I just read a Good Health column in my local newspaper, The Sun Sentinel, by Dr Paul Donahue, MD.  I have long liked the practicality and comprehensive nature of Dr Donahue’s approach.  I’ve read and clipped many articles in which he gives solutions which aren’t based only in traditional medical knowledge.

Recently a reader asked Dr Donahue about exercising to lose weight.  He replied, “45 minutes of brisk walking at least 4 times a week takes off 18 pounds in 1 year, and walking those 3 hours a week lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke by 40%.”

Dr Donahue got my attention.

I’m so busy focusing on getting my stuff done, I don’t always take time to do what I need to do to stay healthier.  I love walking, and I have some great places to walk nearby.  I also have wonderful neighbors and a husband who like to walk.

I have no excuse to keep me from adding regular walking to my health practices.

Here’s what I love about Dr Donahue the most.  In the article, “Brisk Walking Helps You Lose That Weight,” he ends by sharing a tip to prevent boredom and increase calorie burning.  He says, “Walk fast for 90 seconds, slow down for 90 seconds, and continue the pattern for the walk.”

Note to Dr Donahue:  You hit a nerve.

I can make the time, but I sometimes get bored when I’m walking.

I find myself hurrying up good practices so I can get my other stuff done that day.  That feeling of boredom could be coming from not being fully present in my walking.  Anytime we’re not fully present in the task at hand, we create stress and overwhelm.

I need ways to stay present while I’m enjoying the walk.  I’ll be working on that!

Read more about Dr Donahue at:

http://kingfeatures.com/features/columns-a-z/to-your-good-health/

The film, BULLY,  3+stars, from USA Today reviewer, Claudia Puig, was just released in theaters.

“A must-see film that’s also hard to watch.  Classrooms, cafeterias, and school buses can be places of anguish for millions of children, as powerfully demonstrated in BULLY, an insightful and moving documentary.  The film, which tells the story of 5 victims of bullying, should be required viewing for everyone ages 8-18…it wouldn’t hurt to make the documentary mandatory for parents, teachers, and school officials as well.”

According to the article: “The Motion Picture Association of America denied the filmmakers’ petition for a PG-13 rating because of concerns over profanity. “  The distributor is leaving it up to individual theaters to set admission policies.”

The MPAA had the option to contribute to the welfare of younger children by making Bully an unrated film.  Many of these unrated documentaries have done well at the box-office in the past.

Did you know all the popular profanity when you were in grammar school?  Perhaps you grew up in a family, as I did, which didn’t allow me to experience it, and it certainly wasn’t allowed on television or in theaters when I was a kid.  Is there a child alive today, over 6. who hasn’t heard and repeated the proliferance of profanity in our culture? 

Is it possible that witnessing a very real documentary about how profanity can be used to demean , control, and bully others would actually be educational for kids?

I trained with a profound teacher of attitudes who created a program to rehabilitate hardened felons in a federal prison.  He reversed the recidivism rate for most of those felons he taught.  It is a well accepted fact that the majority of hardened criminals have experienced abuse and bullying as a child.

To quote my teacher, the late Dan MacDougald, Jr:  “Words in a society are important.  A society’s words decline before the culture declines.  People commonly demean a victim with words before they inflict physical harm.  Riots are started by speeches, thieves usually belittle their victims.  Destructive or negative behavior rarely occurs unless there has first been destructive or negative speech.”  We see this demonstrated regularly in cases of domestic abuse in which verbal abuse escalates to physical abuse.

What can you do?  Make a conscious choice to get involved and take action:
*See the movie, “Bully,” with your children
*Request theaters show it to younger children
*Talk to your schools about making this film mandatory

You know it’s too late to educate and protect children at the age of 13.
Do it now!

Read the USA Today article:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/story/2012-03-30/bully-documentary/53874516/1

The emotions of anger, fear, or shame often create uncomfortable feelings, and build anxiety.  Sometimes these uncomfortable feelings can lead to a more uncomfortable mood.  We instinctively realize that if we can avoid the feelings coming from the emotions, we may avoid the mood.  Too often we look for an experience or a behavior to block our uncomfortable feelings.

Why do you crave a dessert just after discovering you’ve gained weight?  Why do you feel the desire to go shopping when your credit card is over the limit?  Though these behaviors are the last ones you should choose, your brain is simply trying to lessen the stress you feel when you discover that something is not the way you want it.

Humans, and some animals, use behaviors to block uncomfortable feelings.  You may recognize one or more of these blocking behaviors, and you may also have some of your very own:

• Eating
• Sleeping
• Drinking
• Shopping
• Computing
• Texting
• Working
• Drugging
• Exercising
• Giving
• Busyness
• Cleaning

Blocking behaviors don’t just block uncomfortable feelings, some bring you pleasure and satisfaction when your brain’s neurotransmitters release dopamine.  The problem with some of these behaviors is that they can also block your joy.  When you combine some of these behaviors, you create a state of overwhelm.  Check a dictionary for overwhelm, and you’ll often find the antonym, the opposite of overwhelm, is joy.

Overwhelm occurs when we become overcome in feeling or in mind, and it affects most of us at some time in our lives.  When we reach a state of overwhelm, our first reaction is to create rigid agendas.

An agenda is a plan or list to be acted on, something we think we want.  Most of our agendas include plans to simplify, organize, eliminate, dictate, or control.  We think our agendas can stop our overwhelm, but our agendas make it worse.  When we put our agendas into place, we begin operating in our heads, rather than in our hearts.

Now we’re in a vicious circle.  When we allow ourselves to stay in our heads, we are keeping ourselves overwhelmed to once again avoid our feelings.  Some of these feelings we are avoiding could be lack of worth, sadness, loneliness, fear, or anger.  We keep ourselves so unfeeling and busy that we lose our joy.

To escape overwhelm and get our joy back, we need an action plan to become aware of the effects and causes of our own agendas.  When we learn how to maintain loving attitudes of mind towards others, our source, and ourselves, we can reconnect with our heart, our feelings, and our joy.

Are your agendas taking over your life?  Are your friends and family feeling that you are more and more rigid and inflexible?  You may be blocking your joy with overwhelm.  Your choice is to come back to operating in heart, and to reconnect with your own deepest values.

http://Surrender Your Agenda: Finding Your Life Purpose is a focused 12 session audio course for women who want to get the joy back in life.

Joy & Blessings,  Carole  xx

Most of the world’s women are overwhelmed.  Overwhelm can destroy your joy, and overwhelm can waste your life.  How does your overwhelm affect you and affect those you love?

If you’re like most women in the world:

• You can’t catch up with all you have to do
• You don’t get any real relaxation
• You seldom feel you are doing enough
• You feel powerless to stop the increasing demands on you
• You are frustrated, sad, and angry with your life’s direction

As a woman you are set up to be overwhelmed because of the unique factors you deal with: Your commitment to your family, your work inside and outside the home, your caring for others, the world’s message of what you should be, and your lack of time and energy.

Check the list below to see which factors describe you.  Many of your symptoms may be a result of overwhelm.  Some symptoms attributed to other factors may be increased by overwhelm.  If you experience 3 or more symptoms, you could greatly benefit from lowering your stress:

• EXHAUSTION
• ANGER
• LOSS OF HUMOR
• SLEEPING PROBLEMS
• FRUSTRATION
• CRANKINESS
• RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS
• WEIGHT PROBLEMS
• RESENTMENTS
• LOSS OF SEXUAL INTEREST
• DISCOURAGEMENT
• LACK OF FOCUS
• HEALTH ISSUES
• SADNESS
• HOPELESSNESS

Overwhelm does not go away on its own, and it can get worse.  So how can you lose the overwhelm, and get your life back?  How can you control your stress and overwhelm and bring joy back into your life?  Any real change begins with an understanding of what is causing overwhelm and a course of action.

Overwhelm can occur in life when 3 feelings are present:

1. Not being able to feel a sense of accomplishment no matter how hard you work
2. Feeling helpless to stop the factors that are causing overwhelm
3. Feeling hopeless and feeling despair knowing that you do not see relief in your future

If you are overwhelmed now, you may react by creating more and more agendas and plans to control it.  You may be trying to organize, eliminate, communicate, and dictate to keep it away.  You may have become a person you don’t want to be.  You may have lost your ability to share and connect with your family and friends.  Your head is running your heart.  You may be filling yourself up with busyness to maintain a sense of worth.

What’s the cure for overwhelm and what heals a life which is overloaded, overtired, overstressed, and overcome?  A realization that your overwhelm is not in your career or home, but in your own spirit, that part of you which needs to feel purpose, fulfillment, and joy.  To do that you must connect to your deepest values and your true loving self.  You can move from overwhelm to joy when you surrender your agendas and let your heart rule.

Joy & Blessings, Carole  xx

Her elderly mom, who lives alone in another city, was having some challenges.  My friend had been planning to visit her in a few weeks, but was feeling she should leave earlier than originally planned.  She had received a report from a brother who lived nearby her mom.

My friend needed to talk about the situation.  She was working through her options, and her deepest feelings about what she should do.  We spent several minutes going over the situation, and she became clearer.  Just talking about the situation to someone who cared helped her get more clarity about her real feelings.

We all have a lot to do, often causing us to multitask, and to give half attention and effort to many of the routine things we do everyday.  We move through things on our lists rapidly, often looking ahead to where we need to focus next.  We may not remember something significant at the end of a day, if we haven’t completely connected to it.  This is the very definition of overwhelm, the very absence of peace or understanding.

In Surrender Your Agenda: Finding Your Life Purpose, a course I developed for stressed and overwhelmed women, one of the most important choices which I encourage everyone to make is that of being fully present wherever you are, and in whatever you are doing throughout the day.

When we are fully present we make a real connection to others and to ourselves.  Being fully present defeats much of the overwhelm and stress of our lives, because it allows us to let our minds rest from everything else while we are engaged in what we are doing.  Our attitude of mind actually changes when we focus in on what is important for us to prioritize in the moment.  When we are present with a situation, a task, or a person our perception is focused on our purpose right here, right now.

We all spend lots of time and energy on the gifts we give to others during the holidays, or for birthdays, or other special occasions.  Becoming fully present with the living beings in your life is one of the greatest gifts you can ever give them.  Who in your life would receive great benefit from a deep and conscious connection to you?  Several people may come to mind immediately.  I would suggest to you  everyone in your life would receive benefits from your being fully present in your interaction with them, no matter how short that interaction may be.

We now know multitasking is seldom effective.  The brain cannot truly focus on several tasks simultaneously, and resorts to focusing in sequentially short attentions to each task involved.   The greatest argument against multitasking is it keeps us from fully experiencing  the living beings who give meaning and purpose to our life.

Take the time to be connected to the living beings in your life.  Bring yourself back to the moment whenever you notice you are slipping into another time or place.  Give the gift of your presence to others.  Take the time to acknowledge the people who cross your path.  They are your teachers, as you are theirs.

One of the greatest joys in life is real connection to others.  It is a gift.  You can change your habit of multi-tasking by choosing to be fully present in each moment.  You change your habits by creating new intention and purpose.

Take the time today to express real feelings to someone, to understand someone, to be quiet with someone, to support someone, to hold a hand, to laugh together, to share the moment.  Live your life fully and consciously.  Give your gift of presence to others and to yourself.  Give yourself.

Joy & Blessings, Carole  xx

Our emotional brains react to anything quicker than our thinking brains. Daniel Goleman, one of my great mentors, says this jumping to conclusions is part of our most primitive survival response. It can sometimes go into overload and be involved in creating more  overwhelm and stress for us.

Jumping to conclusions is caused by more than a simple brain reaction. We take ourselves too seriously!  This is where anger and fear attitudes can generate.  I’m being polite.  We fall into the very human trap of believing our own thinking is the only reality, and are surprised when overwhelm and lack of connection to others results!

A great truth that someone shared with me, sometime, somewhere: “Two or more people have greater access to the truth.”We all need healthy feedback, and we need other loving people to give it to us. Loving feedback is one of the greatest gifts we humans give each other.  If we don’t get this exchange with others, we start to believe our own stuff!  Believing our own stuff is not pretty, and it’s not good for us or for others.

A close friend, who gives great feedback by the way, sent me a hilarious link to one of the funniest men of all time, Bob Newhart.  Take the time to watch this video, and be prepared to laugh out loud.  I’m giving you the link at the end of this post.

Laughing is so important for us.  It works magic on our mind, our body, and our spirit. It builds a stronger immune system, and exercises the heart.  It even changes the autonomic nervous system, alters stress hormones and neurotransmitter levels (the substances we need to transmit nerve impulses.) If we can laugh at ourselves and take ourselves less seriously, we will be a healthier person, in mind, body, and spirit.

Norman Cousins, in 1976, wrote a great book about the effects of laughter on the health of the body.  Check out, “Anatomy of an Illness,” especially if you have chronic pain.

Make a Joy Choice for yourself.  Start taking several breaks during the day to regenerate yourself.  Do what you have to do to remember….put up reminders, set an alarm…but do it! Overwhelm and stress relief is not just about being quiet, meditating, praying, but also about being a natural animal, laughing and having fun, and interacting with others, even getting some loving feedback.

• Put some laughter in a break…you know how
• Talk to a supportive friend or partner…share thoughts and feelings and listen to another’s view
• Be silly by yourself, with others, with your pet
• Get out of your head and into your heart in your own way

“Believe Your Own Stuff?” (video link for next time you’re being too serious with yourself!)

Joy & Blessings,  Carole  xx

As I write this, we’re winding up a Caribbean cruise.  It was a great getaway, even though cellphones and computers now operate on most ships.  There was a time, not so long ago, when we could cruise away from it all, without a virtual connection back to the real world of home and business.  Not so anymore!

These days, cruises are great for all types of people…from the elderly, to kids, to special needs.  I love cruises, because I really love the ocean …but the secret reason I love cruises is because I love the lull period, which happens sometime in the middle of the voyage.  This mindless time happens when I’m lulled into the peaceful place of not having to think, or steer, or even plan dinner….For a couple of days, I’m just on cruise control.

This glorious time of blissful relaxation only lasts for a brief moment in time, to be replaced by something very different in the last few days we are at sea.  Always, predictably, in the last few days of any cruise, my mind begins the gradual shift back to reality and responsibility.  Even when I try to stay on cruise control, reminders of work, and of home, start to creep in, and I begin returning to making conscious choices.

I write for people who are developing, and growing, and nurturing their potential and purpose in life.  Conscious choice is something I write and speak about, because conscious choice is the glue and foundation of our potential and purpose. Conscious choice keeps us on track, and on course, for creating who we want to be in our lives.  Each choice that we make now, appears as our future potential…choices we make now limit, and determine, what choices will be available to us in our future.  What we are currently receiving in our present life, we have most likely chosen, and given, in the past.

Because we need to be aware and focused on conscious choice so much of the time, we all need cruise time..a time when we can relax not just our bodies, but also relax our minds and our spirits…times when we can be carefree.  The truth is…a cruise doesn’t always have to take place on a ship. We can experience cruise control anytime that we create a space to still the day to day world…we can do that in any way that works for us….any way from gardening, to walking, to bathing, to playing, to sitting.  The key to turning an ordinary time into cruise time, is the intention we bring to the space.  Cruise time must be chosen…it will not appear unless you consciously choose it.  The secret to experiencing real relaxation in mind, body, and spirit, is that we must give our full attention, and focus, to what we are doing….we must be totally present….No multitasking, or turning our mind to choices is allowed.

An old friend once said that she liked regular days more than holidays…I never forgot what she said, and I realize that now I find myself feeling that same way.  She was a joyful and creative person.  She was content in her life.  Special days weren’t so outstanding to her, because she loved the reality she had created for herself.…She was a woman fulfilling her potential.  When we make choices that bring us closer to who we are in our purpose, we too, will love each day, and be focused in the present.

Could you take some cruise time today?  Could you choose a time, and an activity, or a relaxation, which would quiet your mind, relax your body, and refresh your spirit?  Could you plan that time into your day?  Could it be a gift you give yourself?  Could you consciously choose to take cruise time?  Go ahead…turn off the world, and sail away!  And wherever you are, be there!

When you return from your cruise, notice the souvenirs you bring back with you….I know you brought back some gifts for yourself, too….a few little things like:

Renewed energy

More patience

Sharper focus

New perspective

Fresh creativity

Your presence is important to everything you do.  Be present in all your life…and you will enjoy it!  Consciously choose some cruise time, and remember your sunscreen!  Shine on!

Joy & Blessings, Carole  xxx

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…