Tag Archives: creativity

Go from Grumbling to Gratitude

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Do you ever catch yourself grumbling or complaining about what someone else did or didn’t do?

By comparison, how much time do you spend thinking about all the wonderful qualities that person has, and how much they add to your life?

What focus do you have more consistently?

What would happen if you spent more time looking at them through a positive lens? How would it make you feel to spend as little as a minute every day feeling grateful for that person?

That might look like appreciating their wonderful qualities, or the things they did that were helpful, or why they are in your life, or their general and inherent value as a person on this planet. (And they have inherent value, I promise.)

Just one minute a day.

How might even that small shift in focus alter how you feel? How might it impact how you show up in the relationship? How might that shift change the dynamics of the relationship for the better?

No one else is with you in your mind. No one is forcing you to think or feel anything. If you are holding on to frustrations and irritations it is because you have your mental fist grasped tightly around thoughts of their infractions, weakness, or imperfections.

And it is because you are judging them as weak, imperfect, and full of fault. Who made you creator of the rules? Why is it that everyone else must cater to your expectations? How do you like trying to fulfill other people’s expectations and beliefs about the “right” way to do anything?

The solution is to begin to allow those things that frustrate and irritate you to run through your mind like water running through your fingers.

Just let them go.

As soon as you do, you feel lighter emotionally. You feel relief. And that new lightness is directly impacting your wellness down to your cellular level. As you let go of that stress and the negative emotions, it is you that receives the benefit—body, mind, and spirit.

Is it worth your health to let go of old anger, frustrations, and resentments that are not only hurting you, but are actually keeping you for the life and relationships you want? Is your happiness worth it? Are your relationships worth it?

Just let it go.

Do it because you are worth it, because love is worth it, because joy is worth it.

Together we can do it!

Photo by http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Ease Up for Ultimate Control

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I woke up this morning to a gentle rain falling. My husband is out of town, and the animals are extra-loving and the house is quiet. So I took time to sleep-in, meditate, and relax.

The past couple of weeks have been powerful and full of opportunities, and I’ve experienced a lot of change and growth. I also have a lot on my to-do list—much of it things I really want to do and all of it I want done right now.

One of my biggest opportunities has been to practice what I preach about self-care. And a big part of self-care is listening to your body.

It’s easy for me to get caught around the axil of being goal-driven, eating prescribed meals at certain times, and doing my planned intense exercise—no matter what.

While that serves me most of the time, and I think is generally good practice, there are times when what my body (and mind!) really needs is a little kindness, to be treated gently, to be allowed to rest.

After all, if you are driving your car under wet or difficult conditions, the solution for more control is to ease up on the gas pedal, not slam your foot down.

When I don’t listen and ease up, my body will usually alert me to the need with increasing pain, which I’ve been experiencing in my knees and shoulder. If I continue to not listen, I’ll very likely wind up with an injury that will force me to rest.

Having experienced this in the past, I’m working on being more mindful and listening to my body before it gets to that breaking point.

This week, that’s looked like more sleep, easy and gentle movement, and still healthy but less rigid eating.

While my body is experiencing some relief that is letting me know this week of rest was needed, there is a part of me that is afraid if I let up on the intensity at all I will slide back into old patterns, lose the progress that I have made, and once again struggle with my weight.

It is the fear that by easing up at all, I will lose all control and before I know it, I’ll be back at square one.

Just articulating that fear feels like relief.

So I’ll ask myself what I might ask a client.

How reasonable is that fear?

I am a different person now than I even was yesterday, much less two to three years ago. I’ve come a long way, baby! Over the past three years, I’ve not only released the weight, I’ve maintained my new svelte figure. That is evidence of a new and different me.

While there is always the chance that I could fall back into old patterns, it’s not very likely. I know more. I am more. If my weight started creeping up, I would know exactly what to do about it and have lots more emotional and spiritual tools in my toolbox that would help. Plus, I’m learning more every day.

And let’s say the worst did happen, and I didn’t get back on track and I refound the weight. Looking back, I now see that my struggles with my weight were perfect for me and were important to helping me get where I am now. It has been key to my ability to relate to so many other women, to find the missing link that causes 90 percent of diets to fail, and to fully see the beauty and magnificence inside every woman.

If I were to go through the up and down again, wouldn’t there be an amazing opportunity for me to grow and become even more, and to be of even greater service to others?

Absolutely.

So today, I’m going to continue my self-care. I will do gentle and easy movement. I will reach for foods that feel like my body is asking for. I will do work if that feels fun, or I will rest or read if that feels more needed. I will meet up with friends at a book signing and for dinner tonight, and I will be present and loving, and allow us all to be exactly where we are.

And tomorrow, I will evaluate where I am and what my body feels like it needs. And I’ll look forward to continuing to feel strong, fit, and lean.

What do you need to do for your own self-care today? How can you balance your goals with the messages you are getting from your body? What are your indications that it’s time to push and move forward, or that it’s time to ease up and rest? What difference does that make to living the life of your dreams?

Together we can do it!

Photo from www.freedigitalphotos.net

Feel the Love!

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A powerful mindfulness exercise that I do is to practice love.

“Wait a minute,” you might say. “Isn’t love something you either feel or not?”

I’m glad you asked! The answer is that every feeling you have is either a derivative of love or fear. The more you shift your thoughts towards love, the more you love your life–and allow love into your life.

When you consider that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed, doesn’t it make sense to begin to shift any fear-based catabolic emotional energy more towards love-based anabolic energy? In other words, to practice love?

I usually do this exercise just before going to sleep, but it really can be done any place you can sit quietly, relax, and focus.

To begin, bring to mind something that you totally and completely love. This may be your spouse or partner, pets, children, etc. Sit a moment and envision them totally enveloped in love. Get creative here. See them in a warm golden light, a big hug, or whatever feels like being embraced by the biggest expression of love you can imagine.

Then bring someone or something else that you love into the picture. As you stay in that feeling of love, start to include more and more people and things—and even places—that you love. Eventually you want to work up to having the entire planet embraced in your vision of love.

For me, this may look something like this:

I envision my husband being surrounded by a warm, golden light that is pure love. That light expands to include our pets, our families, and our friends. It spreads to include our home and everything in it. It expands to include my job and all the people I work with. It grows and encircles our town, and all the places where I have ever lived. It expands to cover the states where I have lived, and spreads to the whole country. It then moves around the world embracing everyone and everything. It encompasses the planet itself and everyone and everything is enriched and enhanced by this feeling of love.

You can make the exercise last a long time, or just a few minutes. Practice this daily and watch for examples of more love coming into your life.

Together we can do it!

Photo by happykanppy / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Are You Feeling Successful?

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Can you be too happy? Will positive thoughts keep you from meeting your goals? Can thinking you can do something get in your way just as effectively as the negative thoughts generated by your Gremlin—that inner critic that tells you that you aren’t good enough?

I don’t think so, and neither does Shawn Achor, a Harvard psychology researcher and author of The Happiness Advantage.

In a funny and engaging TEDX talk, Archor shares research that shows pinning our happiness on achieving a goal actually hinders our progress. Instead, it’s being happy that help us achieve our goals.

As Archor explains in an Inc. online article, this is because every time you have a success, your brain changes what success means so that happiness is always on the opposite side—meaning you never get there.

But if you increase your levels of happiness in the midst of a challenge, he says “all of your success rates rise dramatically.”

The key is feeling positive, which he says allows you to be “smarter and more creative.” In fact, “optimism was found to be the greatest predictor of entrepreneurial success because it allows your brain to perceive more possibilities.”

And if this is true for entrepreneurs, it’s true for everyone. Being positive helps you become solution-focused.

One of the arguments that I hear most often is people feel their emotions and negative perspective are outside their control. Archor says, “It is a myth that we cannot change our happiness.” While happiness may come easier to some people, it’s a possibility that everyone can achieve–if they change their behavior and mindset.

And Archor’s research confirms that changing your mindset may not be as hard as people often think. “What we found was something as simple as writing down three things you’re grateful for every day for 21 days in a row significantly increases your level of optimism and it holds for the next six months.”

He adds, “The research is amazing. It proves we actually can change.”

Begin by shifting your thinking from, “I will be happy when I achieve my goal” to “Being happy helps me achieve my goal.” And then look for reasons to be happy right now.

Together we can do it!

Photo by federico stevanin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net