the clubs within our club
Meet the Moms ‘ Connection Leaders !
BY HANNAH B .
New member Tatiana I . S . ( left ) and member Shanan R . ( right , with family ) stepped up to take Moms & Bumps to a new level . They are looking to expand the group to include mothers , grandmothers , and families with children of all ages in the Moms ’ Connection . The pair sent a survey to all members who noted in their membership information that they had a child under the age of 18 . Thanks to a generous response , Shanan and Tatiana have a good base of suggestions and information from which to launch the new group .
Tatiana joined the AWCH this year and indicated on her application that she is an early childhood educator and counselor . She is a dual Spanish-American citizen and speaks English , Spanish , Catalan ( she ’ s from Barcelona ), and Portuguese . Her husband is an aeronautical engineer and they live near the Airbus facility , south of the Elbe . Tatiana and her husband have a small child together .
Shanan is one of our dynamic and very active members who juggles a full-time job at Ecover with raising their toddler , Emily .
She calls Colorado her home , but has lived in Wyoming , Chicago , and New Zealand . Shanan has been active in the Environmental Forum , Stitch ’ n ’ Bitch , and now the Moms ’ Connection .
These two women are filled with ideas on how to bring mothers and children together at the AWCH . Look for their — and your — ideas to come to fruition and email them to be added to their distribution list . Get involved :
momsconnection @ awchamburg . org .
Rethinking Belonging
BY ANNA S .
In the times where loneliness becomes a disease of the twenty-first century , belonging can become its antidote . The need to belong to others and the need for meaningful and rewarding social relationships is embedded in our DNA . A need to belong comes hand-in-hand with a strong desire to be viewed positively . At the same time , belonging is known to support social adjustment , well-being , and longevity . According to Brene Brown , belonging does not force us to change who we are , it gives us space to be ... who we are .
Global mobility may challenge belonging . Having left our countries of origin , we started a journey into the new and distant . We learned how to fit and blend in to be accepted . And during all those travels , we were longing to belong . It occurs to me that the whole idea of the AWCH is to give American and international women a place to belong . Being a part of the club can be beneficial to our health if we feel accepted by the group .
Criticism may kill a sense of belonging . Despite the cognitive evolution and the rash development of our thinking brains , our emotional brains operate on stone-age principles . Isolation and social rejection mean a lonely life and a miserable death . So remember that when you criticize others , you are telling them : you are not good enough , you do not deserve to be a part of the group or a part of our family . And this hurts . The pain of social exclusion uses the same neural network as physical pain . And the reaction to social pain is similar : we either freeze or avoid or leave the situations that cause this pain .
My holiday wish to all of us is to embrace diversity , to share fondness and appreciation with women who are working hard and who are using their creativity to enrich the AWCH . Remember , they are open and vulnerable and courageous , and they deserve our applause .
24 The Clubs within Our Club