Since my body is gently reminding me to appreciate breathing freely, and my folks are in town for Thanksgiving, I thought I would share this mildly tweaked blog from the vaults.

Often, we focus more on those things we don’t have rather than appreciating the gifts and abundance that we do have.

Believe it or not, this is one of the things that keeps women stuck in the rebound weight cycle.

Emotionally—and energetically—there is a huge difference between yearning and appreciating.

There is even a huge difference between yearning and wanting.

You can want to be happy—and believe that it is possible—and can use that to fill yourself with positive emotion to motivate you to make choices that support your body.

Yearning is focused on what you don’t have and is the feeling that you have to have something outside of you to be fulfilled.

The belief that you have to be thinner to be happy is something that inspires yearning in many women.

Wanting a healthy body as part of a full and happy life is allowing life-giving energy to flow through you. Yearning to be thin in order to be happy is shutting that energy down to a trickle.

Yearning for the body you don’t believe you can have is putting off being happy instead of being happy right now.

A great way to practice being happy right now is to take five minutes to write about how grateful you are for all the wonderful things that you currently have in your life. You can write about your body–or not.

It could be that the sun came up, that the clouds are moving in the sky, that you have people in your life that you love–and who love you. It could be the abundance of food in your cupboards, or the gathering of family and friends for Thanksgiving. It could be the love of a pet, or the softness of a blanket.

Write down everything you can appreciate.

And do this everyday.

The more you focus on what you do have, what you can do, and all that you did do, the happier you allow yourself to be right now. And the more positive energy you have to take the actions that will lead you to the body–and life–you really want.

What are the gifts in your life that you can appreciate right now? How can you focus more on that? What actions might that inspire that will help you get the body you want?

Together we can do it!