Sneaking Quiet Time Into Your Day — The First Steps to Incorporating Meditation

By Michelle Market, LPC

Imagine quiet amongst the chaos of your daily to-do’s. Imagine uninterrupted time during your day to focus on your breathing and slowing down. When you allow your mind to quiet down, how do you feel? Is it uncomfortable? Why might you avoid slowing down? These are questions to give some consideration as you begin to implement the practice of meditation.

It is possible to slow down, although it often needs to be intentional and, initially, rehearsed. Picture the first time you learned to ride a bike. You did not do it perfectly the first time. You fell, bumped into things – you started slowly. Learning the art of meditation and quieting your mind can sometimes feel like the same process.

When was the last time you sat in silence for any extended period of time? Meditation not only is a healthy coping skill to handle stress, but it is also a tool to help us tune in with ourselves. Quieting our mind results in becoming more centered. When we have slowness in our day we develop greater awareness of what is going on in our mind, body and with our emotions.

Steps to incorporate meditation into your day:

Choose a time in the day that is most conducive to your meditation practice. (All you need is 5 minutes). Initially, it is helpful to set a timer (start at 5 minutes).

Find a space where you can sit comfortably. Sit up tall with your legs uncrossed. Have your hands open and palms up. Close your eyes.

Find a word to focus on that will illicit a calm response. For example, peace, acceptance, slow, breathe.

When you have other thoughts that enter your mind picture them as clouds floating through the sky and then focus back on the calming word that you had chosen, refer to this as your mantra.

Take notice of taking slow, intentional deep breaths. Inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.

Though there are many different ways to meditate, here are five types of meditations that may be easier to incorporate into your day:

Candle Meditation: Light a candle and place your focus on the flicker of the flame. When your mind begins to drift, re-center your focus back on the candle.

Walking Meditation: Find a path to walk (preferably a scenic route). Take notice of slowing down your steps one foot in front of the other. Take notice of slowing your breathing. Take notice of the scenery, the flowers, the trees and the grass as you connect with nature.

Cleaning Meditation: Turn any chore into a mini-escape. Take focus on the rhythmic nature of the chore. For example, if you are washing dishes, notice the sound of the water, take notice of the soap bubbles and take notice of your breathing. Use your calming word to re-center.

Car Mediation: While driving to work or running your errands turn off the music and drive in silence. Make a conscious decision to practice deep breathing.

Breathing Meditation: A simple way to incorporate calm into the day is committing to taking 3 deep breaths at different times throughout the day. You can use different transitions as a reminder to breathe such as before meals, before checking email, before starting the day. You will be amazed at the calming effect of just changing the way you breathe will make.

To sit without any judgment and to invite slowness is a gift of compassion to ourselves. Be patient in the process and start slowly. Begin to look forward to this pause within your day. Make the commitment to incorporate this self-care tool on a daily basis.

“I commit to 5 minutes of quiet each day.”

As you begin this practice on an on-going basis, you will start to look forward to this time of the day and will notice the days that you skipped. Meditation provides a bridge to create peace within ourselves.

Michelle Market, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Wellness Coach with more than 10 years of experience in Wellness and Women’s issues. She is dedicated to helping females feel better physically and emotionally. She has a private practice in Herndon, Virginia and works with Adults. Michelle provides counseling, coaching and workshops. She specializes in self-esteem and healthy food relationships. Her mission is to create and maintain positive change in the lives of her clients. She believes that beauty comes from the inside out. For more information visit her website www.michellemarket.com.

Book Review: The Body Love Manual — How to Love the Body You Have as You Create the Body You Want

You might find it strange to think that you need a manual on loving your body, but in fact, there is a book written by Elizabeth “Lily” Hills called The Body Love Manual*, and that’s precisely what it sets out to do — teach you to love your body. Right now, go to a mirror, look yourself directly in the eye and say “I love my body.” How does that feel? When one person I know said those words out loud, she said she felt silly. Silly because nothing could be further from the truth for her, as I suspect is the case with most people. I don’t have any statistics on how many people dislike their bodies, but if I were to take a guess, I would probably say that most people range somewhere from a vague dislike to an intense hatred of their bodies. And our eating habits confirm that.

It seems like most of us are either on a diet, trying to create a body that we can feel happy with, or treating our body with complete disregard, filling it beyond capacity with foods that would make our body scream in pain if it could talk. And then, when we can’t stand to look in the mirror anymore, or feel totally out of control around food, we go on a diet. Again. But let’s face it — diets don’t work.

Ninety-five percent of people who go on a diet regain the weight lost, and often more, within five years. But how are we supposed to reconcile those statistics with things like “obesity epidemic” or “1 in 3 Americans are overweight” and “war on obesity”. If diets don’t work, how are we supposed to cure our country of unhealthy eating habits and an inactive lifestyle? Jamie Oliver thinks he has the answer with his Food Revolution. Michelle Obama hopes she has the answers in trying to eradicate childhood obesity by encouraging kids to get off the sofa and get outdoors. In both cases, the focus, ultimately, is about teaching people to live healthier lives — to choose apple slices instead of chips, grilled chicken instead of burgers, bike riding instead of Playstation. But together, both Obama and Oliver are only getting at half the problem — which is what people eat, and without addressing the other half — why people eat, they will never reach the long term success they both genuinely want and hope to achieve.

The concept of intuitive eating is gaining momentum and working towards that goal with the help of books like Intuitive Eating, and Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat will be far more effective than wagging the finger at people in an effort to get them to make better choices. The Body Love Manual takes intuitive eating one step further by guiding readers through a process of identifying what it is that keeps them so disconnected from the bodies, preventing them from listening to and properly nourishing their bodies. Though the subtitle of the book is How to Love the Body You Have as You Create the Body You Want, don’t be mistaken. This is not a diet book in disguise. The Body Love Manual is for anyone ready to put away dieting forever, deciding to become an intuitive eater, and challenging the thoughts and feelings that so far have preventing you from achieving that goal. Integral to this process is learning, as the title suggests, to love your body. As Hills points out, “The human body is tragically under-appreciated, neglected, and abused…The fact is that it is very hard to feel motivated to take care of something you don’t care about. Conversely, when you care deeply for and truly honor your body, you will be far more likely to make the healthier choices for it.”

The Body Love Manual should not be a quick read. It requires reflection and real emotional work. But ask yourself if you identify with this passage from the book:

“As the number I saw on my bathroom scale went up, my sense of self-worth plummeted. During this period of my life, it was rare for me to appreciate and value any of my other qualities … [which] became secondary in comparison to my weight.”

If you feel like you could have written those words yourself, then perhaps it is time to begin the work towards loving your body because “When your thoughts about yourself are respectful and appreciative, you will begin to attract more positive experiences of all kinds into your life.”

Though the Body Love Manual talks about achieving your ideal weight, you might begin to question what your “ideal weight” is and in fact you may find that you are already there, because your “ideal weight” should reflect a healthy lifestyle that is not measured by a number on the scale but by the feelings that come from your mind and body which will tell you when you’ve reached it.

*As required by FCC law, I am disclosing that The Body Love Manual was donated by the author for purposes of this review.

Time Management or Self-Management?

By Barbara M. LaRock

Would you like more time in your calendar and your life? What if changing the way you look at time could make a good life a great life? Think these concepts are impossible? Read on.

At one time or another, most of us have said, “There just isn’t enough time in the day” or “I can never accomplish all I want to both at work and at home”? This kind of thinking makes people see themselves as victims of their overcrowded, overwhelming and demanding schedules. They then sit back, complain and continue their self-defeating behaviors. You can, however, change your attitude about managing time by acknowledging and accepting your responsibility for managing yourself.

It goes without saying that everyone has the same amount of time in his or her day. It’s how you choose to “spend” that time that counts. The word “spend” is key. When you spend money, you choose what amount to pay out in order to get what you want/need. The same holds true for time. Each of us decides how much to spend to get what we want/need. Time is wasted when we don’t spend or invest it wisely. It’s up to each of us to decide what our personal and professional priorities are and then to honor those priorities. This is why effective management of time really is self-management.

Effective time/self-management begins with examining and knowing your own style. People who are structured, organized, good at identifying, setting and respecting priorities, and good at meeting deadlines find managing their time relatively easy. On the other hand, people who lack determination and discipline and who are reluctant to have structure and organization in their lives have a more difficult time managing themselves and their time. But, with resolve and practice, they can learn to get done more of the important things in their lives.

Here are a few tips to help you get started managing yourself and your time more effectively:

1. Keep in mind that you, not circumstances are in the driver’s seat.
2. Keep a daily log for one week of how you spend your time.
3. Assess your own style and attitudes about time. For instance, if you’re a morning person, schedule your most difficult tasks early when you are at your best.
4. Take 10 minutes at the end of each day to write down your top 5-6 priorities for the next day in order of their importance.
5. Make sure that before the end of your workday, you accomplish the top 5-6 priorities that you set for yourself. Let nothing pull you off track or intervene with this accomplishment.
6. Maintain a calendar, either written or electronic, so you don’t over schedule yourself.
7. Have a clear understanding of what is important to your family members and your associates.
8. Delegate what you can.
9. Every week, handle one unfinished task or project that has drained your energy.
10. Respect other people’s time
11. Learn to say no to anything that takes you away from respecting your priorities, and
12. Practice living with the guilt that may come from saying no. You will get better at it.

Remember that it’s up to you to manage yourself–and your time.

Barbara M. LaRock, M.Ed., offers life, leadership and career coaching as well as organizational training.  Her firm is located in Reston, VA.  Her background prior to coaching includes teaching, advising and mentoring students; designing and directing training programs for trade and professional associations; and organizational training involving presentation and facilitation of workshops and seminars. Barbara’s coaching specializes in life-related and career areas with her individual clients and provides them with encouragement, support and challenge as they focus on transition and change in their personal and professional lives. Her clients find more enjoyment in their everyday lives and become even more productive on the job. For more information, visit her web site Barbara LaRock.

Copyright 2010

No parts of this article or the article in its entirety may be reproduced without permission of the author.

Creating Balance in Your Life

or

When Your Personal and Professional Lives Collide, You Can’t Control the Wind But You Can Adjust Your Sails

By Barbara M. LaRock

As you begin to think about bringing more balance into your life, consider the following set of 12 rules from a brochure on white water rafting safety. They’re relevant and applicable to the choices we all make as we decide how to live our lives.

1. Decide before you start if you’re going to steer from the front or back
2. Someone has to be elected to call out orders clearly.
3. Take rest in calm places.
4. Never stop paddling even when it seems hopeless.
5. If you get into trouble, don’t panic.
6. Don’t be surprised if the boat doesn’t go where you want it to go.
7. On a raft, the more activity on the left, the boat goes right, and vice versa.
8. If you go under, let go of everything and you will float.
9. Everyone paddles, but the current always takes you.
10. Trust the boat and if you are in white water, hold on.
11. Remember, white water is what you came for, so enjoy it.
12. The people in the boat are the ones who will pull you out of the water if you go overboard, and they are also the people with whom you must eat supper.

Keep these rules in mind as you negotiate your own white water. They’re definitely points to ponder if you, like most people, are struggling to fit together all the pieces of your life. As you are probably all too well aware, most people today are overscheduled, over-committed and generally overwhelmed. This kind of over scheduling can leave you running on empty and desperate about how to improve your situation.

For people with children, the impact of this imbalance can be serious when you consider that as parents, you are your children’s first and most important teachers. Your kids are always learning from you and will copy into their own lives the way you live your life. Following are examples of things your children learn from you. In fact, they’re important areas to examine whether or not you have children.

• How you manage time and what choices you make about how you spend your time
• What priority you place on the relationships in your life
• How you handle both professional and personal stress
• How you share responsibilities such as chores at home or responsibilities at work
• What place hobbies and interests play in your life
• How you handle free time–days off, weekends or vacation

The lesson for all of us to learn is that it’s up to each individual to create a life that is balanced, a life that s/he loves. No one can do it for you. It’s your responsibility. It’s not healthy to keep saying, “if it weren’t for this” or “if it weren’t for that, everything would be great.” Nor is it healthy to put your satisfaction in the future, e.g., when the kids or older, or when you or your spouse get a raise, or when you finish a project, etc. Remember: Life is not a dress rehearsal. Your future is now.

An important part of developing self-awareness is to take some time to think about your priorities–to identify the areas that are important to you. Priorities are individual–what’s important to one person may not be important to another and vice versa. To that end, consider a few questions whose answers may prove quite revealing to you. Ask yourself: What do I really want for my life? When you consider this question, what comes to your mind first? Do you want more rest? More exercise? A promotion? More time alone? More time with family or friends? A new home? To telecommute? To expand your business? List everything that comes
into your mind.

Take a look at all that you’ve just written and ask yourself if your desires are really your desires or are they meant to please someone else. Also ask yourself if your desires are ones you think you should have rather than desires you truly want. “Shoulds” can get you into difficulty. Now that you’ve considered what’s important to you, prioritize these areas. In other words, put them in order of their importance to you. Then ask yourself how much time and attention the top priority items are receiving. This activity will help you see areas that are out of balance–areas that matter to you but aren’t getting enough of your time and attention and aren’t being nourished.

Read more

Living Beyond the Worst

By C.Reed Weber

Everyone has at least one Worst-Case Scenario tucked away and most of us live in fear of the day when that scenario — The Worst — will be played out. Maybe it involves a career choice, or perhaps loss of employment. It may involve family members or loved ones. It could be a single incident, or first in a chain of events that will bring you to your knees. It doesn’t really matter what you fear, the fear itself is enough to make you miserable.

But should The Worst happens, you may be surprised to discover life continues on. Birds sing. Clouds float. Children laugh. People cry. The Worst has happened, now what? What won’t happen is life will not stop. It may seem to you as if life should stop, but amazingly everything keeps going right along. The sun rises every morning and the stars shine every night. It may seem to you Clouds of Gloom rain everywhere you go, but soon you will realize only you are getting wet. Then you’ll find yourself in the position of being “outside” things for a time, but eventually you’ll be able to pick up the threads of your life and continue on. You will wake up. You will grocery shop. You will eat meals. You will talk with people. It happens very slowly, but as days pass you’ll find you are living again. Living is what you are supposed to be doing while you are tromping around on this planet!

My father once told me: “Be prepared for The Worst, but Live for the Best.” I think that sums it up nicely.

C.Reed Weber has been writing since she first discovered an unguarded pencil and continues today as a freelance journalist and grant writer. Living Beyond the Worst has been adapted from Happy Thoughts, a collection of email columns she wrote for friends and family during 2008-2009. Weber is currently working on developing Happy Thoughts into a book. You can purchase mini-volumes of Happy Thoughts from her Etsy site.

Beating the Winter Blues

By Esther Kane, MSW

As a psychotherapist, this is my busiest time of year. Why? Because a lot of people are really bummed out and don’t understand why. They come to me feeling desperate in the hopes that I will help them get their “pep” back. Many are predisposed to seasonal depression, otherwise known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). This is a very common form of depression, which is only noticeable during those months where there is very little sunlight (like now!).

Symptoms of SAD

The symptoms of SAD commonly begin every year between September and November and continue until March or April. Symptoms often include a number of the following*:

• Sleep problems: Oversleeping and difficulty staying awake but, in some cases, disturbed sleep and early morning wakening
• Lethargy: Feeling of fatigue and inability to carry out normal routine
• Overeating: Craving for carbohydrates and sweet foods, usually resulting in weight gain
• Depression: Feelings of misery, guilt and loss of self-esteem, sometimes hopelessness and despair, sometimes apathy
• Social problems: Irritability and avoidance of social contact
• Anxiety: Tension and inability to tolerate stress
• Loss of libido: Decreased interest in sex and physical contact
• Mood changes: In some sufferers, extremes of mood and short periods of hypomania (overactivity) in spring and autumn.

If you identify readily with all or most of the above symptoms and you’ve experienced them every winter for at least three consecutive years, chances are you are suffering from SAD. Luckily, there can be great relief found from a variety of non-invasive modalities available. I will outline the methods that the majority of my clients struggling with SAD have found most helpful:

Light therapy

Recent research has shown that 85 percent of people diagnosed with SAD have been helped by light therapy.  This involves being exposed to very bright light (at least ten times the intensity of household lighting) first thing in the morning for 15-30 minutes every day.

Look into getting a special light used to treat SAD. The one I use and recommend constantly to my clients is called the “Litebook Elite”. It’s small, lightweight (8 oz), and durable.** The great thing about light therapy is that it is safe, has no side effects, and easy to use.

Regular Exercise

A 2001 study by  Duke University, in North Carolina, found exercise to be a more effective treatment for depression than anti-depressants, with fewer relapses and a higher recovery rate. Researchers say a chemical in the brain called serotonin may be the key. People suffering from depression have low levels of serotonin, and exercise can boost those levels.

Find an exercise routine you enjoy and can commit to at least three times a week. Make sure it’s active enough to get your heart-rate up and your blood pumping — this boosts serotonin levels and leaves you feeling more upbeat and positive.

Talk Therapy

Engaging in regular sessions with a psychotherapist who specializes in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to treat various forms of depression will give you the tools you need to re-train your brain from negative to positive thinking. When combined with other modalities of healing, this can provide much relief from SAD.

Practice lots of positive self-talk; much of depression is a result of what we say to ourselves. We need to learn to ‘think happy’: when we do this, the brain follows suit.

If you’d rather work on your own, I suggest you pick up a copy of David Burn’s classic self-help guide to overcoming depression, The Feeling Good Handbook. This is a wonderful resource and can be helpful to anyone who needs to change his or her thinking from negative to positive.

*adapted from The Seasonal Affective Disorder Association’s website.

** You can order a Litebook Elite by calling 1-877-723-5483. If you use my professional # (BC 0007) when you place your order, you’ll save twenty percent on the cost. I have registered myself with this company in order to make these lights more affordable to people.

Esther Kane, MSW, Registered Clinical Counselor, is in full-time private practice as a psychotherapist in Courtenay, B.C. Esther has over a decade of experience counseling women and their loved ones with a multitude of presenting problems.Her main focus is helping women to become free of barriers which keep them stuck so that they can become all that they dream of being. To learn more about Esther’s services, please visit her website at EstherKane.com.

4 Steps To Ending Emotional Eating

by Nicole Ohebshalom

One late night while working Boston’s needle exchange van I realized the early stages of drug addiction is no different than the sugar or coffee cycle many of us succumb to in our daily lives. This particular evening a young man walked into the van, and we talked about his drug use and life in the gay community. He had just come out about his sexual orientation without any support and used drugs to mask his fears.

As we spoke further, it surfaced that many of his fears were tied to him giving into his every temptation. He wanted to feel comfortable in his skin but had a certain pleasure tolerance that diminished any positive thoughts about himself. At this point, many of us look to the outside to heal and grow in life instead of looking and loving within ourselves. What happens at this point when we reach for a heroine needle or the cookie jar? We reach our pleasure tolerance, or our happiness quota and, the addiction cycle begins.

For many people food is an addiction, just like a drug. We receive the same cycle of highs, lows, and reasons for cravings. Many of you can relate to the subtlety of sugar cravings in the office setting. When stressed, you open up that drawer of hidden chocolate bars and the cycle begins.

Have you had a time in your life when you were eating very healthy and exercising? You’d think to yourself, “I’ve got this down!” then out of nowhere you grab a few cookies and weeks later you notice your healthy lifestyle has vanished! This is because the way we eat is the way we live. Our interaction with food is an interesting insight to how we live our lives.

We’re all born with a certain amount of happiness, but this is not our comfort zone because we aren’t always happy or comfortable with our life and ourselves. This has been keeping you from connecting to the love you want, enjoying the relaxing lifestyle you want, realizing your desires and inspiration, or savoring the yummy stimulation from a meal.

Guilt is a major quality that has been preventing you from enjoying your meals and life. We feel guilty for indulging in too much food, sex, power, and money. We can experience guilt when we’re going through change and becoming happier in life. But you shouldn’t feel guilty for having it all. It’s your moral prerogative to have it all and be happy about it. Give those self-conflicting voices about pleasure a rest.

When you let yourself feel good, you feel better about life and thereby are more open to connecting with yourself and feeling balanced. Creating a new way of enjoying eating can be intimidating because it’s new and requires courage and fearless love for yourself. Remember: change can be scary but it’s the only way to grow and achieve happiness. Ask yourself: What would it be like if you got on board with your eating or body changes? How can you celebrate them?

Follow these steps for increasing your happiness tolerance and end the cycle of emotional eating!

Step 1: Write down the reasons behind your emotional eating. Sometimes, just seeing them on paper makes it easier to get a handle on the problem. Take one week and keep a food journal. Write down absolutely everything that you eat, as well as making a note about your mood at that exact time. By taking this step, you’ll be able to target which foods you turn to when you are in different moods.

Step 2: Connect with your desires. Who do you want to be? What do you want in life? What do you enjoy and dislike in your daily life? Being in tune with your desires helps you understand your true self and optimize life satisfaction. Have you written down your desires? Be true to what opens your unique, fun, and happy heart. Embodying these desires by writing them down will allow you to connect to and trust yourself. Next time you think negative body or food thoughts, come back to your desires. Ask yourself what is your stand– what will create happiness in your life?

Step 3: Make a list of things you are grateful for while experiencing this change in food and body image mentality. Put it up on your fridge and look at it to remind you of all the wonderful things in your life. This will help you stay on track, even though the change might be difficult at first. Remember, there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel!

Step 4: Say YES to something that you would not normally say yes too. See if you enjoy any activity that you normally would not include in your routine.

Nicole Ohebshalom is the owner of Radiant Living Wellness which offers programs to address weight and health concerns, increase energy levels, or simply to help clients eat better. A firm believer in the power of balance, Nicole is also a Kundalini Yoga Instructor. To learn more about Nicole and her services, visit Radiant Living Wellness.

Conquering the “Worry Monster”

by Esther Kane

I recently had the incredible experience of being on national television. I appeared on CTV’s Canada AM for a full three-plus minutes talking about Orthorexia — a type of eating disorder which is defined as the “obsession with healthy eating”. The reason I want to share this experience with you is because I know a lot of you struggle with anxiety in its many different guises — social anxiety, generalized anxiety, and phobias of various descriptions. Every day in my practice, I work with at least one person who is recovering from some anxiety issue and I am so grateful to be able to give her the tools she needs in order to lessen the often, debilitating symptoms of this particular affliction.

 I too, suffer from anxiety in many forms. It is my hope that sharing my experience of conquering one fear in particular will both inspire and encourage you to conquer some of yours.

My worst fear happens to be public speaking. So you can imagine the absolute dread and horror I felt upon being asked to appear LIVE on national television! However, as a psychotherapist who helps other women work through their fears and come out the other side, I felt it was my duty to walk the talk and be an example of someone who meets her fears head-on, blows a ’raspberry’ in their face and forges on into the unknown.

 So even though I was absolutely terrified of going on television — I spent at least two nights writhing in bed unable to sleep because of all the horrible things I imagined would go wrong — I decided I would do it not matter how scared I was.

I had approximately one month to prepare for my television debut, and it meant flying to Toronto from my cosy, safe little home on the West coast.  Oh, I should also mention here that flying is my other worst fear. Needless to say, I wasn’t looking forward to that part either.

 Now, I’d like to share with you the tools I used to lessen my fear and force myself to do something that terrified me in hopes that these same tools will help you accomplish things you now feel are impossible.

ESTHER’S FIVE TOP TOOLS FOR OVERCOMING ANXIETY

1. Always think about the bigger picture.

In other words, remind yourself why you would put yourself through hell in the first place. In my case, I reminded myself constantly that the purpose for going on television was to help people who struggle with disordered eating and to reach a much wider audience than I can seeing one client at a time in a small town.

2. Remind yourself of what you can look forward to after the scary event is over.

Here, I imagined how proud I’d be of myself for going through my fear and coming out the other side, as well as the fact that once I had been on TV, I could do it again without as much fear and this would bring wonderful career opportunities.

3. Give yourself a pat on the back for achieving your goal.

I did this literally in the cab right after I finished the interview and silently said to myself, “Way to go, girl!” This made me grin from ear to ear as I allowed myself to soak in what I had accomplished. It was such a sweet feeling and I am so glad I made it through my fear in order to have that lovely experience of ‘revelling’ in the feeling of accomplishment.

4. Write down all of the things you are worried will go wrong and challenge each one.

This is an incredibly powerful tool for exorcising those ‘worry monsters’ once and for all. For example, one of my fears was that I would be so anxious while being interviewed that I would forget everything I had prepared to talk about and that I would either sit there looking dumbfounded at the interviewer or else blab on about things that weren’t directly related to what she was asking me. So I wrote this fear down and then next to it, wrote out all the reasons why this most likely would not occur. To give you an idea, one of my comebacks to this fear was, “This is a topic I know about from years of personal and professional experience and even if I forget what I had planned to say, I still know enough about it to come across as an expert in this area.”

5. Have fun!

I like to remind myself, as well my clients, that life is not an endurance test. We’re supposed to enjoy the ride and have fun in many of the things we do. We don’t have to take life so seriously. Anxious people, I find, take life much too seriously and this creates tension in the body. When we start to loosen up and play more, we automatically relax. So before I went on TV, I looked in the bathroom mirror and smiled and yelled out, “I’m so excited! This is going to be a hoot!” And while I was faking it at the time, it eventually did turn into excitement and I had a lot of fun.

When you take a risk that you find scary but is incredibly rewarding, send me an email with the story and I may just put it in an up-coming article to empower and inspire other women!  (It can be anonymous if you wish).  Send your story to: esther@estherkane.com

Esther Kane, MSW, Registered Clinical Counselor, is the author of the book and audio program, “It’s Not About the Food: A Woman’s Guide To Making Peace with Food and Our Bodies” and “Dump That Chump”, and “What Your Mama Can’t or Won’t Teach You”.  Sign up for her free monthly e-zine, Women’s Community Counsellor, to uplift and inspire women at: http://www.estherkane.com.

Willpower and the Power of Chocolate Chip Cookies

by Marsha Hudnall, MS, RD

Willpower could be a wonderful thing. If it really exists. I’m not convinced it does, at least as an effective force for many of us when it comes to eating.

To me, willpower is about the strength to do what we want in the face of some weighty temptation (pun not intended). Webster’s leaves out the temptation part and defines it just as energetic determination. But do we ever hear the word used when there’s not some enticement to do the exact opposite of what we’re trying to do?

Seems to me the issue then is about what we really want. Can it be what we really want if we’re so easily tempted to do the opposite?

I stumbled across an old article in Psychology Today that mentioned a study showing college students were able to work 11 minutes longer at a difficult task if they were allowed to sample from a nearby plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies rather than having to ignore them (or try to). The researchers concluded that resisting the cookies left the students with little self-discipline to focus on the task at hand. Their willpower to continue working waned quickly in the face of temptation.

The researchers also concluded we can build up our willpower “muscle” through frequent use. But I don’t see any proof of that mentioned in the article. My work with women struggling to avoid foods they think they must, but really don’t want to, doesn’t give me any proof either.

Instead of relying on willpower to help us accomplish what we want, I vote for spending time exploring what we think we want. In the case of eating well, at Green Mountain we find an approach that includes the cookies (or whatever food we think we can’t have) along with the basics of balanced eating makes willpower less of an issue. Perhaps some willpower is involved but only a small amount because the seduction of the temptation is seriously robbed of its power.

Does willpower play a significant role in your efforts at eating well?

In an effort to solve her own eating and weight struggles, Marsha took overachiever to a new level by obtaining her license as a registered dietitian and then a Master’s in nutrition and communication at Boston University. With pen, paper and computer in hand, Marsha became a published author and corporate consultant for several Fortune 500 food companies. When Marsha isn’t cooking up nutritious gourmet delights for her family, hiking or snowshoeing, she serves as online director for Green Mountain at Fox Run, which she owns along with her husband. Her self-described mission: Help women learn to enjoy eating and living well while achieving and maintaining healthy weights.

Mindfulness for Beginners

by Katie Goode, LMFT

There’s a lot of talk these days about Mindfulness… but what is it exactly, and why do I need to know anything about it?

Mindfulness is a way of being present in the moment. A lot of us spend time worrying about the future or feeling bad about the past, we don’t even realize that we aren’t experiencing what is actually happening.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and reacted to what you believed they meant, instead of what they said? Most of us aren’t mind-readers, but we approach situations as though we are… “Well, 5 years ago you said … and it led to …” or “I don’t like the way I look /act/think so I interpret everything said about me to support that negative belief”

When we practice mindfulness we see things the way they actually occur. Things that might have upset us in the past, now have no effect on our emotions (or we might even be pleasantly surprised by all of the positive interactions we have).

Here’s an example a friend told me to show the effect of mindfulness:

My friend was walking up to a restaurant in 120 degree Arizona heat. He held the door open and a business man emerged and went on his way… My friend could have gotten irritated “why didn’t he say thank you? He didn’t even look at me. I didn’t have to hold the door for him…”  but instead, he asked himself what were the actual events:

- he held the door and a person walked out

He wouldn’t have been upset if a toddler walked out and didn’t thank him. Same event, different expectations.

This is a simple technique to develop a mindful approach:

Think about what is actually happening (or what actually happened) without defining the events. Use the 5 senses to help you do this:
What are 5 things you SAW?
What are 4 things you HEARD?
What are 3 things you FELT or TOUCHED?
What are 2 things you SMELLED?
What is 1 thing you TASTE?

If we do this with the restaurant story:
5 things he saw: light, movement, color, shapes, person
4 things he might have heard: cars, restaurant noises, birds, wind
3 things he touched: the door, the warmth of the sun, his clothes on his skin
2 things he smelled: food, cars
1 thing he tasted: his mouth

Give it a try…

Katie Goode is a Marriage and Family Therapist in practice in Irvine, CA, specializing in the treatment of Eating Disorders and Anxiety. Visit her at HolisticTherapyOC.com