Monthly Archives: September 2011

Come On Get Happy!

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Do you ever say, “I’ll be happy when I achieve X”? Maybe your X is losing weight, getting a new car or job, meeting a deadline, finding a new partner, getting a clean bill of health, etc.

If you wait for all the stars to align and conditions to be perfect before you allow yourself to be happy, how much of your life will you actually be happy?

What if, regardless of what may be happening in your life, the only thing standing in the way of you being happy—is you?

It can often feel like we are in a tiny row-boat on the raging sea of life being tossed around from one experience to the next. When we allow these experiences to dictate how we feel, we give up all control of our life.

How do you get control back? You begin by choosing what you are going to focus on and how you are going to feel—regardless of the circumstances.

Yes, your job may be terrible, but the sun came up this morning, the leaves on the trees are starting to turn beautiful colors and there’s a lovely nip in the air. You have an abundance of food to choose from, clean water available with the turn of a faucet, and plenty of air to breathe. There are clothes in your closet, and you have a comfortable bed to sleep in at night. You have a computer or smartphone on which to be able to read this—and reach out to the world. There are activities that you love to do, and movies and books that make you laugh out loud. There are people in this world who love you—and who you love.

Consciously shifting your thoughts to what is working in your life—or clearing your mind of thoughts all together—for as little as 15 minutes a day can profoundly shift how happy you are day in and day out.

Try it for a couple of weeks and see if you can feel the difference. Why put off being happy when you could be happy as soon as right now?

Together we can do it!

Perfect is Boring!

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If you think about it, life would actually get pretty boring if you were perfect. You would never learn anything, get to challenge yourself or grow. It would be as if everything in the world were yellow. And while you may love yellow, you appreciate it so much more if there’s a little blue, pink, or green thrown in for some contrast.

Seeing where you aren’t perfect is an opportunity, and engaging in the process of figuring out what you do want and practicing that is really where life energy flows. It’s where you think new thoughts and gain new perspective. It’s where you mold the clay of life and create the life of your dreams.

This is where the fun is! This is where you are truly engaged in life and evolve in new ways. Let go of the need to be perfect or already at your goal, and just jump into life exactly where you are. What do you want to learn? Where do you want to go? How do you want to grow? Who do you want to be?

Move towards that. Engage in that. Learn everything you can about that. Have fun doing that. When you master that, look around and figure out where you want to expand and grow next. And then go after that.

This is life! This is thriving! This is creating the life of your dreams.

Together we can do it!

Feel Thin to Be Thin

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Have you ever lost weight, but after you met your goal you still felt fat? When you looked in the mirror, all you saw were the flaws? How quickly did you gain back the weight?

Our thoughts and feelings are much more powerful than most people understand. To truly be the lean, strong, and fit person we want to be, we have to see ourselves as lean, strong, and fit most of the time. We have to allow ourselves to feel lean, strong, and fit and to celebrate ourselves as lean, strong, and fit.

Feeling thin is critical to being thin long-term. And no amount of diet and exercise is going to alter your self-perception. That is a change that has to come from the inside out.

Most people see themselves through filters of self-criticism, limiting beliefs, assumptions about past experiences repeating themselves, and self-created interpretations or judgments about themselves, past experiences, other people, or situations.

How much easier is it to resist those chocolate chip cookies if you are feeling confident and excited about being lean, strong, and fit versus seeing yourself as fat and telling yourself that you’re never going to have a beautiful body no matter how hard you try?

Removing those filters and shifting your self-perception so you can truly see yourself and your life clearly takes time, energy, and practice, just as creating a healthy life-style takes time, energy, and practice. When you practice both the internal and external changes you begin consciously creating the life of your dreams.

Together we can do it!

I Appreciate You!

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Have you ever noticed that if you go to sleep mad, you often wake up still feeling mad? Or if you go to sleep dreading the next day, you wake up feeling dread? How about if you go to sleep feeling good, that you wake up feeling good?

The mood we are in when we go to sleep often carries over and can profoundly impact us the following day. But we don’t have to be victim to a bad mood that started the day before. We can consciously direct the day we are going to have tomorrow by choosing our thoughts and emotions as we go to sleep.

This can look like meditating before bed, clearing our mind of thoughts and emotions, or—most powerful of all—looking for things to appreciate.

I say most powerful because when you go to bed feeling appreciation you wake up feeling appreciation. And the more appreciation that you feel, the more things you attract into your life to appreciate.

It’s as simple as thinking of the things that happened during your day that you appreciate. It can be the smile on your child’s face, or the silly thing your cat did that made you laugh. It can be appreciation for the abundance of food that you were able to choose from, or that you have a roof over your head, or a comfortable bed to be resting in. It can be the softness of your pajamas or the perfect weight of the blankets that feels like a light embrace. It can be appreciation for having 10 fingers and toes, legs that work, or whatever about your body you can appreciate. It can be appreciation for the love that you feel in your life and the people who are important to you.

The wonderful thing about appreciation is the more you think about and list things that you appreciate, the more things you can think of. And this gets even easier with practice.

Then when you wake up in the morning, consciously notice that lingering feeling of appreciation. Remind yourself of all the things you were thinking about the night before that you appreciate. And then get up and start your day.

I bet you’ll notice more things throughout your day to appreciate, too. It truly is a wonderful way to begin your day—and live your life.

Together we can do it!

So I’m Not Perfect!

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Yesterday turned into a bit of an unplanned splurge-day for me. My husband made a loaf of wonderful no-knead bread and I ate it—a lot of it—with dripping butter and honey. And I topped it off with some sparkling wine and a few other treats.

Yum. It was delicious!

In the past, a splurge like this would have felt insurmountable. All I would have thought about was the calories and how weak I was. It might have been a trigger for me to give up my diet all together.

Not a good-feeling place to be.

But now I recognize that I just need to be consistent with my healthy life-style. I don’t have to be perfect.

As I have practiced appreciating my body and recognizing how hard it’s working on my behalf, I now have faith in its ability burn an occasional splurge. I’m also confident that I can enjoy the splurge, let it go without beating myself up, and return to my normal healthy eating.

If anything, I’m more motivated than ever to resume my healthy eating this week because I know how good it feels and that it’s in alignment with who I am.

I suspect I’m not alone in overeating this weekend. If you did, let it go. Today is a new day, a new opportunity to make new choices and be the person you want to be.

Together we can do it!