While I’m in Charleston, South Carolina, for a retreat, I’m sharing some of my favorite blogs from the past. One of the ways I used to trip myself up was to second-guess everything I was doing. While doing one workout, I was wondering if another might be better. I’d spend a lot of mental energy debating between taking the elevator or stairs, and mentally chastise myself over what I ate. Being wishy-washy about your decisions—or downright critical—is the mental equivalent of letting the air out of your tires. It is an energetic leak that will slow the success you really want. While debating your decision when the choices are fairly similar will slow your progress, you will give yourself a flat tire in a second if you choose something you believe is actually harmful. Negative thoughts and emotion can literally impact your metabolism and other weight-related systems making it easier to gain and harder to release weight. Actually doing the action you believe to be detrimental—and the resulting guilt, shame, etc.—increases the negative effects. Remember this the next time you are having a thought such as, “That cake is so fattening. I really shouldn’t eat it,” or “I know fried chicken is bad, bad, bad.” Don’t eat it! Unless you can soften your thoughts and beliefs about it, pick something else! Every action is preceded by a thought and belief, all of which have energy. Think of each step as increasing your momentum. Aligning the energy of a thought . . . with the energy of a belief . . . AND the energy of your action in the direction of your goal is like a train gaining speed towards your destination. It has the full […]
Tips for Changing Your Mental Habits
There is power in feeling good. Think about how much you get done when you are excited, eager, and looking forward to something. Now think about how hard it is to make progress when you are dreading something, don’t want to do it, resent it, etc. While you can move forward and get stuff done while you are feeling negative catabolic emotions, consciously shifting to positive anabolic thoughts before you begin a task is like putting on rocket boosters. And not only is your power to get things done greater, but it’s easier and more fun. Most of what makes day-to-day living “hard” are just your mental habits. You have thoughts about how hard it is to get up and go to work that you have repeated for so long that you don’t even realize there’s another way to look at it. You have practiced dreading Mondays. You have developed a mental rut on many topics that are not serving you. These are just some catabolic habits of thought you have going on. Thoughts are made of energy, not marble. They can be changed! Why do you want to go to the trouble of creating positive, life-building anabolic mental habits, you might ask? Because anabolic thoughts result in emotions that feel good. Those emotions make your heart sing. When you are feeling anabolic emotions, you know that things are always working out for you. When there’s a problem, you see the solution. You laugh more. You relax more. You are happy to be alive. All you have to do is create some new mental habits. And here’s a bonus. Creating anabolic mental habits makes creating healthy physical habits easier. So instead of hating to work […]
Just Because It’s Righteous Doesn’t Mean It’s Right
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. Buddha When someone does not live up to our “rules,” we feel justified in judging them as unworthy of our love. Withholding love—or out-and-out punishment—is a very common reaction when we think people are not living up to the standards we believe to be the “right” ones. But shutting our hearts down—even for the best of reasons—does not actually punish the other person as we think it does—and it is far more detrimental to us. The catabolic reactions are felt in our bodies, not theirs. These are the draining and destructive body processes—such as the release of stress hormones—that actually eat away at our cells. This is why practicing forgiveness and unconditional love is so powerful. By allowing ourselves to give love—no matter what—we are providing ourselves with constructive, anabolic energy that actually heals us from the inside out. Withholding love is something we learned—it is not our natural way of being. Look at the love and joy that flows through little children. But almost from day one, we begin giving children the lesson that if they behave in a certain way, they will make us happy and we will then love them. It doesn’t take long for children to learn that control is a part of love. Begin to notice when you are shutting your heart down in judgment. Pay attention to how uncomfortable that feels. Recognize that it’s up to you to change your reaction—it is not up to the other person to change their behavior—even if you believe them to be “wrong.” Where people often get […]
I Surrender
The Universe does a good job of keeping me humble. It’s not lost on me that I’m scheduled to present information to colleagues next week on being empowered to choose our responses and twice in the past few days I have not shown up as the best possible version of me. Yesterday, in fact, was pretty much a textbook example of first victim and then anger responses. Good show Universe! Good show! Seriously, I really do appreciate the mirror and the opportunity to clean up my own act. If we are not aware of how we are showing up, how can we change? This is one of the purposes of stretching, growing, and evolving. Each step gives us the opportunity to become even more. But it’s up to us to take that step. I suspect I could fill you all in on the details and get at least most of you to agree that I am “right.” That my point of view is clear and logical, and that the path I point to is the “best.” But the inner world is not the appropriate arena for consensus. Agreement will just keep me stuck in the destructive, negative catabolic emotions, and that truly benefits no one. It negatively impacts my body, mind, and spirit. And that destructive power reaches out and brings others down with it. Righteous indignation is not the same as right. Rather, it is a sign of being out of alignment with Who you really are and that more introspection is needed. You can think of it as a coin. On one side of the coin is the problem and on the other is the solution. If you are stuck on the problem […]
What to Do When Feeling “Poor Me” or “P*$@ed Off!”
Often as we expand and grow, we will stir up some negative catabolic energy. I’ve heard lots of reasons for this. For instance, we may have evolved, but aren’t allowing ourselves to be the bigger and brighter version of ourselves. Just like the view is different as we climb a mountain, our perspective is now different then it’s been in the past and we may now see new things to change. Things that were acceptable at one point in our lives no longer are and we must figure out a new way. We literally have a new awareness of old patterns of thoughts and beliefs that have been holding us back. I can feel that I am going through one of those personal evolutionary times, so it was interesting but not terribly surprising yesterday that I had a lot of catabolic emotions coming up. At different points in the day, I felt overwhelmed, angry, frustrated, sad, and even ashamed. Whew. Not very much fun, but always valuable! One of the opportunities it presented was reminding me of all the tools I have to shift from negative catabolic emotion to positive anabolic emotion, and also how much mental focus and effort it takes to shift when we are caught up in a wad of poor me or p*$@ed off. I believe this renewed awareness will be a beneficial to those I work with—and to you fabulous readers. So here’s what I did. As is often the case, it was easier for me to catch the emotion rather than the thought or belief that was triggering the catabolic hail storm. When you are aware that you are feeling the opposite of holly jolly but aren’t really sure […]
That Wasn’t Necessary
I love discovering situations around which I have some practiced thoughts and beliefs that are not helping me be the person I want to be, or create the life I want to create. Because if you don’t know the negative catabolic thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are there, you can’t change them. Saturday morning provided me the opportunity to come face-to-face with negative expectations, fear, and prescribed beliefs—and to make different choices. For those of you who know me or read this blog regularly, you know that my husband and I have two dogs and two cats who truly are our children. Buffy, the oldest of our two Keeshonden, will be turning 10 on July 13. Buffy is a bit of a trash mouth, meaning if something hits the floor, she eats it. As we stroll through the park, she’s trying to grab bites of weeds along the path. She’s a dirt connoisseur. So it was a bit surprising, but not terribly unusual, to wake up Saturday morning and find some evidence that she had expelled something nasty in the night. We cleaned it up and didn’t think more of it. While I was writing my blog, she threw up breakfast. While I was upstairs working out, she threw up again. When my husband found that she had thrown up yet again, I discovered her having dry heaves and shivering. We knew something was seriously wrong and called the emergency vet who said to bring her right in. What’s the best mindset for heading to the emergency vet—or dealing with any difficult situation? While it’s probably the most common reaction, I would suggest that it’s not fear and jumping to the worst case scenario. You might […]
Go For the Bigger Joy
“I’ll feel good if I eat that piece of chocolate cake.” Clients tell me all the time that their joy in life comes from eating. They think they’ll be bereft of happiness if they aren’t able to eat what they want, when they want. But how true is this? What I’ve found is that these kinds of short-term happiness jolts are more than outweighed by the guilt and negative self-talk that results. This makes sense when you think about the energy behind the thoughts. Negative catabolic thoughts and emotions release the stress hormone cortisol, adrenaline, and other chemicals that literally cannibalize your body. They break down your immune system, stress your heart, and impact your muscles. Over time, this catabolic energy can cause everything from painful trigger points in your shoulders, to inflammation, to heart attacks. It can even impact your metabolism making it easier to gain and harder to release weight. Positive anabolic thoughts and emotions allow your body to work for you down to the cellular level. Choosing a more constructive anabolic reaction releases endorphins and body supporting hormones that help your body heal, rebuild, and flow with physical energy. Just like thoughts can be anabolic or catabolic, food can be anabolic or catabolic, meaning it’s either supporting your body or it’s hindering it. And sometimes what we think about our food can make it more or less anabolic or catabolic. For instance, if you eat something “healthy” but you resent it and feel deprived, how anabolic is that going to be? If you eat something “bad” but feel totally satisfied and appreciative and content, how catabolic is that going to be? What if you feel guilty about eating that same food? The […]
Are You Feeling the Joy?
I love feeling unbridled optimism and joy! Wanting to sing at the top of my lungs and dance because it feels so good! Interestingly, one of the places this exuberance erupts is in the middle of running high intensity intervals. Even when I’m so out of breath that I can’t sing or clap, I sometimes just pump my arms. The joy just has to be expressed! Yes, most of the time I’m running on the treadmill at home so I have no inhibitions, but my husband will tell you that it doesn’t really matter if I’m out on the street. I’m a dance walker and runner, baby! Perhaps it’s just endorphins. Perhaps it’s the increased oxygen flow to my brain. Perhaps it’s just the beat of the music. Perhaps it’s the series of minor concussions I had as a kid. So what! Who cares? It’s anabolic and I love it! And it’s a gift that keeps on giving. That amazing feeling of being in love with life continues way longer than the 35 minutes I’m on the treadmill. It boosts my energy and positive feeling all day long. What does that boost do? It makes me more loving and patient with the people in my life. It allows me to let go of little things that don’t matter. It enables me to get more done—and to do it with a better attitude. It goes deeper than that. When we’re experiencing this kind of positive anabolic energy, it has the power to rebuild the body at the cellular level. This is why laughter is called the best medicine. Who wouldn’t want to take this if it were a drug? Exercise is one way I get the […]
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