Wellness Tip of the Day: Is the emotion behind your actions closer to love or fear? Is that the foundation you want for your body—and life? It’s your choice.
My blog is moving to my new website LoveYourWaySlim.com. To keep following my posts after January 15, you will need to follow my new blog. I look forward to continuing the journey with you!
I try to practice what I preach.
While I’m far from perfect, my self-care is a priority. Most of the time, I eat healthy food, make meditation and moving my body a part of my daily routine, and strive to get adequate sleep.
And I focus on appreciating myself and what I contribute to the world.
But I got a strong message yesterday during a Reiki session that I’m not following the advice I give to my clients. That I’m not being as gentle with myself as I could be, that I’m letting old fear get in the way of showing up as my fullest and brightest self—as Who I really am—and that I’m not fully loving myself.
I’ve come a long way, but clearly I have more work to do!
The good news—and what I tell my clients—is that every layer of fear, resistance, and self-judgment that we let go of makes our lives better and better. And we never finish finding new layers that we have the opportunity to release.
Bottom line: the better life gets, the better it can get.
And honestly, the message I received wasn’t that surprising.
Just imagine all the layers I’m not aware of!
So as I encourage you to do the work to transform your mind to get the body you want, know that I’m doing the same. That I’m focused on peeling those catabolic inner layers because that is Who I want to be and how I want to live my life.
No matter what. From exactly where I am.
I’m not perfect, but I am willing to do the work.
How about you?
Together we can do it!
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
-Albert Einstein
If you are like most women who have lost and regained the same 30 pounds over and over again, you know how to diet. You may even have the exercise piece down.
But even if you are able to consistently eat healthy foods and move your body, you still continue to struggle to maintain your weight.
Clearly, diet and exercise alone are not getting you the results you want.
What is the missing piece?
What is it that you need to do differently to get different results?
The answer almost seems too simple.
You may want to ignore it or even discount it. But it is truly what is holding you back from having the body—and life—you want.
What has to change is what is going on inside. What has to change are your thoughts, emotions, and beliefs about yourself, what you are capable of, what you deserve.
Ultimately what it boils down to is that you have to work through your fear.
Every feeling is either a derivative of love or fear. What has happened over time is that you have emotionally caged yourself in with fear.
Fear of being judged by others, letting people down, not being good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, making mistakes, not being loved or lovable—the list goes on and on.
It may have gotten bad enough that when something really good does happen in your life, you can feel a part of you holding back from fully enjoying the experience. You may have thoughts like, “Something bad might happen,” “It won’t last,” or “They’re going to find out I’m a fraud.”
What’s actually happening here is that you are so afraid of experiencing pain that you are in reality holding yourself in it—and refusing to let yourself fully experience joy.
And the biggest fear of all?
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
The good news is you can begin right now to let go of fear and embrace love–to embrace the magnificent you that is afraid to let her light shine.
Here is a simple exercise to practice love. I would suggest doing this just before going to sleep, but it 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.
Here’s an example:
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.
The more love you allow yourself to feel, the more healthy actions you are inspired to take, and the more your body begins to respond down to the cellular level.
You begin to naturally want an apple more than you want cookies. You begin to find the fun in your workout. Eating healthy foods, moving your body—and maintaining your weight—becomes a way of life.
What can you do today to transform a thought of fear to a feeling of love?
Together we can do it!
While I’m in Washington D.C. giving two Energy Leadership workshops, I’ve asked a few fabulous bloggers to step in. Today’s post is by Elisa Haggarty
Think about all the things that trigger fear in you. For some, it might be heights, trying tofu, being around big dogs, or riding a bicycle.
Riding a bicycle?
For a while the thought of getting back on a bicycle made me well up with fear and anxiety. It has been five years since I was in a pretty serious bike accident—one that took me out of commission for at least four weeks of physical activity and took a toll on me emotionally and mentally for a long time after the bruises faded.
Since the bike accident, I had a lot of excuses as to why getting back on a bike wasn’t possible. After all, I lived on a small island for the past two years in southeast Asia, was always traveling and besides, running has always been my “go to” workout fix.
Since recently landing in Brooklyn, I’ve come to realize the joys of hopping on a bicycle and exploring the neighborhood again. The streets are quiet (minus the occasional gospel outbreak which I thoroughly enjoy) and there are a ton of parks where Kathy and I can cruise until sundown.
What does all this fear talk have to do with Hanna’s blog which is geared towards wellness and weight loss?
Well, if you take a look at what fear does to you on the emotional level and how much it stimulates your stress hormone (cortisol), it’s pretty evident that if you want optimal health, you have to address your fears.
No amount of leafy greens is going to balance you out if you are constantly living in fear and your cortisol levels are through the roof. More importantly, you have to experience the joys of looking fear in the face and taking the high road.
For me, conquering my fears has been more than getting back on a bicycle.
Two years ago, it was getting on a plane and flying 8,000 miles to Hong Kong. Soon after, it was spending 10 days in silence at a Taiwainese monastery. Both of these acts reduced me to tears.
Tears are okay. In fact, they are a great sign you are onto something great and you just need to keep pushing on!
Just recently, it was leaving everything that was “secure” in the teaching world with insurance/retirement/consistent paychecks and taking the leap of faith to turn over a new leaf and pursue what I believe I was put on this earth to do: to inspire and help others heal.
There are big changes for me coming up. The date is set and my new company/brand will be launching on October 1st.
I am beyond scared.
This has required me to do things that are completely new to me and out of my comfort zone. For instance, I’ve had to get over my own ego and jump in front of a camera to create video content for my website. That alone was terrifying to me on so many levels.
But I did it. I got out of my own way, conquered my fears of getting in front of the camera, and let my light shine. This was an important step on the path to providing resources, recipes and knowledge on how to achieve your ideal health/weight/happiness.
This is something that I believe strongly to be YOUR BIRTHRIGHT. We aren’t meant to crawl to the finish line people. We can arrive with the same amount of optimism, happiness and sense of adventure as we carried when we first started this thing.
What is your fear? What will you conquer this week?
Elisa Haggarty received her Professional Holistic Health Coaching training at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition and has started training at The Natural Gourmet Institute, the number one culinary school for health supportive cooking in the country. Her focus is health supportive cooking and consulting through a whole foods organic diet.
She has studied over 100 different dietary theories from some of the best minds in nutrition and functional medicine. Recognizing there is no “one size fits all” when it comes to nutrition and wellness, she designs personal treatment plans for her clients that include dietary and lifestyle upgrades designed specifically for them.
Teaching others about food and healing is Elisa’s passion. She loves experimenting with new ingredients/recipes to see how it can help to transform the human body from deprivation to abundance. Her purpose is to help people achieve their health goals, rejuvenate their life through whole foods cooking, and in the process, enjoy some delicious recipes that feed the mind, body and soul.
Read Elisa’s blog at www.elisahaggarty.blogspot.com/. Her new website, Culinary Farmacy, a hub for food and healing (and more!) goes live on October 1. Find it at culinaryfarmacy.com/.
Photo by www.freedigitalphotos.net
Wellness Tip of the Day: Is the emotion behind your actions closer to love or fear? Is that the foundation you want for your life? If not, change your thoughts.
Wellness Tip of the Day: Is the emotion behind your actions closer to love or fear? Is that the foundation you want for your life? If not, change your thoughts.
For years, I was a semi-closeted dance walker and runner. Under the cover of pre-dawn darkness, I would feel so darn good during a workout that I would spontaneously burst into dance.
Granted, I use the term “dance” loosely as it was really more lurching, lunging, hopping, and jumping my way down the road to the beat of a particularly bouncy song. But I felt the music in me and I just had to move.
I publicly outed myself as a dance walker in an August 17, 2010, blog on transformation.com.
But even at the peak of my dance-walking joy I would instantly resume a more traditional gait at the first sign of another human being because of the fear of judgment. While I was “caught” a number of times, the only person I felt comfortable enough to dance walk in front of was my husband, and even he let me know he thought it was a little weird.
Think about this from an energetic standpoint. Positive emotions generate constructive anabolic energy that literally builds our bodies at the cellular level. And joy pretty much vibrates at the top levels of anabolic energy. If left alone, the natural anabolic state of our cells is optimal wellness.
But when we introduce catabolic energy to our bodies through stress and negative thoughts and emotions, this begins a destructive process that is cumulative over time. The fear of what others may think is about as catabolic as it gets.
So I absolutely loved it yesterday when a friend posted the link to Ben Aaron’s piece on dance walking.
You can bet the next time I feel so good I want to burst into dance walking, I am going to do it proudly!
And I know I’m not the only one who has capped my joy because of the actual or feared judgments of others.
Is the catabolic price you are paying in reduced wellness, well-being, life satisfaction, engagement, and success worth what really amounts to a few moments of judgment on the part of another?
And aren’t those judgments really a result of people stifling their own joy because of the real or presumed judgment of others? What do you supposed is the physical impact of the catabolic energy of judgment?
What it comes down to is a vicious cycle. The way to break it is to fully embrace Who you are and what makes you happy. Expressing your joy will help others find theirs.
What things that you love have you been holding yourself back from enjoying? How can you let go of using what others may think of you as a reason for holding back your happiness? What impact does that have on your body—and your life?
Together we can do it!
Image by Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
“Every living thing—animal, human, or plant—experiences that which is called death, with no exception. Spirit, which is who-we-really-are, is Eternal. So what death must be is but a changing of the perspective of that Eternal Spirit. If you are standing in your physical body and consciously connected to that Spirit, then you are Eternal in nature and you need never fear any “endedness,” because, from that perspective, there is none. (You will never cease to be, for you are Eternal Consciousness.)”
Abraham as interpreted by Esther Hicks
“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”
Robert H. Schuller
In Saturday’s blog, I wrote about the number one regret that people who were dying reported to Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who spent several years caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. That regret? The wish that they’d had the courage to live life true to themselves and not the life others expected of them.
The biggest reason people don’t live true to themselves? Fear. Fear of failure, fear of what others will think, fear that they are less than Who they truly are.
As someone who spent a lot of my life buckled under the weight of that fear, I encourage you with all my being to throw it off.
That fear is a blindfold pulled over our collective eyes. It is not Truth.
The Truth is it is impossible to fail, because there can be no failure where there is learning and growth. And every experience is valuable.
The Truth is what others think does not matter. They do not—and cannot—know your heart. You have to search within to find that, and you are the only one who can know your heart fully.
The Truth is you cannot fail because your Spirit is Eternal. The point of life is living. There is no way to get it wrong.
“Live life true to yourself.” This is the wisdom passed on to you by those who wished they had done things differently.
It means letting go of false beliefs about Who you are, what you are capable of, and what you deserve.
It means letting go of fear that does not serve you.
It means listening to your own heart.
It means having faith in your eternal nature.
What is one small thing you can you do today to live life true to yourself? How does that make you feel? How much closer are you to being the person you want to become?
Together we can do it!
Wellness Tip of the Day: 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.
I was having lunch yesterday with business coach Mandy Wildman when she asked me a question about one of my business practices. When I explained it, she very nicely let me know that not only was I playing small, but I was allowing my clients to play small, too.
Mandy was absolutely right. Even though my intention was to be of service to the most people, the reasoning behind it was a limiting belief.
This is why even coaches need coaches!
And it brought to mind this quote by Marianne Williamson:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
The challenge becomes recognizing when we are playing small.
As I clearly demonstrate, playing small can hide in the best of intentions. If we are only focused on the surface of our thoughts and don’t probe them for depth of meaning and the feeling behind them, we can easily miss where we are limiting ourselves—and possibly others.
If I had truly stopped to probe how I was feeling around that business practice, I would have detected just a whiff of fear. Like a bloodhound catching a scent, that should have been enough to stop me in my tracks and begin digging for where that catabolic emotion was coming from.
But I had ignored that emotional guidance because I had heard other coaches talk about similar business practices. On the surface it seemed to meet my values, so I just plugged the policy in without examining it. This is easy to do because we generally assume that everyone else knows better than we do, which in itself is a limiting belief. Even expert advice may not be right for you.
If we take the time to examine—and question—our thoughts and beliefs we can discover weaknesses. Much like you can’t keep doing the same physical exercise the same way forever and expect to continue to get the same results, you have to look for beliefs that are no longer working and reach for new thoughts that better help you move forward.
And finally, you can talk to a coach who can help point out those thoughts and beliefs that you’ve accepted as true for so long that you don’t even recognize that they are actually hindering your progress in becoming the best possible version of you.
What can you do today to pay attention to your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs and make sure they’re strong, well-developed, in alignment with your core values, and are taking you in the direction that will help you meet your goals?
You are not meant to play small. You make yourself small by thinking you are less than you truly are. How you play in life is a choice.
Together we can do it!
Photo by tungphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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