Thought for the Day....

This thought comes from Productive Flourishing. 

Watching what everyone else is doing keeps you reacting to what you think is going on rather than what’s important – building something you’re proud of. -- Charlie Gilkey

If you liked the thought, click over and watch his 3 minute video expansion of the thought.  His topic is business but holds completely true for your weight management and mindful practice.

**and as an aside:  He makes the super coolest monthly action planners that you can download here for free.  Neat stuff!!

It's been a year....

It's been a year since you read this.

Have you taken a moment to stop and assess how far you've come with your mindfulness practice?  Have you taken a moment to stop and assess where you want to go with your practice?  This isn't about your weight goal.  Set that aside for just a minute. 

If you've been journeying with me since last Memorial Day, we've tackled summer barbeque's, the Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years eat fest, birthdays, potlucks, Easter baskets -- we've seen it all.  Do you find yourself living more in the present moment?  Would you like to?

The weight will come off but please, just for today, try to think about being present each blessed second of your life as your primary goal.  When you do that, the weight will come off as a by-product.

Happy Memorial Day, All!

Do something Friday

They say trust is the basis for all good relationships.  I'm going to amend that to trust is the basis for all relationships.  If the foundational trust is broken, the relationship with have serious fault lines.  The quality of trust defines the relationship.

As adults, we can see how this is true in interpersonal relationships --  it's exhausting to be in those relationships that lack trust between the participants.  Especially when one is trying to dominate the other.

But what about the intra-personal relationship you have with your body.  How is the trust there?  Do you feel like it is just waiting to betray you at first opportunity?  Do you nag at it out of fear of its behaviors (cravings to eat that whole cake or the extra steak you cooked for tomorrow)?    Do you rebel against your common sense and try to starve it into submission?  Do you make it perform under harrowing conditions (nothing but cabbage soup for the month while you exercise 4 hours a day because you are unhappy with the way it looks)?

Do you trust that if you build good communication skills, it will tell you when you're hungry and when you're full?  That it will guide you day to day in your calorie intake?

It will.  If you listen and start building dialogue and rapport with it.

Unlike other relationships, you are stuck with this one.  There is no walking away this time.  And although, you can make it "behave" for a while, much like other relationships, when one partner is exerting full force all the time, the other partner eventually gives up trying to please.

The good news is, since you are stuck with the body you have, it will never be too late to start working on that relationship.  Learn to listen to the feedback you are getting from it.  Are you eating too much (probably or you wouldn't be reading this blog)?

How does eating to much actually make your physical body feel?  Sluggish, full, bloated, extended??? 

How does it make your mind feel?  Guilty, comforted, numb??

Whatever you feel, start listening.  Start building that relationship of trust.  You are stuck with this body -- you don't get a new one.  Even a thinner one is still the same body that's just a different shape.  If you don't learn to trust it in the times of plenty, how are you going to trust it in the lean times?

Sometimes

Sometimes you have to tell yourself "not right now".  Not all the time but sometimes.  When did we get this idea that we can have everything we want right when we want it?  -- 37 flavors, Big Mac and fries, coffee in a 100 different varieties, doughnuts, subs, pizza that can all be picked up without ever leaving our cars.

We can't have it all every time the mood strikes -- it's too easy to indulge and then the indulgence becomes a habit that is an expectation (and the indulgence is something on top of that). 

Sometimes you have to say no...not right now.

My hope for you

I hope you all have as wonderful of cheerleaders as I do!

The other day, I wrote this post, adding (to make my point about quitting and not quitting) that feedback was important (among other things).  You guys were great!  You posted and supported this mindfulness project and I wanted to say "Thanks!".

If you all are getting half the support I got the other day, you will reach your weight management goals for sure!  And if you're not feeling supported enough, reach out to others -- there is a huge (and growing) community of mindful eaters out there.  Find each other, connect, convert your non-mindful friends and develop the supportive environment that will help you flourish.

That is what you've done for me -- thank you.  :)

Why?

Why try?  Why continue trying?  Why open yourself up to failure?  Why?

Because you only have a couple options:

1. Do.-- you'll get there if you keep trying (although it will probably take longer than you would like it to)

2. Don't do. -- and accept that you're weight will keep heading in the direction it's heading right now.

It won't ever be easier -- it will just be later.

Straight from Seth Godin....a thought for the day

Just imagine how much you'd get done


...if you stopped actively sabotaging your own work.

We must be talented, powerful and resilient creatures indeed given how much we manage to produce despite the constant undercutting, ridicule and needless censorship we aim at ourselves.