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Homebirth as a Return to the Feminine 

by greenpoweredlife

I crouched on all fours in my bedroom like a feral cat. The sounds emanating from my body and into the 2am silence of my home were horrible and primal. My husband wrapped a supportive arm under me, just above my huge and taught pregnant belly, to keep me from collapsing under the weight of my exhaustion and strain. My midwife sat close by, eyes and instincts cluing her into the fact that things weren’t going quite right, that my labor was not unfolding in the ways that indicated a normal progression. An assistant midwife looked on, gently reassuring my seven year old daughter, who stared wide-eyed at her screeching mother, that everything was fine, everything was fine. Blood and fluid pooled on the floor as sweat and tears poured out of my body. Pushing, screaming, pushing, screaming, begging God to bring it all to an end, and then, finally, an urgent emergency maneuver. My baby, shoulder locked onto my pubic bone and unable to be delivered, finally released her stuck when the hands of the midwife reached in to find her shoulder, dislodge it, and bring the hot, wet baby into my arms. The baby pinked and then cried. I looked down at her and around the room and down again with post-delivery shock. My husband breathed the heaviest, and I’m sure most glorious, sigh of relief. The midwife, no older than myself, sat back on her heels, nodding and smiling. Her hands, the hands that had just moments earlier swiftly and expertly saved the life of the baby lodged within my own body, clasped in her lap, her most important work here completed. She saved my baby’s life in about 3 minutes, and in that space of time the four women in the room had become five. What a service, what a gift she gave me, from one woman to another: to come to my home in the middle of the night, hold calm in the face of difficulty, and watch diligently over the process of my bringing a daughter into the world. 

I wish I could say the birth of this second daughter was lovely, and dainty, and quiet. That it was clean, feminine, and beautiful. But this birth, like the two I accomplished before it, was anything but Instagram-reel charming. It wasn’t a fairy lights kind of birth, a peaceful acoustic music playlist kind of birth, an essential oil diffuser to fill the room with spa-like smells kind of birth.  It was gory, loud, and primal. It was scary. It was agony. It was all instinct, all hormonal cascade, all the grace and hands of God. Within the portal of birth, I was more animal than human, but at the same time the most human I’ll ever be. And yet, these characteristics of an undisturbed, natural birth are things of remarkable beauty. The process of birth, more bestial than we would often like to admit, is, at its very essence, the most quintessentially feminine. Pregnancy and birth are the one grand thing our bodies were uniquely and wonderfully crafted to do differently than our male counterparts. Pregnancy and birth are woman. They are, in all of their brutishness, the most completely feminine thing we do. At a time in the world where society is attempting to redefine what a woman is and what her obligations to the title are, the ability to build and birth a child are the ultimate woman-only experience. The womanly art of giving birth is as ancient to our bodies as life itself. 

In recent decades, the cultivated craft of delivering babies and giving birth has been outsourced to the medical community rather than occurring under the watch of a community midwife or wise woman. It’s no surprise that the medicalization of the birth process has corresponded simultaneously with society’s unrelenting quest to call into question and define what the feminine is. Our most female capability too often becomes outsourced to a male doctor in a white coat in a hospital setting. What used to occur in our homes and under the care of a skilled woman now happens under the bright lights of hospital rooms, with many interruptions, many fear-based practices, and with very little of the process controlled by or belonging to the woman giving birth. Certainly and undoubtedly, births in the hospital have saved many, many lives. For lots of women, it’s the very best place for them to have their babies. For lots of women, they may not have a baby to hold, or their own lives, for that matter, were it not for advanced hospital obstetric care. Emergency medicine and Cesarean sections have improved maternal and fetal outcomes across the globe, and they are frequently necessary. This is an indisputable fact. But for women whose pregnancies are low risk and therefore don’t require the heavy oversight of a hospital setting, home birth is having a resurgence. Women like myself are seeking out midwives within their own communities who can provide prenatal care, attend births, and offer emotional and breastfeeding support postpartum. These women are able to reclaim what was once an experience attended to only by women and for women, then evolved to become overseen  primarily by male doctors. Home birthing moms are reestablishing birth as the naturally unfolding and uniquely female process that it is, sparking a new wave of out-of-hospital obstetric care that puts control back into the hands of women and mothers. 

Many of our own mothers have birth stories that sound something like, “I went to the hospital, they induced my labor, I had an epidural, and then I had a baby.” Something seems missing from their experiences. There’s a certain lack of gravity in these stories. You’re likely to find the phrase, “because that’s just how they did it back then” pop up in reference to some boarder-line barbaric intervention or bizarre protocol commanded down from on high by a male doctor. Our moms had babies – it went fine, or maybe it went not so fine, and that’s the gist of it. The following generation of women, my generation, seem to have a habit of stepping away from the clinical and culturally acceptable norms in lots of areas of life and pushing back against our mothers’ lack-luster experiences. Birth is no different. It’s evidenced in the way many of us are choosing to stay home with our babies rather than take jobs that require our children to be in childcare, look for healing outside of the big pharma system, or educating our kids from home. There’s a desire to return to the analogue, to seek out a home-centric model of living that extinguishes the rat race and emphasizes community and connection. Homebirths fit right into the “home for home’s sake” way of life we’re chomping at the bit for, and finding. We’re looking for ways to inject more nurturing into our lives and families, and this includes not only ways to nurture our own babies more sufficiently, but also finding areas of life where we as mothers can be nurtured as well. The homebirth model gives women the opportunity to experience both. Homebirth midwives are often able to spend significantly more time with pregnant mothers during prenatal visits, getting a thorough understanding of her, her life, and her expectations for her birth. Rather than being a means for controlling or clinicalizing a woman’s pregnancy and birth, prenatal midwifery care is mother-led. The birth can occur in a mom’s own private space and on her own body’s individual timeline. Her baby can emerge into the first home they’ll know, often with the father as an active participant in their arrival. After the birth, midwives are able to debrief the birth with mom to ensure she understands how her labor unfolded, which gives her an emotional foothold with which to begin processing her birth, and her new role as a mom. Midwives are well-versed in breastfeeding needs, and can facilitate a better mother-baby breastfeeding experience, which is often one of the main struggles for mom in the immediate postpartum period. The mother is nurtured by her midwife so that she is better able to nurture her baby; woman to woman, just like decades of women have done before us.

I’ve had 3 home births now, attended by 3 different and equally uniquely capable midwives. The first was a gray haired wise woman with renowned homebirth experience treating the Amish community. My next birth attendant was my sister-in-law, a trained midwife who stepped in to deliver my baby during a snow storm. My last birth was attended by a young midwife who I’ll forever be unfathomably grateful to for her quick thinking and effective hands. Each birth showed me parts of myself I would never have seen otherwise. Each birth had moments where I found God. Each birth produced a miracle out of my own body, a completely brand new human. To have a home birth, you have to hold a high degree of trust in both your own body and the instincts of the midwife watching over you. You have to take on and hold a high degree of sovereignty over your own choices, and the outcome of those choices. You have to surrender to the power of life and circumstance, and allow yourself to walk the suddenly obvious fragile line between life and death. These are your rights as a woman. Birth is a right of passage, from matron to mother. All who pass through that portal, no matter how it looks or how it unfolds, have earned and are deserving of the title. Home birth allows women to be the facilitators of their own passage and witness to one another’s journey. It’s an emotional, physical, and spiritual experience that too often is extinguished by too much unnecessary but “normal” intervention. In the age of rejecting what is normal in favor of what might be better, or at least being unafraid to rethink or reconsider alternatives to the status quo, homebirths are making their way to the mainstream. Society pushes us to question what a woman is. Homebirth pushes directly back. It says, “I know exactly what a woman is, and I know where to find her.” Deep in the throes of labor, when the pain asks you to dig so far into yourself that you feel your past self torn apart, there she is. Primal and loud, powerful and strong. In her home, in her space, under the watchful eye of another capable woman, she becomes the woman she was always crafted to be.

“This Is Existential”: MAHA To Save the Nation

by greenpoweredlife

Hundreds of people turned out to watch a fireside chat with RFK Jr., Dr. Calley Means, and Dr. Phil in Pennsylvania last Thursday. The thread uniting the diverse audience was clear: a deep understanding that saving our country means making America healthy again.

One week ago I drove three hours south from my home in Pennsylvania deep into the heart of farmland country to attend a discussion between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Calley Means, moderated by Dr. Phil. The event was a taping for Dr. Phil’s new entertainment and news network, Merit Street Media.  I wondered who might attend the event, as it wasn’t specifically a “Trump” gathering, and I thought the content of the discussion was likely to lean more towards health and healing rather than the strictly political.  The crowd was made up of enthusiastic middle aged Trump supporters eager to welcome their new ally, RFK Jr., young people who might look more comfortable in a health food store or wandering a farmers market, and suspender-clad men only one religious step outside of the Amish sect. As the speakers took their seats amidst roars of approval and a standing ovation from the crowd, one thing became obvious: the right has enthusiastically embraced their newfound association with a nationwide health improvement push. RFK Jr. ‘s alignment with the Trump campaign was a conservative lightbulb moment, a realization that one of the most urgent and necessary ways in which the United States must improve is in the physical health of the majority of the country. We have some of  the worst healthcare in the developed world, pay the most for that mediocre healthcare, and remain some of the most unhealthy people. Our healthcare system is deeply flawed, the pharmaceutical industry is grotesquely corrupt, and people are suffering. On stage, Dr. Means and RFK Jr. declared their intentions to facilitate a top down restructuring of the FDA, NIH,  pharma lobbies, and the healthcare system. About our failing healthcare system, RFK Jr. said, “This is existential.” Improving the health of the nation isn’t just a life and death matter for individuals themselves, but for the longevity and success of the country as a whole. The United States thrives if its citizens thrive. The country declines when the health of its people declines. With both RFK Jr. and Dr. Means working on the transition team and influencing health policy within the Trump administration, there is hope for restoring health to our country, and Conservatives are ready to embrace this ambitious task.

A Regressing Population

The Flynn Effect is an observation that the average IQ of a population increases over time. As people are exposed to better education, a more complex and interesting world, and better nutrition, it makes sense that, collectively, IQ goes up in a small but significant degree over the course of decades. RFK Jr. described how, in the past decade, we’ve put the breaks on the Flynn Effect for the first time in human history. “Americans are losing IQ”, he said. During the Covid pandemic, American toddlers had a nauseating 22 point drop in IQ. Male school performance is lagging behind girls for the first time, and boys no longer perform better in subjects in which they used to traditionally outperform girls, like sciences and math. Unfortunately, it’s not because girls are more interested and invested in STEM that they’re outpacing their male counterparts, but simply that the population as a whole is regressing, and men and boys are declining at a more rapid rate than ever. 4 out of every 100 boys have autism, a staggering percentage representation for a disease that only recently seems to have emerged with a vengeance.  RFK Jr. highlighted how 40% of teenagers suffer from depression. 1 in 3 children are diabetic or prediabetic. Dr. Means noted that “The biggest building in every city is a pediatric hospital.” In terms of statistics, our country looks distressingly, unfathomably poor. Globally, we are weakening. This issue is “no longer partisan”, Dr. Means remarked. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the CDC dropped the guidelines and thresholds with which childhood development is measured against. Suddenly, milestones for talking, walking, pattern recognition, and general cognitive development dropped to meet the sharp developmental declines seen in children during 2020 and on. Dr. Means and RFK Jr. both expressed disgust that those responsible for detrimental Covid-19 policies were not only never reprimanded or held accountable in any capacity, but often promoted or celebrated within their fields. We are in the midst of a “societal collapsing health crisis”, Dr. Means said. “We’re sicker, more depressed, more infertile….Chronic lifestyle conditions are plaguing America.” Everywhere you look, there is sickness and unhealth. We seem to be unable, but more likely unwilling, to satisfactorily identify the causes of our country-wide illness epidemic. We’re at a societal tipping point, and RFK Jr. seems to be the only politician with enough courage to sound the alarm and demand action. As evidenced by the whoops and shouts of approval from the crowd at the discussion in Pennsylvania on Thursday, RFK Jr. has found compatriots and overwhelming support from the Republican party.

A Party-Wide Awakening

It used to be fringe and alarmist to believe that we’re all astonishingly ill, and that it’s our food, pharmaceuticals, and lifestyles that made us this way. Thanks to RFK Jr.’s massively successful grass-roots Independent campaign this year, not only have a greater number of people been exposed to the truth of our broken food and drug system, but they’re supporting the fight to improve it. The MAGA rallying cry has been joined with the MAHA declaration, and a new era of conservatism is being born in front of our eyes. “The old left”, as RFK called it, used to be the party fighting for the health interests of the people, and creating checks and balances on influences over food and drug manufacturing. Now it’s conservatives, arm in arm with RFK Jr., taking up the mantle to repair what corruption and cronyism has completely destroyed. According to Dr. Means, “Pharma is the largest funder of policies” in government, and our “institutions of trust”, like the FDA and NIH, have been bought and sold for profit and power, and not for health or healing. According to one study noted by Dr. Means, the NIH was found to have over 8,000 “significant” conflicts of interest since 2012, an internal industry of corruption totaling more than $188 million dollars. In one disturbing example of unfavorable test results being simply brushed away and the taxpayer dollars that funded them sent disappearing into thin air, Dr. Means cited a 10 million dollar study on the effects of puberty blockers on American children. The NIH found that puberty blockers given to gender dysphoric children had no positive effect on their mental health, and they subsequently refused to publish the study. “These agencies are corrupt to their core,” said RFK Jr. Dr. Means astutely noted that we can feel in our gut that “our institutions aren’t quite right”. This seems to be the nerve struck by RFK Jr. for conservative voters. We’ve long known that our high-level health institutions like the FDA, NIH, and CDC appear to work against the populations in which they are charged to protect and improve, and now suspicions are confirmed. RFK Jr. turned on the lights in what was once a dark room and illuminated all the shadows that we could feel but didn’t see. Our health systems are broken, and republican voters are ready and eager to begin the long road to fixing them.

A Vote For Action

RFK Jr. remains on the ballot in many states, but he expressed the importance of using would-be independent votes to vote for Trump and thereby bring RFK Jr. into office within that administration. If we believe in the goals and objectives of the MAHA movement, a vote for Trump ensures it’s advancement. Should Trump win the election, both Dr. Calley Means and RFK Jr. will work on the transition team and influence health policy within the White House. They stressed the need for top down dismantling of the FDA and NIH, with intentions of making personnel changes at these corrupt agencies and creating regulatory checks on how science is conducted and influenced. RFK Jr. noted the importance of creating changes through regulation and executive order rather than attempting to remove corruption by sending bills through congress. Changes must happen now, and without the capacity to be further corrupted. About their objectives, he said, “We’re not taking choice away from anybody…you’re an American”. But he believes that people have an immediate right to real, factual, uncorrupted studies about the foods they eat and the drugs they take, and how it’s affecting their health and lifespan. He believes Americans have a right to the truth about the causes of their poor health. RFK Jr.’s goals for his place in the Trump administration are lofty. “We’re going to find out what’s causing Autism in a couple of months,” he declared confidently. Dr. Means, referencing backlash from Trump’s recent viral McDonalds visit, dismissed the question of whether it was “healthy” or not for Trump to visit McDonalds, but rather asked why the United States allows McDonalds to serve “poison” to us and our children when other countries do not. These are the kinds of ambitions front of mind for the men ready to step into action if Trump becomes president for the second time: causation identification of our country’s most puzzling new disease and the massacre of the substances filling our country’s most popular fast food restaurant. To make America healthy again means dismantling many of the institutions and ideas that we’ve become habituated to accept over the decades. The health and future of our country depends on a few people being willing to put it all on the line for change. RFK Jr. endorsed Donald Trump as the right man for the job. Moderator Dr. Phil said we’re “fighting a huge institutional legacy”, but RFK Jr. had no qualms about Trump’s capacity to change those institutions if brought to office. He said what we all feel about Trump, why the nation is ready to bring him to office for a second time. About Trump, RFK Jr. stated simply, “He’s fearless”.

Moral Bankruptcy: Stealing Valor to Buy Credibility.

by greenpoweredlife

An examination of Governor Tim Walz.

I was only seventeen when I enlisted in the military. I chose the Air Force National Guard because I planned to go to college on the dime of the Department of Defense and because my father, a former Marine, thought the Air Force might be the “gentler” branch for his young, petite oldest daughter. I had nothing to lose. The Air Force would pay for my education, and I could prove, to myself and everyone else, that I was actually as tough as I thought myself to be. From the moment my terrified feet took hesitant steps onto the bus that transported me to my basic training unit my fellow trainees and I began our indoctrination into the rites and rituals of the United States Military. In 8 weeks of intensive warfighter training, I was transformed from a civilian teenage know-it-all to a gun-toting Airmen in the greatest military on earth. I had the jargon, I had the physical military bearing, and I had the war time strategy and philosophies essentially implanted into my brain via a Military Training Instructor’s spitting, screaming repetition. We all did – all twenty or so members of my female military graduating class stood shoulder to shoulder at attention, and for that brief moment we were all young Airmen on the lowest rung of our career totem poles. Each of our brains was a well-programmed military encyclopedia, but our military experiences had no nuance yet. Soon our careers would launch, and the differences within each of our individual paths would emerge to tell a story about our accomplishments as veterans. But the way we talk about those accomplishments, whether we flaunt them, embellish them, keep them tight within us, or cloak them with humility, says something about who we are as people, and about our character. Our interpretation and recapitulation of our experiences, the way we recount them and reimagine them, is an effective moral barometer. For those who treat their military experience like a man narrating a fish tale, full of fanciful flourishes bordering on outright fabrications, it’s reasonable to ask, “How much of anything this individual says can be trusted?” If the person in question is someone of high political standing – say, a potential Vice President of the United States such as Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, we are wise to sound the alarm. When individuals conflate their service record, especially people in political positions, we are required to examine their character a little deeper. 

To have enlisted in the military at all and for any reason is brave and honorable. To embellish your service record, to pretend or insinuate that you’ve done more than is truthful, is shameful. Embellishing your service record is easy to do – that’s what makes it spineless. It’s often referred to as “stolen valor” – falsely claiming military position, awards, or recognition. I don’t believe Governor Tim Walz stole valor in the way it’s traditionally recognized. Certainly, he made shady claims about rank, insinuated experiences of war, and made a calculated career slither out of a potential deployment. Rather than full blown stolen valor, he did the next most egregious thing you can do publicly and expect to get away with: To buy credibility for himself, he bloated his rank and insinuated war zone experience, knowing all the while that he shadily sidestepped his chance at gaining real war experience. All branches of the United States Military retain a rigid code of ethics. You earn your rank. You earn your war stories. You earn your medals. There is a hierarchy to every component of the establishment, for good reason. It is one huge, churning conglomerate of individual human beings all working in perfect synchronicity to be a war machine. And while the machine needs each individual to function, it is the individual who risks life and limb. Young men and young women die. They are  maimed. They go far away from their families and come back changed. The United States Military is a sacred, reverent, fantastic, horrible machine. To look into the eyes of millions of Americans and claim to have played a bigger role in the functioning of the machine, no matter how trivial the fabrication, indicates a darkness of character that should give every one of us pause. We are used to politicians lying. To lie about something so sacrosanct, and also so disprovable, as military service is deeply concerning. What else are you willing to lie to the American people about? Do you expect yourself to be above logical and necessary scrutiny?

Governor Tim Walz did serve in the United States Army. He did honorably reach the rank of Master Sergeant, and retired at that rank. Walz however has claimed that he retired at the next highest rank, Command Sergeant Major. According to the Minnesota National Guard, Walz did not in fact complete the necessary coursework and paperwork to maintain the rank of Command Sergeant Major. In the military, your rank is your entirety. It determines your level of privilege, your capacity for responsibility, and your necessary degree of respect. It is cut and dry. It drives your pay. It showcases the power you wield and how scared of you the lower ranks should be. To claim a higher rank, especially when Governor Walz reached a desirable and high rank within the Army, is curiously unnecessary. Did he feel as though the Army owed him that rank, and simply decided to claim it as his own? I certainly do not know his motivations, but I am deeply dubious of an individual who can look the public in the eye and tell a needless and easily provable lie about military rank.

More egregious and more shameful are the accusations surrounding Governor  Walz regarding his skirting of a deployment, then claiming in retrospect a wartime overseas service. Walz was never deployed to a Middle East location during wartime. His battalion had the opportunity to go, and as a senior non-commissioned officer, he would have been tasked with leading his troops in their overseas location. Reports are hazy and conflicting about when the official order for deployment to Iraq in 2005 for Walz’s battalion came down to the troops. However Walz, being a high ranking senior man, would unquestioningly have been hearing rumblings and scuttlebutt about the impending mobilization. Walz chose to retire at that time – a decision he was entitled to make after 24 years of dedicated service. He planned to run for congressional office. Although he could have deployed and made his congressional run at the same time, he chose not to. He walked away from his battalion and allowed his men to step into the theater of war without him. Was it cowardice? Strategy? Regardless, his retirement, and the careful timing of it, could all be quietly justified and glossed over, except for his later combat claims to come. Thanks to retirement, Walz did not have to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan. It is confounding  that Walz would tell a crowd in 2018 that “we can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war.” He did not carry weapons in war. He carried weapons of war, sure. But the distinction is important, and the word choice is calculated. It implies combat. A reasonable person, especially a civilian, would assume he carried a gun and engaged in combat. He similarly implied combat in a 9/11 commemoration speech where he spoke about his experience at Afghanistan’s Bagram Air Base. He claimed he came back from Afghanistan a changed man due to his experiences there, like witnessing bodies being loaded onto an aircraft carrier. He was at Bagram on a congressional visit. He was undoubtedly flanked by security and never took a step off  the comfort of the base. His insinuations are purposeful. The man left the military before he could serve in combat, and then fabricated a combat experience to buy himself more credibility without having to put his life on the line to gain it. Walz did not necessarily steal valor, but he certainly pumped a degree of valor into his time in service that did not exist otherwise. The military is composed of men and women who have earned their war experience by making a gamble with God in service of the country. Governor Walz never had to make that gamble, and he knows it. To feel like a bigger man, he leads you to believe otherwise. There is nothing more egregious than ravaging the sanctity of real combat experience by fabricating your own for false prestige.

My own time in the military was straight forward. I did eight weeks in basic training and completed further specialized job training. After that, I served in my position as a member of the Security Forces, the Air Force’s version of  Military Police. When 6 years of enlistment came to pass and I had a brand new daughter to focus on, I was honorably discharged. My military accomplishments amounted to, essentially, nothing. I wasn’t good at the military. I felt no desire to climb rank. When the time to reenlist rolled around, not doing so was an easy decision. It simply wasn’t a good fit. Still, a twinge of jealousy comes over me when I see my former military peers leaving for interesting deployments or advancing their military schooling or rank. Having served at all though, whether I personally enjoyed my time or not, lends me a reasonable level of credibility. Any commitment to enlist, regardless of duration, allows a level of credibility shared by all military personnel. I realized that just mentioning my prior service gave me a little shining red, white, and blue halo over my head in the eyes of just about every civilian. There is a jolt of pride that comes along with that positive feedback. When people ask what I did during my time of enlistment, it’s hard to say “basically… not a thing.” For someone in a bland military career, it’s easy to see how the temptation might arise to insinuate grander experiences and accomplishments. When inquiries come up about whether I ever spent time overseas with the military, the answer is “yes”. The Air Force sent me on a cushy, small assignment to England, and a few other assignments in the continental United States. But when someone asks about time overseas, they are not asking about pseudo vacations to the UK. I know what they are actually asking: “Have you ever been deployed?” I could say yes. It would technically be true. I could leave them wondering, but not comfortable asking, about where, and under what circumstances. Their minds would go to movies and pop culture – deserts, guns, and explosives – and they would think highly of my dedication to the country. When someone asks about where I was stationed, the truth is a tiny but highly functioning National Guard unit in Pennsylvania, and only on my required one weekend a month at that. But what I could say, and what would also be the truth, is “I worked for an Air Force Special Operations Unit on the East Coast”. That sounds impressive, mysterious, and serious. That begs no follow up questions. That makes me sound like a total badass. When people ask about things I’ve done during my enlistment, I can talk about all of the time I spent in the presence of some quiet and kind but very scary Special Operations men from every branch of the United States Military and many from the UK as well. It’s all true. But aside from a polite passing “hello” every now and then, the majority of my interactions with these guys was sitting on airport tarmac alone in a car with a gun keeping watch over their parked airplanes for hours on end. I chose not to stay in the military because it didn’t fit me just as much as I didn’t fit it. Yet I still often wish I had done more, and had more to show for 6 years of enlistment. I imagine better stories to tell, higher rank to claim, a successful deployment to an overseas location to commiserate about with fellow vets. I could claim more than is fully truthful. No one would know the difference. Not only would doing so be slimy and dishonest, but to embellish my own experience is a cheapening of the sacrifice of those who actually did more – who did the most. People died for the American cause. Men and women put their lives on the line, and some lost the bargain. What kind of darkness of soul must you have to denigrate these men and women and their families by cutting and pasting yourself into the same situations that ended their lives in an effort to buy yourself more public credibility? Governor Tim Walz is an embellisher of valor and a careful liar. As a former Air Force Airmen myself, having just dipped my toe into the expansive lake of the military machine, I can tell you that we look at people like him with disgust. He might be among the ranks of the greatest military on earth on paper, but in spirit he lacks the backbone so crucial to the values of American service men and women. What the United States does not need, and what we must vote against in 2024, is another ethically bankrupt man in office. And to those members of the military who fight bravely and keep this great country safe and sound without question, we value you, and we thank you. 

Trump 2024 Slogan ‘Peace Through Strength’ as a Call to Conservative Women

by greenpoweredlife

Across the sea of people attending the Republican National Committee in early July was a breathtaking array of red, white, and blue attire, cowboy hats, “Make America Great Again” signs, and a shining, contagious sense of optimism. The speakers were diverse and dignified, the crowd was spirited, and “Trump Vance” signs waved through the audience like flags of hope. “Peace Through Strength” declared one of the handheld signs, and it stood out. Picture that printed declaration in a crowd of Democratic leaders, and you might scoff. What strength? A feeble world leader, his ineffectual cronies, and a tribe of mealy-mouthed constituents don’t convey an expectation of strength. In this conservative crowd, however, a slogan of strength found a fitting home. The party is growing stronger as it unites, and Donald Trump displayed his physical and mental fortitude by standing up and refusing to back down after the attempt on his life. At face value, “Peace Through Strength” is a compelling rallying cry.  But the concept of attaining peace through the demonstration of strength has a deeply rooted history in global politics. It’s not just a 2024 campaign slogan, it is a tried and true survival approach appropriate on a large scale between ancient dynasties and modern world powers, but also on a deeply personal level. One of the greatest ways to achieve personal resiliency and mettle is to build mental and physical strength. For young conservative women in the United States in the year 2024, achieving a certain supply of grit and impudence to stand on our morals, uphold our values, and remain tough in the face of animosity is a requirement. One of the best ways to achieve the confidence needed to stand firm in this perilous world is to strengthen our physical bodies. If you thought being strong and tough was just for the boys, it’s time for young women in our country to shape peace in our homes, peace in our communities, and peace in our country by becoming physically stronger.

When I enlisted in the United States Air Force I was seventeen years old and very petite. A lifelong dancer, my frame was wiry with thin limbs and slight enough to propel me high into the air for leaps and spins. Wanting to serve my country, I decided to become a cop for the Air Force, enlisted, and then took a tour of my new unit prior to leaving for Basic Military Training. I stepped foot onto the base and realized with alarm that I was in over my head. The men I would work alongside were imposing and strong. I was going to be expected to hold my own against all manner of suspects in a law enforcement setting, the vast majority of whom would be quite a bit larger and stronger than me. I would be working out and training in different combat modalities with the men in my unit, and I would need to keep up. I needed to get stronger, bigger, faster, and tougher – and I needed to do it immediately. I started heading to the gym. I lifted weights, I ran, I ate, and I chugged protein shakes. Before long, I could hang with the boys. Then, I was outperforming the boys. I gained muscle, strength, and physical credibility amongst my fellow airmen. But the most surprising characteristic I gained, and the component that has carried through in a positive way to the majority of my life, was confidence. And, within that confidence, a sense of peace; I can, and will, successfully do hard things. 

There is a certain level of confidence that comes from being sure of the capacity and capability of your own physical body. You can move through the world unafraid of potential challenges or challengers. Pushing your body to do something exerting on a daily basis ensures that you understand your threshold for resilience, fortitude, and tenacity. It is a thread of self-understanding that will carry through to everything else you encounter. The greatest and most beneficial irony of strength-building is that the harder you work during dedicated movement, the easier the strenuous aspects of your daily life become. Your walk to work is easier.  Your daily chores and housework are easier.  Carrying children during pregnancy and delivering them is easier. Chasing little kids around is easier. The noise of the physical demands of your daily life are muted just a bit because they are now easier to do, and the volume of the impactful work you’re able to accomplish is increased due to the extra energy.  You are more cognitively available at work. You are  more patient with your children. You have the mental space to operate more efficiently, and you improve in your job and at home. Being a responsible American woman today necessitates keeping a level head, logical thinking, and moral reasoning. These are  all traits that have taken a back seat in the chronically energy depleted  lives of so many. When your body is running inefficiently, your baseline functioning is lower as a result. It’s a small-scale, personified version of the decline of our country at this very moment. Our current President and government are ineffectual, and therefore every component built on top of this foundation is frustrated, congested, and deficient. If we can improve our country’s health by bringing in a strong leader, everything else will be constructed atop a firm foundation. And, inside of this cocoon of strength, we are fearless. We are indefatigable. To challenge us is fruitless – we establish peace through power. 

Finding personal peace through strength isn’t about becoming a super-athlete or bodybuilder. It is about finding a way to challenge your body in a manner that brings you happiness and is sustainable for your lifestyle. You don’t have to become the best at what you do. You just have to do something. Take the stairs. Choose a parking spot further away. Start your day with yoga. Take a fitness class. Try a Couch to 5k app. Learn to do a pushup. There is nothing too small or trivial when it comes to improving your strength. Every little bit counts, and every little bit means something on a larger scale. In the same way that the values inside of each individual American home shape the country as a whole to the positive or the negative, so too do those little pieces of daily physical challenge. One of the best ways to rebuild the moral core of our country is by embracing the Trump 2024 campaign slogan of “Peace Through Strength” on an individual level, especially as women. We are the center of our households, leaders in the workforce, and carry the heavy burden of directly influencing the beliefs of the next generation through our children. We have the greatest chance of success as a nation if we each do our part. Imagine your personal strength as the Victory Garden of 2024. If every woman planted and began to cultivate her own style of physical strength and toughness, the durability of all conservative women would increase as a result. Individual to household, household to community, community to nation. 

 If we want a peaceful country for our future families, we need a strong head of government. We need to elect a strong leader. We need people in power that have grit and tenacity. And inside of ourselves we must establish these traits as well. The left values weakness. They seek to elevate  themselves not by becoming better, but by mandating the demise of groups and individuals with dominant traits they perceive as threatening to the glass palace of political correctness. It is part of what makes being a conservative woman so difficult in this country. Like an insecure animal, the left is ready and willing to lash out, not because they are stronger, but because they are scared. We can arm ourselves with strength of body to establish strength of mind, and  in that we gain confidence, durability, and effectiveness. This is where true peace lives, personally and globally. We are  not to be messed with. We stand on a rock of integrity and virtue. Peace Through Strength, and then strength because of peace. Stand tall, conservative women. You are doing good work, and you are stronger than you can ever imagine. 

Just Had a Baby? Here’s How to Get Back Into Your Fitness Rhythm

by greenpoweredlife

Although the pressure on women to bounce back after giving birth can be extremely overwhelming and downright unachievable, many moms find that their sense of self and body image is greatly restored by a return to exercise and the movement modalities and workout styles they used to love. When you’ve been cleared by your doctor and finally have the energy to return to exercise, it can feel intimidating to know where to start. What is safe? What are some realistic goals? How do I make exercise and health fit into the landscape of my life as a new mother? From one busy mom to another, here are some tips to help you regain your rhythm and balance while taking care of a baby and taking care of you!

First, don’t be afraid to start small. Being cleared by your doctor is priority number one. But just because your doc gives you the “thumbs up” doesn’t mean you should return to exercise with ferocity. Your body just went through some wild changes, and it will require a season of rebuilding and repair. Go gently into exercise. Focus on small goals. Walking is a fantastic place to start. How far can you walk at a time? Can you begin to build cardio stamina while you push a stroller? Going for daily walks with baby will bring your step count up and stress down as you both enjoy some outside time. Another area of focus should be on your core. After pregnancy and birth, your core is decimated and often unstable. It just stretched for 9 months and then either helped you push out a baby or was slashed end to end during a C-Section – talk about intense! Deep core breathing, vacuums, and work with a pelvic floor therapist are great ways to ensure that your core is in stable, working order. After all, the core supports the entire body, so make sure you’re strengthening those abdominals to facilitate the proper function of the hips and spine after 9 months of stress! If walking and deep breathing seem like underwhelming goals, that’s okay! Bite sized goals will keep you motivated and create a good base for larger habits to come. After the birth of my children, I usually give myself 3 months of simply walking and repairing my core before I even think of lifting a weight. Slow and steady is the name of the game, because it’s always better to do too little and move slower at first than too much and regret it because of injuries later.

You’re ready to jump into a workout plan, but how will you find the time? The answer is, you won’t! You’ll have to work hard to make time, and it might feel like you need a magic wand to create it from thin air. If you can wake up before the kids to get a workout in alone, I admire you jealously! For the rest of us, we need to find ways to incorporate the little ones into our rhythm.  Luckily, babies and young kids are often great exercise companions, although some creativity might be required to keep them entertained. Here are some of the ways I’ve established a home exercise routine with babies or young kids as my audience: I’ve set up baby to watch me from a bouncer, pack’n’play, swing, or other containment apparatus. They love the music and watch with curiosity as mom moves around through a workout. I’ve hung outdoor swings from my basement rafters and pushed my kids between sets. I’ve converted a corner of my basement gym to a toy zone to keep them occupied but close by. I’ve even plopped them in front of a TV (gasp!) or tablet (gasp!) – anything to keep them happy for a workout sized block of time. It has always been crucial to me as a mom to get exercise in – I’m a happier, better, more present mother. So I have a “do what it takes” attitude when it comes to working out with kids around, and that’s okay! If you plan to go to a gym, seek out one with childcare. I’ve even had success asking permission for my kids to accompany me out on the gym floor as long as they’re contained in a car seat or stroller.

There’s no roadmap for becoming a mom, but there are plenty of great coaches who can provide you with a roadmap for returning to exercise. Hiring a coach to help you with a nutrition and workout plan can remove the guesswork and be one less thing you need to ask of your tired brain. Seek out a coach who has experience helping women or new moms. If you’re very newly postpartum, someone with postpartum expertise is recommended. If you’re breastfeeding, ensure that your coach is experienced in helping nursing mothers. As a coach of many new moms and women myself, I know that sometimes the barrier to beginning an exercise program is that you simply can’t put one more ounce of energy into planning a workout schedule or exercise routine. The market for good personal trainers is robust, and you can easily access affordable help. The return on your investment in a personal trainer is that you’ll achieve your goals faster, in a safer manner, and without needing to provide much in the way of brain power. Find a coach who will customize every aspect of your program for you and who you resonate with on a personal level. A great trainer/client relationship can last through many seasons of life and maximize your goals.

It’s likely that returning to exercise will coincide with a renewed focus on nutrition. No matter what your particular nutrition preference or philosophy, getting in meals is harder than ever, and you may find yourself drinking cold coffee and eating leftover Goldfish on more days than you would like to admit. Shifting hormones mean a shifting metabolism, and all of a sudden you can’t get a solid grip on your physique. Meal prepping is the answer to the chaos and crucial for this period of life! Pre-cook proteins like ground beef or turkey, grilled chicken, tofu, or steak, and add it to whatever veggies you have on hand. Meals don’t have to be complicated, but they should be protein rich and filling. Take a multivitamin like Core Nutritionals MULTI to fill in the gaps. Turn to protein shakes like Core Nutritionals ISO to add to your morning coffee for an extra protein boost. Greens powders are also a great way to add vitamins and nutrients when you can’t get in a nutritious meal. (Core Nutritional GREENS in the grape flavor is how I start every morning!) Meals may not be gourmet or even interesting in this period of life – that’s okay! Be intentional about the foods you consume, increase protein, and don’t be afraid to supplement when needed. If you’re breastfeeding, fats and whole foods are your friend. Nursing or not, don’t assume now is the time to slash calories and eat less. Make sure you’re providing your body the fuel it needs! Between recovering from childbirth, breastfeeding, caring for a baby, new stressors, and a distinct lack of sleep, your body needs good nutrition and an extra padding of calories with which to function. You’re caring for a baby, but don’t forget about you. Just like putting an oxygen mask on yourself before you should put one on others in an airplane, you need to ensure that you’re fueled and healthy to ensure the same for your babies and children. So eat well, mama!

The final component to your return to exercise is recovery. To say “get more sleep!” would be laughable. I already know you’re getting as much as you can. And, “sleep when baby sleeps”?! 

That’s simply the worst advice of all time. So here is my advice for recovery during a period of time when recovery seems impossible: listen to your body and maximize where you can. Both of my children didn’t start sleeping through the night until they were 18 months old. That’s a long time (boardering on torture!) to be without continuous sleep. It was important that, when I was able to sleep, I got to sleep fast and slept deeply. I often turned to Core Nutritionals ZZZ to help me relax, reduce the dread I felt before a disrupted bedtime, and keep me asleep for as long as I could be. On days when sleep is bad, pull back! There is no need to push yourself when the body is asking you for rest. Listen to those sore muscles, or drooping eyelids, or your pounding head. Take a walk instead of hitting the weights hard. Take a nap instead of hitting the cardio. Sleep can make or break your goals, and when your night times feel more cruel than comforting, it’s okay to listen to your body and reduce stress where you can, even if that comes in the form of a skipped workout. 

The season after the birth of a new baby is difficult, but returning to exercise, prioritizing your health, and feeling like yourself again does not have to be. With intentionality, creativity, and forming good habits, you’ll be on the road to that elusive “bounce back”! But, really, there is no bounce back, just progressing forward. You have a whole new body that’s accomplished this whole new, awesome thing: bringing a new human into the world! Give yourself grace, time, and patience. Take baby steps and don’t stop when it gets hard. And know there are many, many women out there, myself included, making it happen, getting fit, raising babies, and cheering you on! From this mom to you – you CAN do it!