Healthy Body

I've changed my focus in the last few years from losing weight to being healthier. It was a hard shift to make in our society. The thing that did it for me was trying to explain to my daughters why they shouldn't diet. I've been overweight most of my adult life, but I think that dieting really caused a lot of it. I put myself into a feast or famine situation. I was either strictly watching what I was eating and counting calories or stuffing my face with all the things I had been denied (whether I wanted them at the moment or not). Same thing with exercise. I was either at the gym doing all sorts of exercises I hated or I was sitting on the couch.

It is really amazing what happens when we turn the switch to being healthier. I exercise quite a bit now because I teach water exercise classes. The difference is that the exercises I do are fun and not because they will burn the optimal amount of calories. I've found things that appeal to me. I think that is the trick. Finding things that work for you. They have to fit into your schedule and personality. It is so much better to do a bit less but do it consistently. Not very many of us can go full out and sustain it.

It's the same thing with changing the way you eat. We need to listen to our bodies and find what works for us. At the same time, we need to think about the changes that we are willing to make. It doesn't matter if I find the perfect plan for my body if I can't stick to it. As I've learned in the past, all that does is create a ticking bomb until I binge on everything I think I was denied. The reason there are so many diet plans out there is that we all are different. It all has worked for someone. We need to listen to ourselves to see what will work for us and what we can sustain.

I think the biggest key is also to make peace with our bodies. I tell my girls all the time that we are not all built the same way. There is no way someone with a curvy body can look like a waif and be healthy. I hope they get the message that being healthy is so much better than being thin. I also hope that if I say it long enough to them, I can continue to believe it myself.

but I don't feeel like it (whine)

Let's face it. Some days we just can't muster the energy to be reflective. Some days we have a dark cloud following us. Should we just throw in the towel and wallow? Maybe. I think that it is okay to not be all sunshine all the time. The trick is to remain grateful through our bad mood and to not let a day or so of moodiness stretch out to a few weeks.

I like to think of the moodiness as a time to recharge. Generally we are many things to many people and frankly, sometimes it is exhausting. If you find resentment creeping in, it is important to recognize you need a break before it becomes a full out melt down temper tantrum. Maybe it is time to claim a bad mood and lock yourself in your room with a good book or sappy movie. Let everyone fend for themselves for a couple of hours. I find that if I take the time to let the negative emotions flow through me, they generally don't hang around for too long. If I try to stop the flow, it festers until I am mad and frustrated with everything. We need to be realistic. We are human and that includes good moods and bad.

The one caveat I have is to not wallow too deep. To try to acknowledge even the slightest things to be grateful for. Some nights I find myself just saying, "Thank you" over and over again until something to be thankful for pops into my head. Without fail, something always pops into my head. Even in the deepest dark, there is some light. I find that if I focus on that light, the light always comes back to me.

You've got to accentuate the positive...

Eliminate the negative and latch on to the affirmative and don't mess with Mr. In Between.

I always loved that song, but never really paid attention to what it was actually saying until recently. I think that the way we respond to life directly depends on how we perceive what happens to us. If we have a negative attitude, the main thing we see is all the negative things that happen in our life. If we have a positive attitude, we open ourselves up to good things happening.

Think about it. When you wake up in a foul mood, the day is pretty much shot. Don't we always say, "It's Murphy's Law." "I'm late. Of course, I hit every red light." "Why do these things always happen to me?" I used to think that when we have a negative attitude, we draw negative things to ourselves, but it's more than that. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. We create our own reality in this. It's like, once we are in a foul mood, we want to continue it. We're affronted. We start looking for everything that is bothering us. When we do that, even minor things that we could normally shrug off, become bigger.

Instead, let's try the reverse. Start looking for the gift in every bad situation. Start the day off happy and see where that takes you. Now that I have set time aside to be thankful every night, I find myself more aware of the good things during the day. I'm noticing them so I can remember to be thankful later. I've been much happier lately. I go through my day looking for the next good thing and it always comes. I've put myself into the positive, so I see positive things. I am open to all of life's gifts large and small.

Everything that happens to us can be viewed as a curse, a gift, or something in between. Let's eliminate the curse, get rid of the in between and concentrate on the gift!

WAKE UP!!!!!

How many of us are guilty of sleep walking through our lives? If someone were to ask me if I wish my life away, I would say, "Of course not, I try to live my life to the fullest." But if I actually look at my day, there are always the times that I wish it were the weekend already or can the kids please stop talking already! I've been realizing that if I truly want to be happy, I need to find a way to be happy in the moment.

Being happy in the moment is not a natural thing for me. I had a pretty bad childhood and the way I got through it was to look to the future. Everytime things would get bad, I would tell myself that it was only temporary and that I needed to get through it to get to the good part of my life. That became a pattern for me throughout life. I've always been focused on the future. Now as I approach 40, I have started to be jealous of people just starting things, new school year, college, career, marriage. I realized that I am living a pretty charmed life right now and yet I am still wishing it away.

It's great to have goals and to plan for the future, but we also need to be happy in the present. The last few weeks I have really tried to enjoy the present tense of my life. When the kids try to talk to me, I put the book down or turn off the TV and listen. When I get free time, I savor it. Even if I am just wasting my time on inane things, I am appreciative of having that free time. When I am at work, I am enjoying the people around me, not thinking of all the things I need to do later.

Here in Austin, TX, we have had one of the driest, hottest summers on record. Normally we have about 12 days of triple digit temperatures. This summer we have had 69 so far. This week a cool front came through and it will be only in the high 90s, and really cooling off at night for the first time in months. As I drove home from taking my daughter to school this morning with the windows open in the car, I didn't let myself think of the full day ahead of me and all I needed to accomplish. I just savored the cool breeze and enjoyed the bliss of the moment.

Light

I chose the name for this blog because the word light means many things to me. Whenever I visualize the connection with a higher spirit, it is always a beam of light. When I am happy, I feel light. When I want to ease my burden, I want to lighten my lode. Shed some light on the situation.

So I've now had a couple of weeks of being grateful for the little things in my life. Every night I go through my day in detail and give thanks for everything. I've been finding that I have these little pauses, though, when I get to the challenges of the day. I mean, come on, I'm not really very thankful for these challenges. Sometimes I can try really hard and come up with a way to be thankful for whatever gift I received from the challenge, but usually I can't see the gift yet. What I've chosen to do is to send light (or prayers, or energy) to those situations.

So for this week. if you are following along with me, have a time set aside to think about your day. My time is when I am getting ready to go to sleep. When you go through your day, along with being thankful for the little things, start sending light to the problem areas. Sometimes the light will be to help some one else along on their path. Sometimes it will be so that you can forgive yourself for an action or reaction. Sometimes you may not even know what you are trying to receive from the light, but trust me, it works anyway.

New Blog - Gratitude

How original! I am starting a new blog!

I've been thinking lately, "What is it we all want out of life?" We all want to be happy and healthy. For me, that means being happy and healthy in all areas of my life: physical, emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual, professional, financial, family, and friends. Of course being happy and healthy may look different for all of us at various times in our lives. Since I think best when I am expressing my feelings, I decided to start this blog. Hopefully, as you follow my ramblings, you too can focus on what makes you happy and healthy. I am hoping to bring light to my life and yours. So here it goes...

I think one of the most important first steps to take toward enlightment is gratitude. I really don't think we can be happy until we are grateful for what we have. A couple of years ago when The Secret came out, everybody was talking about seeing yourself with what you want instead of complaining about what you don't have. My friend and I were trying to figure out what all the fuss was about. We both had been doing something similar to that for years, but she told me that one difference the movie talked about was that we should say thank you all the time. I find myself remembering that every time I feel disconnected to the grace around me, every time I start feeling sorry for myself for what I don't have or when I can't see that I am moving towards what I want. It never fails, when I remember to be thankful for what I do have, I feel a greater connection to the world around me, my spirits lift, and I am happier with life. It's hard to believe that it is that simple.

I often tell my kids that God doesn't make the bad things in our life happen, he allows them, but he doesn't like them. So when something bad happens, God gives us little gifts to make up for it. The bigger the hardship, the bigger the gift. So, very night before I go to bed, I have been taking time to thank God (or the Great Spirit or the Universe) for everything good thing that happened that day. I give thanks for all the gifts, from the tiniest (hitting all green lights when you are late) to the biggest. Give it a try for a week and feel the magic.