As often happens for me in this type of learning setting, I started to inquire within about why I behave this way. The answer that came up is that possibly the mindset for the behavior is tied to my childhood when we often had little food in the house. I don’t remember ever going hungry, but I do remember my mom being challenged with how to stretch her dollars at the grocery. As I thought about this, I realized another reason I was eating fast was so I could go back for more from the buffet rather than enjoying the food that was I was eating in the moment.

Fully experiencing the present moment is critical to implementing any mind-body skill. Since I eat at least three times every day, I feel focusing on mindful eating will enhance my ability to stay in the present moment, keep me more connected with all of this work, and improve my overall health and well-being.

The practice of mindful eating includes taking time to appreciate the food you are eating by being grateful for it and possibly extending gratitude to the preparers and growers; noticing the colors, variety, and textures of your food; thoroughly experiencing each food through all your senses; and eating predominantly natural, nutritious foods. I look forward to enjoying my meals more and improving my overall well-being by practicing mindful eating.

-Carolee

Photo from www.freefoto.com
To subscribe to our blog, click here.
Follow us on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter!

It was interesting when he asked the workshop participants how they reacted to the word “Why”. Several people agreed that it had a negative connotation to them. To me and a couple of others at the workshop, why represents curiosity and is not considered negative.

I was grateful to learn that using the word “Why” can put people on the defensive; now I know to consider using another word or phrase.       

I was also glad to learn that Charles’ topic of effective communication included internal dialogue, which I believe is incredibly important for achieving our optimum well-being. Where do your words not support your desires? Pay attention and choose different phrases where you see there is not alignment. Charles used the power of words to help him heal from an illness that doctors told him would leave him unable to walk. He chose to believe that he was healing every day and communicated that to himself and everyone else, and he now walks without assistance.

I have changed my internal dialogue quite a bit since I started paying more attention several years ago. When I recognize frustration, I ask myself what I desire and shift my language to align with that. An area that I am working on right now is to stop telling myself “I don’t have enough time” or “there isn’t enough time”. I am working to replace my frustration with encouraging words like “everything unfolds in its right time” and “I use my time wisely.”

Listen to your words, what you speak and tell yourself, to identify where you can shift your language to be more supportive of your optimum well-being. I expect you will be amazed with what you observe!

-Carolee

To subscribe to our blog, click here.
Follow us on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter!

During the service, I kept thinking that I couldn’t even imagine the pain her husband, parents, and brother must be experiencing. She had one brother close in age, just as I do, and I imagined what it must feel like to him to be the only remaining child. How overwhelming and lonely that would feel to me. I also thought about how her husband’s life totally and completely changed in a moment.

My mom and I traveled to Arkansas for the service, which gave us the opportunity to connect with other family and friends while we were there. One of my mom’s long-term friends who we visited lost her husband about a year ago. She is still very much grieving his passing, especially the loss of the life that she had looked forward to with him growing old together. Another reminder of how precious our life circumstances can be.

I also thought about how I want to document my wishes for the service when I die to a celebration of the wonderful life I have experienced. I envision some of my favorite music and words being shared, and encouraging people to share their memories of adventures and fun times they experienced with me. Thinking of this now motivates me to celebrate even more while I am alive and share my celebrations with those I loved. I want to be remembered for appreciating and celebrating the abundance and adventure of life.

I love a great adventure, and I expect the afterlife to be my most phenomenal adventure. I hope to communicate that message to people I love so it will comfort their grief. Cheers. Namaste.

-Carolee

Photo from www.dreamstimefree.com
To subscribe to our blog, click here.
Follow us on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter!

Failure Club on Yahoo’s Yscreen  follows seven people as they move toward fulfilling long-held dreams over the course of a year. The goal of Failure Club is to strip away the notion that failure is wrong.  Phillip Kirakofe, creator of Failure Club, coaches people through their fear of failure and helps them identify what is stopping them. “Success is what people settle for when they are afraid to fail at something that is truly life defining,” Kirakofe says.

This is an F-word with its own support group! A how-to for getting past the worries of  f-f-f-failure.

Follow this interesting group of New Yorkers who, individually, want to open a store, start a service business, write a world-famous Christmas song, be a comedian and other big goals that seem too daunting at first thought. Be inspired by people who are charting a course toward their dreams and what they learn along the way. 

-Rebecca

To subscribe to our blog, click here.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Related articles

• Morgan Spurlock on his new web series ‘Failure Club’ – EXCLUSIVE (insidetv.ew.com)
• Morgan Spurlock’s reality show about failure, rejected by networks, debuts on Yahoo (realityblurred.com)

I’m at that place where my head doesn’t want to think anymore, it doesn’t want to try to figure out the best way to do something or say something or look at something.  It doesn’t want to consider what my food choices for tomorrow will be, much less what I’m going to wear to work.

Spacing out is about all it wants to do.

Yet, it seems to be processing a lot at night because the dreams I’m remembering are vivid, and filled with obscure things that don’t really seem related.  Like this morning I remembered a dream about the executive director at my company searching for a restaurant that sold biscuits made from scratch, and then seconds later, it seemed, I’m dreaming about a letter from the first guy I loved.  To my waking mind, those things are completely unrelated and unrelatable!  But my unconscious mind firmly believes they are related as it processes through the night, filing and ranking and put my thoughts and experiences in a retrievable format; working away, all night.

Consciously, though, writing this post is a struggle – I’m trying to keep it nice and tight in terms of content, but my head keeps flitting off to la-la land as my eyes find the shiny lights outside my window and just stare, seeing the steady stream of headlights, but not really seeing.

Pushing myself to do more, be more, accomplish more sometimes takes its toll.  Like tonight.  It’s times like this that my body takes over and says, enough is enough.  Close it up and say good night.  So, my head gets fuzzy, and I’m easily distracted, and I just feel brain dead.

It’s important to listen when our bodies give us signals that they’ve had enough.  So, having written this, and said that, I’m going to take my own advice and heed my body’s signals.  I suggest you do the same when your time comes!

Cathy Lynn

To subscribe to our blog, click here

“Like” us on Facebook.

Follow us on Twitter!

Image via Wikipedia

“Celebrate!” is our theme for these first months of 2012. In Louisiana, we celebrate food and music with various festivals all year and we like to parade on holidays. Just a few days ago I thought I would be celebrating my college football team’s championship victory but I am not. LSU did not win the BCS Championship game on Monday night. No parade or rally to attend, just feeling disappointed immediately after.

I, like many fellow fans, have focused on what went wrong in the game and the sad feeling of defeat. For awhile, I lost sight of the fact that LSU went undefeated until this championship game and is 13-1 for the season. I forgot this year’s football team is being called one of LSU’s best teams in history and is expected to be even better next year. I was letting this one game take away what there is to appreciate until someone pointed out that LSU beat 7 of the teams who celebrated victories in college bowl games this season, including the University of Alabama team we met again for this game. LSU played in the championship game and is ranked #2, which is something we don’t see every year.

So there is much to appreciate if I want to shift my focus. I have been celebrating all season as LSU won game after game. I’m not going to let this disappointment steal the joy of weeks of excitement and success. I want my team to know how I appreciate all the happiness their skills, passion and commitment have given me every week.

Last week, I impulsively went to the side of the road where the team buses would be driving to the big game. As I cheered them on, I shared in their confidence and expectation that they were ready to take on the challenge ahead. But life is full of surprises and sometimes, disappointment. None of us can afford to let disappointment define who we are.

I suggest that every day we are alive is worthy of celebration in some way. But what happens when you feel you can’t celebrate? Shake it off and recall what is good. Find something positive to focus on, even if it is simply appreciating that you can feel and from there you’ll likely find more.

-Rebecca

To subscribe to our blog, click here.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo by Lisa Mayers Houff

Paths clear for those who know where they’re going and are determined to get there.  ― Anonymous

Seeing this quote at the beginning of 2012 is just what I needed to remind me that when I’ve been passionate about what I want and focus on it, the way has opened. Lately I’ve been spinning my wheels on a few goals and this made me step back and review my stumbling. Am I going for what I really want? If so, am I determined in my actions?

As I pondered my motivation, I came across this blog post by Peter Bregman at HBR: “Your Problem Isn’t Motivation.” Aha!  The challenge isn’t motivation, it’s follow-through, Bregman points out.  Stop the thinking because you’ve already thought about it and made the decision, and start acting. Bregman offers an example of steps to set-up an action plan using (mainly) scheduling and accountability.

Yeah, I thought to myself, this is all stuff I’ve heard before, done in workshops, etc… But I needed a reminder, a guideline. It’s the kind of thing a coach can help with. But if you don’t have a coach, here’s something to get started with. If you’ve decided you want it, then make the time and take the action to go after it. Don’t let second-guessing thoughts deter you from taking action toward your passion.

One of my perennial goals is travel to new places. Kien Lam’s  Time is Nothing / Around the World Time Lapse is inspirational viewing for those of us who like to wander to distant lands. I looked for places I’ve visited and noted places I want to see. A beautiful four-minute journey. Enjoy!

-Rebecca

To subscribe to our blog, click here.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Image via Wikipedia

2012 is here.  It came with fanfare and parties.  But now it’s here with us, and unlike a party guest, it’s not going away for a year.

In my neck of the woods, it’s a beautiful day.  The sun is shining, it’s a tad windy, but the temperature is in the mid-fifties.  Lots of folks are out and about.  I’ve been watching them come and go from my spot at my local Star Bucks bar.  They are chipper, and giving “Happy New Year!” salutations.  The roads are also busy with cars, as people are moving about and getting on with their lives.

So, I can’t help but think about the doomsday predictions for this year, given the Mayan Calendar supposedly ends this year.  It’s almost as though the calendar were a predictor of some kind, and without it, we are trudging off into the unknown like the Starship Enterprise, bravely facing a new world;  Or a world that’s going to end this year.

But, I think about it like this:  If our civilization were to disappear, with the appearance of suddenness, and someone happened upon a calendar of ours that dated years and years into the future, wouldn’t they be worried about the same thing?  I mean, think about it.  There are people, and books that chart the years and movements of the planets and such for decades into the future.  Wouldn’t an unsuspecting new civilization view those calendars in the same way?  Wouldn’t they be wondering why we plotted all those movements way back then?  Why did they seemingly suddenly stop plotting them?

I often think, too, of all the toys and forks, both stainless and plastic, and such that kids play with in front yards that get buried in play, or left out and buried by a heavy rain fall.  Someday some excavationist is going to come across a front yard where several children played, find all those things, and try to piece together the meaning of it all.  They will attribute it some sort of faux cannibalistic ritual involving the pretense of eating humans based on all the eating utensils and headless Barbie dolls, or GI Joe’s.  The stainless steel utensils will have been for the formal rituals of the rich, and the plastic the ritual ware of the poor.  Though they won’t be far off in terms of who used what, their reasons will be so askew!  And they will use their learnedness to form their theories and present them to whatever world is listening.

Or better yet, they will run across Transformers and wonder if they really WERE the dead bodies of tiny aliens!!

We have only educated guesses about what happened back then, and why anyone did anything.  I suspect they really weren’t all that different from us in their reasons for doing things.  Curiosity, or conceit born of a thriving community that believed it could plan its continued success for hundreds of years, or a highly ritualistic and religious community that wanted to have all its ducks in a row for their gods as far into the future as they could.

I love a good mystery and the theories that come from discussing the unknown, or the barely known as much as anyone else.  It’s fun to speculate about motives and the whys of things.  But, regardless of our speculated reasons why they plotted their calendar so far out, we will never know their actual reasons.  And to base our lives on it, or be afraid of it, or worry about it, or let it color our hopes and dreams about a new year just doesn’t make any sense to me.

So, as I sit here enjoying my Sunday morning ritual, watching the wondrous and amazing thing we call life all around me, I am fortified and encouraged.  I have high hopes for 2012 being a stellar year.  Not just for me, but for us all.  And if it is the year the world ends, well, at least we’ll all be in it together, and no one will be facing that unknown alone unless they choose to.

Cathy Lynn

To subscribe to our blog, click here

“Like” us on Facebook.

Follow us on Twitter!

I was intrigued to recently learn two variations of the new year’s practice of releasing those things you desire to let go of and choosing what to bring forward into the new year. The details are different, but each variation focuses on identifying what’s working and what’s not working in your life so you can consciously create a new year filled with more joy.  I prefer this practice to simply making resolutions because I believe letting go creates the space for new possibilities and opportunities, and focusing on our intentions is the first step to bringing what we desire into our lives. 

The first variation I read about was in Tama Kieves’ newsletter, which can be subscribed to at www.awakeningartistry.com. Tama’s suggested practice is to put items that represent the things you wish to bring forward into the new year in a special box. You can write them down, draw them, choose an article that represents them, or whatever works best for you. Putting them in a box to treasure will remind you of your commitment. For letting go, she suggests practicing forgiveness, which may include forgiving yourself for past decisions or choices. Forgiveness opens space for more love and new beginnings.

The second variation is called the burning bowl and consists of writing down what you want to let go of and burning the paper in a bowl, then writing down what you desire to bring forward into the new year. I heard that this will be part of the service at the local Unity Church for New Year’s Day, which I am looking forward to attending to bring in the new year.

Infinite love and blessings for your treasured desires into the new year,
Carolee

Photo from www.freefoto.com
To subscribe to our blog, click here.
Follow us on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter!

As I reflect on 2011, I’m looking at what still needs to improve or increase in my life and what was really good. I did not meet many of my professional expectations and I am disappointed. But when I dug into the disappointing aspects I also noticed some unexpected benefits I hadn’t predicted, like the trip to Canada associated with a work project. I set a goal to travel overseas and though I didn’t cross an ocean, I did travel to an area of the world I’ve wanted to see. I visited another country and that’s what I really meant by “overseas.” Then I realized I took several short trips that were fun but not what I had planned. A trip to Boston for professional reasons was not something I had expected. Upon closer review, I had several successful professional outcomes, though not resulting in a key measurement I was looking for. Is it easier for me to focus on the negative? I hope not and I work on seeing what is good and living in that feeling. But I struggle at times.

Which brings me back to seeing that old solitaire game and noticing how technology – and life – has improved in many ways overall. For me to live in the moment I need to believe that overall, things are moving in a positive direction, even if I can’t see it when focused on the details.

I read an article at CSMonitor.com, “The (surprisingly upbeat) State of the World,” and it begins with, “First, the good news: Bad news does not define the human race.” It goes on to talk about how war seems to be on the decline, poverty is being reduced, women’s status is improving around the world, and democracy is spreading. Yes, news outlets and other media report a lot of details that are grim but in a broader view optimism can be found.

As I look forward to 2012 I understand life is made of moments, hopefully evolving into a life and a world that is easier, better, happier. The evidence is there, depending on how I view it. It’s important to see the big picture of life but every moment is precious and propelling us forward.

How are you evaluating 2011 and what expectation do you have for 2012? Wishing you and the world a peaceful, generous new year.

-Rebecca

P.S. Don’t forget that all approved comments in December on posts are entered into a random drawing for a free copy of “The Gathered Soul”.

To subscribe to our blog, click here.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.