Selfie

How do we stay sane over the holidays? We share our tips, and have a conversation with Meagan Francis of The Mom Hour about being a type 2 on the Enneagram.

To take the test to find out your own type, you can visit this site for a quick, free test, or buy the $12 Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator test at the Enneagram Institute for a more thorough assessment and explanation of your secondary types. (We recommend springing for the paid test.)

Here are some Enneagram books we recommend:

The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Riso and Hudson

The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut

The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth by Christopher L. Heuertz

 

How do we stay sane over the holidays? We share our tips, and have a conversation with Meagan Francis of The Mom Hour about being a type 2 on the Enneagram.

To take the test to find out your own type, you can visit this site for a quick, free test, or buy the $12 Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator test at the Enneagram Institute for a more thorough assessment and explanation of your secondary types. (We recommend springing for the paid test.)

Here are some Enneagram books we recommend:

The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Riso and Hudson

The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut

The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth by Christopher L. Heuertz

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In our last episode of Selfie, Sarah and I shared a ton of unique gift ideas for the women, men and kids in your life. Here are some of our favorites:

For Women:

If you love the smell of walking into an Anthropologie, you need Capri Blue candles. It smells like a tropical vacation. Kristen is partial to the mercury glass collection because of the glow the glass gives off. She’s also a fan of Jonathan Adler’s red currant candle.

Wanna gift a cookbook? We recommend How To Cook Anything by Mark Bittman and the True Foods cookbook.

Can a vacuum really change your life? And make your kids more willing to clean? Kristen contends that the Dyson cordless vacuum can.

Sarah uses this Vitruvi Essential Oil Diffuser which, in addition to making her home smell amazing, looks like a modern vase.

Sarah is obsessed with the MUN essentials skincare set, a luxury splurge for a woman you like a lot. (Use the code WHOORL for 15% off your purchase!)

Reusable shopping bags are always a useful gift and Baggu’s are adorable and in a variety of fun modern prints and colors.

We’ve long loved 31 Bits jewelry but their new home collection is TO DIE FOR and all purchases benefit women in Uganda and Bali.

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We are talking about type 1’s (the Reformers) in our ongoing Enneagram series. And botox – should you do it? We have a fascinating interview with Kendra Adachi of The Lazy Genius Podcast, who is an Enneagram 1, as well as Jenny Potter, a creative producer at Willowcreek. Also, Kristen admits to her cognitive dissonance around her own botox use.

Here are some books we talked about in this episode:

The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut

The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron

Subscribe to the Enneathought of the Day here.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From cookbooks to candles, kids’ gifts to ideas for the men in your life, Kristen and Sarah have got some unique and passionate recommendations for thoughtful gifts this holiday season.

For Women:

If you love the smell of walking into an Anthropologie, you need Capri Blue candles. It smells like a tropical vacation. Kristen is partial to the mercury glass collection because of the glow the glass gives off. She’s also a fan of Jonathan Adler’s red currant candle.

Wanna gift a cookbook? We recommend How To Cook Anything by Mark Bittman and the True Foods cookbook.

Can a vacuum really change your life? And make your kids more willing to clean? Kristen contends that the Dyson cordless vacuum can.

Sarah uses this Vitruvi Essential Oil Diffuser which, in addition to making her home smell amazing, looks like a modern vase.

Sarah is obsessed with the MUN essentials skincare set, a luxury splurge for a woman you like a lot. (Use the code WHOORL for 15% off your purchase!)

Reusable shopping bags are always a useful gift and Baggu’s are adorable and in a variety of fun modern prints and colors.

We’ve long loved 31 Bits jewelry but their new home collection is TO DIE FOR and all purchases benefit women in Uganda and Bali.

What do you get the person who has everything? A personalized self-inking address stamp is a thoughtful and useful gift for anyone.

Sarah loves the Many Moons Workbook which has tons of information and research on the major Moon phases, recipes, spell working suggestions and advice, manifestation musings, Tarot Talk, and self-help and development prompts. If that level of woo-woo isn’t your thing and you come from a more Christian tradition, check out Christian Piatt’s Surviving the Bible devotional for 2018, a progressive and modern approach to looking at ancient scriptures.

With all the great pictures you’re sure to take over the holidays, we’ve partnered with CanvasPeople.com to bring you a special deal on their photo canvases. Normally 11×14 canvases are priced at $69.99, but for a limited time, they are offering a FREE 11×14 canvas. (You just pay shipping.) To get this amazing deal, go to CanvasPeople.com and enter the code SELFIE at checkout.

For Men:

For awesomely hip beanies, messenger bags, and more, check out the goods at Krochet Kids, which are created by at-risk women in their educational sewing programs in Uganda and Peru.

For the techies, we love the Amazon Alexa as a way to play music, add groceries to your list, check the weather, and answer your burning questions. It’s like your own personal assistant.

And speaking of Alexa, the voice-activated amazon system can now control

I've been working hard trying to reduce the excess "stuff" in my house. I recently read the book

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and while it's practice is a bit extreme, I really did resonate with the idea that clutter only holds us back. I've been ssystematicallypurging every room in the house, but it has been hard to get the kids to buy in.

Recently, I had a little "come to Jesus" with my oldest daughter, who has a really hard time throwing things away. I told her we needed to pull everything out, put it on the floor, and put it back away, and I told her I wanted to her to really think about throwing about half of it away, because the volume was overwhelming.

And it WAS overwhelming . . . especially as she saw everything laying on the floor. I think she finally got the "burden of stuff" laid out like that, and she was onboard. We filled four trashbags, and we put everything back neatly in place. And we were both really happy with the result.

I got lots of inquiries about the rug when I posted this photo on instagram. It's from Lorena Canals and I can't say enough about her rugs. The designs are amazing but hetter, yet, they are WASHABLE. You can throw them in the washing machine like you would a comfortor which makes it so easy to keep clean in a kid's room. (I also have one in my livnig room.) They are hypo-allergenic and fmade with non-toxic chemicals, natural dyes and without environmental hazards. HIGHLY RECOMMEND! They are also available on amazon here.

I'm happy to report that after this excercise, something clicked for India, and she has kept her room clean ever since. She's even done a purge twice since without me even asking. She's finally understanding that keeping less means more freedom from clutter.

And now, it's time to tackle my kitchen cupboards . . .

What can you learn about your internal motivations and drives from the Enneagram? Over on my podcast Selfie we’re kicking off a series on this fascinating personality theory. In this introductory episode we will explain what it is, and then talk through each type with writer and enneagram enthusiast Leigh Kramer. We’re also joined by Christopher Heuertz, author of The Sacred Enneagram, who shares some of the history of the enneagram, it’s spiritual origins and modern psychological iterations, and how our childhood fears and wounds shape our personality. It’s a fascinating episode that we hope will inspire you to join us on this journey of exploration.

To take the test to find out your own type, you can visit this site for a quick, free test, or buy the $12 Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator test at the Enneagram Institute for a more thorough assessment and explanation of your secondary types. (We recommend springing for the paid test.)

Here are some books we talked about in this episode:

The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Riso and Hudson

The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut

The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual...

We are talking about type 1’s (the Reformers) in our ongoing Enneagram series. And botox – should you do it? We have a fascinating interview with Kendra Adachi of The Lazy Genius Podcast, who is an Enneagram 1, as well as Jenny Potter, a creative producer at a Chicago-based church. Also, Kristen admits to her cognitive dissonance around her own botox use.

Here are some books we talked about in this episode:

The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut

The Road Back to You by Ian Morgan Cron

Subscribe to the Enneathought of the Day here.

Also, Zola is reinventing the wedding registry and planning process to make the happiest moment in couples’ lives even happier. The Zola Registry has everything you love about your favorite department stores, plus things like honeymoon funds, fitness classes, wine subscriptions…over 500 top brands and 50,000 gifts, experiences, and cash funds.

It’s super easy to use for couples and their guests, and is top-rated app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, so couples can manage their registries on-the-go.

Right now, if you sign up with Zola, you’ll receive a $50 credit towards your registry! Go to zola.com/selfie to get your $50 credit!

Today I'm happy to host an essay from Nicole Opper. Nicole and her wife were feature in the recent PBS series called "The F Word: A foster-to-adopt story" which follows one couple's journey to adopt a child from foster care. We adopted our first child from foster care, and watching their story brought back so many memories!

It was the first time in my 36 years of life that I’ve set my alarm for 5am and actually gotten up right when it went off. No snooze button. My parents were staying at a nearby hotel, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law were in the airbnb below our apartment. Everyone had driven from afar or flown in. No one was about to miss the day that this beautiful, perfect little person joined our family for good.

Only one thing made this day look a little different: the camera crew following us every step of the way. We had been documenting this journey for nearly two years - from the moment my wife and I decided we were going to build our family through fost-adoption, to placement with the boy who we would forever call our son. The resulting series is The F Word: A Foster-to-Adopt Story.

The social workers had taken off work to be here. That really stuck with me. The social workers who had worked overtime to make sure this baby had a forever family had to ask for time off to attend our finalization hearing. I mean, c’mon. These professionals are making the toughest decisions day in and day out, hedging their bets, living with the pain and confusion and discomfort of everyone involved. Social workers are warriors on the front lines of a war that shouldn’t have sides to begin with, that at its best doesn’t have any sides at all, yet they had to take off work to be here. And all we had to offer them were some mason jars filled with Hershey kisses because my wife wanted them to leave remembering the sweetness of the day.

We got to the courthouse 45 minutes early. We were nervous about traffic. We were nervous about parking. We were nervous about life. We had serious adoption jitters. My wife said it felt just like our wedding day: when you’re trying to stay present and smell the flowers and take in the beauty of it all but you also just want it to happen already, dammit.

We entered the same courthouse we had entered four months earlier to witness the termination of our son’s birth parents’ rights. There’s no way to describe the complexity wrapped up in the feelings of that day. I remember texting a good friend with the news. Reading her response I broke down because she reflected my internal angst so beautifully: “I don’t want to cheer… but I’m glad that you guys are on your way.” A TPR is nothing to cheer. It’s in fact on many levels something to grieve, for the sake of your adopted child.

When everyone arrived and we moved inside, we were instructed to pass through the metal detectors. It is a courthouse after all. “Step right up, strip down, become a family,” I imagined the security guard joking, though he was actually beaming with smiles and making the whole routine as warm and love-filled as humanly possible.

J’s guncles (and our closest friends) arrived fashionably late. They’re gay, that’s what they do.

What can you learn about your internal motivations and drives from the Enneagram? We’re kicking off a series on this fascinating personality theory. In this introductory episode we will explain what it is, and then talk through each type with writer and enneagram enthusiast Leigh Kramer. We’re also joined by Christopher Heuertz, author of The Sacred Enneagram, who shares some of the history of the enneagram, it’s spiritual origins and modern psychological iterations, and how our childhood fears and wounds shape our personality. It’s a fascinating episode that we hope will inspire you to join us on this journey of exploration.

To take the test to find out your own type, you can visit this site for a quick, free test, or buy the $12 Riso-Hudson Enneagram Type Indicator test at the Enneagram Institute for a more thorough assessment and explanation of your secondary types. (We recommend springing for the paid test.)

Here are some books we talked about in this episode:

The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types by Riso and Hudson

The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge by Beatrice Chestnut

The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth by Christopher L. Heuertz 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices