“It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” — Brother David Steindl-Rast

Has life asked you to look for the good in every experience—to bless it all, especially the moments that challenge you most? I’ve found that when I focus on being grateful, everything shifts. Everything feels lighter, clearer, better… even easier.

Gratefulness asks us to raise our bar. It asks us to be bigger than a moment of upset, anger, or jealousy. It’s gratitude in motion—a living, mindfulness sort of practice that invites us to see things differently.

Not surprisingly, research confirms what many of us sense intuitively: being grateful increases happiness, fulfillment, and our overall sense of well-being.

Who doesn’t want more of that?

To help you cultivate exactly that, here are 20 simple ways to bring gratefulness into your everyday life—not just during the holiday season, but far beyond it.

1. Begin your day with gratitude for 3 things.
2. Give thanks before every meal.
3. Shift from thoughts of lack to thoughts of abundance.
4. Transform the ordinary into extraordinary with thankfulness.
5. Take nothing for granted.
6. Remember the farmer when you eat your meals.
7. See the sacred in the simple and familiar.
8. Keep a gratitude journal.
9. Bless the people who have hurt you.
10. Thank someone who doesn’t expect it.
11. Extend “thank you” generously.
12. Notice one small beauty you’d normally overlook.
13. Send a gratitude letter to someone who matters.
14. Pause to appreciate it all.
15. Express silent thanks for strangers who make your day easier.
16. Appreciate challenges that asked you to grow.
17. Reframe one complaint as a hidden gift.
18. Look for the good in everything and everyone.
19. Find the one reason that can shift you from complaint to gratitude.
20. Close your day with gratitude for 3 things.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

I recently met Tom at a networking event. He told me he had Crohn’s Disease, but quickly said not to worry, “I am as healthy as an ox! I take two tiny little pills everyday, eat whatever I want and haven’t had a problem for 5 years.”

I got it. Well, kind of. Though I took an array of pharmaceuticals back in the days when chronic symptoms, low energy and a sick body defined my life, I did not feel, “as healthy as an ox.” Rather, I looked and felt sick, tired and old, though I was a young woman.

So I set out to find answers for why I looked and felt so poorly, while so many others I knew dealt with health problems and took medications just like me, but seemed A-Okay like Tom.

It was mind-boggling and frustrating.

What I discovered felt revolutionary!

I discovered that even if the pharmaceuticals we take provide relief, the chronic symptoms and disease we live with does not stopped progressing, inflammatory foods still cause inflammation and wreak havoc in our body… and the “two little pills,” have us all thinking we are healthy and can eat whatever we like, while our body continues to decline.

The medications stop outward symptoms.

No more pain.

No more inconvenience.

No more concern.

No more reason left to do what it takes to create the changes necessary to heal the body and create vibrant health.

And herein lies the crux of the problem…

Change only happens if it’s a must, NOT a should.

Here’s what I mean, my client Nicole felt poorly, like I did early on, even though she took prescription medications. She suffered from Diabetes and previously with Hodgkins Lymphoma. With two little children at home, healing was a must for her, it was not simply I should. Her leverage for change was her children.

So in spite of her doctors recommendation not to take on a take on a healthy eating program, she chose to do it anyway, of course on the promise that she check her insulin levels everyday, and stay in close contact with me and her doctor.

Within 3 weeks of eating a clean, whole, unprocessed foods diet, Nicole reduced her insulin by 75%.

But Nicole was still on medication, and prescription medications not only mask the pain, inconvenience and concern typically needed to change to healthy lifestyle choices, they cause nutritional deficiencies in the body too. For example,

The top subscribed medication, Synthroid (Levothyroxine), recommended for hypothyroidism, interferes with calcium, with deficiencies leading to osteoporosis, muscle spasms, memory loss, PMS, obesity and increased risk for diabetes.

Crestor, a statin drug prescribed to lower cholesterol and fats (triglycerides) in the blood, also depletes coenzyme Q10, an essential antioxidant needed for energy production, and heart, nervous system, muscle and brain support.

This is a serious problem.

To boot, mainstream medical doctors receive only 20 hours of nutrition education. They are at a loss on what do beyond prescribing medication, since their training has been largely shaped by pharmaceutical companies with very little education on nutrition..

Add the impact of the fast-paced, high-stress modern lifestyle, Fast Food Nation and the ginormous success from marketing addictive foods as ‘healthy foods’ choices, it’s no wonder chronic disease and the need for pharmaceutical medications are on the rise.

But here’s what you can do to get out of the looping of taking pharmaceutical drugs,

1. Most important, learn to better understand that cravings and symptoms are your body’s way of saying it is imbalanced, that prescription medication is only masking the problem, and that you can heal your body with healthy lifestyle choices.
2. Incorporate what I recommend to all my 1:1 clients when we first start working together, the Wholly Trinity: include a green juice, a green smoothie and a meal-sized green salad everyday. This recommendation provides you with a triple-whammy of the most nutrient dense foods pound for pound, leafy greens.
3. If you feel overwhelmed initially, be patient with yourself and the process. Simply lean into it. With every effort you extend, getting healthy will get easier.

If you know you're ready to get healthy, click here to schedule a free call with me. I can guide you, as I did Nicole and my other clients, to healing your body and feeling energized and vibrant again. If you know your ready to dive right in, grab my new 1:1 Mini Program, More Energy Now. We can get started as soon as tomorrow!

(Disclaimer: If you have any specific questions about any medical matter, you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider.)

Have you ever had a project due, or a deadline to meet, and you couldn’t get it done on time, in spite of trying? Have you ever wanted to quit something you said you would do, but quitting is not your style?

I had the title of my speech. I had my main talking points. But tried as I might, I couldn’t wrap my head around the speech I was supposed to give in just over an hour, though I worked on it all day.

It was 4:20 pm and I was slated to deliver a speech at my Toastmasters meeting at 5:45.

Panic and negative self-talk started.

I decided to take a hot shower, in the hopes that it would ease my frustration and clear my head.

I sighed and thought, what could I possibly say to justify canceling at this late time?

As the warm water eased my frustration, creativity took over.

I jumped out mid-shower and bulleted down the essence of my speech. As I did, I laughed when I looked at my main talking points.

My speech title? The Power of Choice and Why It Matters.

My main talking points?

• Drop the story,
• Know myself, and
• Flex the muscle (get in action).

I had a story to tell with each point, like how single parenthood taught me that anything is possible if I just dropped the story that “it’s” impossible.

That meditation and journaling (prayer on paper as I like to call it), showed me how easy it is to make a choice when I know myself, and that happens when I slow down with these sorts of practices.

And the alpha point that entrepreneurship taught me, if other life experiences had not already, to get in action, stay in action and don’t let limiting stories stop me.

As I laughed and got ready for my Toastmasters meeting, as I put on a little makeup and studied my bulleted outline, I thought, “now this moment is my perfect wrap up to my speech, how I am living my talking points live, in the moment, right now!”

Drop the story, Carol, that you don’t know what to talk about. You live these points. You know who you are, and you know what you are talking about. Drop the story. Own your stuff and give the speech.

I won best speaker for the night. 

As I drove home I thought about the power of choice… and the certificate and laughed again. Surely the paper certificate was not the score of the night. The score was what it took for me to get there to deliver the speech.

The power of choice that we each possess, that we each exercise, not chance, shapes the whole course of our life.

Your turn. Tell me why the power of choice matters to you in the comments below.

Is there a story that you know stops you from achieving a goal you aspire to, like getting healthy?

Do you have daily practices that help you slow down in ways that you know your choices reflect what you want, not what others want for you?

Did you download Five to Thrive yet? The guide to make you 30% more energized in 7 days? If not, get yours here! It's flying off the digital shelves!

 

Getting healthy. You’ve heard it all. You’ve tried it all. Diets. Exercise plans. Pills. Powders and potions.

You know what to do, but you don’t.

Well, you dabble.

You know, you eat healthy once in a while. Maybe you go to the gym a little bit more frequently than you eat healthy. Either way, you never seem to be able to stick with creating healthy consistently. Life always seems to get in the way.

Deadlines. Fatigue. Family commitments. Late night business meetings. Red wine… and Twinkies.

You know dabbling is no longer enough.

You know it.

Excess weight, exhaustion and foggy thinking are impacting your home life and your ability to keep up at work and you’re starting to get a little freaked out. Shoot, you even wonder if chronic symptoms and low energy are affecting your creativity and ability to focus.

Have you ever asked yourself why you don’t stick with your get healthy plan?

Maybe you think your diet and fitness goals are unrealistic. Or maybe you think it’s because you don’t have supportive people in your life, or… you really don’t know what to do so you flounder.

Author Wayne Dyer said, “change your thoughts, change your life.”

But, that could be a huge undertaking since we all have anywhere between 50,000 — 70,000 thoughts per day!

And that seems a little unwieldy for a reductionist theory person like me.

Don’t you agree that it makes much more sense to reduce 1000s of anything down to potent and usable golden nuggets?

For the get healthy game, I’ve done the reduction work for you, and I’m repeatedly led back to the age-old question over and over again, Who am I?

Who are you?

Think about it.

If you can answer this one question, all other answers to all other questions either, 1) become a moot point, or 2) come easily to you.

I know, this can feel like a lofty question, but after pondering on it for years, the same answer, the lowest-common-denominator response that always rises is, 

You are life itself.

You carry within you the force of the Universe, the force of God, Spirit, Mother Nature, the Divine. What you call this force, it’s your thoughts about it and how you live it that makes all the difference.

I mean, if you believed that you literally carried the same life-force as the Sun that holds each planet in its orbit and makes life on Earth possible, or the Moon that animates and moves the oceans with it’s gravitational force, how could getting healthy be hard?

Why would you the invincible, the unconquerable, the omnipotent partake in anything that does not bring forth your highest self and grandest goals?

But you say, I don’t know how to access this life force amidst my crazy busy days? When I am trying to meet deadlines and run errands and attend late night dinner meetings how could that even be possible?

I’ve got a super, easy-peasy, sure-to-deliver exercise:

First, place your hand on your heart then close your eyes. Breathe in and breathe out. This is not necessarily a mediation, but an exercise of presence to your breath flowing in and flowing out. After several inhalations and exhalations, get present to the fact that you are not breathing. You are actually not breathing, but being breathed. By this force. You don’t choose breathing. It’s chosen you.

In it’s most fundamental sense, your most vibrant health, peak energy and productivity, your most innovative creativity and clearest thinking, your ideal weight is an exercise of presence.

I know, it’s like whoah, right?

You are being breathed.

By the source of life.

YOUR TURN

Now that you know this breathing exercise to pull you back to your highest self, to get on, and stay on your get-healthy, be-your-best-self track, I want to hear from you.

Tell me…

What do you think could be possible, with this level of presence on your side?

What healthy goals do you think you can now accomplish, that you weren't able to access before?

Share your insights and post any questions you have about this in the comments below!

Did you ever ask yourself, “What do I really want to do with my life? What matter’s most to me? What lights me up? What would I do even if they didn’t pay me?”

Not the you that is a husband or wife, mother, father, son or daughter. Not the you that is decision-maker, sandwich-maker, bread-winner, entrepreneur or Little League coach. But you, the passionate dreamer, the one and only, never another human being like you on this planet ever!

Did you ever have dreams, like Neal Armstrong, Martin Luther King or Michael Phelps?

Ambitions, hopes, goals that thrilled you?

I didn’t.

Chronic illness limited my scope of even remembering that I was born with the same inalienable right to pursue happiness just like you.

I mean, how do you feel creative and vibrant if you wake up exhausted every morning? How do you feel motivated and excited for all that life offers, if the impact of low energy and poor health sap your best self out of you? How do you hope and dream, when soap-operas and reality TV are your easiest access to living an exciting life?

For me, this is the crux of my work. 

It’s never been about the food you eat. 

It’s not even about how much you weigh.

It’s not about this diet or that diet.

It is about all that becomes possible when you live in a healthy body.

It is about you looking and feeling as healthy as you are successful.

It is about you getting in touch with who you want to be, what you want to create and all you want to accomplish.

It is about moving beyond the apathy that low-energy and poor health can cause.

Which is precisely why, because you are literally a system of cells and tissues, nerve impulses and chemical responses that work synergistically together, you must eat foods that energize you and your dreams! 

It’s not about food, and then it is. Do you get that?

YOU TELL ME!

What does getting healthy mean to you? How can more energy impact your life at home and the office?

If you know it's time to start somewhere, start with one of the many smoothie recipes I offer here.

Have questions? Other ideas? Post them below. I can’t wait to read ‘em.

Rather talk? Email me here.

Yesterday I had a really cool experience. When I went to post a few pictures I took while flying out to California on Facebook, I saw that my iPhone’s smart capabilities tagged where I was when I took the pictures.

The one above said I was at PhinDeli Town Buford, Wyoming.

How freaking cool! I’ve never physically been to Wyoming, but this pics says I was, albeit in the sky.

I learned, Buford, as it was originally known, was founded in 1866 during the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. And though it once boasted a population of 2,000. It is now famous for it’s population of one person.

In the spirit of the American Dream, Phạm Đình Nguyên bought the town and sells “PhinDeli” brand coffee that he imports from Vietnam in the convenience store.

One town. One person. One dream.

It never changes, when I fly, it feels otherworldly to me.

Ethereal.

Holy.

From simply wanting to capture a Heavenly view, I now felt connected with a man in the middle of Wyoming that I never met, as I flew overhead.

As I thought more about Nguyen out in ‘no man’s land,’ by himself, at an altitude of 8000 feet, I felt a shared connection of lessons I learned along the way, but can sometimes forget if I get lost in the sea of opinions others think are best for me. Like me, you’ve probably learned these life lessons already. But like me, why you don’t want to forget them either. Lessons like,

• Challenges will always rise, but who you become in the process is what matters most.
• There are times you will feel all alone, but alone time can be the most fertile ground for exponential learning and growth.
• There is great freedom in choosing you and what you know is best for you, especially when you discover people who you thought supported you don’t
• Your greatest strength emanates from rising above disappointments, setbacks, and hurt.
• Emotional mastery comes from getting back in the game, over and over and over

My thoughts brought me back to a favorite quote of writer Joseph Campbell’s,

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”

That in spite of other’s opinions, judgements and even ideas of how they think you you should do things. follow your bliss. Buy that piece of land you really want, even if it is in the middle of what seems like no where to others. Fly off to California at a time that seems poorly timed, it could be the best thing you could ever do for yourself and your business. And… say no to that unhealthy food choice even if everyone you know tells you ‘it’s OK to eat anything you want in moderation,” when you know research and your body tell you sugar is addictive and causes imbalance in your body.

Moments are like that, they offer you the opportunity to rise above, to learn and grow, to choose you, build emotional mastery… to follow your bliss, or concede your personal power to what others think is best for you. 

As my son said to me recently, “do you.”

I wrote a Guide about 6 ways you can look and feel your very best. I wrote it for me really, to organize my primary ideas about how to look and feel my very best in one coherent document, so when I trip up, I've got 6 primary ideas to help me get back on track. I wrote it for you too, because I know it can make a difference. You can get your copy here.

 

I vividly remember the chapel. It was ethereal. Otherworldly. The peacefulness was in-my-hand palpable.

Their voices filled the chapel. They sang like angels. I’d count the days waiting to hear the sisters sing. I cried when it was time to go. I remember tearfully trying to convince my Aunt Bobbi, Sister Mary Magdalen, a cloistered Trappestine nun for 60 years at Mount St. Mary’s Abbey, to let me stay with her, that I could easily fit in the turnstile that separated me and my family from her cloistered world. “Aunt Bobbi, see, I’m small enough to fit in. Please, I want to stay with you.”

While abbeys, monasteries, churches and temples draw me in, likely because of a whole lifetime spent in their spaces, I’ve discovered a way to recreate some of the restorative benefits they offer.

I binge out on Gregorian chants and I immediately feel an energetic shift on a cellular level.

I literally feel more balanced, more relaxed, more peaceful in my body, more connected to my Higher Self and…  less stressed. Definitely less stressed.

As I’ve learned since those early days in the chapel, many cultures around the world have used sound as a tool for healing for thousands of years.

Gah! No wonder I loved the chanting so much! It was healing me on a cellular level!

The Aborigines of Australia are known to use sound for healing as far back as 40,000 years. Records from 4000 BC show that Egyptians believed that 7 vowel sounds were sacred, and incorporated them in succession in their rituals. But it was the Greek, Pythagoras in 500 BC who is known as the father of music therapy. He taught the use of flute and lyre as the primary healing instruments.

When I learned that Pythagoras attributed music to great health, if used in the right way, it all made sense. My sweet memories of my early days at the abbey, and later at the monastery my Dad joined, The Brigittine Monastery, came full circle in my healing work. Pythagoras and his followers would sing in unison certain chants in a method he called ‘musical medicine’ just like I was listening to, when the sisters and monks would sing ‘to me.’

And guess what? Sound literally shifts our brainwave state by using rhythms and frequencies to entrain our brainwaves. Certain sounds make it possible for us to down-shift from our normal beta state (normal waking consciousness), to alpha (relaxed consciousness), and even reach theta (meditative state) and delta (sleep; where internal healing can occur).

Chanting is one of those ‘certain sounds,’ known to affects every cells in our body, balance both hemispheres of the brain, change old patterns of behaviour, habits and ways of thinking that no longer serve us, and… are harmful to our health, plus so much more.

Some believe sound and music therapy to be the medicine of the future.

Makes sense, especially if you know that every single one of the roughly 100 trillion cells in in your body is controlled by an electromagnetic field which resonates at its own unique sound frequency.

In the Spirit feeling and looking your very best, I offer you two chant albums to binge out on, so you too can revel in all the healing benefits it offers, like cellular rejuvenation and balance, relaxation and peacefulness in your body. Why the heck not, right? If it’s been helping people for 40,000 years, seems like a pretty good idea to incorporate, yes?

One album is literally the sisters from my Aunt Bobbi’s abbey, and the other is Gregorian chants with monks singing, which sound exactly as I remember hearing at my Dad’s community.

To Pray in Beauty: Gregorian Chant, Ever Ancient, Ever New

Cistercian Nuns of Mount Saint Mary’s Abbey *Special note: Track 19: Hymn: Ave Maris Stella — every cloister sings this song.

 

Chant – Music For The Soul

The Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz *Special note: The bells on Track 4: Stift Heiligenkreuz Bells

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT MUSIC AS A HEALING MODALITY?

I’d love to hear about your experiences with music.

How do you feel about chants?

Have you ever tried them? How did you like them?

What questions do you have about sound therapy?

Leave a comment below and ask questions if you have them. I truly love nothing more than coaching you to take action in ways that make a difference for you in your life!

Horrified by what I saw, I cried as I ripped a short stack of old photos in half and hid them deep in the garbage.

When I was 17 years old, women would compliment me, “Dear, you have such beautiful skin.”

But in those pictures, only a few years later at only 25 years old, my skin was colorless and covered with regular breakouts of painful cysts. My eyes were sunken with dark circles. My face looked drawn with hard lines. I looked sick and exhausted and old.

I didn’t need a picture to remind me how bad it was back then.

I vividly remember the hours I’d spend standing in front of the bathroom mirror trying to artfully hide the evidence of illness in my body.

After all, I was one of the 4 Americans who suffered from 2 or more chronic diseases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And while it could have been so much easier to curl into any of the typical reasons for why illness seemed to be my lot in life, like ‘this is normal, everyone takes medication, everyone feels like shit to a greater or lesser degree,’ when Jack Canfield asked me about the most important success principle, “Are you 100% responsible for your life, Carol?” it was like he plugged me into a Lear jet!

Bottom line, I heard Canfield say, “If you really want to look and feel better, make it happen. It’s on you.” And make it happen I did.

I completely turned around my chance of being one of the 50% of Americans who die from chronic disease every year.

If you are committed to playing full out in life, if you are committed to looking and feeling as healthy as you are successful, I offer you three key lessons I learned about reclaiming vibrant health and soaring energy, so that you can get back to what matters most in your life and career.

Give it all up.

Give up all the reasons, all the justifications, all the excuses, all the stories that stop you from committing to your health and wellbeing. This one lesson is your gateway to reclaiming your health.

Clients say things like, they are “too busy to eat healthy and get to the gym,” “my friends and family don’t eat healthy,” “I eat out to eat all the time,” “healthy is too hard.”

If you experience less-than-your-best symptoms like excess weight, exhaustion, and foggy thinking, they are no doubt impacting your ability to feel fulfilled at home and work. Look for the reasons that stop you from choosing healthy, and choose differently.

For example, choose to eat a green apple instead of a sugary snack in the afternoon, and when you notice your just-say-no to junk food muscle getting stronger, think of me when you feel energized. This health hack changed my health game.

Lean into it, but find your sweet spot.

I was recently reminded of the power of simply ‘leaning into’ eating more healthfully during my last run of the highly-acclaimed More Than A Detox program.

I encourage participants to find their sweet spot, the place between challenging themselves, so they feel growth and forward movement, and not overwhelming themselves, so they don’t give up. Like do what you can sans the struggle… but if you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.

While most participants try to rally up to the group’s level of participation, I was super impressed with a participant this past season who held onto her ‘lean-into-it,’ space and said after the program was over,

“I learned I can change my behavior and I can change my eating habits in a positive way by not overwhelming myself, by doing what felt comfortable and challenging for me.”

By finding her sweet spot, she was able to release 4 pounds in just 10 days, and is now in control of her eating habits.

You get to choose. You’re the CEO.

When I read Invictus by William Ernest Henley for the first time, knowing that Nelson Mandela was so empowered by it’s message of self-mastery that he read it to other prisoners on Robben Island, I was blown away, especially by the last four lines:

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I was struggling with food addictions, a sick body and all the ways they were impacting my life with not a whole lot of progress. Mandela, conversely, in spite of how difficult his experiences were, was using his time on Robben Island for self-examination and meditation. He looked for ways he could leverage what power he had, his mind, to choose thoughts that helped him overcome “bad habits and cultivate the good ones.”

This one poem, read by this one man, during this singular time of his life bespoke a level of personal power that I had never heard of or experienced before. I got, I mean I really got, that I was the CEO of my life, like he was, like you are, and we get to leverage the power of choice with every thought we think and every action we take, or not.

If you know you are settling for being less than your very best, and if you know it’s time to pick up your get-healthy game, take on Canfield’s most important success principle, “you are 100% responsible for every detail of your life.”

Lose the excuses, reasons and justifications.

Look for your sweet spot by challenging yourself to get healthy, without overwhelm, and fully step into your biggest role, as CEO of your health and watch your energy grow, your weight drop and your focus and mental clarity improve.

As business philosopher Jim Rohn said, “You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.”

HERE’S WHAT TO DO NOW.

1. Leave a comment below.

2. Get my totally free guide to look and feel your very best. It gives you the foundational tools to change everything.

3. Come back next week to learn what else you can do to increase your energy and feel your very best.

You can look and feel as healthy as you are successful. You can take back control of your health. I can show you how.