Are you a locavore? If you eat seasonal produce and meat sourced locally, you are. If not, below are six good reasons to “eat local,” and tips on how to do it:

Seasonal, local food is fresher and tastes better. Local farms don’t need to cultivate produce or breed livestock suitable for long-distance travel; instead, they can focus on producing the tastiest food possible.

Local produce is more nutritious than food that is out of season. As soon as a fruit or vegetable is harvested, its nutrients start breaking down. The longer it takes to get to your table, the fewer nutrients it has.

You get to know your farmer and where your food comes from. When you buy local, you get the opportunity to meet the person producing your food, and confirm that you are comfortable with how they do it.

Local food is often less expensive. Because transportation costs are minimal when you buy local and in-season, farmers are often able to sell their goods at reduced prices.

You support local farmers. When you buy directly from local farmers, you ensure that they get a fair price for their products and you stimulate your local economy. Read full newsletter

With the advent of social networking, it is absolutely critical that your organization has a solid social media policy. Here are a few things your policy should and shouldn’t do.

Dos

• Your policy should plainly state what is appropriate social networking behavior, what can and can’t be shared and why.

• The policy should also explicitly lay out the consequences of violating the policy. Different degrees of violation require different punishments.

Don’ts

• Your policy shouldn’t be over intrusive. This could be a huge turnoff for employees, and possibly cause legal concerns if personal information is used when making a hiring decision.

• Don’t prohibit your employees from discussing your organization. As long as they know what topics are appropriate, your employees can serve as great ambassadors of your brand.

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I started journaling as a teenager. My journal was by best friend. My place to share all my hidden emotions. To cry it out on paper.

If anyone ever read my old journals they would think I was totally crazy. I wrote most often when I was depressed and ashamed. My journals created the space I needed to pour out my intense body hatred, my issues with my family, my pain from break-ups, my passion nature, my desires to drop out of college and go live in a yurt, and many, many other ramblings.

My journals were and continue to be a place I write down inspirational quotes. Sometimes these quotes would motivate me and other times they ignited my shame.

I wrote this one in BOLD during the Fall of 1991. It still send shivers through my body when I read it and let myself fully absorb the message.

“Who cannot love herself, cannot love anybody. Who is ashamed of her body, is ashamed of all life. Who finds filth in her body is lost. Who cannot respect the gifts given before birth can never respect anything fully.” – Anne Cameron Daughters of Copperwoman

I would read and reread this quote in the hopes that it would make me love myself. I tried to guilt myself into loving myself.

My internal conversation would be something like “you suck Michelle- you can’t really love anything if you don’t love yourself. How can you say you love your friends, love the Earth, love your family if you hate yourself and your body.” It would get nastier and nastier and I would end up feeling worse and worse.

I was very much an all-or nothing thinker. In my mind there was no way I could love my body because in my mind that would mean I was OK with being overweight, that I was OK with bingeing, that I was OK with “being lazy.”

The power of Anne Cameron’s words haunted me. I thought of myself as a loving, giving person and yet it did not make sense that I could be so disgusted with my body and have so much compassion for other people, animals and the Earth.

I have come to realize this is one lesson I am continually learning. It is a gift wrapped up in a super messy package.

Twenty years ago when I copied Anne Cameron’s words into my journal I was not ready to hear them. I loved her message but I did not have the skills to let it in.

If I could tell that young woman what I know now I would tell her to be kinder, enjoy the process, start small:

Find one thing each day that you love about your body- it can be as simple as your the calming presence of your breathe, the way your heart continues to beat, your collarbone or the color of your eyes.

Appreciating yourself and your body is the path to more love for yourself. Guilt and body hatred only lead to greater hopelessness and heaviness both physically and mentally.

All or nothing thinking is LIMITING and BORING. Open your mind and heart to the possibility that there are many, many paths to anything and everything.

Keep writing in your journal and remember to write when you are inspired with love.

To growing with love- Michelle