My mother poisoned me as a teenager. She didn’t mean to; but she did. I’m sure your mothers didn’t mean to poison you growing up either... But they probably did.
I still remember it being one of my favorite holiday presents ever - a box full of makeup! I was thirteen years old and felt as though I had won the lottery! Eyeshadows, lip glosses, eye liners, blushes, mascaras, a whole box full . . . of toxins.
Had I been living in Europe, these products might have been safe to use. However, I grew up in New Jersey and what my mother didn’t realize is that the makeup she had bought me, along with the soap, shampoo, body lotions, etc. that she provided for our household, were laced with toxic ingredients.
When my daughter turned thirteen and started wearing makeup, I knew better.
You see, ten years ago I started a business with a global Health and Wellness Company and what I learned was shocking . . . and scary. I was also poisoning my children! Our bathroom products were full of carcinogens, hormone disruptors, and other toxic ingredients.
Horrified, I quickly grabbed a garbage bag and dumped every product containing substances with the suffix ‘paraben’ or ‘phthalate’. Products containing mineral oil (a by-product of gasoline), lead, formaldehyde, and tallow were also trashed. Just Google “animal renderings” and you’ll be amazed to discover one of the cosmetic industry’s dirty little secrets.
What I quickly learned is that the European Union (EU) bans over 1400 ingredients from their personal care products. I wondered how many are banned in the USA…
Like my mother did before me, I try to protect my kids and keep them healthy. They eat well and get plenty of exercise. But what I didn’t realize was that it’s not just what goes in our bodies that’s important, but goes on them as well. Our skin is our largest organ and it only takes 26 seconds for an element to be absorbed into our bloodstream.
While I was feeding my children healthy foods and snacks, and sending them outside to play for healthy exercise, I was conversely bathing and lotioning them in toxins - on a daily basis! More shockingly, these toxins were building up in their system which could potentially make them sick.
Easy solution - I simply replaced all the harmful products we used with safe ones.
Of course, as much as we might like to, we can’t keep our kids in a bubble. They are, after all, going to walk outside and inhale fumes from cars. Despite this, we know better than our mothers did and should do better. We can choose not to consciously poison them.
Please, read your labels. The ingredient policy for my family’s personal care products goes above and beyond the EU’s strict standards and FDA approved ingredients, banning over 2,000 harmful substances. Start using products that are safe and nontoxic, and stop using products that are approved by the FDA.
After all, the FDA bans only eleven ingredients...and haven’t updated their laws regulating cosmetics and personal care products since 1938.
By Jill Kay
Arbonne Independent Consultant & Executive Regional Vice President
Let's take a brief look at how CBD could improve your mental health and overall wellbeing.
Managing your mental health is just as important as maintaining your physical health, yet for plenty of people, this can often be far easier said than done. With over 285 million people currently living with some form of mental health disorder, many often wonder if there is anything that can aid them outside the realm of purely prescription options.
CBD has been garnering a massive buzz over the last year for a variety of potential benefits improving the lives of people the world over. From facials to lattes, CBD seems to be everywhere and in everything in recent days.
With all this talk and the massive proliferation of CBD-infused products on the marketplace, is there any basis for all the hype? Thankfully for you, there is a useful new tool compiling the available research on CBD along with experience generated by users all over the world. Many of these user-reviews discuss the impact CBD has had on their health and lives, including whether or not it helped treat and manage a variety of mental health symptoms.
DidCBDWork.com is a crowd-sourced research platform that combines the current data on CBD for a wide variety of conditions with user-submitted testimonials about the effect CBD has had on helping on them personally. With plenty of half-truths and misinformation spread online, DidCBDWork.com aims to be a primary informational authority on CBD by combining academic and anecdotal evidence in a user-friendly way.
Cannabidiol, or CBD, is a non-psychoactive cannabinoid found in the cannabis plant. Cannabinoids are a group of closely related chemical compounds that interact with cannabinoid receptors in the body; this is known as the endocannabinoid system. Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the most common of these cannabinoids and is most often associated with cannabis for its notable and potent psychoactive effect.
A critical distinction between the two is that CBD and THC bind with different endocannabinoid receptors in varying ways, ultimately producing different effects on the body. As CBD is non-psychoactive, users don't face the potential risk of intoxication or failing a drug screening.
CBD and CBD-based preparations have been repeatedly demonstrated to provide relief for a variety of symptoms and conditions. Both preclinical and clinical trials have shown the efficacy of CBD therapy in treating conditions ranging all the way from anxiety to PTSD.
Can CBD Help Mental Health?
Along with anecdotal evidence from patients all over the world highlighting the impact CBD therapy has had on improving their lives, they've also compiled available academic research noting the efficacy of CBD in treating and managing such conditions. One such study, from the University of Mississippi, found that high doses of CBD provide significant antidepressant-like effects. Their evidence suggests that larger doses, around 200mg, yield symptom management similar to that of traditional pharmaceutical antidepressants.
Not only has CBD been demonstrated to have efficacious antidepressant-like effects, but it has been shown to have notable anxiolytic properties. A double-blind, randomized controlled experiment from the University of Sao Paulo found that CBD not only dramatically improves mood but also reduces cognitive impairment and discomfort in anxiety-triggering situations.
As demonstrated above, there is a wealth of peer-reviewed academic research highlighting the promise that CBD can provide those struggling. Mental health and other healthcare professionals across all disciplines have been advocating the use of a supervised CBD therapeutic regimen to help treat and manage a wide variety of psychological symptoms and conditions.
As with beginning any therapeutic regimen, consult with your healthcare provider to ensure there aren't any conflicts with any other current treatments or medications. Furthermore, your healthcare provider could answer any additional questions you may have, helping you create an effective treatment plan to help manage your specific symptoms and conditions.
Have you or someone you know used CBD to help improve their mental health? DidCBDWork.com is currently gathering experiences from millions of people, just like you, who have used CBD to help manage their overall mental wellbeing. No matter if CBD worked for you or not, they would love to hear from you about your experience; these stories help those suffering see that there may be a solution out there for them.
What “if” one simple concept might help improve your health and other areas of your life too? What if … life could be easier if we learned to change our perspective and see things in a new way?
Real love, unconditional love, is an energy, some say, is the foundation from which everything emerges into our world. It is the energy which grows us from microscopic cells into full grown adults without a manual! It is the energy which breathes us, pumps our heart, allows us to walk, talk, taste, see, touch, eat, digest food, eliminate waste without having to micro manage our bodies!! It grows everything in nature, including animals, insects and microscopic creatures we never even know exist! It never stops giving no matter how much we take.
Many of us love to hold a new born baby or puppy or kitten, fresh and still connected to their Divine Nature. Watch very young children and they rarely judge anyone by their color, deformity, wealth, race, age, poverty or gender. They just love everyone! They must be taught who to trust, who to fear, who to judge, who to love. None of these things come naturally. Soldiers must be trained and brainwashed into “hating the enemy” in order to be good, strong soldiers. It is not in their nature to just easily kill other people.
Loving without conditions means there is no judgement, revenge, punishment, inspiring feelings of guilt and shame. You can… not like or approve of what someone does, however, you still love them. You love for the joy love gives you, because it is your natural nature to do so. It’s like breathing. No one must act or behave in a certain way to earn your love. Love given without conditions is what heals, transforms, opens hearts, soothes the pain, turns someone around. While hate and revenge only continue to inspire more of the same!
When you judge, hate, feel wounded or enraged, your entire body suffers! Your breathing is more shallow. It’s more difficult for your heart to pump and your muscles all tense up greatly constricting many other functions in your body. You get fatigued very easily. Sometimes just for a few minutes, and other times for hours or you are angry for days on end! Stress is not beneficial for our bodies and can create illnesses and dis-ease..
No one forces you to judge, hate, and become enraged. These are habits often taught, or acquired and developed over years and years, often evolving from many sources. They can be changed. You are always “free to choose” how you respond to every single situation in your life.
When you learn to make “loving without conditions” a new habit, less and less things bother you anymore. As you learn to love yourself and others without conditions, you learn we are all doing the best we can every day, even though that might not be very good some days and better on others. When you choose to love, you think and respond with more compassion, understanding and clarity. You make better decisions. You feel better and are healthier because of this.
You cannot change the entire world, stop the wars, end hunger, prevent hurricanes and tornadoes, end mass shootings. You can, however, send all those situations, and all those people “Unconditional Love for their highest and best good.” Your unconditional loving energy can help transform the world, and in doing so, you also help yourself to live a happier, healthier, more joy filled life in many new ways!
I am so grateful for my beautiful oasis of flesh which carries me about in this garden of life.
Each little dimple and wrinkle, each crevice and valley all my own.
There is no where else on earth I could find a place such as this, so alive, so divine and uniquely me.
I rub my hands gently absorbing the stories it tells me of holding life and birthing babies, slicing and taking away my gallbladder, walking up mountains, climbing tall trees and jumping off.
I remember walking across coals and never being burnt. My spirit telling me to go ahead, because it was all an illusion anyway.
My beloved body carries me to and through every moment there is and beyond, allowing me to respond to life and its glorious magnificence. Feeling the wet grass beneath my feet, snowflakes coating my hair.
I inhale the fragrance of Freesias, appreciate their vibrant colors and taste chocolate upon my lips, all with this sacred vessel in which I can experience the Divine and the all which I am! I praise my own geography at last!
There is a single, small difference between the people that "do" and the people that "don't".
It's the difference between strength and weakness, progress and stagnation, success and failure.
Each and every one of us has it, have used it, and have used it successfully – every single time.
And every single time – we have an overwhelming sense of accomplishment, our efforts are justified, and we bask in the glory of a tough job well done, and done well enough to justify its means.
There are several single words that sufficiently describe this characteristic; though for some reason these words don't sound as potent and powerful as they did when we were children.
In descending order, these are my six measured by depth. On their own, any single one of these is sufficient in their effect on an outcome, though in this context "Presence" is more appropriate.
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As it relates to wellness, health, and fitness there is not a single person that ever got lucky by accident… not one.
Whoever has achieved a deliberate outcome was present in all of the decisions responsible for creating that particular outcome. They felt, they focused on what they were doing when they were doing it. These people didn't necessarily focus on fitness and health every waking moment, they just focused on it when they were doing it – they were Present. This presence-of-mind / presence-of-moment slowly and eventually permeates into other relevant moments, naturally and otherwise effortlessly bringing them sufficiently close to their intended destination.
This Presence in their current moment afforded them an advantage that without, there would be no success.
They're paying attention to what they're doing while they're doing it, then they're present in each moment that arrives after that… every meal, every activity, every set, every rep.
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Whether practical, physical, spiritual or emotional - effort and intensity are relative and subjective; some days hard is easy, and other days easy is hard – this is true for everyone. But, 100% is 100% no matter which way you cut it. If you only have 70% today - great, then do 100% of that. If today's a good day and you're bringing 105%, give 100% of that, too. The only way you know what you have is if you're paying attention to what you're feeling at this very moment.
Presence is critical in all things we hope to improve about ourselves, inward or outward. If you want to maximize your efforts in eating right, then you'll need to be Present when you're choosing your meals. If you want to maximize your efforts in being a more attentive father, then you'll need to be Present when the opportunity arises to shoot some hoops with your six-year-old son. If you want to maximize your efforts in having a stronger connection to God or the Universe, then you need to be Present when there's an opportunity to tune-in to those vibrations.
It's astounding how quickly things change when you pay attention to the moments that determine their influence.
For a moment… think… think about a single and seemingly inconsequential change you could make that only you might recognize but would give you satisfaction in making this one thing different than it is now.
Now think of just one thing that frequently reminds you of its current state.
Your homework is to look for the opportunities that arise where you can choose to change its very history and see what happens.
This is the easy part – the hard part is going to be spreading your awareness to every part of your life, once you've seen how mundane a task it really is.
Changes are not easy; they bring with them a lot of resistance. However, I have learned to embrace them throughout the years, but, while they happen, they make me uneasy. They bring uncertainty, which drives me crazy. Nevertheless, whenever I find myself anxious about what the future will bring, I sit down, meditate and repeat the following mantra: "I trust". And I really do trust, I know that no matter what, the universe will never take me to a worse place, quite the contrary, I know it'll be to a better one.
And so, it was. After saying good-bye to toxic relationships, toxic environment I saw my life change for the better. The new changes I made included hanging out with positive people, people who were into health and nutrition, spiritual people, people who appreciated the different cultures of the world, open-minded people, and successful people. They say that you're the average of the 5 people you hang out the most with, so, I became very careful about who I let into my life, and, most importantly, who I spent my time with.
Moreover, I changed my environment for good: I got rid of blue lights and added incandescent lightbulbs to my house, Himalayan salt lamps, and an essential oil diffuser; I added blackout curtains to my room, and started using a night mask when I went to bed to make sure my body got adequate sleep; I made sure that the products I used on my body did not include SLS, Fragrances, nor a bunch of ingredients I was unable to pronounce (this was for anything touching my body such as shampoos, conditioners, deodorants, lotions, etc.); furthermore, I got rid of so much clutter in my living spaces: I kissed good-bye a lot of things I didn't use or old things which were only taking up room and not allowing new things to come.
When it comes to my diet, I went 100% organic and gluten-free, and reduced to almost 0 my sugar and vegetable oil consumption. Unfortunately, some foods will include these ingredients which makes it really hard to eliminate them from your diet. Some food examples where these ingredients lurk include: salad dressings, chocolate nut milks, bread, etc.
At the end, a major makeover was needed. And I took the same principles I used in fitness, diet and spiritualism to my professional life. I realized that drastic, overnight changes were destructive and that milestones needed to be achieved before reaching the big goals. I learned to give the best of myself that I could to every job I was doing, to care for it and to find answers whenever I didn't have them. I just had in place a system that worked in one aspect of my life and that I could replicate in other aspects of my life.
Life was good, life is good and I wake up excited every day excited, wondering what the next thing around the corner will be, what life will bring my way and how I will interpret it. I learned that I cannot change reality, so, I have to accept it. However, one thing I can change: the perspective or lens through which I see reality. That has helped me stay positive no matter how bad the outcome may be. If something's going to be bad, I try to find the silver lining in the bad thing. It works like a charm, so I invite you to try doing the same and see how the sad veil lifts up! :)
“All you need is love,” sang the Beatles many decades ago. It’s a song still sung today. And for good reason. The tune is catchy, and the message is hopeful: “There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.”
Were it that simple. Love, after all, is our greatest joy. But it can also be complex and complicated. Loving someone “for better or worse, in sickness and in health,” means taking the good with the bad. And that’s not always easy.
Many—if not most—of us will have to take care of the person we love during an illness. It might be for a day, a week or even longer. Some may find it a daunting challenge. For me, it’s a call to action.
Over the past two and a half decades, my husband has been hospitalized many times. Often, it’s involved life-threatening illness with long periods of hospitalization and recuperation. In times like that, I do everything in my power to help him get better. Love is the starting point for advocacy.
Along the way, I have learned a lot about the hospital setting and the very real impact that families can have in making sure their loved ones get the best care. Hospitals are bureaucratic and scary places. For patients and their families, it can feel like being tourists lost in a strange land, not knowing the customs, the language or the culture.
Patients are weak and flat on their backs. They are usually in no position to advocate for themselves. Doctors are busy, rushing from one patient to the next; nurses are stretched, trying to meet the many needs of their patients.
Families can make a difference. They can represent the patient’s wishes and needs when their loved one is unable to speak for him or herself. Knowing the patient better than anyone else in the hospital counts for a lot when navigating the impersonal environment of a hospital setting. Families—working as members of the care team—can also connect the dots because doctors, quite honestly, don’t always communicate well with one another.
Families can fill in the blanks when the sick patient doesn’t fully comprehend everything being said or is not able to remember it later. They also can bring information, perspective and insight that patients may forget or are uncomfortable sharing themselves.
And when the patient goes home, continued care must involve the family to ensure instructions are followed regarding medication, doctor visits, exercise, restrictions, and more.
Much is written about patient-centered medicine. But research shows that patient and family-centered medicine provides the best clinical outcomes, increases patient satisfaction, lowers costs, reduces risks of readmission and can even save lives.
Families can and do make a real difference. They start with love and build from there. There’s one more line from the Beatle’s song that applies here: [There’s] … “no one you can save that can't be saved.”
The one you help save just may be the one you love most.
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Bonnie Friedman is author of Hospital Warrior: How to Get the Best Care for Your Loved One and host of the podcast Hospital Warrior: Advocates and Experts on the Whole Care Network.
We know that if we practice something often enough that perfection is inevitable. We know this because science has tested this hypothesis an infinite amount of times throughout the ages. Frequent repetition increases our familiarity, familiarity increases efficiencies, efficiencies reinforce familiarity, and so on.
Since we can predict certain outcomes and these outcomes are measurable, we can reasonably approach any activity or exercise (physical or otherwise) to guarantee the best outcome. Reasonable in a way that maximizes our abilities thereby maximizing our outcomes.
Practice is simply recreating a pattern over-and-over, again. It trains the nervous system to become exceedingly familiar with the movement-related aspects of physical performance. And, it trains the brain to become exceedingly familiar with reasoning & learning-related tasks. It simply doesn’t matter what the activity is, it is simply just a matter of your level of acquaintance. Repeat something often enough, and eventually you’ll elicit “muscle memory” (I really don’t like using that term).
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Potential > Memory
I don’t like using that term because a muscle cannot remember anything, period. This “memory” - or familiar movement pattern – occurs when the repetition induces certain efficiencies to develop which allow for the brain to do something else while the body is executing a certain string of commands that have already been programmed and tested. We perfect an activity by practicing it so much that when the initiative spark fires in the brain it sets off a harmonious cascade of precise and predictable nerve impulses. These impulses fire sequences of muscle contractions to cause precise movements. It would be far more accurate to call this phenomenon "muscle-potential", though the latter iteration doesn’t quite sound so appealing.
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Efficiency Over All
Regarding movement, the human body wants to do one thing, and one thing only. It wants to preserve its valuable resources. Economy – same activity, less energy. Same result, fewer resources. Conservation is the only motivation – do something often enough and it will take less time, less thought, and eventually less work.
Your body's primary motivation when performing any task boils down to just one thing – economy - Same activity, less energy. Same outcome, fewer resources. Conservation is key. Get more familiar with doing something and it'll take less time, less thought, and less work.
We've all experienced this in some form or another: whether with a Yo-yo, Rubix Cube, walking to jogging to running (did you know that you burn about the same number of calories WALKING one mile as you do RUNNING one mile? It’s true).
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We occupy this highly specialized, highly adaptive machine whose primary objective is preservation - resource-preservation. To put simply, its objective is to use the minimum resources needed to complete a task, and not a single iota more. This is true from both a metabolic standpoint as well as a mechanical one.
For many people, they’ve been trying to lose weight for what seems like an eternity but because this machine opts for efficiency – the harder you work, the better you get at working hard – AND the fewer resources you’ll use to accomplish the same task. Unless of course, you force the machine to continually adapt. How do you do this? Well, you're going to have to work harder than you did yesterday, every single day.
One Layer Deeper
This neural reprogramming is the first (and least demanding) attempt to make whatever action that you're practicing economical enough to preserve your body's precious and hard-earned resources.
Generally speaking, it's only after the neural improvements begin to maximize that the body begins to explore other avenues to improve the efficiencies of exercise.
Sometimes in order to fix a bigger problem, we need to start by fixing ourselves. And that's where I had to start to release all the mental chains I had that prevented me from being myself. These included persons and ideas that kept me from reaching my highest potential.
The first thing I had to do was love myself. I know, you can ask anyone if they love themselves and they will say "yes", but, once they start digging deeper, they realize that they haven't really been loving themselves. In the same way that healing and personal growth require introspection and care, building a business aligned with your spiritual journey calls for choosing partners that resonate with your values. Looking into Zenbusiness reviews can offer insights into a supportive, efficient service to help manifest your vision into reality.
Someone who loves themselves would never allow anyone else to do something harmful to them. One important thing that helped me prevent this was when I started saying "no". It was not easy, but it has been one of the best things I have ever done for myself. What I realized after I started saying "no", was that I was saying "yes" to something I liked and that made me feel fine.
Another thing I did was start a meditation practice that I religiously continue to this day. Every morning, you'll find me taking at least 5 minutes to do conscious breathing, to be grateful, or to forgive. The 2 things that have benefitted me the most have been gratitude and forgiveness. Through gratitude, I have been able to really appreciate the small things in life: a warm cup of coffee, a goat milk yogurt (I mean, how often do you find that while traveling?!), people who love and support me for who I am, the food on my table, having a roof over my head, my health... Ultimately, being thankful for the magic and perfection of life on earth as a whole. Through forgiveness, instead, I learned to forgive myself and everything I've done wrongly. To forgive my mind always judging me and always criticizing every move I make or the body I have. I learned to forgive my parents for the way they reacted to my weight issues while I was a kid since their frustration didn't allow them to see the damage they were doing to me; I forgave anyone who had hurt me out of their own pain, because it was not them doing something bad to me on purpose, it was their own ignorance and suffering that made them act like that. Forgiveness is a selfish act. We forgive to free ourselves from the emotional burden, not to make someone else happy. So, if you haven't tried it out yet, now's the time to start!
Meditation and spiritualism, besides reinforcing the body-mind connection, helped me connect better to the world. Thanks to that, I no longer see things as independent, I see them as part of an interdependent system. This just became more evident after my mom passed away. An event like this transforms you either for your best or worse. But, in my case, it helped me learn that everything in life is energy: yourself, what you see, what you can't see, and your thoughts. Matter doesn't disappear, it just transforms. And, that's why, even if I miss my mom every day, I know that she's everywhere: In the air I breathe, the smiling child running in the garden, the tree I touch, etc.
Knowing how the type of energy I surround myself with and the one I vibrate on are important for my overall life, I decided to change my environment, and this included my relationships. It was not easy since I had to cut ties with many people and make drastic changes, but the results were astonishing...
Fake it ‘til you make it! That adage of the 1970’s may seem like a cliché now, a silly relic of a bygone era. But in reality, we fake it regularly when we lack full confidence but still manage to push ourselves to rise to an occasion—a job interview, negotiating the price for a new car or holding our ground in an important discussion.
Many people find it intimidating to talk to doctors. They get tongue-tied, afraid to ask questions or worry they’ll say the wrong thing. Research bears out the phenomenon. One study compared the frightened behavior of patients to that of hostages bargaining for release.
Whether you are the patient or it’s someone you love, getting good medical care shouldn’t sink to that level. That means speaking up even when you feel nervous. Doctors often rush from one patient to the next; some are gentle in their dealings, but others seem brusque and impatient. Patients and families can be left feeling too demeaned to even ask a question before the doctor is out the door.
That’s when it’s time to fake it. But you must be prepared. Patient advocacy requires many things – time, attention and perseverance to start. Diplomacy and respect are other essential ingredients. Effective advocacy also requires a strong dose of chutzpah, that wonderful Yiddish word blending personal guts and gumption.
I have been advocating for my husband for more than a quarter-century through multiple hospitalizations and illnesses. One thing I have learned is that my role is as important as the doctors and nurses in ensuring he gets the best medical care. Acting on that knowledge means working with medical professionals as an equal, trusting my instincts and speaking up when I have questions or think something is wrong.
One of the most important jobs of the advocate is connecting the dots – asking the right questions, paying attention to details and making sure that the entire medical team is on the same page. Taking up the charge requires confidence. That can start with basic research to better understand the patient’s condition and be poised to ask smart questions.
Keeping good notes and staying organized helps the advocate pay attention to details and follow up on questions or concerns. Doctors don’t always communicate well with one another, and nurses are sometimes left out of the loop. Issues can fall between the cracks, and misunderstandings can affect patient care. A well-informed advocate can help keep communication flowing.
Advocates who are strong, persistent and professional get a better response from doctors too. When you act with diplomacy and respect, you are more likely to receive those same courtesies in return.
When you put it all together – education, organization and perseverance – confidence in your role as an advocate can grow. The more you do it, the better you get at it. Remember, you know the patient better than anyone else in the hospital. That counts for a lot in a setting that can seem bureaucratic and impersonal.
Draw upon your strengths, life experiences, street smarts and common sense. You can apply that sense of assurance to your advocacy role.
Prepare questions in advance; practice making your case in front of a mirror. If need be, assume you are an actor taking on a role. Remember that even a shaky start is better than no start at all. Before you know it, you won’t have to fake it at all.
Bonnie Friedman is the author of Hospital Warrior: How to Get the Best Care for Your Loved One and host of the podcast Hospital Warrior: Advocates and Experts on the Whole Care Network.
It’s one that every feline, domestic or wild, knows.
I’ve only been truly practicing waiting for a couple of years but in the beginning, waiting felt counterintuitive. I was quite comfortable being busy and spontaneous, slow to trust that waiting would yield any benefit to my goals or my life. When the idea was introduced through Human Design, I might never have trusted the concept of waiting had I not already experienced firsthand success using other Human Design tools.
I had always prided myself as a person willing to “jump in,” ready to take risks. Trying to prove myself, I experienced one failed enterprise after another. Naturally spontaneous, I trusted others more and never waited. I never graced myself with enough time, time that would eventually expose flaws or false foundations that were there from the beginning. The idea of slowing down, stopping, terrified me. I was mentally certain that if I did not act, the moment would be lost and I would lose out.
I felt courageous every time, diving in without question until years of hard work and effort melted away along with my confidence. Either betrayed, ashamed, or embarrassed, facing reality was retribution for what I eventually felt was a stupid decision. Licking my wounds, I didn’t wait but instead jumped into the next “greatest” opportunity. It was a cyclical nightmare.
Until I met Human Design and started waiting.
I now trust that “doing nothing” is “doing everything” as I move closer and closer to living the life I’ve always dreamed I was capable of living. Waiting gives me a chance for clarity, for personal honesty, for self-acceptance. Amazingly, the correct things find me. I trust myself and in the comfort of my own skin say “no” with certainty and “yes” with confidence.
I have to admit it was hard as heck in the beginning. Fears were amplified and frustrations increased my anxiety until I experienced results. In short order, however, practicing it renewed and saved my relationships, my health, and my sanity a thousand times over. Frustrated far less frequently these days, I am at peace and trust the unknown.
There is a traffic light near our home. It sits on an extremely busy street where drivers often run through red lights rushing by at speeds of up to 60 mph. I don’t trust green lights any longer. Instead of “go” they mean “wait and move cautiously.” That little shift in my perception has saved my life, literally and metaphorically, more than once.
Not everything is life-threatening and green lights can mean go; but in the words of my mentor and dear friend, Mary Ann Winniger, Wait!Trust that life knows where you live. I would add, “Enter the intersection slowly!” It’s a wonderful thing to discover that life is on your side and has been patiently waiting for you to slow down and join it!
If you’d like to know more about Human Design and how it can improve your life, please contact me at info@lydlifemap.com or visit my website at www.lydlifemap.com.
Having high emotional granularity is a vital tool for reducing emotional eating. The term was coined by Northeastern University Psychology Professor Lisa Feldman Barrett shortly after the turn of the century and refers to the ability to recognize, identify and express a full range of emotions. People with high emotional granularity have “finely tuned feelings.” They value emotions and are in touch with them most of the time. Moreover, they don’t lump all emotions together, but feel and can describe their nuances. Upset might be parsed as frightened, dismayed or exasperated. Angry might be viewed as frustrated, helpless or fearful.
Says Barrett, “Emotional granularity isn’t just about having a rich vocabulary; it’s about experiencing the world, and yourself, more precisely. This can make a difference in your life. In fact, there is growing scientific evidence that precisely tailored emotional experiences are good for you, even if those experiences are negative.” (“Are You in Despair? That’s Good,” The NY Times, 6/3/16, http://clbb.mgh.harvard.edu/are-you-in-despair-thats-good/#more-7340, accessed 1/29/19).
“According to a collection of studies, finely grained, unpleasant feelings allow people to be more agile at regulating their emotions, less likely to drink excessively when stressed and less likely to retaliate aggressively against someone who has hurt them…Perhaps surprisingly, the benefits of high emotional granularity are not only psychological. People who achieve it are also likely to have longer, healthier lives. They go to the doctor and use medication less frequently, and spend fewer days hospitalized for illness. Cancer patients, for example, have lower levels of harmful inflammation when they more frequently categorize, label and understand their emotions.”
There’s evidence that emotional granularity improves mental health. Higher emotional granularity translates to better coping skills and, therefore, fewer maladaptive behaviors such as addictions. Relationships also improve when people are attuned to emotions.
How emotionally granular are you? Do you have difficulty identifying your feelings? Do you ignore them? Lump them together? Therapy can help because it provides a safe place to learn about and discuss emotions. By becoming more tuned in to them, you’ll up your emotional intelligence and do less mindless or binge eating.
Across the miles they drove, journeying four hours north on washboard roads until they reached this country hill.
“We want to talk about the conference,” they had said on the phone. “We can fill you in on the details in person. The more you know about us, the easier it will be for you to prepare.”
I heard their words, but I was deaf to their hearts, because as the date of their visit approached, the puddle of panic around me grew deeper and murkier. The faithless ponderings multiplied:
They’ll be sorry they traveled all this way to meet someone so ordinary. What if they want to quiz me on my theology? I’m sure they’ll take one look at my tiny kitchen and my beat up wood floors and decide that I’m a mess, too.
This, for me, has been the challenge of the Christian life: to boldly welcome others into the mess that is me, and then to trust – to trust that God will build a bridge between our hearts, and to trust that others will respond with acceptance and love.
As it happens, my new friends arrived a few minutes late – GPS’s aren’t much help out here! More important, though, when they showed up in my driveway, they did not arrive bearing an impossible yardstick or hearts of judgment. They were not expecting me to look or sound like a conference speaker or to live in a museum of Pinterest perfection.
We exchanged warm hugs and settled down to business. They shared their stories and described their community, drawing me into their fellowship of women:
the diligent seekers after Truth; the heartsick lovers of prodigal children; the faithful caregivers who bridge and mend the generations; the patient prayer warriors who battle daily on behalf of unsaved husbands.
We broke zucchini bread together and my worries about my mum-jeans and sub-standard housekeeping practices were forgotten as we engaged in sincere prayer for the planning of the conference and for the women who would be challenged by the Truth.
I was the girl with the teakettle on the stove and my Canadian grandmother’s delicate cups and saucers all arranged to receive guests, but these women who had traveled across two state lines on an early Monday morning were the true extenders of hospitality.
They transcended geography, opened their hearts, and welcomed me into their lives in the spirit that Paul describes in Romans 15:7:
Therefore, receive one another just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.
Stretching out both hands to receive the world, Jesus’ act of cross-shaped love still flattens the barriers that appear so insurmountable to this fearful and self-protective introvert. God is mightily glorified when, by grace, we reach across the artificial boundaries of politics, race, or denomination in order to truly “receive one another” in unity and acceptance.
Wanting to send my new friends on their way with sweetness, I pulled tiny jars of apple butter from my basement shelves. But the greater gift that day was offered to me — the priceless welcome and deep hospitality of friendship.
Putting Emotions To Work To Overcome Your Eating Disorder
Whether you’re just beginning to address your under- or overeating problems or have been making steady progress over years or decades, there’s one area that you will have to come to terms with sooner or later to achieve full recovery. To achieve a satisfying, nourishing, happy, and successful life without food problems, you will have to learn how put your emotions to work for you. This means not dancing around them by eating or calorie counting, obsessing about what you can/can’t/should/shouldn’t eat, or focusing on whether the numbers on the scale are moving up or down.
For many disordered eaters, identifying and sitting with feelings is the last hurdle to becoming a “normal” eater. Most are willing and often eager to practice new food- and weight-related behaviors, such as making satisfying food choices, eating mindfully, taking larger or smaller bites, throwing out the scale, eating without distractions, taking deep breaths after each mouthful, and staying connected to the body’s pleasure center during the eating process. But most people with eating problems—actually, most people, period—have difficulty getting comfortable with feelings. It’s important for you to recognize that disordered eaters are far from the only ones who have difficulty handling emotions. To greater or lesser extent, everyone does.
Unfortunately, every time you use food (move toward or away from it) instead of feeling an authentic emotion, you miss an opportunity to discover something about what’s happening in your internal world. Think of your emotions as equivalent to your senses. The latter alert us to our reaction to our environment—thumbs up or thumbs down—through touch, smell, sight, hearing, and taste. Our feelings have a similar function as they provide us with information about our reaction to people and situations. The function of both our senses and our emotions is to move us toward pleasure and away from pain. Emotions help us decide what is self-threatening—smelling smoke and seeing flames across the room—and what is self-enhancing—sensory delight derived from gazing out over the ocean as gulls soar overhead and the sun dips into the sea.
If you’re like most people, you don’t realize the value and purpose of emotions and assume they’re not important, or worse, that uncomfortable feelings should be avoided at all cost. But, I bet you’d never think of shutting off your senses and wandering through the world without them. Well, that’s exactly what you do every time you ignore or minimize a feeling.
What if emotions aren’t the demons you’ve made them out to be? What if emotions are your teachers and your care-takers? What if they’re not trash but treasures?
One of the reasons that emotions get a bad rap is that they can feel truly awful. We may believe that if something doesn’t feel good, it can’t be good, but this is far from the truth. There are lots of painful cures to what ails us that we tolerate because we know they are necessary and promote ultimate health and well-being—injections, dental fillings and implants, physical therapy, and surgery, to name a few. No one says, gee, terrific, I’m going to have my body sliced open today and then I’ll be in pain for weeks on end recovering. However, inspite of the fact that it’s often a nasty business, people schedule surgery because they know they’ll feel better in the long run.
The same is true of emotions. Just because they hurt or make you feel badly does not mean they are bad. Like musical notes and colors (and foods too!), there are no good or bad emotions. They’re what’s called value neutral. Think of them as messengers, giving you vital information about what’s happening within your internal landscape—you’re disappointed, ashamed, overwhelmed, overjoyed, furious, grief-stricken, content, shocked, revolted, elated, confused, lonely, excited, helpless. True, some of these feelings are excruciating and hard to bear, but they do pass and people survive them every day and have since the beginning of human existence. Half the battle is allowing yourself to be with your feelings without making judgments about them or the kind of person you are for having them. It’s a great deal easier to acknowledge, identify, experience, explore, and deal with feelings without all the associated criticisms you have of them or of yourself.
Recovering from an eating disorder means blossoming into a full, emotionally mature person. For that to happen, you must (yes, must) learn to experience all of your feelings; you can’t pick and choose. Becoming emotionally healthy is an all or nothing proposition, but one you can learn over time. If you believe you can’t bear your feelings alone, find a therapist who can guide you through them. Share your feelings with friends, start a journal, hug yourself, cry, holler til you’re hoarse, beat your pillow, sob til you’re exhausted.
At some point in recovery, you have to choose between food and feeling. You already know where your food obsession will lead you, so why not give feelings a try?
