Courage, Creativity, and Cookies

People often come to me seeking to heal something -- physical pain, weight loss, inflammation, or another health issue. Moments before I was about to get on the call to do my interview for the Rewire Your Brain Training Series, a grouping of words flooded forward:

Clarity, Commitment, Compassion, Challenge, Consciousness, Courage, Connection, Community, Change, and last but not least, Cookies and Creativity.

OK - so why these words? What's the connection with the work I do and with this talk series?

The title of the talk series is "Rewiring our brains to think thin."
First of all I want to say that thin does not automatically mean healthy, nor do I believe that one isn't healthy if they aren't "thin." NOT AT ALL! And of course "thin" means different things to each person, each body type, time of life, health issues and more. One of the joys of humanity is variation and beauty in all shapes and sizes.  What I tell my clients is that any weight loss is a happy side effect of some kind of essential healing going on and NEVER do we use the word "diet." In fact, I would even say throw away all of your "diet books" and think more about these C's to rewire your "thinking thin healthy mindset."

CLARITY
What is your deeper WHY? You must stay connected to this essential part daily as to WHY you are wanting healthy change in your body/life and it has to be YOUR reason, no one else.

COMMITMENT
Your word and your worth are everything. Another daily choice needed for true change: to Commit and recommit over and over and over again.  Committing to your deeper why and to your vision. Daily commitment to this relationship is a choice and an important one -- it's more than trying. It's actually doing it no matter what and that's not always easy of course. That's why we can't do it alone. Which brings me to...

COMMUNITY and CONNECTION
There's a saying "community builds immunity!" It is also support and accountability. And most importantly we need to be witnessed in our lives -- those who really "see us" and stand for us as we commit, connect and get healthier in whatever ways we deeply desire. We need close connections. Healing and mind-set actually don't happen all in isolation, yes alone time in essential, but we need to balance it with community and authentic connection. 

COMPASSION
For ourselves! For our imperfectly perfect bodies exactly as they are the whole time. Improving our health is a non-linear process and we must trust that process and continue finding gentle compassion for ourselves along the way. This is a hard one for so many people -- we can be compassionate towards others but I most often see in myself and others the challenges that come when we aren't being compassionate with ourselves as we work towards our deepest desires, goals and dreams and especially as we learn to listen to the wisdom of our bodies.

CHANGE
All of this means inevitable change and even the good kind of change can be confronting and hard to accept. We get comfortable with our negative patterns as well...

COURAGE
All of this takes courage to challenge our comfort zone, despite a million moments that scream "forget it!" Even when it's tough -- it's courageous to say "no way I'm not giving up on living my best self."

COOKIES AND CREATIVITY
There are obviously a lot of C words that came to mind and I had to list this one because it's a great reminder that sometimes we need to do what I call "Flip It!" For example: I stopped my emotional crutch of eating cookies late at night before bed and instead decided to FLIP IT. I created a delicious and healthy breakfast cookie recipe that I now enjoy in the morning instead! I look forward to it and feel that having treats is essential, plus it's got fantastic ingredients that fill and fuel me in the best way AND set me up so that I don't even crave them at night anymore. I "flipped it" and can start my day that way. Many of my clients now do this. Where can you "FLIP IT" somewhere in your life? Get creative and flip your cookies ; )