Shocking, informative and a key to understanding why Americans have high rates of disease, like diabetes, and obesity. I was saddened and shocked by the information in this film. As a fitness instructor, I have seen the harmful effects that modern day food has on our children. I urge you to inform yourself and see where you can take one step of action.
Learn more about the issues like obesity, diabetes, foodborne illness, pesticides,and the environmental impact
I’m very active when it comes to my preventative health habits — daily exercise, a multi-vitamins, consuming lots of veggies (even juicing them), a yearly girly exam, yoga and meditation.
As a mother, I spend a lot of time and energy on my kids’ health:
I give (force feed at times) my children their vitamins and vegetables daily
Bedtime is 8 pm to ensure proper sleep (even if I have to chain them to their bedposts
I try to keep their sugar intake low and get them active (sometimes that requires hiding the cable cord and chasing their lazy butts around the kitchen island).
But what about the health of their chakras? And what the heck is a chakra, you ask? Chakras are our energy centers. They are the openings for life energy to flow into and out of our aura. Their function is to vitalize the physical body and to bring about the development of our self-consciousness. They are associated with our physical, mental and emotional interactions.
When I began yoga about 4 years ago, it changed my life for the better. My stress was reduced, my body was stronger, leaner and more flexible, and my health overall was remarkably better. Through my yoga instructor, I was introduced to the term chakras and how to keep them balanced. I make that a daily health practice too. If you are wondering more about how that is done, check out the About site.
When the book, A Children’s Guide to Chakras by Susan Marek came my way and I found it was a great way to teach my kids about chakras and how to care for them. My 8 and 10 year old loved reading it and I think even younger kids will enjoy it too. If you want an easy way to intorduce your kids to new ways of holistic healing, get the book at Amazon…
The author, Susan Marek, is a certified angel therapy practitioner with three children.
Daily OM Horoscope – Unique daily horoscopes that give you inspirational insights based on your astrological sign every day.
Beliefnet – Inspiration, Spirituality, Faith. – many newsletters to choose from.
Lime – Info and resources to help you to live a healthier, greener lifestyle.
SparkPeople – Health & fitness tips, recipes and motivation for a healthier lifestyle.
A Course In Miracles – Register at Oprah.com and sign up. Marianne Williamson guides you through A Course in Miracles every day.
Peter Walsh Clutter Crew – Register at Oprah.com and each month Peter Walsh will send you his exclusive step-by-step projects to help you create the home you’ve always dreamed of.
Somedays, even I get tired of being so Pollyanna-Positive, so I thought I would balance it out with my top Hate Your Life tips. These tips are tried and true from my clients (and a few of my own foibles). I guarantee that if you follow these 6 pointers, you will hate your life in no time!
Procrastinate everything important on your To Do list. Don’t pay your taxes on time so you incur fines, miss deadlines at work so you get passed up for promotions and raises, and forget birthdays and anniversaries so your loved ones feel neglected and resentful of you.
Have no structure or routine and always be late. Just live by the seat of your pants with no plan, never complete tasks, and only do stuff when you “feel” like it. This way you will never form good habits and people in your life will feel disrespected and avoid you like the plague.
Lie, avoid conflict and never admit when you are wrong. Pretend to be someone you aren’t, never share your true feelings, never speak your truth and ask for what you want. And if you screw up, be sure to blame someone else.
Live beyond your means. Buy whatever you want, don’t follow a budget, charge your credit cards to their limits and then open some more, and spend your days avoiding creditor telephone calls.
Eat whatever the hell you want and never exercise. Your clothes will be too tight, your self-esteem will plummet, your cortisol levels will rise helping you to hold onto the fat, your blood pressure will rise, and a lack of seratonin will make you even more depressed — need I go on?
Wear a thick, stuffed duck costume on a hot summer’s day.
The message out there is that meditation is so good for us and is a key to peace and happiness. It calms the mind, reduces stress which in turn aids in weightloss, and it brings clarity.
The question is where do you begin? To some mediation seems very mysterious… they think it requires an hour a day, special clothing, an ashram and a guru guide. Not so. You can keep it simple by beginning with 5 minutes and follow the 14 points below. You can’t do it wrong. You only fail by never trying.
The 14 Points of Meditation
Regularity of time, place and practice are important. Regularity conditions the mind to slow down its activities with a minimum of delay.
The most effective times are early dawn and dusk, when the atmosphere is charged with special spiritual force. If it is not feasible to sit for meditation at these times, choose an hour when you are not involved with daily activities, and a time when the mind is apt to be calm.
Try to have a separate room for meditation. As meditation is repeated, the powerful vibrations set up will be lodged in the area; an atmosphere of peace and purity will be felt.
When sitting, face North or East in order to take advantage of favorable magnetic vibrations. Sit in a steady, comfortable, cross-legged position with spine and neck erect but not tense.
Before beginning, command the mind to be quiet for a specific length of time. Forget the past, present and future.
Consciously regulate the breath. Begin with five minutes of deep abdominal breathing to bring oxygen to the brain. Then slow it down to an imperceptible rate.
Keep the breathing, rhythmic, inhale for three seconds and exhale for three seconds. Regulation of breath also regulates the flow of prana, the vital energy.
Allow the mind to wander at first. It will jump around, but will eventually become concentrated, along with the concentration of prana.
Don’t force the mind to be still, as this will set in motion additional brain waves, hindering meditation.
Select a focal point on which the mind may rest. For people who are intellectual by nature, this may be the Ajna Chakra., the point between the eyebrows. For more emotional people, use the Anahata or Heart Chakra. Never change this focal point.
Focus on a neutral or uplifting object, holding the image in the place of concentration. If using a Mantra, repeat it mentally, and co-ordinate repetition with the breath. If you dont have a personalized Manta, use Om. Although mental repetition is stronger, the mantra may be repeated aloud if one becomes drowsy. Never change the Mantra.
Repetition will lead to pure thought, in which sound vibration merges with thought vibration, without awareness of meaning. Vocal repetition progresses through mental repetition to telepathic language, and from there to pure thought.
With practice, duality disappears and Samadhi, or the superconscious state, is reached. Do not become impatient, as this takes a long time.
In Samadhi one rests in the state of bliss in which the Knower, the Knowledge, and the Known become one. This is the superconcious state reached by mystics of all faiths and persuasions.
As a mother, I am always on the alert to protect and enhance the health of my children. Ovetr the decades, there has always been much controversy over vaccines.
Recently, actress and mother of an autistic child, Jenny McCarthy, advocates to “green” vaccines. Jenny is not saying to get rid of the shots, but to space out the delivery and to take the toxins out. Watch the video and learn more.
Setting goals is relatively easy. It doesn’t take much effort to say, “I want to change careers or lose 30 lbs by April 10th.” But achieving them is much more difficult. It means you actually have to do something… like get off your butt and get in action!
One of the best ways I know how to successfully achieve goals is by using the 4-Day Win method by Martha Beck (who has to be the greatest life coach and smartest woman I ever met!).
Here is the 4 Day Win rundown by fellow coach, Pamela Slim. I couldn’t have said it better myself!
What is a 4-day win?
A 4-day win is a simple method for breaking large, overwhelming goals into comfortable, bite-sized pieces that are accomplished over a four-day period and anchored with rewards to encourage positive behavior.
Once you complete a 4-day win, you take your buzz of accomplishment and create another one. And another, stringing them together until they become your finished book, or hot body or whatever else you are trying to manifest.
(It reminds me of one of my favorite cartoons which shows a frantic man in the shower with suds on his head screaming “Honey, get me out of here! The label says ‘Lather, rinse, repeat!’”)
Why four days?
According to Martha:
“When I started exploiting this little bit of psychological numeracy in my coaching, I found that people who had trouble starting a week-long program of change jumped right in if I asked them to sustain a new behavior for just 4 days. I also discovered that after the 4 days, the inertia that had been keeping them locked into a pattern of action-or inaction-had changed and was now actually pushing them forward. Even though I specified that they were free to step making a change after the 4-day period, they often said they’d rather continue, because they’d already blasted through the initial resistance and were starting to see positive change. This happened with so many clients that I started to call it “the 4-day win.”
How do you construct a 4-day win?
Step 1: Pick a goal
Look at your to-do list and pick a juicy goal such as:
Write a book proposal
Create a website
Lose 10 pounds
Cook more nutritious meals for your family
From this goal, choose a task that you would like to accomplish in one day. Example:
Write a book proposal → write the first two pages
Create a website → design the layout of the home page
Lose 10 pounds→exercise for 30 minutes
Cook more nutritious meals for your family → cook a meal using all organic ingredients
Step 2: Play halvsies until your goal is ridiculously easy to attain
We start out with what we think are realistic goals, but most of the time they are not, otherwise, we wouldn’t struggle to complete them. So take your goal from Step 1 and halve it until you know with confidence that you can actually get it done. Example:
Write a book proposal→ write the first two pages→write one paragraph
Create a website → design the layout of the home page→choose three colors for your design
Lose 10 pounds→exercise for 30 minutes→do 10 squats
Cook more nutritious meals for your family → cook a meal using all organic ingredients→add an organic carrot stick to your plate of Kentucky Fried Chicken
Keep playing “halvsies” until the goal feels just South of totally realistic, and just North of so easy it is insulting.
Step 3: Identify a reward
For each daily accomplishment, choose a small reward that will make you happy. Something like:
Play 20 minutes of Spider Solitaire, uninterrupted by toddlers
Read the new issue of People magazine in the bathtub (my favorite)
Eat one piece of really good chocolate
Step 4: Identify a 4-day reward
Think of an additional, slightly larger reward if you manage to keep your ridiculously easy goal for 4 days. Depending on your budget and taste, this could be something like:
A pedicure with an extra decal on your big toe
A nice dinner at your favorite restaurant
A hike on your favorite trail on Sunday, regardless of how many piles of laundry are sitting on the washing machine
Step 5: Make sure the action and reward are linked
Martha says:
“If you meet your ridiculously easy daily goals, you absolutely must give yourself the reward. Same with your 4-day goal. You must also resist any temptation to give yourself the reward if you don’t meet your goals. If you do all this and you still don’t take any action, reduce the task, increase the reward, or do both, until you start moving.”
Finally …
Fill out a sheet of paper with your own four day win just like the picture of mine here (click to enlarge): Post it in at least three places: Your bathroom mirror, your refrigerator door and your workspace. Check off each day you manage to complete your ridiculously easy goals.
The 4-Day Win (which is also a book) is explained on Martha’s blog. So get get in action and click this link to learn more!
Read your internal body compass. Follow your heart and gut more often. Your brain can be a useful analysis tool to make certain decisions (like saving you money or determining good quality). But the heart knows what is ultimately best for you. The body doesn’t lie. Sickness, weight gain and low energy are indicators that you need to make a change.
Bestselling author, Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love spoke on the Oprah show and has her daily rituals. They are:
1. Ask “What do you really really really want?” 2. At the end of the day, ask yourself, “What was the happiest moment of today?”. 3. Refine your mantra. These is what you tell yourself all day in your head.
My morning ritual:
1. Write in my journal every morning. I always start with what I am grateful for. Then I go from there.
2. Exercise in some way shape or form. If I have 10 minutes, I stretch, do sit ups and push ups. If I have 30 minutes, I go do yoga, walk or run. If I have an hour, I go to the gym to do cardio and weights.
3. Eat a healthy, balanced breakfast. If I only have 10 minutes, I make a quick protein shake. If I have 30 minutes, I cook up scrambled eggs, oatmeal with flax and berries and a cup of green tea or coffee.
I try to do my morning ritual everyday. It helps me feel balanced and happy, even if the rest of my day is not so good!
Next week my kids go back to school (HURRAY! oh, did I say that out loud?) One of my biggest struggles is packing healthy lunches that my kids will actually eat.
In my quest for lunch ideas, I found these sites full of ideas that help families pack better lunches, be healthier, and save money.
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