I don’t want to....
Can you hear the shrill voices of your kids saying this? I sure can.
But... to be honest, I can also hear myself saying it a lot lately.
We all get in this rut sometimes where we just keep repeating it.
I started this morning saying, “I don’t want to get out of my warm bed.” Then it continued with, "I don't want to work out." "I don't want to get the kids up yet." "I don't want to..."
Have you noticed? It has become kind of a plague in our society.
“Do the things that make you happy.” “Don’t do it if it doesn’t feel good.”
Guess what?
Shoveling snow doesn’t make me happy. I do it anyway. I’m always glad I did when I am done.
Cleaning doesn’t feel good while I am doing it, but it feels great when I am done.
Passing on the chocolate peanut butter dessert at a holiday party does not make me happy or feel good in the moment.
...
Many of you are going to be with family over the next few weeks to celebrate. But for some of you, it won’t feel like celebrating. It will feel painful, difficult or frustrating.
These get-togethers aren’t pleasant experiences for you. You won’t want to go. You’ll want to hide. You may even have thoughts of becoming sick rather than being around certain people. Or, maybe you have already started thinking up all the excuses you can use to leave early or not go at all.
Don’t do it. Don’t give into the temptation.
I challenge you my friends.
Relationships are tough. But they are tough because we feel like we have no control over them. We feel that other people have act in certain ways for our relationships to be better.
None of this is true.
Consider this. Just because your mom comments on your weight doesn’t mean that you are fat. You are the...
I knew a woman.
She was a beautiful woman with a wonderful life. She lived in a nice town with a great house and worked a good job.
She had one problem with her life, as she saw it.
Her weight.
She was constantly going up and down. Losing some, gaining it back again. Usually gaining back more than what she lost.
It frustrated her.
She couldn’t understand why it had to be so hard.
Why did it have to be hard to feel good about yourself?
That was the problem.
It wasn’t her weight. It was what she told herself.
She was telling herself she couldn’t do it. She was telling herself she struggled with her daughter. She was telling herself that she wasn’t a good boss.
She was telling herself she wasn’t good enough…
It wasn't something she even was really aware of. And, she didn’t want to admit that she was even saying these things about herself. Since she didn't...
I stood in the kitchen staring….
…staring at that container full of cookies.
They are my favorite. Chocolate and peanut butter. I already had one. It wasn’t on my plan for the day. I go for the container and open it. I shove that second cookie down so fast so nobody will know. Nobody will see that I lack the self-control... that self-control I help my clients build daily.
But it doesn’t stop at that one cookie. I think about the chocolates in the pantry. You know, those Lindt truffle ones. My brain is going crazy. “Just have that too. You already have screwed up your plan. Keep going. You’ll get back on the wagon tomorrow.”
That’s when I realize….
I’m sliding down into the pit of self-sabotage.
I’ve been on this journey before. I can see the gaping black hole I'm about to free fall into. It is so tempting to...
Weight loss can be a spiritual journey.
Have you ever thought about that?
It did not occur to me for a LOOOONG time. So, don’t worry, you’re not alone.
I was listening to the radio the other morning, and the announcer was talking about how he started on this journey to run a marathon purely out of selfishness. His wife wanted him to lose weight and as he put it, “I was tired of looking at myself in the mirror.”
So, he started running. But it turned into so much more than that very quickly. He put a purpose into his running by raising money for a local non-profit. Through this God opened his eyes to how He was working while he was running and trying to lose weight.
After hearing this, I realized, I too had a spiritual journey through weight loss. It is one of the most valuable journeys I have ever been on.
See, three years ago I was a mess. You wouldn’t have seen it on the...
If you didn’t read last week’s post, I highly suggest you go and take a look.
Last week, I discussed how to start cleaning up your thinking; to start being aware of what is going on in your mind.
Here is a snippet from the post:
The thoughts in your brain will create the reality of your life. Life is made of internal and external. The external is the direct reflection of the internal. I suggest you start there.
As someone thinks within himself, so he is. Proverbs 23:7
So, I wanted to expand on how the internal is reflected on the external. And, since I coach a lot on weight issues, I’ll use that as an example today.
First, if you’ve never heard of Dr. Caroline Leaf, I highly recommend her work. She is a cognitive neuroscientist with a PhD in Communication Pathology specializing in Neuropsychology. Basically, she is one smart cookie. What is fascinating is that her work is confirming scripture. ...
I have a secret…
I hate having “stuff” but I hate starting the process of getting rid of it also.
It annoys me that I have a little bit of a hoarding problem.
I remember growing up and packing every little space of mine with treasures. They would include bits of paper, rocks, old wrappers, various coins, broken jewelry and other trinkets.
Whenever my mom would tell me to clean my room, I’d barely get rid of anything. Instead, I’d try to make it look better by stacking and “organizing” all the stuff.
I remember thinking… “I might want to use it/love it/look at it/play with it later. What if I regret throwing it away?”
Now, as an adult, I lean more towards the minimalistic side of things rather than hoarding side. But, recently, the tendency started to show.
See, I make A LOT of notes to myself. They are my thoughts that come to me in the moment that I want to think about more later or write...
Halloween is not a holiday.
I know I’m going to ruffle some feathers today. But ultimately, this post IS NOT about whether or not you should celebrate Halloween. That’s not my point.
But if you want to get to the good point, you’ll have to hear me out about Halloween….
We don’t celebrate Halloween at our house. We haven’t for years. My kids don’t dress up. They don’t go trick or treating. We don’t have parties or decorations.
We DO have a family fun night on the 31st though (so don't worry, my kids are not deprived).
It’s not because I stand on some morally high ground and oppose the “holiday” (Even though I don’t understand why you want to celebrate ghosts, scary monsters and skeletons. I bet you’ve never seen a dead body with its skeleton coming out. If you did, I bet you wouldn’t want to use it as...
Will waiting get you the results you want?
I had a big decision to make. I could transform my life but I had to make a big investment to get it.
My initial reaction was to wait.
At first, it seemed logical to wait. I could wait and just work on implementing the nutrition and exercise tools I already had. I had been doing a lot of research and gained a lot of knowledge. It seemed logical that now I just needed to refine the tools and the follow through.
Yep. I just needed a plan and follow through.
I could do this on my own and not have to make the monetary investment.
That was my decision.
Until….
I heard a little voice ask me, “Will waiting get you the results you want?”
At first the question seemed silly.
Well, no. Waiting won’t. But I’m not going to wait. I’m going to start tomorrow.
Then I realized…
Starting tomorrow is waiting…
Ok then. I’ll make a plan...
I saw a pin on Pinterest the other day that read, “Your comfort zone will kill you.”
It stopped me dead in my tracks. Ok, maybe it just stopped my endless scrolling. It sure did get my attention!
I realized I agreed with it. Looking back a couple of years ago in my life, I can see how my comfort zone was killing me. Both literally and figuratively.
The word comfort has two meanings:
One is a noun the other is a verb. Lets talk about the noun, the state of comfort.
Isn’t it nice to be in a state of comfort? When I think about comfort, I think about a big comfy bed, with freshly laundered sheets, fluffy pillows and piles of warm blankets. (Can you tell that my mind is already preparing me for winter and my desperate desire to try to be warm!) I also imagine a big cup of piping hot coffee with a...