- Amanda G., Teaching Volunteer, Study Haven

We LOVE to hear from you! 

Thank you to Amanda for reaching out to tell us how her class is making use of Rosy Window's mental health resources. And shout out to Samantha for sharing one of the other online resources she found helpful when researching the positive implications of meditation and relaxation techniques. 

It warms our hearts, and fuels our drive when we are able to connect with others who share in our mission: To provide children and their caregivers with the tools and resources for mental health and well-being. 

Check out the links below to learn more about the Study Haven, or to take a look at Tips to De-Stress shared by Samantha.

Links ~
Study Haven:  learninghaven.com/
Tips to De-Stress: www.kaleslaw.com/resources/tips-to-de-stress/

Image by Pixabay

Article provided by Dorothy Watson. She grew up with a single mother who suffered from bipolar disorder. Her mom wasn't properly diagnosed until Dorothy was about 12 years old, so she saw her mom struggle for a long time. Since she has seen how hard life can be for people whose mental health hasn't been properly addressed, she is an advocate for mental wellness. You can learn more at mentalwellnesscenter.info.
 
Just like adults, children sometimes experience stress and anxiety. As a caring parent, you want to help your kids overcome these feelings and become more confident and resilient. We’ve gathered some tips you can use to teach your children self-care, and a few techniques they can implement to make their lives less stressful and more joyful:
 
Stay Organized at Home
 Are you tired of always asking your children to pick up their belongings? If the constant arguing is creating friction in your house, help them keep their living space organized, be it in their bedroom, playroom or den. Start by decluttering the room: give away toys that are no longer played with, throw away broken crayons and depleted craft supplies, and make sure everything that you’re keeping will have a home somewhere. Invest in colorful bins and pretty storage drawers that are easy for little hands to open and close. Label those storage containers to help your little one know where everything belongs (draw a picture or add a sticker representing the items being stored there for younger children that can’t read yet).
 
Keep Them Active
 Engage your little one’s mind with fun, creative activities like painting, playing music, or dancing. Discover what your kid’s passion is and nurture it. Take them to art or acting classes, sign them up for sports, and don’t get upset or frustrated if they decide that some activity is just not for them. Let them explore their options and find out for themselves what they enjoy doing. Encourage them to express their creativity and try not to “hover” or interfere; letting them be themselves will boost their self-confidence. Having a creative or physical outlet has also been proven to prevent or alleviate stress and anxiety for both children and adults, so while your child is enjoying their hobby, find time to pursue your own as well.
 
Practice Mindfulness
 If you sense that your child is stressed out, nervous or anxious, teach them mindfulness and meditation. Even young children can learn to meditate, so take the time to sit together in a comfortable position and practice mindfulness, paying attention to what is happening in the present. This practice will improve their sense of self-awareness, as well as help them to manage their impulses; it will increase their focus at school, and they will be better equipped to resolve conflicts. In short, teaching them to meditate will give them the tools to feel confident even during challenging and stressful times.
 
Establish Good Sleeping Habits
 Create a routine to let your child know it’s time for bed. Give them a calming bath, have them brush their teeth and put on some comfy PJs, and snuggle up with them to read a story or two before bedtime. Stay consistent when it comes to the time at night you put them to sleep, even on weekends. If your child is having a hard time falling asleep because of worries at school or problems with siblings, writing them down in a journal earlier in the day might help put those concerns to rest–at least for the night. Try to be a good role model and turn off your electronic devices before you turn in for the night, as screen time stimulates the brain and makes it harder to fall asleep.
 
Many techniques that adults use to reset and refresh can be applied to children. Find the ones that work best for your children and for your family. Give them space to express themselves and you’ll soon have happy, self-confident children ready to take on the world.

It is sometimes from unlikely sources that we are reminded what it is to be human...happy...content, and it is such a pleasure when these things come to us unexpectedly.  When I picked up Jordan Peterson's book "12 Rules for Life" I expected to find those reminders, and yes, I do recommend it.  It is a great read (or listen - as I tend to enjoy most of my "light reading" on audible or some such technology.  Mr. Pederson gives us lots of food for thought in these pages, there are many comments, summaries, reviews on the internet, but I highly suggest you just get the book.  So that was the expected insights on being human....happy....content, but my evening entertainment turned into a very thoughtful experience.  You are going to chuckle, but the Netflix series "The Good Place" made me laugh, and cry (spoiler alert).  When I had finished the 4 seasons, and reflected on how entertaining it was, I started to think about all of the lessons the writers, producers, and cast put into that show - without it being a documentary, and without preaching at us.  Besides a bit of exploding goo, and some references to torcher, it wasn't graphic, or gruesome, but it also wasn't sickly sweet.  In the end it was just people learning about how they interact with others, how they affected others, all the while feeling as though they were good people.  I don't know how people of different faiths would react to this show, they did a great job of avoiding terms like "heaven" and "hell".  No one can curse in The Good Place so we heard "Fork" a lot from the main character. They also did a good job of not depicting God, or Angels, and at the end of it all it just came down to how do we get to the good place, how do we make this place better, and we should appreciate all the wonderment of being human.   We do effect others, and they effect us.  It would be nice to hear others opinions on "12 Rules for Life" and "The Good Place" or if you have happened upon something that resonated with you, (or surprised you:) let me know - always open to uplifting, positive suggestions.  

Ringing in the New Year, and ushering out the old, will find many of us reflecting on old times, friends, and what 2021 has meant to us.   

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely you'll buy your pint cup!
and surely I'll buy mine!
And we'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We two have run about the hills,
and picked the daisies fine;
But we've wandered many a weary foot,
since auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And there's a hand my trusty friend!
And give me a hand o' thine!
And we'll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
 
​

Days, weeks, even months can go by that are just kind of ho-hum, nothing to see here folks, and then BAM - out of nowhere - something  happens that really brightens your day.  
I thought that perhaps these incredible moments are few and far between, or could it be that I get a little distracted in my own thoughts, and just miss them, so I decided that I would look for something each day that was kind of cool or inspiring, and you know (to my surprise) I found something everyday for a whole week.  Sometimes it was something I take for granted, like the night sky, or the taste of a cup of fresh brewed coffee, just taking a moment to savour the moments,  seeing a young person holding the door for a senior, or the lady with the cart full letting the young man with two items go ahead of her.  My Granddaughter hugging her kindergarten going big brother, because she missed him "all day long!" Life if full of inspiration, we just need to pause, sometimes just for a moment, and let what we are seeing sink in a bit! What did you see today that made you smile?

It is so easy to be happy when things are going great, and grateful when someone does something wonderful for you.  But what about those times when life is handing you lemons? When you are disappointed, or upset by  the circumstance you find yourself in?  Maybe someone isn't acting the way you expected?  We are so fortunate that we get to choose how we feel each and every day, and if we are mindful we can shift our automatic thought patterns to find the silver lining in every cloud (or at least keep the clouds at bay)  Set a good example for your children by showing them an attitude of gratitude, they will be better equipped to handle life's lows, and so will you.  No one has summed it up better than Melody Beattie: "It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.”   

​When I began this string of blog posts with RWP Origins 1, I had no idea that there would be a re-launch.  I began writing to encourage others who had dreams and goals, business or personal.  You may think to yourself that I should have left out some of the “whiny” bits, but those tough spots sure made the accomplishments sweeter.  You may think that our dream was flawed because we felt the need to make so many changes, but in business (as in life) we should remember that you don’t know, what you don’t know, until you know it, it is imperative to plan, but plans always change, and although there are always obstacles, we can be certain that there are always solutions (they just might not be the solutions that you imagined)  
The more personal reasons that I began writing is due partly to wishing that I had taken more photo’s, Megan actually was nursing babies while designing layouts, a photo of the pink and grey office being constructed with custom cabinetry (thank you Stephen, probably not what you had in mind when designing your new home), toddlers sitting at the little tikes desk in that office working with Mom and Grammy.  Writing a book of limericks on our way to a show and laughing so hard our faces hurt, and the bloopers in recordings. 
These blogs also were meant to thank all of those wonderful people that shared our vision, to let them peak in and see that although the wheels seem to turn so slowly, the rollercoaster never stopped, and without them, family and friends, it could not have kept going.
Last but not least, shouting out to our Artists.  For those who do not know the ins and outs of our company, all of our illustrators are contracted, some choose a small up-front advance on royalties, some took no advance.  These wonderful people have entrusted us to share their work with the world professionally, in a way that puts the best light on their amazing talents, and patiently wait to see what’s coming next.  They have worked so hard at bringing our characters to life, organizing whole worlds to support the themes and ideas we have written the words for. They didn’t join us because we could offer them a fine financial future, they joined us believing in the concept that IS Rosy Window Productions, to teach our Children to NOT look at the world through rose coloured glasses, but to give them the tools to enjoy looking out their own window to a pretty rosy world.  

We can count our blessings each and every day, even when the world has been turned up-side-down.  So many lives were, and are still being affected by the pandemic.   Tragedies, constant tension, fear, bankruptcies, illness, solitude, anxiety, to have the family and friends, that I have, to be able to say that most of us have made it through relatively unscathed, and my heart goes out to so many, who cannot say the same.  
When everything ground to a halt, RWP did to.  I had some personal upheaval that had to be dealt with, and Megan was left holding that bag, along with the uncertainty that everyone was dealing with.  I can’t tell you how thankful I was, and still am, that she is such a strong, wonderful woman, giving me some time, and holding things together while I got my “poop in a group”.  
As the dust was still swirling around all over the world, we began to attack the big picture questions that had been lurking in the shadows, the ones that had “get to this when you have time” sticky notes and “this will do for now” band aid solutions in place.  You know, those things that are sort of dealt with but as they lurk in the back of your mind, they keep growing, and growing.  
COVID did a couple things, it stopped all of the personal contact we had with people, which essentially benched our marketing, but also gave us the space we needed to invite the shadows into the light, rip the band-aids off, and tear up the sticky notes. 
And so began the simple task of re-launch, give this six year old company a new look, and get to the root of the issues that had come up: in getting a variety of easy to use resources to children, shifting the resources we had created to resources that more parents would be comfortable with, and dealing with some of the “wish we had done that from the start” realization. We will have this wrapped in in 4 months!  
Perhaps you guessed already that we here at Rosy Window Productions do not look at the world through rose coloured glasses, but sometimes we are a little optimistic about how quickly things can roll out.  As I have mentioned way back, speaking to those with goals, sometimes we must re-frame, re-think, be firm but gentle, and shift a little to carry on (but we persevere).  As we embarked on another round of technology, learning, developing, the 4 month time lined turned into 6….8…………9?.........ok so removing our hypnotherapy resources and offering guided meditations, was just what our great, wonderful, amazing clients was looking for!  One shadow could disappear.  Shifting our audio’s to video + audio + day & night + readables was a little more techy time consuming than we thought it might be, but another shadow bites the dust, tear up that stickynote.  The most daunting though, how to offer a variety to children, without having their parents buy each and every book – some books are age appropriate reading, but the meditations are so much more universal, (and all the different angles mentioned in the last post)  After much contemplating, back and forth, research, research, research, a Rosy Membership concept, an inexpensive membership to access all of our resources (YES) guided meditations, videos, audios, printables, lesson plans, without ever having to purchase a book!  Not that we don’t want people to buy a book, they are a great resource too, oh so give members a discount on the books and posters - (YES)!
Memberships - easier said than done.  (Now you might think, like I did, that these beautiful websites that you see all over are so user friendly that it is just a quick click and you are up and running – oh contraire – you could also muse that hiring a tech would be the answer (yes, yes, and someday we most definitely will take resumes, but we are IT for now)   As we learned more programs, engaged some more apps, learned far more about coding, linking, editing, up and down loading (even sideways sometimes, as our drives hit capacity (my computer and my brain), high-fived overcoming obstacles, slumped in our chairs, watched our families eyes glaze over as we thought out-loud, we watched the calendar pages flip by, and 4 months turned into a year plus, but WE DID IT!

As the glow of the launch remains one of the many sparkling stars which guide our RWP journey, after the enchanted evening, (a short rest, a deep breath, a sigh) it was time to get back to work.  Oh, speaking of shining stars, we have many in our Rosy sky, my wonderful Mom, who has always been the biggest fan a daughter, granddaughters, great-grandchildren, could have, my other two daughters who are wonderful women, and always in our cheering section (also part of our “please try this” beta group) Megan’s amazing husband (who puts up with his mother-in-law working long hours in the amazing office he built for us in their new home) all of our illustrators, the wonderful peeps working at the little Ontario print shop, and all of our family and friends who are too numerous to list (OMG academy award speech – sheesh – sorry).  Getting back to the next chapter, after the launch we were back to it, preparing more books that our artists were busy illustrating, creating the hypnotherapy that accompanied them, offering some supports for the adults, who lovingly were helping their kids, and you know, everything was finally coming together.  We had quite a few wooooo-hoooooo, moments, being invited by another star to present a workshop on how educators could introduce guided imagery to their students, which led to meeting some great people, (and what a fantastic reception!) being awarded a grant to put our workshop online (now it’s worldwide and free to everyone – everywhere – forever).  Each book that came out was as exciting as the last, and now there are 11 instead of 4.  Even just the fact that the company could pay for the next book to be printed was a pretty amazing milestone.  Unfortunately there were some painful moments, after coming up with a work around to provide our customers with the hypnotherapy audios that accompany the book they purchased – the infamous download codes, we found that it was quite challenging for users, (insert sad face here) – more research, and long computer days to figure that out, AND THEN (wait for it) drum roll…….all of the download codes, which are each, individually generated, put in the system, and stickered in each and every book, drum is still rolling…..they all disappeared!!!!! (website host’s update – and NO SOLUTION!) We get to apologize to our customers, we get to KNOW that none of the codes will work in any book sold in the wonderful outlets that our books are in, WOW! 
​Along with all of our wonderful reviews we also had some feedback that surprised me, and a lot of parents just weren’t comfortable with hypnotherapy – how do we address that? As a Hypnotherapist, it never occurred to me that it would make so many people uneasy.
So the work-around to get our audio’s out is not working well AND we had been scratching our heads trying to figure out how to get our audio’s out to more children in a broader fashion, like the child that reads Adelaide, because she is dealing with anxiety, would really benefit from the audio that accompanies Shelly, promoting self-esteem, and then throw in My Super, Wicked, Awesome Family in to help her recognize all that there is to be grateful for.  Or the youngster that is just a great kid, but we want to keep him feeling great, even with the bombardment of our society and its thoughts on how people are suppose to look, and feel, and be, and the pressures that life will bring to him as he grows up,  So most of our audios would be great, just to reinforce the values and beliefs he already has.  Another dilemma was how is heck do these kids begin a daily practice (you know, like their parents do, to keep themselves balanced) without being bored to tears by the same two audios?  (and for anyone who has started a daily meditation practice later in life, you understand how much easier it would have been, had it been a habit that you grew up with – like brushing your teeth)
Life was busy, Megan raising two babies, working toward another degree, my Counselling Hypnotherapy Practice, another part-time/full-time job, but we were happily busy so the big picture questions only got quick small picture solutions.  We were scheduled for some Pro-D workshops, here and in Prince George, fit in a book signing tour with Indigo at the Edmonton locations, looking forward to some great wellness conferences, developing new books and workshops, recruiting some more artists, slowly reaching a broader audience….AND THEN….(NO DRUM ROLL)……COVID. 

Rosy Window Productions came into being with the support of family and friends, yes some of them smiled and nodded, some listened intently and some were genuinely excited about what we were doing.  Some of our biggest fans and supporters watched from the beginning…patiently….and….patiently... and ….so, how’s it going? Meanwhile, back at the ranch, (no ranch, just always wanted to say that) Megan was training to use the software we needed to upload books and get them to a printer, researching printers (Canadian Only), we had timelines, daily plans, monthly plans and quarterly plans, we had a launch plan that included six books and a plan to have a new one out monthly.   – wait a minute – where do we find  some talented illustrators, as we work through this on a shoe string budget.  And how do you find an illustrator, how do you pay them and holy cow, more research, a contract, what kind of an ad do we run?  “If you build it, they will come” (Field of Dreams – thank you Mr. Costner) A Friend, a friend of a friend and a former student.  A freshly printed contract in hand and “the pitch”.   Now I don’t know if you believe in divine intervention or that the universe is looking after you, but in our case, I think which ever you choose is just fine with me. It is one of the most difficult thing to do, to lay it out for someone else, to leave that bubble of positive reinforcement that you have with your business partner, and to have someone else scrutinize your vision, so with the best business faces we could muster we met with three potential artists.  Blown away, would be a decent way to describe coming out of the meetings, each of these women were so excited and supportive, it was incredible. We shared our vision, gave them some notes on what we were looking for and a copy of the stories.  They read, interpreted, they sketched and re-sketched, painted, drew, coloured and above all else, they put their hearts and souls into bringing life to the characters. I must admit when those first illustrations were presented to us, there weren’t any dry eyes in the room, a sigh of relief from everyone.  Someday, we will get the illustrators to write their story, or perhaps they can comment on the blog. The general consensus was that it was a bit different (understatement) than producing one or two pieces of art,  character hair has to be the same colour, the furniture in the room on this page needs to look the same on that page and the colour palette needs to be the same throughout the whole book!  Not to mention following the story!  Yes challenging, especially if the book has 60 pictures! We were humbled and appreciative, and..you know..blown away!  So we were closing in on two and a half years of the behind the scene slogging, with nothing in our hands to show the smiling nodders, some days bogged us down, some days we celebrated small victories.  What would we say to someone who has a dream?  We would say: “You go girl!  (or boy!!)”,  “woot-woot” and a “whooo-raaaw” a dream - business, personal, family or otherwise.  There are no failures in this life, there are learning opportunities.  You don’t need to surround yourself with “yes” men, but you can celebrate with the genuine people who are rooting for you, plan and re-plan, and if you are willing to roll up your sleeves and find your stick-to-itness, it will happen! The long haul is worth it, the best is yet to come!