In the last e-rhythm, I proposed that, although the new year is an auspicious time for new beginnings, you delay making any decisions about diet and exercise for 2 weeks – long enough to get present with and accept your body as it is right here and right now. If you were able to do that, then the question is, now what?

Now you could begin to explore strategies and systems that might support your intention toward a greater sense of well-being. It can be very helpful to follow a set of guidelines and a prescribed protocol.If you really are not sure of what your body needs, books, programs and websites can be useful and give you a place to start.

Partner with your body as you approach this inquiry. Tune into your authentic self and from that vantage point, be clear about what you really want to achieve by embarking on this journey – and don’t settle for less. More than anything, as you begin (and always), check in with your body and your own deep caring to see if this system is in alignment with how you want to move forward. Know that it is rare that any one system has all of your answers and that most systems are outgrown as you reach higher and more refined levels of wellness. Always be willing to move on, to evaluate, to evolve, to grow, to let go. Be willing to do whatever it takes to evoke your goodness and meet your own great longing for a rich, healthy and vital life.

Here are a few resources I find meaningful:

• Charley Cropley is an exceptional naturopath. My work with Charley over the past year has helped me clear up several nagging symptoms and radically increase my sense of conscious well-being and vitality. Very empowering! www.charleycropley.com. Read some of his articles when you visit his site – very interesting.
• I took a class from the Institute for the Psychology of Eating which included reading some truly fabulous books by Marc David; The Slow Down Diet and Nourishing Wisdom. This is a totally new approach to the body, food, diet, and metabolism. Well worth checking out: www.marcdavid.com and www.psychologyofeating.com. I plan on attending their day-long course in February.
• Ken Wilber has a user-friendly book out, Integral Life Practice, that does a pretty good job of addressing the whole human – although I would like to see a bit more depth to the body module. Still, in all, a wonderful map to leading an awake, aware and integrated life: www.integral-life-practice.com.
• I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis as my undisputed choice for a conscious, reverent, relevant and comprehensive movement/fitness system. Studying this work over the past 6 years has evolved my being in ways I did not even realize were possible. Here is the main link: www.gyrotonic.com.

Most of all – be kind, be patient, trust yourself more than anyone else, breathe a lot, smile and have some fun!

And . . . it can be challenging to make progress without dedicated support. Please know that I am available to talk with you, guide you and partner with you in your practice, your discipline and your exploration of becoming your most vibrant, healthy and whole self.

Deep Blessings to You, Carol

“Feeling is inseparable from intelligence. The open, unobstructed mind is not separate from the open, unobstructed heart. It’s neither useful nor intelligent to avoid or resist thinking. A more appropriate practice is to think intelligently, as the whole conscious body-mind, to liberate thought into its freest and fullest expressions.” Ken Wilber

At the beginning of each new year, the newspapers, television programs, blogs and magazines roll out advice, plans and programs to help you lose weight and get fit – it’s everywhere! And much of this hype can lead you to believe there is something wrong with you that needs to be fixed – that you are broken and in need of repair. So, even though the beginning of the year is an auspicious time to make changes, the tendency to be overzealous in your expectations can be a set up for a serious case of worry-wart; stressed, obsessed, critical and overwhelmed. Sound familiar?

The beginning of a meaningful endeavor to get fit, eat healthy and regain or enhance your current state of well-being must begin with one thing – and it’s the one thing that nobody wants to hear: You must accept yourself as you are right here and right now. This does NOT mean that you are powerless to make the changes you desire; allowing for what IS gives you a place to begin, an awareness of this moment. If you don’t accept where you are NOW, how can you possibly move forward? You have to be aware of point A in order to move toward point B. Make sense?  If you approach yourself with awareness, compassion and possibility, then the potential for change is vast and the rewards substantial. If you approach yourself with judgment, denial and demand, then the potential is narrow and leads to disappointment and defeat.

The idea is to access that in you which is already compassionate, aware, kind and caring – this already exists. You don’t have to invent it or create it – it always has been and always will be an innate and integral part of who you are. It often gets  overshadowed  by judgment, rigid thinking, worrying, stressing, pushing too hard . . . it gets buried and forgotten. You may begin to believe the lie that you are flawed, broken beyond repair , not worthy of your love – all of which leads to giving up, becoming overly aggressive or just plain mean to yourself.

Here is a suggestion for the new year; don’t immediately start a new exercise/diet regime. Instead, take 2 weeks, a mere 14 days, to cultivate a loving relationship with what is. Here are some ways to begin:

• Practice loving kindness: Catch yourself in negative self-talk and stop. Instead, put your hand on your heart, close your eyes, take a breath and say, silently or out loud, “I love you.” Do this as many times and as often as you like. Do it before you get up in the morning and when you go to bed at night.
• Take stock of what is: As compassionately and as honestly as possible, notice what is. It might be things like; I’m uncomfortable with my weight, I’m not sleeping very well, I feel irritable a lot, I don’t have enough energy. Do this in a way that is non-judgmental – view this as information and not a list of what’s wrong with you (pretend you are talking with a caring counselor or coach that is gathering information in order to understand how to best support you). It is only from this vantage point of discernment that you can begin to take meaningful action.
• Get conscious of your current habits: Record what and when you eat and how you feel during and after.  Don’t change anything yet, just observe. You can do the same thing with your current exercise regime.

The important thing for these 2 weeks is not to change anything, but to come into a loving, compassionate, conscious and relaxed (worry-free) relationship to what is – to begin to quiet the judgment and awaken to your own capacity to care deeply for yourself.  It is from this place that you can begin to make decisions that are meaningful – that support your health, your well-being, your vitality; your life.

Deep Blessings to You, Carol

“To the ancient Greeks, every symptom was seen as a visitation from the gods . . . The ailments of the body were really cures for the soul. And whatever cured the soul was the fundamental and necessary medicine for the body. By addressing the symptoms – listening to them, honoring them, being with them, welcoming their divinity – the soul would find its way through the mists and the grey clouds raining poison on the body would lift.”

Marc David

I have food cravings. I particularly crave big globs of gooey peanut butter one spoonful at a time – so comforting. It so soothes the savage beast and quiets the hungry heart; at least for awhile. The fix is fleeting, temporary, elusive. Soon, the craving begins again, the longing for comfort, the filling of the void – whatever it is that triggers the craving, here it comes again.

Being quite sick of this craving getting the best of me – I devised a plan! I wanted to more deeply understand what peanut butter represented to my internal world, why it was so important, what it meant. I wanted to get present with was so that I could really begin to address the issue from a place of wisdom and clarity rather than from the bottom of a peanut butter jar. So, here’s what I did . . .

I took the great forbidden food, sat down to meditate and placed the peanut butter jar and spoon in front of me. It felt important to have the actual food so that the senses were engaged as well as the imagination. I closed my eyes, took a few minutes to open my heart and really bring the witness forward to facilitate the proceedings. Then, I imagined a great round table with many chairs around it. I sat the jar of peanut butter in the middle of the table and invited anyone that was interested to come join me at the table. One by one, their interest piqued, they showed up. When it seemed that all of those who wanted to come were around the table, I started the proceedings. I took a spoonful of peanut butter and rolled it around in my mouth, then spoke a few words about what I was feeling and what peanut butter meant to me. And so it went, sticky spoonful by sticky spoonful, each aspect took a turn with the peanut butter, attempting to tell some sort of truth about themselves. It was meaningful to hear each of them speak – it often wasn’t about the peanut butter at all. With few exceptions, the sharing was more about the individual suffering then the love of peanut butter.

I crave less now. It’s quieter now. The edges have softened and the ravenous hunger has settled down. What remains is the 10 year old who is always – and perhaps forever – convinced that love lies in the bottom of a peanut jar!

This last quarter has been super-charged for me. I have created many new courses and workshops, a new website and blog (in the middle of which I had to purchase and load up a new PC). And, I have participated in some very powerful classes around food, movement and evolutionary spirituality.

All great stuff.  The only unfortunate part about all that is that my writing time has suffered as my energy and creativity have been focused on these other projects. This is temporary!  Join me again in 2010 for more e-rhythms and Mindful Meanderings. In the meantime . . .

Have a joy filled holiday season.
May you experience
delicious conversation,
nourishing food,
rich laughter
and profound love!

Deep Blessings to You, Carol

I attended a workshop last week on Therapeutic Applications for the Pelvis using Gyrotonic. The instructor, Paul Horvath, asked a really great question, “What is health?”  Here is what I took away from this very rich discussion: Health is when every part of the human system functions as a synchronized and synergistic whole; that is, everything is in balance. It is when your internal processes meet your external needs – a dynamic and ongoing exchange that happens every second.

Symptoms, then, are an indicator that something is out of balance, and that ‘something’ affects the entire system.  The way to rebalance is to provide information and direction – verbal, physical, conceptual – to the whole being; to awaken health from the inside out so that the body can reestablish equilibrium, restore the system and heal the symptom.

We normally do just the opposite – just manage the symptom and ignore the system. Losing weight is a good example: If we focus only on losing weight, the opportunity for true healing is diminished as only the symptom (weight) is being addressed and not the fundamental imbalance. If, instead we address the body as a whole, feed it relevant and caring information, guide it into its healing capacity, then it has the opportunity to reorganize itself and regenerate health. At this point, with the strength of a balanced system to support it, the extra weight can come off in a way that is natural, conscious respectful and intelligent.

Did you know that one of the primary functions of a fat cell is to remove toxins from your blood stream, store that toxin someplace that is non-essential to survival and keep you up and running? Instead of toxins slogging through your bloodstream and clogging up vital organs, it is safely tucked away in a hip or a butt or a belly. Amazing. Yay fat cells! Woo Hoo – thanks for protecting my organs and keeping my blood a little cleaner!

If you are carrying extra weight that has shown up as fat, your emotions may be all clogged up around those certain “unacceptable” areas of your body.  I, too, have heard that internal scream of, “Argh where did that come from? And why won’t it go away?!” The only way to truly quiet that scream is to shift from fat phobic to fat receptive.

Acknowledge your fat for what it is – a life saver; a temporary fix to a larger issue that is waiting, ever so patiently, for your attention. Fat is, after all, a symptom that something is not working the way it should be. So, take a quiet moment in praise of fat cells. From this vantage point of grateful acceptance, your judgment subsides, clarity prevails and you can begin to listen with a compassionate ear for what your body needs from you to be healthy, vital, strong and confident.

Welcome to the new blog!

I am still pondering what I want to do with this blog.

Here’s what I know so far about the content:

• Relevant and meaningful
• Within my realm of expertise (body/mind/spirit)
• Interactive so that we can have a dialog (very important to me)
• Different feel than the e-rhythms, more casual
• Short and to the point

I would like to invite you to share with me what you might find interesting, meaningful, inspirational and comment worthy.

Send along a comment, question, inspiration.

I’d love to hear from you, Carol