Stop the mindless eating
inspiration, mindfulness, self care
13th Dec 2011
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Isn’t it so easy to get a snack when you are bored or want to avoid cleaning, doing the dishes, or some sort of work or homework assignment? The snacks always used to beckon me to the kitchen, no matter if I was hungry or full.
These days I do a lot less mindless eating, though I have to confess that sometimes I eat in front of my computer. I know, this is not a good habit to have.
So, how do you break it?
First thing, make it a rule that you eat at a table, sitting down, away from the computer, TV, or other distractions.
Then, take a breath before you begin eating. Look at the food that you’re about to eat. Enjoy the aroma of it before you put it into your mouth. Sit there and give a silent thanks for the gift you’re about to receive.
When you take your first bite, savor it. Chew it well. Let the texture, flavor, and sensation take over your mouth. Focus on that only. Notice how the flavor changes as you chew.
Pause before your next bite. And pause after each bite. After you’ve eaten a few bites, check in with yourself to rate your hunger level. You might find that, if you keep practicing this, you don’t need as much food as you thought to feel satisfied.
Try it out for a week and see what happens. The new habit will feel strange and inconvenient when you start. But as you practice, you’ll see how much more enjoyment you get out of your food, and how much you were missing all of this time.
Looking in the mirror
inspiration, magnificent mondays, mindfulness, self care, spirituality
4th Apr 2011
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I see you sitting across from me on the subway. You are looking around, not letting your eyes rest anywhere, not connecting with anyone. You wear all black so you can feel invisible. It also helps hide the bulges and excess that you carry on your body. You are sure that no one will even see you because of it.
You are mindlessly eating the chocolate bar. You break off a piece and eat it quickly. Not a minute later and you’ve got another one ready to go.
It’s almost mechanical – you’re eating and you know that you feel different, but you’re not aware of the cloying sweetness of sugar or the creamy coating in your mouth. You only stop when there’s nothing left.
And you sit there and wonder why it always seems so fleeting, feeling bad that you did it again, but knowing that you’ll probably do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, because that is who you are.
But that’s where you’re wrong. You don’t know it yet. Or you do know it and you’ve forgotten.
Because the truth is that you are beautiful, inside and out. And all you need to do to connect to your own beauty is to connect with spirit. You know you have that connection. You’ve chosen to disconnect, believing that there’s something “out there” that will get you what you really want.
But what you really want is already here. You just need to touch the joy that’s available for you at any time, and anywhere you go.
You are loved. You are safe and secure. You are protected and supported by all that is. All you need to do is to allow this goodness into your life.
I know you can do it. Because I have done it, and I was once like you.
Are you feeding your whole self?
food, happiness, inspiration, love, mindfulness, mindset, relationships, self care, spirituality
14th Sep 2010
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The old adage, “you are what you eat,” is absolutely true – whether you mean real food or your “soul’s food.”
It’s easy to tell when you’re eating well. Nourish yourself with a well-balanced plate, and you thrive with energy for doing what you love: like flowing through sun salutations in yoga class, bike riding with your family, and spending time with friends on the weekend.
Eat empty-calorie junk food and you’ll feel bloated, cranky, irritable unfocused. Empty calories can lead to insulin resistance, diabetes, and heart issues and you’ll need to shop for bigger clothes.
Your “soul’s food” is equally important. Your soul thrives when what you’re doing is aligned with who you truly are. And you know your soul is being well fed when you notice that you:
- Skip your way to work
- Gaze at your partner like you’re still dating
- Feel the weight of financial burden lift from your shoulders
- Are at peace and feel one with the world
If you sense that you’re missing any of these key ingredients in your life, your soul is hungry. If you’re not feeding your soul, you may be walking around with that “empty” feeling. Something is missing, and you can’t put your finger on it. You may be thinking, “Is that all there is?”
Here’s the thing – it’s not that you are intentionally preventing your soul from nourishment, and it’s completely not your fault for not feeding it. Your underlying beliefs may be undermining your best efforts. And that’s mostly about what’s in your head. Really.
The good news — you can easily start feeding your soul once you clear these limiting beliefs, even if you don’t know exactly what they are.
I’m really excited to be working with Whole Mind Mastery expert Kit Furey to offer you a completely fr*ee teleclass:
Soul Food: Clear the Blocks to Attracting Your Most Essential Desires!
Wednesday, September 15 9pm ET / 6 pm PT
www.WholeMindMastery.com/preview/soulfood
During the call, we will do a quick check-in to see if your soul is getting the food it needs in every area of your life.
We will also go through an exercise to show you how to shift the self-limiting beliefs that may be keeping y\\our soul from experiencing the fullness of your passions and purpose. You’ll also discover:
- Five secret signs that show self-sabotage may lurk in your life
- Why your beliefs about what you do and love are “make it or break it” factors that drive your life
- You’ll actually be guided through a gentle exercise to remove blocks and reclaim vitality and joy while you’re on the call
- And you’ll come away with a strategy to easily overcome blocks to getting the most from your soul food, even if you don’t know right now what’s holding you back.
There’s no cost for this training, but you must sign up to access it:
Soul Food: Clear the Blocks to Attracting Your Most Essential Desires!
Wednesday, September 15 9pm ET / 6 pm PT
www.WholeMindMastery.com/preview/soulfood
Diets don’t work but this does
happiness, inspiration, mindfulness, mindset, Uncategorized
13th Sep 2010
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How many times have you gone on a diet and failed? I know that I have more times than I can count. I hated the struggle when I dieted. The weighing and measuring of my food, perfectly portioned out. Ironically, once I stopped the strict dieting was when I was able to easily shed the weight. And that’s why I don’t do it anymore.
I’ve worked with many people who come to me all fired up to make changes. They’re very motivated and want to get started right away on releasing weight. We start working together and everything is going great. They’re making changes, the weight is starting to come off, and they’re feeling better than they have in a long time.
And then… all of the sudden something happens. A big event – wedding, vacation, long weekend away – derails their plan. They feel like they’ve messed everything up, all of the good work that they’ve done. But the thing is that it’s really easy to get back on track. A big part of sticking with a plan has to do with being clear on what you want, and keeping your goal top of mind. And that’s why I’m here.
But the other part is eliminating underlying beliefs that keep you from getting what you want, even if you stay focused on it. I find that this is the main reason why diets don’t work.
People diet to make a change, and their expectation is that they will stick with the plan to release the weight, and then they can go back to what they were doing. But this doesn’t make sense. If you go back to what you were doing, you’ll end up back where you were.
If you want to truly change, you have to be willing to do what it takes. It may seem uncomfortable at first because it is a new way of eating and thinking. But if you make easy lateral shifts in your habits, easing into eating more high-quality foods and healthier portions, the weight melts off without you even realizing it.
Still, some people struggle with this – and it permeates other areas of their life. Now they’re not just eating poorly, they’re also not doing the things that they love that will feed their souls.
If you’ve ever felt this way, take heart. There’s actually a simple solution. And I’ll be offering a free teleclass training, with Whole Mind Mastery expert Kit Furey, on Wednesday, September 15, to help you make this shift easily. And, the best part is that you can participate from anywhere – Sign up and get access to the call-in details:
Soul Food: Clear the Blocks to Attracting Your Most Essential Desires!
Wednesday, September 15 9pm ET / 6 pm PT
Stressed? Use this one minute cure
happiness, mindfulness, self care
7th Sep 2010
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Have you ever felt like your thoughts are going a million miles an hour and you can’t seem to just focus on one thing for more than a moment? It makes you feel anxious because you feel like you’re missing something but you just don’t know what that is, and you feel like you’re running out of time…
I get this feeling when I’m trying to do too many things at once. Most of the time I’m trying to multitask – writing something here, posting another thing there, checking my e-mail, answering the phone.
The easiest thing to do is just breathe.
When you’re feeling anxious and stressed, you’re probably holding your breath or breathing shallowly. If you don’t get enough air in your lungs, you literally become out of breath. There’s not enough oxygen in there. Your stress levels rise and you feel tightness in your shoulders and neck. The tension builds and your adrenals start working overtime in fight or flight mode.
Look at this – you’ve completely stressed yourself out just by forgetting to breathe.
You’ll only need a minute to do this exercise. Take a step back from whatever you’re doing and focus on your breath.
Breathe in – and let your lungs fill with air. Hold it in for a second.
Breathe out – let everything out, pushing all of the stale air from the bottom of your lungs out.
Breathe in – feel your body drinking in the nourishment from the breath.
Breathe out – release and relax.
Notice how you feel. A little more relaxed? Calmer? More at peace? Try this the next time you feel stressed out and let me know how it works for you.
Starting your day right
happiness, inspiration, mindfulness, mindset, self care, spirituality
2nd Sep 2010
2 Comments »
A beautiful sun rises over the running track early in the morning. I took this photo in early summer. Now that we’re turning toward autumn, the sun is rising around the same time as when I snapped this.
I like running in the morning, but I know many people who can’t fathom working out so early. But just because you’re not a “morning” person doesn’t mean that you can’t have a great morning.
But it’s up to us to decide that we will focus on the present moment, and enjoy where we are – right here, right now. Because this is the only thing that is.
It’s easy to drift from one thought to another, constantly worrying about the future or dwelling in the past. But we can only live right now. Imagine what your life would be like if you could stay focused on being present. How would it change the way you think about your everyday activities? How would your appreciation for what is change? How could you enjoy each day more?
Try this:
The Mindfulness Yoga blog recommends starting each day by reciting a gatha – short verse that serve as reminders to stay present. The morning gatha is this:
If you try this, I recommend doing it for at least a week – if not the whole month. Notice how your thoughts start to shift as you take on this practice. And let me know how it goes for you.
Hello, beautiful
happiness, inspiration, mindfulness, mindset
11th Jun 2010
1 Comment »
I love your outfit.
Nice haircut.
Wow, you look fantastic.
I used to cringe when I heard anything remotely complimentary directed at me. That is, if I could even see it was for me – usually I was looking around to see who they were really talking to.
How many of you just blushed when you read those? C’mon now – I know a few of you were probably looking over your shoulder or thinking, “Who, me?”
If you’ve ever felt the same way, it’s time to change that thinking.
We all have beliefs about ourselves that get developed over the years, and they come from many different people and sources. We might develop our beliefs from what parents or teachers tell us, from our peers, from our colleagues, from friends or even from media. Who knows what influenced us originally? It doesn’t really matter.
What really matters – just because we believe something is true doesn’t make it so.
Your beliefs become the advertising in your mind that influences your decisions. Allowing negative beliefs to influence your behavior can be very destructive. Can you imagine how negative thinking might sabotage your efforts to lose weight or take better care of yourself? Isn’t it time to start changing this automatic programming and “advertise” to yourself what you really want?
So, how do you start accepting compliments as the truth? Simply start saying, “Thank you.”
It may feel uncomfortable at first. But it will make the other person feel good because you’re accepting their gift. And it will make you feel good because you reinforce within your mind that you really are beautiful.
Another way to change your thinking – use positive affirmations. Write up a list of positive affirmations about yourself and read them on a daily basis. Post them where you can see them every day and read them.
Read and repeat them – even if they don’t feel true to you. The more you repeat them, the more you will believe them, and the more they will become true for you.
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Like what I have to say? Wondering how you can start living a Delicious Life? Find out how I can help through a get acquainted phone session with me.
Cultivate calm with a media diet
fun, happiness, mindfulness
21st Dec 2009
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Have you ever gone on a media fast? This is when you consciously remove media from your life for a period of time. No TV. No radio. No Internet. No cell phones or gaming gadgets.
The easiest way to do this is to go on vacation somewhere remote where you don’t have access to your modern-day electronic conveniences. But it’s also possible to do it when you are in your everyday life – it just takes a little more effort.
Recently, we got rid of our cable TV subscription. Before, we had over 400 channels. Now we have about 20 on a good day; if the signal isn’t coming in clearly, we might only have 3 or 4.
Since we got rid of it, I’ve found that I feel much more calm and relaxed. I also have more time to myself. I used to have a bad habit of mindlessly channel surfing, wasting time watching any drivel I could find. Now that I don’t have the options, I’m not as inclined to settle in front of the TV for an hour or more. And while I still have the Internet for distractions, I don’t feel like it sucks up as much time as TV used to for me.
The silence is golden. No more endless chatter from having it constantly on in the background. The TV stays off more of the time than it used to. Turning off the chatter feels so much more peaceful.
Would you ever try a media fast? Or, is there one thing you’d be willing to take out of your media diet and see how it changes your life? Leave me a comment…
Starting anew
mindfulness, mindset
22nd Oct 2009
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I see this day as a new beginning. (It’s never too late to have a new beginning.)
Today and tomorrow can be very different from yesterday if you can let yesterday go and focus on today.
Today and tomorrow are about your NOW vibration, and you have complete control over that.
Look for things to feel good about, and watch how everything in your life will unfold to reflect that good-feeling vibration.
Live richly – have more fun
fun, mindfulness, self care, wealthy wednesdays
23rd Sep 2009
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Free Bouncy Rides
It’s ok to be silly sometimes. Or enjoy watching other silliness around you. After all, you know what they say about all work and no play. You don’t want to become a dull girl or boy.
If you’re not in New York, you may be saying to yourself, “Oh, that’s something that would only happen in New York.” Maybe. But hang out in the areas of town where the artists live, and I bet you’ll find more amusement and silliness than you would expect.
I saw this guy for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, this performance artist has been hanging around a few different subway stops offering “free bouncy rides” to riders. For the record, I did not take him up on his offer. Snapping this photo was enough amusement for me as I couldn’t wait to get home after a long day.
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