Open Mind with Cecilia Skidmore, MA, LPC
"The greatest sin is to remain unconscious." -Carl Jung
Workshops, Press and Media
Press and Media
Mutual of Omaha's "Aha Moments"
In July of 2009, Cecilia was interviewed for "Aha Moments," a series sponsored by Mutual of Omaha. The series was dedicated to sharing and exploring those moments of clarity and insight that mark our personal growth and change.
Watch her interview here!
Grand Rapids Press Article on Managing Change
In January of 2009, Cecilia taught a course on managing change at (First) Park Church, in Grand Rapids.
Mutual of Omaha's "Aha Moments"
In July of 2009, Cecilia was interviewed for "Aha Moments," a series sponsored by Mutual of Omaha. The series was dedicated to sharing and exploring those moments of clarity and insight that mark our personal growth and change.
Watch her interview here!
Grand Rapids Press Article on Managing Change
In January of 2009, Cecilia taught a course on managing change at (First) Park Church, in Grand Rapids.
Click here to read the Grand Rapids Press article that was published in December of 2009, after Cecilia spoke with Kathy Carrier (Press) about the troubling economic times and looming job losses.
Cecilia's Blog: Thoughts on Cooking and Self-Discovery
I'm making cheese these days, and bread, and sausage. It's fun and exciting to learn a new thing, and so to develop a new passion. I find myself surrounded by baking books, and things make sense in a way they didn't before. What I mean is that when you cook following a recipe, you don' t have to really know what's going on. You just put in the ingredients as laid out, bake or stew or braise for so long and voila!- a product results. Maybe you make it again, reading the recipe, maybe you don't ever make it again.
But when you start to make things with intent, you begin to pay attention. Then you can fiddle with the recipe perhaps, but at least you begin to have ownership over it. I bet Dan Siegel would say your brain begins to create an image of yourself as part of that recipe, like it creates an image of the car being an extended part of us when we learn to drive. Nevertheless, the intent changes everything.
I started with making bread from the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. What a glorious feeling to make something that looks like bakery bread! But it wasn't too long before it felt incomplete. There weren't enough holes in the bread--those strechy, chewy crevices that make a good loaf really good. So after discovering Flour ,and speaking to its author (Joanne Chang, owner of Flour Bakery in Boston), I perused the book and found her recipe for bread using a "mother." A mother is yeast made by itself - using flour and water and air, and a few hours later one can make a more complex loaf - and it will have holes!...
We are referred back to other bread cookbooks from Flour, since it's really a pastry book rather than a bread book, and one of the books was one I already had - The LaBrea Bread Book. In that book we learn to make sourdough starter - from flour, water, air, and GRAPES! When I'd first purchased the LaBrea bread book, that had seemed far too daunting, and I hadn't even attempted it. But now, it seems adventurous and exciting to have one more thing that I can do myself (YES!) instead of relying on the grocery store. It has gotten to the point that I bypass most of what is at the grocery store except staples and produce, meat, and of course wine. We eat better, have more variety and have much more satisfaction than ever.
Why do we rely so much on grocery stores, on prepackaged foods? I can only imagine that it comes from the fact that in my mother's generation the shift from home made - including things like home births and breast feeding, but certainly foods - moving from homemade soups to canned, from homemade cakes to cake mixes was thought of as "modern" and so we lost most of our own character. The irony is that most of what is supposed to be easier and quicker isn't at all, so we're left with the same amount of work for less of everything else.
~C
I'm making cheese these days, and bread, and sausage. It's fun and exciting to learn a new thing, and so to develop a new passion. I find myself surrounded by baking books, and things make sense in a way they didn't before. What I mean is that when you cook following a recipe, you don' t have to really know what's going on. You just put in the ingredients as laid out, bake or stew or braise for so long and voila!- a product results. Maybe you make it again, reading the recipe, maybe you don't ever make it again.
But when you start to make things with intent, you begin to pay attention. Then you can fiddle with the recipe perhaps, but at least you begin to have ownership over it. I bet Dan Siegel would say your brain begins to create an image of yourself as part of that recipe, like it creates an image of the car being an extended part of us when we learn to drive. Nevertheless, the intent changes everything.
I started with making bread from the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. What a glorious feeling to make something that looks like bakery bread! But it wasn't too long before it felt incomplete. There weren't enough holes in the bread--those strechy, chewy crevices that make a good loaf really good. So after discovering Flour ,and speaking to its author (Joanne Chang, owner of Flour Bakery in Boston), I perused the book and found her recipe for bread using a "mother." A mother is yeast made by itself - using flour and water and air, and a few hours later one can make a more complex loaf - and it will have holes!...
We are referred back to other bread cookbooks from Flour, since it's really a pastry book rather than a bread book, and one of the books was one I already had - The LaBrea Bread Book. In that book we learn to make sourdough starter - from flour, water, air, and GRAPES! When I'd first purchased the LaBrea bread book, that had seemed far too daunting, and I hadn't even attempted it. But now, it seems adventurous and exciting to have one more thing that I can do myself (YES!) instead of relying on the grocery store. It has gotten to the point that I bypass most of what is at the grocery store except staples and produce, meat, and of course wine. We eat better, have more variety and have much more satisfaction than ever.
Why do we rely so much on grocery stores, on prepackaged foods? I can only imagine that it comes from the fact that in my mother's generation the shift from home made - including things like home births and breast feeding, but certainly foods - moving from homemade soups to canned, from homemade cakes to cake mixes was thought of as "modern" and so we lost most of our own character. The irony is that most of what is supposed to be easier and quicker isn't at all, so we're left with the same amount of work for less of everything else.
~C
Workshops and Seminars
~Nurturing Hope in Times of Change: A Weekly Workshop
~Saturday Women's Workshop on Creativity and Healing
Also, visit the workshops page of the Third Coast site to browse more seminar and worshop topics offered by Cecilia and her colleagues.
Past events include:
~Reading group on Margaret Wheatley's "Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future"
~Saturday Women's Workshop on Creativity and Healing
Third Coast Counseling Center, LLC
Payment for Services Rendered by Cecilia Skidmore, MA, LPC:
Payment for Services Rendered by Cecilia Skidmore, MA, LPC:
