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Create A Mind, Body & Soul Connection This Year

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Each January brings excitement for being able to amp up the energy, clean the slate and start fresh. Change is good. Change is fun.  But most of the ads that bombard us each January revolve around losing weight, focusing on size and counting calories. But we are so much more than just the numbers on a scale! This year, aim to make a mind, body and soul connection that counts all parts of you in.

Here are some easy ways to create some fun, balance and growth this year…

Move your body because you love it – not because you hate it – In the new year’s onslaught of diet ads, before and after photos and pushes for gym memberships, choose to move because you love your body and want to lovingly better it – not because you think it is marred and broken. Stop counting calories and start counting moments – laugh your head off starting a new Zumba class, smirk as you shave a few seconds off your r-e-a-l-l-y long mile time, delight in being a sweaty beast after a gym session. Sign up for a dance class! Or simply have fun playing with your kids outside more. Take more breaks in your day for 15 minute walks. Change your mindset from wanting to fix something that is broken to wanting to improve something that is already ridiculously amazing.

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Dare to be you – It’s about thinking back to when you were a kid, remembering what lit you up, what made you giggle and reclaiming it. Ballet class, soccer or art? It’s about those classes you used to take that somehow faded away with kids and mortgages and bill payments. If your career is not where you want it to be, what tangible steps can you take to create change? Find YOU again and bring her out to play!

Shake up the dynamics – We all tend to get too comfortable in some regards and start doing things on autopilot. Creating new energy sometimes requires taking a step away from a situation to gain a new perspective – or glancing back in time to reawaken forgotten amazing energy. What romantic gestures did you express or which ones won your heart when you and your partner first started dating? Just becauses for no reason? Going to an obscure restaurant? Fun outings? Make a commitment to each other to shake it up! Is it time to create new traditions with your family or friends or revive old ones? You have the power to amp up the energy.

Appreciate the little things – Little things are never just little things! Make a commitment to mindfulness. This could entail something as simple as sitting on a park bench and appreciating a flower garden, taking the time to create a daily 5 second mantra of thanks, quietly appreciating the energy that went into the food on your plate at a meal. Most importantly, pat yourself on the back for every accomplishment you make this year – every “little thing” adds up to big changes.

Laugh more – If you can’t remember the last time you had a serious belly laugh – like holding your stomach on the floor belly laugh, you need to shake it up! Consciously bring more laughter into your world. Hit up a comedy show or movie, take an improv class, send your loved one funny text messages with a goofy photo attached. Rev up the goofy this year. It’s good for your mind, body and soul!

Create time, energy and space for you this year. Because when you feel alive, you have more to give to those around you and you will find even more goodness comes your way.

PSST! I write weekly on this seriously juicy book loving site.  This article originally appeared there. You can catch this article and my other articles and other really great ones by fabulous writers over here.

The Body Love Series: There Is No “Small” Accomplishment

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February 1, 2016 was a ridiculously awesome day.

I did one push-up.

Let’s back this up shall we…

I used to be an avid  bootcamper. Lunges. Squats. Ab work from hell. And tons of push-ups. Lots and lots of push-ups.  I remember being on a shoot in 2009 and the make-up artist was adding some lotion to my legs.  They were rock solid. So were my arms and well, my butt. I was curvy but solid. She flipped out. She had never met a model with such muscle. I was quite proud because for me I didn’t do those sessions to lose weight, to change my size, to have a ripped body. I did those classes because I felt great, because I pushed myself beyond my comfort zone, because they made me feel strong – mentally and physically.

I left every class in an exhausted, steamy haze of sweat – and I loved it! And here is the funny thing…every single person in my class did regular weigh-ins and measurement checks. I didn’t. (I was told I was the only woman in the history of the class not to!)  Those numbers weren’t fuelling me. My newfound strength and sense of accomplishment were fuelling me. As a model, I did have to take my measurements here and there in order to provide that information to clients needing to book a particular size but I never let this define me. One day I had to take my hip measurement for a clothing client that needed to know if a sample pair of pants would fit me….and I realized my hip size had increased…due to my behind becoming more defined from lunges! I thought it was hilarious that I was the only woman in the class loving the fact that her hip measurement  got b-i-g-g-e-r instead of smaller. It still amuses me.

When my workouts started to become impossible in 2011 due to Hashimoto’s, one of the first major difficulties I had was arm strength. I went from being able to crank out push-ups to feeling like my arms were jello. My push-ups left the building in 2011 and it has taken many years to get mobility, feeling and strength from my elbows down through my hands. I have been trying – weekly – to get my push-ups back.

I was in Venice Beach in LA in 2012 and was frustrated and pissed off I could no longer do a push-up. I had no idea at the time that Gluten Ataxia was attacking the messaging from my brain to my body parts, no idea that my system was going to shut down in a way I could not even fathom. I remember telling my friend Shelli that I just wanted to be able to do one. Just one. And she said,”Let’s do some. Right here. Right now. Your body needs help remembering how to do it.” And she practically lifted me in and out of 3 of them. Okay….she DID lift me in and out of 3 of them!  But I was so happy. It felt good. I love this photo because it is sheer triumph and joy, messy hair and all!

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Since then I have kept trying to get strength back and there have been so many tears of sheer determination shed and also many of sheer frustration. The one form of movement that I have been able to make work in my world has been mat Pilates which I have been taking Monday nights for as long as I can remember with my amazing and supportive teacher Svetlana. I had developed so much strength and so many skills over the years and I lost them all in the last few years and instead of starting from scratch, I started at a level way below where I had been years earlier.  She has seen me through so many stages! After my physiotherapy with Neuro-fit Systems in late 2014, I thought my arms were finally starting to get the messaging from my brain to M-O-V-E. Since January 2015 after returning from 3 months of physio, I have tried to do a push-up (with my knees on the ground)  at every Monday class and regularly at home. I celebrated a little bend of my arm. It took me almost an entire year to bend all the way down before collapsing.

I thanked my teacher before the 2015 Christmas holidays and I told her I was going to get my push-up back in 2016. And I warned her that when it happened, I may just yell in class and was apologizing ahead of time for the disturbance to the zen. She told me she expected and looked forward to me celebrating.

And last night, I got my push-up back.

(No, not a proper military one – no need to be cocky right now!)

I really wasn’t expecting it.

It was a gift out of the blue…

…6 years in the making!

I tried to be quiet. I really did. But 6 years of pent up frustration and joy and wonder and gratitude came spilling out and I think I did some form of a yelping victory shout just as Svetlana was watching me come out of the push-up. She knew what was happening and was grinning before I uttered a sound. My classmates all threw me loving words of congratulations. And then I went into child’s pose and wept and wept and slimed my mat with joyous tears. The rest of the class was a blur – literally – I kept crying and couldn’t see anything!

And something so “little” is so life changing. So empowering. Such a stunning, gorgeous gift to receive. Doing one push-up is quite easily one of my life’s greatest accomplishments.  Who knew one little action could mean so much?

I find it amazing as I am launching my Body Love Series, that I get this amazing gift.

So, when there is talk about weight and size and jumping on scales and counting calories and BMI this or that….I just want to say….who cares? I just did my first push-up in 6 years. My body is perfect. And so is yours. Ridiculously, amazingly perfect. No number on a scale, no size on the back of a bathing suit could ever be sweeter to me than my one push-up.  Can we change diet talk to accomplishment talk please?

Looking forward to having you join The Body Love Conversation and sharing your ideas, thoughts and journey.  Use the hashtag #BLC so we can all hear what you want to share.