Take a Spiritual Path to More Effective Weight Loss

There are about a million blog posts, videos and even books on how to lose weight and (presumably) keep it off.  

We all know that we need to eat fewer calories, burn up more calories and jigger our internal biochemistry so that we preferentially ditch fat not muscle mass.  How do you do that?  You eat abstemious amounts of healthy food.  No, pizza isn't on the list, except for my birthday and Christmas.  Had my Xmas cake and GOD WAS IT GOOD.  Ahem. I love veggies.  Yes, I do.  Or to be exact, I like the health that I get when I eat veggies and a lean vegetarian diet.  

We all know that we need to move our bodies, to build muscle mass [no, ladies, you will never look like AHnold, no matter how muscled you get; bulgy muscles come from testosterone and have nothing to do with actual strength] and to juice metabolism.  YOU NEED TO MOVE.  You need strength training with weights and with yoga. And you need aerobic activity that gets you to sweat.  You cannot, cannot, cannot get healthy without exercise.  I did an entire class on the mental blocks about exercise and how to overcome them.

And you need to jigger your metabolism.  If you have winter blues, you need to get that under control [Journey Out of SAD, 2nd Ed., at Amazon or your local bookseller].  If you aren't spending time every day in effective stress control, that will shift your hormones.  101 Stress Busters for Energy, Joy and Healthy Longevity is just out!  Amazon or your local bookseller.  You absolutely, positively cannot be healthy with cortisol, adrenalin and hormones that are screaming at your body to hold on to fat.  Can't be done.  You have to prioritize this and strategize to spring loose time for it.

But you know that - or some of it.

What you don't know is that relying on willpower will just get you through a few weeks at most.  Then you will start making an exception to your new regime.... just this once.  And then it will be every other day and then it will be gone entirely.

You need to harness the deep parts of your mind, where you genuinely make your decisions, and where unresolved anger, resentment and childhood damage and adult trauma generate powerful pulls away from health and wellness, into passionate needs to assuage all those feelings through substitutes like cake... TV....video games.... you name it.

You don't really want those substitutes, at a deep level.  You want to be happy, at a deep level.  The only way to circumvent the sabotage that is running 24x7 in your deep levels, is to get down there with clinical hypnotherapy and turn it OFF.  And substitute a belief that you really can get what you really want.  And deep surgery to heal whatever needs healing, so it is gone forever.  Surface treatments like affirmations and coaching can never, ever have a lasting impact, because they can't get to the deep levels where the sabotage is happening.  Only hypnosis can do that - and you're only safe with an experienced, highly trained practitioner.  [I was in training and supervision for a year at my school. You want this level of training, not a grad of a quickie course, who doesn't know what they are doing with these major issues, this deep surgery.]

So think it over.  Do you want to have change that lasts?  Yes? Then sign up for a FREE transformation class.

For those with spirituality in their lives, many of these classes use spiritual tools.

And when you are ready to REALLY commit to change, find the package that is specially tuned to your specific problem, or a 30 day program just for you, at 

http://www.soaringdragon.biz/sessions-classes/

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/9897/FREE-Transforming-My-Beliefs-About-Myself-The-Creator

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8842/Retrain-Your-Immune-System-Smarter-Cells-Healthier-Life

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8844/The-Spiritual-Path-to-LOVING-Exercise-Veggies-Yes-you-will

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8839/Harness-Your-Goddess-Energy-to-Stop-Self-Sabotage

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8843/5-Magic-Components-of-Your-Successful-Self-Care-Program-Starting-with-Self-Love

Or explore the list of almost-free classes:

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/9895/Meet-Your-Biological-Ancestors

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/9896/30-Days-Create-Your-Way-to-Health-and-Joy

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/9873/6-Week-Stress-Busters-for-People-Who-Don-t-Have-Time-to-Waste

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/9879/Goddess-Connection-to-Drive-Weight-Loss-6-Weeks-to-Happy-and-Healthy

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/10091/Become-the-Shaman-of-Your-Own-Life

The #1 Factor That Will Keep You Going Toward Your Personal Goals

 How often do you celebrate?  Official holidays and family events only?  Or do you also celebrate your small victories and achievements on the mountain that you are personally climbing?

Some of us aren’t aspiring to anything.  I know lots of people like this.  They have achieved what they have always wanted – a certain income, grandparent status, a comfortable job – and they are satisfied.  They will read and learn and grow intellectually, or not, but they don’t have any aspirations burning a hole in their souls.  They have no mountains that they are attempting to summit.

Now please note: a mountain that you feel compelled to summit need not be something tangible.  It doesn’t need be healthy weight, a strong, muscled body, graduating from college or the Displaced Homemaker program or completing a marathon.  It could be getting through an entire week without snarling at anyone, feeling completely free and happy in one’s sexual expression, meditating for 10 minutes a day for a month or graduating from the eternal Yes Woman at your church (and being OK with everyone being mad at you, up to and including needing to find another church).  I particularly love the clients who come to me for that 2^nd type of mountain!

Some of these mountains are public – you tell everyone that you are changing your eating pattern forever, or becoming tobacco-free, so they will help and encourage you if you are tempted to return to your life-killing choices – and some are completely or primarily private.  My personal fitness goals have been in the latter category.

I have had a couple of injuries, which have kept flaring up, and other complications that have kept me from completing the six hours/week that the Surgeon General says we all need for optimal health.  I couldn’t even complete the three hours needed for minimal conditioning.  Most weeks I could complete 1.5 hours. Some days, I did 10 minutes of yoga or hand weights at home and it was all I could do.

The end result: poor physical condition.

But I’m celebrating today!  For the third day in a row, I was able to complete a 30 minute interval program on the treadmill, speeding up my walk to nearly running for at least half of those minutes.  I warmed up for 10, and then started a “5 minutes fast, 2 minutes moderate” progression.   I felt great every day, no relapses.  I can see muscles starting to form all over my torso, arms and legs.  They have been silently building for months, clearly, even as I’ve struggled and thought I was failing.

This is not the mountain summited, no.  It’s not the beginning of the end of my conditioning mountain.  But it is clearly the end of the beginning*.  

Along every mountain trek, there are interim resting spots at the ends of the switchbacks.  If you are a project manager, or have ever painted your house, these are the checkpoints along the project road, the places where you stop and assess your progress.  If you are literally climbing a mountain, you look out and down and realize, in awe and appreciation, how beautiful the view is and how much you have accomplished.

It’s so important to take these progress assessments!  Not in the way we do assessments in the corporate world, where their exact translation is “let’s see what you HAVEN’T accomplished so I have a stick to beat you up with the next time you want a concession on time, flexibility, whatever,” but in a Wow, I’ve Taken Some Steps, Haven’t I spirit. 

This is also what I talk about in my programs when I say that all behavior change goals have to have rewards for every effort toward a goal, as well as rewards for interim steps.

This is my day to celebrate with a non-food reward, and I intend to – extravagantly!  An entire hour of crochet tonight, finishing up a meter-tall stuffed animal, a fuzzy, funny wolf for a wolf-obsessed colleague.  It is not great art or great technical execution but it is fun, and another milestone in its way.  After all, how many people do you know who have ever created a 3 foot tall plush toy wolf that sorta-kinda looks like one? 

When you reward yourself, when you don’t allow your inner damage to slough it off and push you to spend your Reward time/energy/money on some other chore or goal, you are sending a powerful message to your subconscious mind that these actions DO matter, that small actions taken every day, consistently, rain or shine, tired and busy as you are, WILL get results.  It sends the message that these mountains that you are climbing are formidable, but you are more formidable.  It sends the message that you believe in your mountain-summiting ability, your ability to get to the very top and survey the entire world from the highest height.  It sends the message that you matter – to you, which is all that really matters.

Tomorrow, I go back to the gym and return to the climb.  For now, I am celebrating!

*[Extra points if you know who I plagiarized.]

www.soaringdragon.biz
For a comprehensive class on navigating the barriers to a daily movement habit (only $20): https://zparkl.com/course/about/transform-your-relationship-with-exercise/
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Avoid the Short Cuts that Don't Work. Sometimes Truth is just Truth.

We've all heard the joke about the efficiency expert who thinks waiting 9 months for a woman to produce a child is a process that can be improved; just get 9 women to work at it for a month!

Doesn't work that way.

Neither does the new craze for shorter, more intense gym (especially weights) workouts.  The reasoning goes that we are all stressed for time, why waste time?  So far, so good.  But you have to understand that some truths are Truths; they are not a matter of personal opinion, and you cannot use willpower, vision boards or any other mechanism to overcome them.  

Good:  Warm up with a treadmill or other slow, rhythmic, aerobic moves for at least 10 minutes.  Then do your shorter, more intense workout, realizing that intense HAS to use perfect form and correct placement of limbs and weights, because if you are too heavy or too intense and you make even a small mistake in placement, you are going to get injured.  Injured removes you from workouts anywhere from two days to the rest of your life. 

Bad: Jump right in and start pushing and pulling at high intensity.  Muscles and fascia that have been over-stretched or over-tense during hours of work and worry, usually in the same position, are really ripe for a major injury.

So - impatience can kill you, just like your parents told you oh so long ago.

Take your impatience and treat it like the problem that it is.  Breathe deeply for a full minute.  Allow your muscles and connective tissue to relax a bit.  Pray.  Reiki.  Meditate.  State into the abyss until the urge to think that you can overrule the physical rules of nature, what your physical self needs, dissipates and you are returned to sane, rational humanity.  

If you only have 10 minutes, don't go to a gym.  Walk up and down the stairs at your job or home, at a walking pace.  Don't run.  You only have 10 minutes and you're not loosened up yet.  Or do yoga.  Cats and cows, boys and girls.  You can do it in a dress, in a cubicle, so you can surely do it at home. 

If you only have 20 minutes, walk on a treadmill to warm up for ten, then do intervals of rapid or hard work, with a slower pace. for another 10.  Cool down by walking for a few minutes.  

Any strategy is better than going from overstretched and over-tense straight into an intense, especially weights, workout. 

ANY time you feel "I have to" preceding something that violates the laws of physics or biology, know that as a signal to change your faulty thinking, not those natural laws.  

Two plus two will always, always equal four, not twenty four, no matter how busy or important you are, or think you are.  I permanently crippled my hands by exactly this kind of crazy decision-making, and it took me five years of rehab and you don't want to know how much pain and suffering to regain most of my function (and life), but the life lesson has left me with a permanent twerk toward a sane approach to facts.  Truth exists, apart from opinion.  Much of what we think of as fact, is truly opinion - but not everything.  

Slow down.  Breathe.  Make a sane assessment of what is truly possible (Truth) and commit to that.  Let go of everything else

5 Top Reasons Why You Need to Focus on THIS Form of ME Time

Some of us don’t give ourselves any Me Time at all, because we’re convinced, for family, gender or cultural reasons, that taking time for ourselves is selfish.  Some of us take our relaxation primarily with evening television or by physical pampering like mani-pedis.

I’ve shown you how having Me Time is the least selfish thing you can do for your family and career in another post.  For now, assume that you’re  convinced that you need Me Time and are ready to consider spending anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour on most days, entirely engrossed in your most creative, fun activities with absolutely NO guilt!  How does this sound?  Look what joys await you when you get up from the zoning-out-with-TV habit:

Ø  Diving into library books and magazines on crochet [come sit down next to me!]

Ø  Watching videos, and YouTube – humor, how-tos, history, science, drama, cute kittens.

Ø  Chatting with friends

Ø  Reading, especially about hobbies or interests that engross you (deep-ending in histories of Elizabethan England, Ancient Scythia or WWI)

Ø  Picture-intensive books about travel, garden makeovers or visual hobbies (art, crafts)

Ø  Listening to catchy, upbeat music.

Ø  Listening to audiobooks and podcasts.

Ø  Building or making physical objects, from bat houses and cat houses to human furniture.

Ø  As well as more specialized joys, like feeling the joy of warm water all around you, or taking a virtual bike-ride along the wine valleys of the Loire.

Now THAT’S what I call Me Time!   Are you ready to plunge into all this fun?  Good, because I want to give you the 5 powerful reasons why you want this particular form of Me Time:

Reason #1: Your chances of developing 14 different forms of cancer, plus diabetes, Alzheimer’s and heart disease plummet.  Your blood pressure and blood cholesterol plummet.  You add an average of 7 healthy years to your lifespan!

Reason #2: Your enthusiasm for life and your positive energy will soar, without you having to recite affirmations or engage in any other life changes!

Reason #3:  You’ll get fewer colds, you’ll be less liable to depression even when the days are cold, cloudy or rainy, your sleep will be easier and sounder and you’ll be able to successfully race for the express commute bus.

Reason #4:  Your career will improve because your mind will be calmer, your confidence will skyrocket, your ideas will be more creative and clever, and your increased energy as evidenced in your sparkling eyes and easy smile will convince management that you are overdue for a promotion to more responsibility.  If you own a business, people will be drawn to become customers because of the magnetism of increased confidence, which also manifests in smarter business decisions.

Reason #5:  You will be a kinder, more patient and understanding parent (with less effort), and all your personal relationships, including your marriage, will be happier and calmer.

So HOW do you get all these benefits and enjoy all that Me Time?

Are you ready for the Secret?  Take a deep breath, because it’s really, really powerful

Here it is: Go to the gym, or community center, at least three days/week, and engage in vigorous movement on the other days.

That’s right, it’s exercise! 

I go to the gym to get Me Time to deep-end in imagining new crochet projects while I walk on the treadmill or use a stationary bike.  My clients revel in the guilt-free joys of reading and taking vicarious trips, including the creative lady who bike-trips along the Loire.  She bikes in place and can taste all that lovely wine in her imagination!  Others enjoy guilt-free video or Facebook time as they bicycle or treadmill.  Gyms always pipe in catchy, upbeat music to help keep you moving as long as possible.  Home shops can be hives of vigorous movement as you build and create.  Once a week, hubby and I take a water aerobics class and laugh and giggle together as we leap, jump, and practice-box in the soothing warm water; after class we laugh and catch up with our friends. 

And it’s all guilt-free fun, because you are doing the #1 thing that you need for optimal physical and mental health, a happy life and successful career. 

Are you convinced that you hate exercise?  Want to bet I can’t change your mind?  OK, the deal is on!

Step #1: Sign up for my transformative, fun class here: https://zparkl.com/course/about/transform-your-relationship-with-exercise/.   This class focuses on the most powerful organ in your body – your mind.  It is in your concepts and beliefs that you turn away from the most powerful Me Time on the planet, with all the amazing benefits it brings you.  Exercise literally puts money in your pocket as it adds years to your lifespan.  For $19.95, it’s priced to be super-easy for everyone.  So go ahead, sign up!

Step #2: When you have completed the class, call or email me and book a FREE Getting Unstuck appointment.  If you complete my class, I will DOUBLE your free session to a full hour, and we will get to work demolishing the barriers that are holding you back from all the fun of the most powerful Me Time ever.  That’s my gift  and it’s worth a whole lot more than $19.95.  Maybe we can solve your time problem or blast away your other barriers and hand you your heart’s desire on a plate in one session.  Maybe we will only get part-way there.  The important thing is – you get a $70 value for only $19.95, even if my class doesn’t do for you what it has done for everyone else who’s ever taken it.

Are you willing to bet that I can’t make a Me Time addict out of you?  Sign up now at https://zparkl.com/course/about/transform-your-relationship-with-exercise/.

253-203-6676

www.soaringdragon.biz     

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New Year Resolutions 2: What Do I Focus On?

Resolutions 2: What Shall I Focus on?

Study yourselves; and most of all note well
Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel.
Not every blossom ripens into fruit.

Amen.  

When it comes to the character virtues of good listening, good will and good heart, we are all equally capable of excelling.  Not so with all the other characteristics.

There has been a lively debate among researchers and also among us average Joes and Jills about what to focus our self-improvement energy on.  When I was a kid, the focus was all on removing or ameliorating one’s weaknesses.  We studied ourselves to find our weaknesses and then added education or training to our To Do list and we got rid of it.  It’s a good plan.  Celine Dion couldn’t make it as a singing mega-star until she had elocution lessons and plastic surgery.  Reality is what it is and women are judged on their appearance before anything else.  Consider the mean tweets about Carrie Fisher’s appropriately-aged face this week.  So removing barriers is always a good idea.

The 21^st century spawned the Strengths movement, specifically to counteract the all-pervasive search for defects, and that has merit as well.  As Longfellow’s quote shows, this isn’t a new idea. There is a great deal of value in knowing what you are already good at or naturally good at, and focusing on that.  Polishing your gemstone so it gleams even more brightly.  There is some evidence to support this as a strategy, in that hiring managers and potential spouses over-focus on one’s shining points if you dazzle the eyes with them.

The dilemma is succinctly explained in the last line of the poem fragment: not every blossom will ripen into a fruit and you only have 18 usable hours every day, less if you exercise and you will exercise, right?  [If you don’t exercise every day, and you have $20 in your pocket – you know you do – click and start changing your internal landscape now! https://zparkl.com/course/about/transform-your-relationship-with-exercise/  ]

So what shall I spend my precious time on: fix it or get better at what I already do well?  Fixing things, if they are barriers like Dion’s, can give you a big bang for your buck.  Better organizing of paperwork?  Probably not, but it might significantly lower your stress at the office and give you more time to ride a bike or do yoga or paint.  If I focus on what I know I am good at, I will have a thrill of victory as I climb higher and higher on a path that I am already halfway to Denali’s peak on.  There are pros and cons no matter what you choose.

For me, it’s still fix-it.  Healing what needs healing, growing in virtues, and making time for the creative activities that feed my soul, that’s where it’s at for me.