Staying motivated is difficult. Inspiration is the key.
Are you having fun working toward your vision?
I hear so many coaches and mentors these days, insisting that accomplishing your goals is hard work. And, although it may be true that it has been hard in the past, it doesn’t have to be.
Esther and Jerry Hicks are my favorite teachers. When I follow the Abraham-Hicks method for accomplishing my goals, it is easy and fun. Inspiration is such a great way to prepare to take action!
It’s easy (and all too common) to go from feeling desperate and discouraged to thinking about what we should DO. But there is an important missing step when we take action out of desperation.
January 21, 2009
Did you see Jacqueline on Oprah?
One of the inspirational clips that Oprah showed on January 7th was of a woman named Jacqueline Saburido.
At age 23, Jacqueline was involved in a horrible auto accident and burned so badly that even after 40 surgeries, she is disfigured beyond recognition. Most of us would not find her very attractive.
Do you spend time looking at the flaws in your face and figure and thinking you would be happier if you could make certain improvements? Did you make New Year’s resolutions to diet, go to the gym or ride your bike? Are you checking out the new lines on your face with increasing discouragement as we enter a year when you will celebrate being one year older?
It doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to change how you look in order to be and feel beautiful. When Oprah showed the clip of her meeting with Jacqueline, every one of her guests agreed that Jacqueline is beautiful. You could see her beauty, beauty that shone through from her inner light. When she smiled, a smile with little resemblance to a mouth, we all smiled with her!
October 10, 2008
Diet Roller Coaster or Joyfully Nourished?
In my work with women who are perfectly exhausted from trying to be perfect, I often end up teaching that it is a crazy notion that we have to feel bad about ourselves in order to do better.
Diets don’t work because they are based on the idea that we are bad, morally bad, because of the food we eat. With this underlying belief, we then go about trying to ignore our bodies’ signals of hunger in order to follow someone else’s guidelines about what we should eat.
Aside from the fact that these guidelines are often contradictory, they are also always changing. Think about the innocent egg, a villain one year, then good, but in limited quantity, then “the perfect protein package”.
Meanwhile we have learned to completely cut off our connection with our own body’s signals to us. Food becomes a preoccupation and an enemy.
October 7, 2008
Love That Magnificent Body
Is your body an instrument or an ornament? Research shows that women think of their bodies in terms of beauty, like an ornament or decoration. Men, on the other hand, think about their bodies in terms of function, as an instrument for accomplishing things.
As a result, women make choices about what to wear, what to eat, what to love and what to hate about themselves all based on what they will look like. You don’t see many men squeezing themselves into tight undergarments to make themselves look smaller and smoother. And women reject and criticize the very parts of themselves that support them in being strong and capable in the world. The other day, I heard two young women discussing how they had stopped hiking or using the treadmill, uphill because it made their legs look too muscular! So, what’s the decision here? Good cardio? Forget about it. I’d rather have a weak heart and thin legs.
Our culture has always had strong views about what makes a woman beautiful. The prized look changes from time to time, but it is always narrow and limiting. Women come in all shapes and sizes. Most of us can never look like the models in the clothing ads. Some of those who can, only do so by compromising their health and their enjoyment of a normal life.