Persistence happens when the deal falls through and you look for the lesson from the experience, rather than indulge in the negative. Persistence happens when naysayers rise up and criticize your efforts, yet you stay the course with practices and people who inspire you to achieve, rather than buy into the negative. Persistence happens when at days end your body and your mind says enough, but your determination, will and passion says just a little bit more… because you know that a little bit more is what always makes the difference. Persistence happens when every obstacle seems to rise up against you and all that you work so hard to create, and you “stay the course,” you find a way to push forward rather than indulge the self-doubt that rises up. Persistence happens when you continue to follow through in the face of utter uncertainty, utter disillusionment, utter fear, because for you there is no other way. Patience is a virtue that you hold fast to, but persistence is who you are.  

Adversity, challenge, opposition are all great teachers, but like everything else, we can train ourselves, to persist until we succeed.  

I am not a coffee drinker. Fortunately never was. Caffeine is not only an addictive, acidic substance, it triggers a stress response, which induces excess adrenal hormone production and the classic on-edge, fight-or-flight emergency response that effects every cell of our body. Caffeine too stimulates the production of stress hormones that directly acts on the brain and nervous system, which reduces the production of serotonin, the feel-good hormone (though the reduction in serotonin not only impacts our mood, it even impacts our ability to learn and sleep well). Like sugar, caffeine does offer an immediate “high,” an immediate energy boost, but its “benefits” are short term, with consequences that far out-weigh the immediate energy lift it offers. I for one don’t need any added stressors to my body or my day. Nor, in the context my commitment to living my life health-fully, it doesn’t seem to make sense to develop a daily practice to an addictive substance that could impede my overall aim.

But I do love reishi lattes! Ummmm. Reishi lattes are really delicious! I steam a small amount of reishi, almond milk and a little “bourbon vanilla” stevia or raw honey into a highly-nutritional “latte” when I want something warm and soothing to drink. Reishi benefits are endless. Reishi, a medicinal mushroom used in ancient Eastern medicine, is touted as “the mushroom of immortality,” and is used by many to boost the immune system, calm nerves, relieve allergies and inflammation and even  fight cancer and ward off heart disease. According to Traditional Eastern Medicine, reishi benefits bring the body back into both physical and emotional balance. Dr. Ray Sahelia, author of “Mind Boosters,” says the reishi mushroom can calm the mind, as well as improve memory, concentration and focus.” Many too use reishi now as a “tonic” to develop energy and to support digestion. With these compelling benefits, “boot” the “morning-joe” and give a reishi latte a try for an excellent coffee-like tasting beverage! You can add a little cacao for the additional antioxidant benefits and a mocha flavor too! I buy what I have found to be the very best powdered reishi from a really cool and generous-hearted Master Herbalist named Rehmannia Dean Thomas at Shaman Shack: http://www.shamanshackherbs.com/shop/wild-crafted-red-reishi/ But you too can buy amazing reishi tonics from the “father” of herbology in the US, Master Herbalist Ron Teeguardan, at Dragon Herbs: http://www.dragonherbs.com

Enjoy!

Yoga offers me way more than a typical physical fitness practice.

Yoga is hands-down, meditation in motion. 

I step onto my mat. My body is tight. My mind is full. Endless thoughts take me everywhere but where I am right now… and the yoga instructor guides me (us) right into abdominal work. I feel annoyed, though I love ab work. I need a few minutes to quiet down my “monkey mind” with at least a brief interval of a breath/meditative exercise. Thoughts like, “good grief, we didn’t even do a meditation moment to try to quiet our minds” and, “I can’t do abs yet, I need to build body heat first” join the thousands of other thoughts already hindering my ability to be in the present moment. And… we begin to flow, we begin to move into what feels like the “hottest” Hot Yoga class I have done in a very long time.

And then the alchemical magic of yoga begins. My body takes over and begins to ease into the class and the instructions the teacher offers. This is the magic of yoga that just takes me aback during every class, because though I walk in distracted, though endless thoughts preoccupy my mind, the breath work of yoga shifts me into my body and out of my head. The endless thoughts in my mind settle down.

Known as a meditation in motion, yoga trains it practitioners to breathe with each movement, with each posture, so that the breath becomes the focal point, not necessarily the physicality of the practice. But with that said, while I focus on my breath, my body strives to find that proper alignment that offers up softness in what otherwise seems to be very challenging postures. “Pull the hip back… Ah, yes, now I can feel the strength in my back leg. Fold forward… Yes! I can feel my lower back let go. Squeeze your legs together tighter… OMGoddness, I’m doing a handstand by myself!” Synchronistically, the endless thoughts in my mind disappear and the body takes over, shifting, adjusting and moving deeper into the poses offered up, with the breath guiding the way. Freedom emerges. Freedom from the “thinking mind” that seems to never end ceases. Freedom opens up in the body, as it moves beyond what it ever thought possible. 

Release. Let go. Open up. Be. Be with the struggle of the posture and just breathe. And herein lies the gorgeous metaphor of life-training that yoga offers. This IS why I love my yoga practice. When confronted by challenge in a posture, when my legs scream with pain, when my shoulders just want to drop from deep aching, the instructor guides me back to my breath. Find my breath and be with my breath. Let go of the thoughts that I can’t do the posture, let go of the thoughts that my body suggests I can’t bear, and go back to my breath. TRAIN myself to be with my breath, not my thoughts. Train myself to be with anything and everything that shows up on my mat… to train myself to be with anything and everything that shows up in my life.

Can I find softness in struggle? Can I open my heart, though I experience resistance in the moment? Can I find ease in the posture, in life, though the moment might suggest utter opposition? Can I take these lessons of “being with” what ever shows up on my mat, off my mat and into my world? This IS why I love yoga. This IS what yoga practice offers me, an endless opportunity to train myself to BE with whatever shows up in my life, to be who I want to be in the world from a place of creating, rather than a place of reaction.

And… every now and then someone may say, “you’ve got really great arms!” 

Today IS the day to make new decisions!

Decisions shape destiny! We continuously make decisions, even when we don’t choose. Years ago, I remember learning that I was choosing, even when I refrained, when I held back, when I hesitated. Unwittingly, I allowed fear to drive my life, and my not choosing to “go for it,” to express myself, to “try something new,” to be brave, held me back from living my life fully. I was choosing, but the results were not what I wanted. 

 When we make new decisions, we take different actions. When we take different actions we get different results. To create everything and anything we want for our lives, this IS where the magic  of transformation exists, inside the decisions we make. Today, take on making one new decision to elevate your health and the quality of your life. Do you want to get back to the gym? Do you want to start eating more consciously, more healthfully? Do you want to extend greater effort at improving the quality of your relationships or advancing yourself professionally? Do you want to develop a new strategy for your personal development or do you want to begin that meditation practice that you keep saying your going to start, but never do. Take on whatever actions it takes to follow through on the one new decision you make for  yourself and your life today, even if it is just a seemingly small action, because it is absolutely inside these seemingly small actions that the most profound results emerge over time!

Go for it… choose! Take one action in the direction of your goals!

What does our food choices, intuition and mediation have to do with each other?

As we know, the food we choose to eat is paramount to honoring all the ways our body functions. As we know, we are, after all, a series of nerve impulses, an electrical system, and we know our body turns to the food we choose to eat as our source of “electricity” to run efficiently, to run the way we were designed to function optimally. The food we choose to eat “plugs us in” or “unplugs us” in supporting proper digestion, proper assimilation and elimination. We too know,  that if we don’t digest, assimilate and eliminate as we were designed to, other bodily systems will undoubtedly begin to suffer, with disease as the likely outcome because of the inherent way every organ, gland and body part work so synchronistically together.

 

What many don’t realize though is, our body actually does “talk” to us about what it needs and what it doesn’t need, and the level of communication offered us goes beyond the overt signs like headache, acid-reflux, IBS, etc. Indeed, the more subtle messages, like what our body really loves and what our body really needs prove to be very informative when we finally “get” that our food choices literally fuel us for what we need to optimally function. But how do we know if what we are choosing is indeed what our individual body needs? Can we hear our body “talking” to us?

 

This is where intuition and meditation become so very important.

 

Meditation, contemplative time carved into our days to quiet the hundreds of thoughts that run through our minds every minute offers us the opportunity to hone our intuitive nature. Sitting in silence, listening to the birds chirp in the early hours of the day, or the crickets chirping at days end offers us time to settle into our selves, settle into our selves to just “be” beyond the endless “doings” we engage in every day. While so many versed in mediation practice offer us the endless benefits reaped from creating quiet time into our days, I have personally learned that I am in keener on discerning what I need to not only “fuel” my body to be healthy, but what I need to create my days, my weeks, my life in the ways that I “intuitively” know are right for me from by committing to this practice. My intuition, my clear thinking now guides me towards what my body really needs to optimally thrive and function. It moves me to this place where “my” “common sense” takes over and guides me to what I intuitively know is best for my body to function optimally. I mean, really, how else can we find our way to what works best for us individually, with so many diet theories abound? Sure, we can and we do experiment. Sure, we can explore, research and analyze the “buffet” of often very conflicting theories offered to us, but how do we know if this “one seemingly very convicted approach to diet” is right for us bio-chemically as an individual?

 

Quiet time is “the magic quotient.” Quiet time offers us the opportunity to get back to our breath, get back to ourselves, our truest selves, to just be. In this place, we begin to “hear” what stirs in the background of the noise that fills our lives. We begin to hear if our choices really makes sense to us beyond the socio-cultural conditioning of our environments. We begin to refine, to hone, to fine-tune our relationship to our intuitive understanding of what really works best for us as an individual, beyond the insistence of every theory and everyone around us. We learn to trust our intuition to choose what is right for us, to choose what will empower us to feel and be our most vibrant and healthy selves. It is then that we possess the ability to move beyond the constraints of the body, like illness and disease, to get to what we really want to be doing with our lives!

The likely question that rises is, why blog? Why write a blog on health, nutrition and living-large, when so many others already exist?

For me, there really is only one reason. I have a “fire-in-my-belly” to share what I feel deep in my bones to be true about living “our” most vibrant, healthy selves. No doubt it was a long journey ‘round to get here, and that is what I believe will enrich all that I have to offer. You should know though, that my thoughts about “what I know” are deeply rooted in my firm belief that you already intuitively know everything and anything you will ever need to know. No one really is “our” teacher. Others show up in our lives to point the way, to simply remind us of who we truly are, to help us find our way back to our most authentic, truest selves. Ultimately then, my goal is to offer up new ideas, suggestions and practices that will lead you back to being your most healthy, vibrant, gorgeous, beautiful, powerful self!

Vital point: Nourishment occurs in many ways. So I will include all sorts of ideas, from all sorts of arenas, like music and success, like acid-alkaline balance and deep breathing, like self-discipline and self-love, like meditation and physical fitness. My bottom-line though is, we really need to get that we are bio-chemical beings, and that our food choices can and surely do, fuel us, or deplete us. Yup, you know it! Think about it, some days we are just a pure lover. Life is easy and fun and a glorious ride. And some days, well, shall I say, some days we feel crazy. We are out of sorts. Everything is a struggle. Everything is hard. Nothing seems to work. Yes. We even get sick… with illness and disease Why is this? It IS because we have forgotten that in our most truest nature, while hear on planet Earth, we are a body, and our body is a network of nerve impulses, a network of electrical actions and reactions and… what we eat has everything to do with everything else! Everything. 

So while my blog will center on all sorts of ideas about living and being your most vibrant, gorgeous healthy self, everything will radiate out from the central point of why I am here: I  believe that our food choices are transformative. I have learned, no-joke, that within our food choices awaits the “kingdom of heaven,” in whatever way that exists for you. Think about it, how can we look gorgeous? How can we access our most powerful, authentic, vibrant selves in a lasting way, indeed, how can any of our bodily functions work optimally, like thinking and digesting, if we live in a way that negates our very bio-physical essence? 

I request only one thing of you as you journey along with me here, hold very close Copernicus’ counsel to us all oh-so-many years ago, “To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”   For me, he is saying that true wisdom rises when we remain open to new ideas. Especially ideas that seem foreign, not our usual way of doing things. Yes, ideas that may feel even down-right uncomfortable at first. Try some new things out. Give a new way of doing things a chance to percolate and grow within your daily practices, and before you know it… this “once new, seemingly crazy idea” that you were once resistant too, now is part of your everyday routine. The only difference is, you now feel energized. You now feel excited and confident. You now think clearly and look gorgeous. You now feel free to express yourself, your most authentic self, in all the ways that you know you were always meant to be!