the pain many children are facing because of the child trafficking culture we live in. He admitted to not being raised well himself, but said that a sincere and loving smile to a child could be a great gift of hope in a dark world.

In addition to Mr. Rice’s exposure of a horrific social problem that exploits children sexually, there are other reasons people feel like they’re living in darkness these days. Anxiety, depression, loneliness, lies, fractured family bonds, and much more lead children and families into dark corners of their minds, but a smile has the power to bring a person to the surface to see the light.

Smiles tell someone that they’re important, that you care about them, that life can be good for them, that they make the world a better place by being in it, and that love and light casts out fear, loneliness, and pain.

We should smile more.

This week, set a goal for how many people you will smile at each day, and you will probably exceed your goal. Why? Because smiling feels good. In fact, it lightens the owner of the smile as well as the person being smiled at. Over time, you will become addicted to looking for goodness and smiling. Yes, smiling increases gratitude by helping us acknowledge the good people and circumstances in our lives. I know some days may seem like there isn’t anything good to smile at, but deciding to smile at a person, even if it’s just yourself in the mirror, will lighten your mood and make you more grateful to be alive.

Start now! See how you feel and the connection you experience when you smile at the next person you see. Deciding to smile is an act of self-government. It’s a deliberate choice to make your day and your life better. What if smiles could help everyone feel more in control?

Learn other self-government lessons by visiting Nicholeen’s Teaching Self-Government Website.

A Child’s Brain on Porn

July 24, 2020July 13, 2020 by Nicholeen

The devastating effects of pornography have been seen over multiple years now. We see families and marriages fall apart, increased rape and child trafficking, decreased social skills and social caring, the push to embrace pedophilia and other sexual perversions as sexual preferences, and increasing amounts of child sexual abuse. We know porn is bad for individuals, families and societies, but have we taken the time to learn what it really does to the brain?

My colleague, Dr. Jen Brown, has spent years working with neurologists to present the full truth about what porn does to the brain. In this special TED Talk, Dr. Brown talks about what happens to the brains of children who view pornographic words, images, sounds, or videos. She explains this complex topic in an easy to understand way so we can fully understand.

Share this video with your friends and neighbors. We need to help others be aware so that we can all better protect children.

East Africa Needs Our Prayers

April 12, 2020April 11, 2020 by Nicholeen

The WOW organization has been staying close to women in East Africa and is concerned to find that the struggles in that part of the world might be going from bad to worse soon. Between the first locust attack on farmlands in many provinces, excessive rains and flooding that recently destroyed villages, and now quarantine for COVID-19 they have lost their crops and can’t work to get money for food that they need.

Quarantine in Africa means starvation for millions. Many buy food each day after they get paid for their day’s work. But, if the virus spreads the hospitals are in no way equipped to handle the pandemic. They are in a very bad situation. Prayer is the best option they’ve got.

COVID-19 Situation in East Africa

There are six countries making up the East Africa Community namely: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. The 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic is a pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China in December 2019. wikipedia.org.

With the known mode of transmission, many countries made decisions to confine their citizens for protection against COVID-19. The East African countries were equally affected. As it is now, Kenya is having the highest number of people infected with COVID-19 among the East African Countries. Kenya recorded its first case of the coronavirus outbreak on March 13, 2020. COVID-19 has changed the way Kenyans live, love and express that love; COVID-19 has shaped social behavior across the country. Today April 9, 2020, all the major newspapers had a similar heading “We are standing together with Kenyans”, media houses united on COVID-19 issue. By March 20^th, all schools in Kenya had closed, shortly after that, there was curfew between 7:00pm to 5:00am. While the curfew was on, the President announced a lockdown of Nairobi Metropolitan Area on April 6^th. We are all hopeful that these measures will help Kenyans avert contracting of COVID-19 in large number. A short while ago, the Minister for health has also announced that anybody walking out of their houses, must wear face masks. The Kenyan Government has allowed major tailoring institutions to produce large numbers of face masks made from cloth material. The masks can be washed and re used, the large numbers of masks will serve many Kenyans, some of the needy Kenyans will be given masks for free. So far, there are 184 people infected with COVID-19 in Kenya. (107 males and 77 females) 3 are below 15 years, 49 are between ages 15-29; 119 are between ages 30-59 and 13 are above 60 years.

Tanzania reported their first COVID-19 on March 16^th, 2020 and currently they have 25 people infected. Tanzania, however, have their citizens go to work as normal without any restrictions, lockdowns or curfews. Burundi announced their first two COVID-19 cases on March 26^th, currently they have 25 cases. Rwanda announced their first COVID-19 case on March 14^th, 2020, currently there are 104 people infected by COVID-19 cases. The government of Rwanda has taken several measures to curb the spread of this pandemic including total lockdown for 21 days. South Sudan announced the first COVID-19 case today April 9, 2020. Uganda confirmed their first case of COVID-19 on March 21^st and immediately implemented the measures to protect the citizens. Total lockdown is what Ugandans are going through. No work, no school and no business as usual.

What is common with all the cases in East Africa is that the majority of COVID-19 cases travelled from outside their countries. What is also common is that there are community infections going on within the mentioned countries after the first few cases were identified. Culturally, there are Africans who seal the business deal by shaking hands. This is common among the groups who sell livestock in the open local markets for a living. Due to COVID-19, some communities have innovatively started hitting the walking sticks as a sign of shaking hands in the process of agreeing on the price of the cattle to be sold. Many open markets have been closed, making it difficult for the small businesspeople to survive and creating a lot of outcry. Schools have also been closed. Families are spending a lot of time in the house which is a very unusual experience. It is emerging now that in some cases, there is increased gender violence in the homes.

More Trials Might Be Coming!

Jessica Corbett, who writes for Common Dreams reported on April 10, 2020. “While much of the world focuses on the coronavirus pandemic that has infected over 1.6 million people across the globe, East Africa is battling the worst invasion of desert locusts in decades—a monthslong “scourge of biblical proportions” that experts warn could get worse with a larger second wave already arriving in parts of the region.”

So many crops have already been lost to the first invasion of these locusts. Growers have reported to WOW that they are waiting for the second planting season of the year, which starts in about 6 weeks. Another invasion of locusts will make planting impossible again. It seems that food shortages will be imminent if crops fail. Additionally, vital sources of income will disappear with this next crisis.

WOW urges the world to pray each day, morning and night, for East Africa and for all those being sorely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a time when the world must band together in faith. We must share everything we can, but especially our faith.

Love in the Time of Corona

April 2, 2020April 1, 2020 by Nicholeen

In these challenging times, when our lives and liberties hang ever more in the balance, there is really only one thing upon which we should be focusing: Love. Love for our families – and most particularly our children – is the thing which will pull us through. With that being the case, one might expect the very first priority to be the preservation of life, with the immediate closure of non-essential medical facilities, like abortion clinics.

As of 30^th March, 2020, a quarter of UK abortion facilities were closed because of the Coronavirus, considerably diminishing the estimated 44,000 abortions which would, otherwise, have taken place over the next thirteen weeks https://mashable.com/article/coronavirus-abortion-access-uk/?europe=true.

Forty-four thousand – forty-four THOUSAND terminated pregnancies – in thirteen weeks? Are the people in the United Kingdom even aware that such a vast number of abortions are taking place, with 98% of them being conducted at the taxpayers’ expense? One doubts it: the number of abortions in the UK are well-hidden from the British people and for good reason – there would surely be public outcry if citizens were aware of the enormous number of babies killed by the NHS.

It might seem like a miracle, therefore, that even some reduction is happening as a result of the current pandemic but, sadly, this is not quite the case. Whilst the mainstream media run puff-pieces on individual women in extraordinary and life-threatening circumstances who are unable to access abortion facilities, intended to tug on the public heartstrings, the majority of women are being put at tremendous risk by the decision to allow them to access abortion pills at home. In an unprecedented action which directly contravenes in 1967 Abortion Act, women can now access abortion at home, without medical supervision, proper oversight or the legal requirement of two doctors’ signatures https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-52092131.

On 30^th March, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (an, Orwellian and euphemistically-named entity which is, in fact, the UK’s largest abortion provider) put out the following Tweet, gleefully announcing that women could access “telemedical” terminations, following a telephone or email conversation with a medical practitioner:

Vulnerable women, poor women, women without psychological, familial or medical support, are now able to take abortion pills – known to pose serious risks to physical and mental health – without even a face-to-face consultation.

This development, effectively decriminalising all abortion in the UK and circumventing its already lax and covert practice, was primarily led by Jess Phillips, the outspoken communist Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley, who was infamously caught laughing on camera at the discussion of male suicide.

Ms. Phillips said “I always have and always will trust women to make the decisions about their bodies.

“For me that isn’t just a passive view, it has taken struggle and effort for that right to choose to exist. I will continue to be active in that struggle.”

Whilst her statement appears to put emphasis on a woman’s right to choose, in reality it removes women’s choices, failing to give them the full information about the physical, spiritual and psychological effects of “telemedical” abortions, performed without medical supervision or patient awareness about the dangers of this unprecedented practice.

Women are being put at risk. Sold the lie that the “bundle of foetal cells” feels no pain, has no tangible signs of life and is not a living baby – tricked into believing that there are no serious and potentially life-threatening consequences to the abortion pill, prescribed without the support of a physician who should explain the risks of haemorrhaging – their vulnerabilities are being capitalised upon, thanks to the unscrupulous and profiteering practices of the abortion industry in the UK.

At this time, a time when we must all rely upon the love and support of our families and communities, surely the UK has a responsibility to desperate women who feel they have nowhere else to turn? Surely our leaders need to be focusing their efforts on protecting life – all life – the lives of mothers and of babies – and giving women all of the information they need, in order to make informed choices about their futures and the futures of their children?

This shameless exploitation of fear and defencelessness must be stopped: in this time of love and family, women need to be given the real pro-choice option – the option of compassion. The choice to love.

Authored by “K- From the U.K.”

WOW Marched For Life! Did You?

January 28, 2020 by Nicholeen

On Saturday, January 25th, WOW members and leadership stood with people all over the world in an international “March for Life” rally. WOW attended one such rally with thousands of Utahns in the rotunda of the Utah State Capital. It was impressive to see the crowds of women, men, and children as well as the diverse religious and ethic groups. Many pro-life organizations were also there to show their commitment to preserving the lives of thousands of annually aborted unborn Utah children. Each rally participant was given a name of an unborn child and information for how to contact their legislators and be an influence on behalf of their unborn child.

The leader of Pro-life Utah, Mary Taylor, spoke, and recognized Utah House of Representative, Cheryl Acton, and Utah Eagle Forum leaders Gayle Ruzika and Maryanne Christensen for their work in 2019 on behalf of unborn children. There were other legislators who also spoke out on behalf of the unborn child and in favor of the pro-life bills that they are sponsoring.

Cheers and applause resounded in the rotunda when an announcement was made that President Donald Trump not only spoke in support for the “March For Life” campaign, but participated in the march himself. No other president is known to ever have done this.

Dusty, the last speaker, was a girl who gave an emotionally painful story of going through an abortion and dealing with the consequences.

Then there was a moment of silence for all the aborted children. 3000 babies a year are aborted in Utah alone! Annually the United States aborts 3000 babies per day, so Utah is faring much better than some states. To put this in perspective, 3000 children would fill a typical Utah High School.

Following the inspiring speeches, the rally participants then marched around the perimeter of the State Capital grounds, showing support for all unborn children. Pink and blue ribbons and flags were on display as a memorial to all babies who have lost their lives in this global genocide called abortion.

No matter where you were this past Saturday around the world, WOW hopes you valued children, babies, and the parents who choose to raise them.

“Choose Not To Be Harmed”

November 12, 2019 by Nicholeen

One day my father told me something so profound that it literally changed my social life and my personal empowerment forever. After I finished telling him about how another child at school had been mean to me, he said, “Nicholeen, sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.”

I’m guessing that I wasn’t the only child raised in the last quarter of the 1900s to be counseled by their parents or teachers with this advice (my dad was a teacher).

When I heard this advice, I immediately recognized it as true. Of course! Sticks and stones could cut me, bruise me, and cause me to bleed, but words were just things spit out into the air that I could choose to do whatever I wanted to with. This simple little truth gave me permission to ignore the words I didn’t like or knew weren’t true. And, since I knew my dad was the strongest, smartest guy in the world, I started ignoring mean words and ended up finding personal power.

I wish I could say I immediately started calmly ignoring. I didn’t. At first, I did a fighting kind of ignoring, which wasn’t really ignoring at all. When another child would say mean things, which has been renamed bullying today, I would holler at them, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but your words will never hurt me.”

When I hollered my wise reply back at them, I immediately recognized that had I lost the upper hand. They would say, “Well, it looks like our words did hurt you or you wouldn’t have to yell back at us.”

I changed. I decided that if I really wanted to be safe from those unkind words, I had to not care that they said something I didn’t like or agree with. I had to allow them to say whatever they wanted to and choose not to get emotional about it. When I finally chose not to be emotionally reactive, I found my power. That’s what Dad was telling me to do with his “sticks and stones” advice, but it took me a few tries to fully understand how to apply this wisdom to my life.

Choose Not To Be Harmed

Marcus Aurelius said, “Choose not to be harmed — and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed — and you haven’t been.”

If “sticks and stones” was good enough for a child of the 1980s, then why isn’t it good enough for children or adults nowadays? Why are there so many wars over words and talks of violence? Why are there so many offenses and hurt feelings that people won’t ignore? Where has all the power gone?

Dad drew a line for me that day. There was what was said by others, and what I thought about what was said. Those were two different things. Being emotionally reactive was not considered a plan for a successful life in the 1980s. In fact, this was the dominant way of thinking until recently. Dad wasn’t saying that words couldn’t be cruel or inappropriate to say to another person. Of course they could. Some things shouldn’t be said and are even intended to hurt the feelings of the other person. What my dad was saying was that a truly powerful person knows that they have total control over how they allow their emotions to relate to those words.

Dad’s advice challenged my feelings about words and the amount of power I thought I had. What if the person on the receiving end of the unkind words felt completely empowered to take control of their own thoughts? What if they pushed the emotions away before it was ever allowed to take root in them? What if each person was able to decide what truths or lies they allow into their minds and hearts?

The Coddling of Society

Look around. There are more emotionally fragile victims than ever before. Many youth are feeling confined and defined by their life experiences and hardships instead of rising above them and focusing on their human power to overcome trials.

On September 11, 2001, thousands died in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, which started a war on terror that affected the world. Instead of hiding in their houses and focusing on their victimhood, people emotionally stood up and carried each other through the tragedy. People worked all day and night, putting their own lives at risk to save and locate people trapped in the wreckage. Neighbors called each other and prayed for each other. People donated money, food, supplies, time — literally anything needed to help make that hard time easier. Everyone stood a little taller, smiled a little more deliberately, and hugged a little more in an effort to really lift someone up. Americans, Canadians and many others worked harder, complained less, and found an inner strength they never knew they had. People generally become stronger because of war times and difficult challenges. But, in times of peace and comfort we behave surprisingly different.

A person has to logically and consciously allow themselves to change for the better, especially in times of peace. In their 2018 book, The Coddling of the American Mind, authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt explain that one of the “great untruths” of our time is “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.” This means that society is obsessing over what has gone wrong in their lives and being pessimistic. People displaying bad behaviors are given excuses for their actions instead of correction or motivation to move on. And, words are the new violence that people can’t seem to get over. Each unkind word or social media comment turns into a burden to carry. Ignoring the words doesn’t seem to even be an option for some people.

Lukianoff and Haidt suggest the I-Generation is struggling the most with this new emotionally reactive living. They said, “…students make a serious mistake when they interpret words—even words spoken with hatred—as violence.” I-Gen-ers are now equating words to violence. If someone feels bad about something that has been said, others feel justified in retaliating with physical violence; bullying and assault. This explains the riots on college campuses in recent years.

Safe Vs Strong

Many adults nowadays aren’t reaching their youth because they see the world through a be-strong, learn-to-deal-with-adversity lens. Their youth are being trained socially to interact tentatively and fearfully with the world, like people who’ve been hurt and not recovered would behave. The youth want safety because they have been kept in a state of fragility, but many of their parents want them to step up and grow up.

How can we help young people find joy, and not become the victims of their circumstances? Russell M. Nelson said, “The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.”

Society’s goal cannot be emotional safety. Of course, there is emotional abuse and that should never be condoned, but we are meant to get through life, not be protected from it. Life will never be emotionally or physically safe enough to protect everyone’s feelings. No “safe space” or word censoring rule will stop a person from feeling attacked if they are looking for the next attack. Here are three strategies parents can do to promote resilience and emotional strength, as well as decrease the social craving for “safe spaces.”

3 Strategies for Being Emotionally Strong

First, focus on who we are, where we are going, and what life is really about. Joy really has “everything to do with the focus of our lives.” When parents focus more on creating portfolios for their children than on building character and connection in their children, the whole family loses focus. When preparing youth for future financial success takes priority over preparing for future relationship success through happy family relationships, our youth lose their identities. Good family relationships, living according to virtue, and solid religious beliefs all bring greater lasting joy than financial success and social status can.

Second, increase patience and endurance by teaching the children to wait for things they want. Patience leads to increased responsibility for good outcomes in life. It teaches cause and effect and shows youth their circumstances can change with their own hard work. We have to stop enabling our children by giving them so much. The lesson of delayed gratification is a hard lesson to teach, especially if a parent could easily buy the desired bicycle or game, but it is one of the most valuable lessons to learn for the child. The more affluent a society gets, the less patient and whinier the population becomes. Nothing is ever good enough for a person with everything. If I can obtain any comfort or pleasure I desire when I want it with two day shipping and without having to talk to anyone about what I need, then why would I expect my discomfort from a mean word to go away any differently than instantly?

Third, teach children to ignore the things that bother them for the sake of their own emotional strength. This means having good old-fashioned grit in the face of adversity and mean words. To attempt to be ideologically protected is not a good life goal, so we can’t protect the youth from new or different ideas. In fact, learning new things and exchanging ideas is part of life. If a person has to know everything before they learn anything, they are short-sighted and setting themselves up for disappointment.

To teach children to ignore mean words, parents can prepare their children to accept “no” answers from them about everyday things when they are young, and then transition the child to knowing how to give themselves “no” answers as they mature. Then, when mean words or different ideas that they don’t agree with come along, they can ignore their emotions about the ideas and words by giving themselves a “no” answer for emotionally reacting.

Hopefully, if they are able to learn calmness and accepting “no” answers, they will be able to both push unwanted emotional responses away while focusing on listening to what the other person has to say and on valuing the other person even if they may ultimately have to disagree on the issue being discussed.

No external source can provide safety to a person who is determined to feel emotional. We have to choose to be unharmed; to control ourselves and our emotions. Not to “stuff” our emotions, but to decide which emotions are productive and which end up putting us in emotional bondage. Self-government is the act of choosing not to be harmed, even if someone intends to harm us.

The only true safety a person can ever have is the assurance that they can be okay no matter their circumstances. Ironically, in the age of “safe spaces,” we aren’t recognizing the safest condition a person can be in, which is emotional security despite adversity. It’s called “enduring to the end,” and it creates peace of mind and joy no matter what words try to hurt us.

This FREE Parenting Assessment Course will give you more direction in helping yourself and your children live more self-governed lives while unifying your relationships.

Respecting Yourself Never Sounded Worse! -UK

October 25, 2019 by Nicholeen

Does every good term have to be hijacked, turned around and sent back out to the public as a wolf in sheep’s clothing these days? WOW is constantly disappointed at the international manipulative use of seemingly good words. We have to fight against dangerous terms like “maternal health” and “age appropriate” because these terms and others like them are striped of their moral or factual foundation and given a subjective/moral relativistic spin instead. Such is the case with the term “Respect Yourself,” which is the name of a government funded British educational website for youth ages 13 and up that boasts having a “sextionary” for kids to access anything they want to know about sex and sexuality.

This tax money funded, controversial website has been live since 2013 in Britain, but has just recently been disabled due to the public outcry from a diverse British population. WOW applauds the The Family Education Trust, hardworking parents, and citizens in Britain who have put so much time and effort into drawing attention to the problem website and getting citizens informed and active at solving the problem.

Amy Danahay of “Respect Yourself” told Huffington Post: “We have completed the young people’s wish list. They asked for the sextionary, pleasure zones and the opportunity to ask questions and have them answered honestly.”

I seriously doubt that young people wanted to know the majority of the grotesque sexual acts. As I was looking into the problem website in the UK I found myself, as a married woman with four children who has had sex more times than I’ve ever counted, asking “what on earth is that term?” The site explains more kinky behaviors than a person would ever need to ask, or has even thought to ask for that matter. Clearly, the sextionary website is just another way the sexualization of children is happening under the guise of education.

Speaking of education, I’d be curious to know how the site information is delivered to the children. Are they told about it at school? If so, has it been approved by a curriculum board or governing body tasked with keeping children safe? It is completely unethical for tax money and government employees, who have a position of trust with students, to be used for the sexual grooming of children.

In a day and age when child trafficking is becoming an increasingly serious problem, I’d think that officials would connect the dots and not promote any educational materials that would groom children to be targets for traffickers. Years ago top porn producer was interviewed. He was asked how they train the children for their porn performances and he replied, “We don’t really have to do much. They come porn ready.” This tells us what kinds of children are easily trafficked; the ones who have gotten into sexual stuff.

How could a child come to a trafficker/porn producer “porn ready” unless they have already been experimenting with porn or graphic sexuality? Children aren’t sensual and explicit, that behavior has to be trained by someone else. As a foster parent I was trained to look for children who were too sensual, so that we could detect possible sexual abuse in the child’s past. Is it possible that western society has lost all common sense when it comes to keeping children’s bodies safe from predators? Isn’t this “Respect Yourself” website just another manipulation of a good term that is preying on the children of Britain?

October = National Down Syndrome Month

October 10, 2019 by Nicholeen

It is a great time to celebrate the lives of those to make us all remember how unique each person is; our friends with Down syndrome. October is National Down syndrome month and needs celebration.

Of the preborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome:

100% are aborted in Iceland
98% are aborted in Denmark
67% are aborted in the US

Some may say Iceland has achieved a miracle statistic of 0% babies born with Down syndrome, when in reality their 0% statistic is just them bragging about how easy it is to kill people who are different in Iceland. They have to abort 100% of Down syndrome babies to have 0% born with Down syndrome.

When did it become okay to kills someone just because they are different? When did the perceived inconvenience of raising a child who has different needs become a reason for murder of the innocent? We need to stop this senseless discrimination and killing. Doesn’t each person deserve a chance at life?

Who is really behind the normalization of killing babies anyway? The eugenics movement was the beginning of the abortion trend. The idea of promoting elective abortion to lower class, minority, and parents anticipating developmentally different children was the plan conceived by those hoping to develop a super human race and get rid of undesirables while also keeping the masses in check.

(Sarcasm tone for this next part.) Think how awful it would be if masses of people got a fair chance at life and decided to reach their full potential? Then, all the big businesses would have even more competition. Can all of this killing really be just for money and world control? Can people really be that heartless. Sadly, yes.

Join WOW as we express our gratitude for our friends with Down syndrome this month. Please share this post and video so that we can remind the world that all people have a reason to live.