1. How have I changed throughout 2011?

2. What areas of my life have changed and how?

3. What new people and friends have come into my life?

4. Where have I grown most?

5. What experiences have I learnt from and in what way?

6. Am I healthier now than I was a year ago?

7. What am I proud of?

8. What was my biggest achievement?

9. Have I learnt to love myself more?

10. Have I learnt to be less judgemental?

Make sure you write your answers down as this really helps you to focus and get into the zone

Creating conscious resolutions requires you to be focussed and relaxed as this really helps you get in touch with what desires and activities align with you truly being you. It doesn’t matter if everyone else around you is starting a new diet or exercise regiment or vowing not to eat chocolate for the next 3 weeks. Resolutions are more likely to work if you make them from conscious awareness rather than from the frantic mind chatter that can drive us all to breaking point. I have provided you with :

7  simple steps to creating more conscious resolutions.

1. To begin, sit or lie down if you prefer. Take a deep breath, then take another and allow your whole body to relax. Close your eyes and bring your attention to your breathing and just take a few minutes to relax.

2. When you feel relaxed and focused think about some of your achievements or accomplishments during 2011. The ones that you have just reflected on and allow yourself to really enjoy the feelings and sensations that arise as you remember.

3. Now allow something to come into your mind, something that didn’t happen for you last year that you would really like to happen this year. If more than one thing arises that is ok, but try to stay focused on two or three.

4.  Really focus on what you would like or what you desire. Don’t focus on what you want as “wanting” can push things further and further away. To desire something works more effectively. Take your time and don’t rush the process.

5. When you have two or three possible resolutions ask yourself if this is something that really feels good, then listen to the answer. If it does feel good and right for you …fantastic, it sounds like you have just made your first conscious resolution. When you have created one or two more, open your eyes, sit up and now find a pen and paper.

6. Its important to write your resolutions down as you can then refer back to them at any point throughout the year. If you have only managed to come up with one that’s ok, you can always repeat the process if you would like to make another one.

7. Finally decide what action you need to take to get the ball rolling. Where you need to be, who you need to get in touch with and what it really will involve to bring this to be. If you don’t take the action then nothing will change.  Just to finish off why not ask one of the” Access Consciousness” questions “What else is possible” and see what comes back .

“The nature of our thoughts, feelings and intentions are reflected in our lives, our bodies and our world. Relationships are a large part of our lives and without them life might actually seem pretty pointless.  Feeling the connection with another person and having them understand and support you in difficult times, or sharing a coffee and a chat are just a few of the things that make life worthwhile.

What we might not be so conscious of is that how we relate to food is often reflected in how we relate to other people or even to ourselves. Think for a moment about the relationships you have in your life right now and what they are saying about you and your relationship with food or even the relationship you have with yourself. Are you someone who is a Yo-Yo dieter, always worried about what you are eating, eating certain foods and then feeling guilty after you have eaten them.

 This type of relationship with food might suggest that you have little or no self worth, always worried about what people think. Believing what they think about you is important. Similarly in your relationships with your friends you may find that you always like to please everyone all of the time and find it hard to say no, feeling guilty when you do. As long as everyone else is all right it doesn’t really matter about you, you never really speak your truth or express how you are really feeling. Your relationships may then feel rather empty, meaningless and superficial.

Or are you someone who likes to be in control all the time, eats by the clock, only eats particular foods on particular days and is very choosy and fussy about what foods you eat as they don’t always agree with you. Do you often come out in a rash, feel bloated, get headaches or feel very lethargic after eating certain foods etc. Again looking at your relationships with your friends you might  find you hold yourself back from them, you might find it hard to trust some of them, don’t really say what you feel and unconsciously choose people that may hurt you or push you around.

When you become more mindful of your relationship with food and begin to understand that you can have a healthy relationship with food. You might be surprised at how your relationships with people also begin to change and your relationship with yourself.”

This wisdom can also be applied to other areas of your life including your relationship with money. Again what you believe and what you eat reflects how you feel about yourself. Look at what you put on your plate and what you think your body needs or deserves. My book  ”Hot Chocolate for Your Soul” discusses this and what role food actually plays in our lives. Think about the role food plays in your life? Are you denying yourself, are you trying to hide how you feel or are you trying to distract yourself. Do you believe you can’t have what you would really like, freedom, a different  job, more money, a great relationship etc ?All these beliefs and thoughts you have about  yourself play a part in how, what, where, why and when you chose to eat.

The intention behind “Hot Chocolate for Your Soul” is to empower and guide you, to help you get back in touch with your intuition and knowing. When you follow the natural rhythms of your body, and really listen to your body’s signals of hunger and satisfaction, something you did without thinking as a child, and something you can easily learn to do again, you will learn that you can trust yourself to eat what you want ant lose weight .  My six and twelve week coaching courses help to guide you through this process.

Why do we get upset and believe the health professionals when they tell us we don’t fit into their BMI chart exactly where we should. Now don’t get me wrong I have endless amounts of respect for health professionals and believe they do a great job, but when it comes to telling us what box we need to fit into, then I do begin to dig my heels in.

Yes there are and will continue to be lots of research and evidence showing the benefits of maintaining a healthy, balanced diet. I am not suggesting for one moment that this is not good, empirical evidence. What I am suggesting is, that if we all take a little more time and begin to listen to our own bodies without following diet programmes, without succumbing to comfort eating (because you now understand what this is) and without ever eating any more special diet foods, then easy long term weight loss will happen naturally.

Many of us have been taught and believe that eating and physical exercise should be dealt with by someone else. Diets have a failure rate of 98% so why do we keep buying and trying more and more. I’m sure if you bought a new computer or a car and it didn’t do what the instructions said, then you wouldn’t buy it again. You would call yourself crazy if you did, wouldn’t you?

But many may argue that if you stick to the diet, it will work, but who wants to eat diet food or stay on a diet for the rest of your lives, because that’s what it amounts to. Diets only work as long as you stick to them, and diets are about deprivation, lack and self-judgment.

Surely it’s kinder to you and your body if you follow a process that encourages you to just listen to your body’s cues. Imagine eating in response to hunger and stopping when you feel full and satisfied, perhaps not perfectly at first but all the while keeping a gentle eye towards your nutritional needs.

Wouldn’t you prefer to bounce out of bed every morning not knowing what you will eat that day? The process is not without its challenges, not really feeling very sure about how to listen to your body, learning how to recognise simple body cues. But for many just having that freedom, trusting ourselves and having that physical and nutritional awareness instead of looking for someone else to give you that information and permission …… wouldn’t you call that wisdom? Trust yourself. All of us have always known what to eat and when to take some form of physical exercise. We still do.

There are different ways of carrying out muscle testing but the method I would recommend is the following because it is so easy to learn and works on pretty much everyone. If you find something difficult to learn then the chances are you will give up very quickly.

From my other blogs you will have come to understand that people who have weight issues or have become comfort eaters, mindless eaters, chronic dieters etc have become so disconnected from their bodies that they really don’t know how to listen to their bodies any more. Listening to your body can also seem rather strange if this is something you have never done before and if you don’t get it quickly, then the chances are you will just give up and believe that it doesn’t work.

Muscle testing is a bit different, and you can actually see your body responding to your questions. No it’s not you responding to your questions, it is your body answering your questions. When you can really begin to see and trust your body’s response, this becomes a real gift and can open up your awareness in so many other areas of your life. When I was going through the worst phase of my food intolerances, I used muscle testing incredibly successfully.

Using “Yes” and “No” questions is the best way to do muscle testing as you body can’t answer complicated questions. There really is no right or wrong way. Over time you will develop your own way of testing and asking questions.

1.  Stand with your feet together and hold the food or drink in front of your stomach or solar plexus area.

2.  Ask “Does my body want to eat this?”

3. Allow your body to relax and sway/rock. If your body moves forward then this is a positive sign and means YES. If it moves backwards it means NO. If it remains still or if it moves side to side this means your body is unsure or doesn’t know. Sometimes it may be the way the question is framed or it may be the wrong question.

 Muscle testing can be used on pretty much anything including supplements, medication, drinks, alcohol etc. You can also use it in many other areas of your life. Just make sure the question is simple and allow your body to respond, not your mind.

I recently used muscle testing on a relationship issue I had. The question I asked was” Will this person be a contribution to my life” and the answer I got was “No”. I then asked a few friends what they thought and they all disagreed, so to my detriment I ignored my body’s response and ended up dealing with the unpleasant consequences of my action, which I really could have done without. So the learning here is, Ignore your body’s answers at your own peril!

 Yes initially when I heard the name, I thought, what a strange name, I wonder what this is? Perhaps I first need to explain what “Access Bars” is  and then I will tell you the huge benefits of “Having your Bars Run”.

“Running the Bars” is all about running the bars of energy that we all have in our heads. It is a very simple process, where the facilitator lightly touches each one of 32 points on your head to release the energy. Following the process of “Having your Bars Run,” can leave you with a sense of peace and space and a feeling like there is more possibilities open to you. This is a dynamic process that will leave you feeling calm and refreshed.

Some people feel as though they have had a very deep restful sleep, while others can feel very light and energetic. Everyone experiences the process in their own way but “Having your Bars Run” can change your life in some very powerful ways.

“Access Bars” helps people accept and believe that they can actually receive. Receiving is not really done on this planet. So many of us are so busy doing, doing, doing, we never actually allow ourselves to receive. Only by allowing ourselves to receive are we giving ourselves the chance to experience life in a different way. So apart from the benefits I have already mentioned, what else is possible? Well the following are just a few more possible benefits:

• Relieves tension in your mind and body
• Reduces mind chatter and stress
• Helps you feel lighter and more energised
• Helps release many blocks caused by an accumulation of feelings such as anger, frustration, and anxiety
• Having more courage to take risks
• Feeling positive about embracing change
• Easily letting go of past issues and self-limiting beliefs
• Letting go relationships that no longer serve you
• Being able to move from chaos to peace
• Releasing and letting go negative thoughts and beliefs that have been holding you back
• Forgiving others easily
• Being less judgmental of everything and more loving of everything
• Removing that old pattern of “being hard on yourself”
• Accepting yourself and others in a more positive light
• Seeing things with such clarity and awareness
• Improved intuitive abilities

We all create our own reality with our thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Having your Bars run allows us to energetically shift so much of the junk and negativity we carry and have stored up over many lifetimes. The result of a bars session can really leave you feeling completely blown away. So much stuff can be released during just one session.

Each new session accesses new energies and different areas in your life. Having your Bars run once a week for 3 or 4 weeks will make you feel so much better and you will begin to notice just how much your life changes. When you begin to feel anxious, sad, out of sorts or whatever, it is a sure sign you need to have your Bars run.

I am now a trained facilitator and can offer Bars Sessions and Bars Training Days. You can find out more by visiting my web page here.

Intuition for me is the information that I hear when I quiet my mind and really listen. It is the difference between my intellectual mind and my “knowing” or my conscious mind. It is the information that lies beyond my intellect.

 As children we are much more likely to act out of our intuition and parents might ask their children…”Why did you do that” or “Why did you say that”…..often the child will respond by saying, “I don’t know, I just did” or “it just felt right” or “something inside me seemed to be telling me this was the best way or the best thing to say”.

Have you ever experienced that yourself, when you just know you are doing the right thing? For me that is intuition and because we are all so wrapped up in our busy lives, filling our heads with endless mind chatter we don’t really take the time to hear that small quiet voice urging us to listen and be guided.

Many of us have lost the ability to get in touch with our intuition, or to act intuitively because we would much rather trust what others say and be guided by them or the information they provide us with. Eating mindfully involves listening to your intuition and that means trusting your inner knowing or the information you hear when you quiet your mind.

Today the value of intuition can be lost when we eat. Animals instinctively know what to eat and how to survive and they do it without reading books or following instructions from anyone. We have the same ability, but it can and does get lost in what we read and what we are told we should eat by many of the so-called experts. But each one of us is our own expert and mindful eating can help you get in touch with your own intuition.

Developing your intuition for mindful eating

1. Allow yourself to believe that your intuition is available to you at all times and  know that all you need to do to access it, is practice.

2. Get focused and ask a specific question. If you ask a specific question it will be easy to recognise the information when it comes to you. It may help to write the question down and then ask.

3. You then need to act on the information or guidance you receive. For example, if you asked “How hungry am I?”… that is not really specific enough. A better question might be to ask “How hungry am I on a scale of 0-10 where 0 represents not at all hungry and 10 represents starving. Depending on the answer will then allow you to take the appropriate action.

4. Let go of what you would like the answer to be. You may want something specific to eat, but intuitively your body is asking for something else. If you don’t listen to the guidance and eat what you want, then the chances are you will eat something that is not what your body needs. Act on the guidance you receive and not on the outcome you want. Only then are you truly aligning with what is in your best interest

5. Develop a sense of appreciation and gratitude for the information you receive. As you begin to develop your intuition for mindful eating you will find it easier to access and ask for this guidance in other areas of your life. Your life will begin to change! Just notice!

Easy Long Term Weight Loss is every dieters dream! What stops you from achieving this? Perhaps you are a comfort eater! Weight gain can become quite a problem if you continue to eat in this way. Comfort eating or emotional eating is more about reacting to your feelings or emotions rather than responding to your true physical signs of hunger.

Unless you understand what is happening then this cycle can go on for a long time and weigh gain can become a big problem. You may become confused and not understand why you are gaining weight, not realising what you are doing and you may even start to believe there is something wrong with your metabolism, and that’s why you are gaining weight. Anyone who eats in this way is not eating because they are hungry, food is being used to suppress feelings, deny feelings or to give short term comfort. You are probably completely unaware you are doing this or you believe there is nothing you can do to change it.

The reason we gain so much weight by eating this way is because the comfort is only short term, the food is often high fat, sugar or salt and the feelings won’t go away. The feelings or emotions will gradually begin to bubble back up to the surface and again you will reach out to try and ease or suppress these feelings with yet more food and so the cycle continues.

When you begin the process of mindful eating you will begin to respond to your natural hunger cues rather than react. Mindful eating helps you to recognise how you feel and what kind of hunger you are experiencing prior to eating. Following the process of mindful eating will help you become more aware and notice things. When this happens you are more likely to eat something in response to your body’s true hunger cues and not out of a reaction to your emotions or feelings.

The following is an excerpt from my book “Hot Chocolate for Your Soul” I have chosen these two paragraphs because they show you how comfort eating or emotional eating can be experienced and may help you to understand why you do this, that you are not alone and that there is a very simple process that can help you change this. 

 ”Sadness and the pain of depression have been factors in my life and I have often used food to help me deal with it.  I use food, particularly high carbohydrate products as a way of shutting off whatever the feelings are.  If  I eat a large amount of high carbohydrate food like bread, biscuits or cake, the natural result is a feeling of lethargy and drowsiness, and often a long sleep.  Whilst I am asleep, I feel no pain, so I suppose I am using food as a sedative.”

“When I think about my relationship with food, the first thing I think about is comfort.  Food provides me with comfort when I am feeling sad, bored, tired, angry or stressed.  I have been able, through talking to sensitive people, friends, counsellors etc to see where the comforts of food came from, and whilst this is a useful insight, it does not necessarily change my behaviour.  I am aware that this needs to come from within, and I am not there yet.”

I recall in a previous post that I promised I would write about awakening to consciousness. I am aware of being on this journey to consciousness and have found that practising mindfulness has been really helpful throughout the process.

Consciousness to me is about being in the present, awareness is about knowing  that you are in the present and mindfulness  is about being aware of the present moment. They are all really very similar but with subtle differences. Practising mindfulness regularly can take us to the highest levels of consciousness.

Unconscious 

Many of us have so much going on in our lives and have this constant “mind chatter”  which prevents us from really being present and for that reason we could be described as being unconscious. We believe we are the voice we hear in our head, constantly criticising ourselves, nagging ourselves, putting ourselves up or down and really believing that we are these thoughts, beliefs, put me downs etc .We completely identify with our thoughts and we don’t even know we are doing this. Have you ever really stopped to listen to your “mind chatter” and heard yourself say things like, “I can’t believe I’m doing this”, “I must be mad” ……………that is when we are completely identified with the mind and believe we are our thoughts.

When we live our lives at this level of consciousness we can often feel, threatened and unsafe continually looking for approval while always needing to be in control. We may become depressed and negative when things don’t go our way or we don’t get what we want. We are always looking to make ourselves feel better from external sources and from outside ourselves believing that we are separate from everything and everyone. Much of our behaviour at this level comes from our reaction to life and our circumstances rather than our response.

Awakening Consciousness
Awakening to consciousness requires us to be present and know what our minds are doing and what thoughts we are having. By doing this we begin to understand ourselves better and see more clearly. When we become fully present in the moment and stop being absorbed in the drama of our lives and minds, only then can we experience being fully conscious. When we allow ourselves to do this, we can then consciously respond to people and situations rather than react. This can and does bring about a great sense of peace.

Mindfulness

As we begin to examine our minds, we become more mindful. As we change and follow the process of becoming more mindful, we learn to think of the impact our thoughts and behaviours can have on others. Mindfulness is about deliberately paying attention to ourselves but in a non-judgmental, detached way. It’s about observing everything inside and outside ourselves and includes all our thoughts, emotions, memories, images, and sensations. By practicing mindfulness you begin to notice how things are without trying to change them and without allowing yourself to be drawn into the drama of it. This kind of practice helps us to accept ourselves exactly as we are. It also develops our awareness and helps us begin to work out what parts of ourselves we are accepting, what parts we might be rejecting and that we are not our self-generating thoughts and emotions.

Mindful Eating

I really just want to summarise here and say that mindful eating is a fantastic practice to adopt. By practicing mindful eating you will begin to see things from a different perspective and notice how much of your life actually begins to change. It is only when we begin to focus on the inside and address our own issues that our lives on the outside begin to change. That’s why mindful eating does not in anyway involve dieting. Dieting is about trusting what someone else is telling you and not trusting that you….. your awakened consciousness, that still voice you hear when the “mind chatter” stops,  does know what foods are right for you in each and every moment. Happy eating!

Jeni

Photo courtesy: www.sunipix.com

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
copyright © 1999 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, margarita (G&T?) in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ~ WOO HOO what a ride!”