Today I hit a wall of resistance in my weight loss effort.  It happens.  You are excited with the journey, things are going along great, then whammy!! You are in resistance.

Resistance is a trick of the mind.  It is when your mind is faced with moving outside the comfort zone.  Your mind's job is to keep you safely in what it knows, aka the comfort zone.  You can be miserable but still in your comfort zone because that is what it knows, misery.

When you start a new endeavor, in this case, losing weight you might be totally excited and ready!  You might start exercising and eating a bit less and making better, healthier choices.  Maybe you are feeling the high from all those vitamins and minerals you are getting from the freshly squeezed juices and smoothies you are now making (that is how I bought a Vitamix at Coscto-free samples).

Then one day you wake up and Kablam, you are in resistance.  Resistance is tricky and smart.  Resistance looks different to us all and it changes.  It can be waking up and not feeling like exercising.  It is just one day, right?  I can do it later or tomorrow.  I got my period, and I cannot go for a walk.  My back hurts.  My head hurts.  I think I am getting sick.  My kids are sick.  My car has broken down.  My dog ate my running shoes.  There is no food in the house, so I had to go out to eat.  It is just ice cream, a bag of cookies, a 2-liter of Pepsi.  You get the idea!  I am being a bit dramatic and cheeky, but do not doubt for a minute how powerful a hold your mind has on you.  Remember we are always creating though choice and action.

So what do you do when you hit a wall?  You can do lots of stuff!!  Tell your mind to chill out for one.  Journal.  Do something that is totally new and different to get you out of the funky resistance.  If you don't want to exercise, but you know you will feel so much better if you do, change it up.  Do something completely new and dare I say fun!

Today I am going to do some belief work to pull me out of my resistance.  I am recording something I can listen to over and over if I want.  Then I am going to get a chiropractic adjustment.  After that, only time will tell.

I was washing my hair this morning, when the idea for this post flew in.  I always get ideas and ah-ha moments in the shower.  I have to run to grab some paper, so I don't forget them but that is another story.

Bear with me here as I explain, because it does tie back to my weight loss journey (sorta, kinda, maybe).  I heard very clearly that knowing your purpose and doing your purpose are two different things.  I see in Faebook-landia all the time people wondering what their purpose is, what are they here to do, if they only knew their purpose.

Now do not get we wrong, I get that.  I understand wanting to be of service but not knowing what to do.  I think it is awesome when people step off the collective consciousness roller coaster of the daily grind and begin to soul search.

However, I am always being brought back to this:  your soul purpose is NOT necessarily what you do for a living.  And your soul purpose is not just one thing.  Being a manager at Walmart is not your soul purpose, nor is being an online business owner.

Your soul purpose is more general than that.  It might be Divine Love or Divine Truth or Divine Wisdom.  And here is the kicker, YOU get to choose how YOU do your purpose.  Free Will Choice my friends!!

Another thing I see is divine purpose envy!  So you may know you are here to teach, express, and be love, but what you really, really want is to share wisdom or truth with the world, so you deny what is so easy for you (in this case love) and proceed to make things incredibly hard for yourself.

You see, you already know your purpose.  Your purpose is who you ARE not what you do.  It is easy for you, because it is you.  But being humans, we tend to think if it is easy, then it is not important or special.  Ah....special!  That is ego.

Am I making sense here?  You can literally DO your purpose by showing up in your world, your way.  A heart felt hug is doing your Divine purpose of Love.  Now I am simplifying this a smidge so that you can see how hard we make it for ourselves. 

Oh and just to be clear, these are my opinions for sure!  I never have and never will claim to have THE TRUTH of all!  I am merely suggesting we all take a deep breath and relax a bit.

It is my feeling that we (humans) are here (by choice) to experience whatever the hell we choose to experience (there is that free will choice again). 

Go inward and ask yourself what is easy for you, what you are good at naturally.  Also ask yourself what challenges you are overcome in this life.  Perhaps you are to inspire others with your story.  Those are the clues to remembering your unique purpose, but it is your job to DO it.

Now let me see if I can tie this back to my weight loss journey.  Oh I totally can.  Ha!  For years and years and years I have wanted to help people.  Broad, I realize.  But that is what I wanted to do.  I knew I was here to serve.  And I have in everything that I do.  I have had many different jobs, careers, experiences that support that whole "here to serve" idea.

It is funny though, because a theme I have had running throughout my whole life is self love, and the lack of it especially as a kid and young adult.  I have had the weight issues which so often go hand in hand with that whole love thing.

And as I have chosen different career paths in the holistic health arena, I always circle back around to the topic of weight and self love.  Duh!!  It has been my experience, so what better focus for me to have.  But you see, I had and have the free will choice to try all these other jobs and careers.  And I was good at those things as well.  I was still doing my purpose (which is Divine Truth by the way), but I was denying a part of me that wasn't ready, willing or able to come forward until now.

So this is a rather long post from me today, and it is my hope that you received something of value here.  Go do YOU!  Choose what you want.  You can make a new choice and take a new action at any point along the way!!  You are pure potential!

I love my husband.  We have been married for over 16 years.  He drives me crazy a lot.  He is supportive and loving a lot as well.  He has no idea what I "really" do in my business. 

He does however, ask me to do my "magic" thing on him from time to time.  It is usually when the conventional methods are not working.  He is very smart, very left brained (even though he is super creative as well), and he is a very science and a "prove it to me" kind of guy.  He is not into the woo that much.  He does buy me crystals though, so at least he honors that I am into all the woo!

But what is funny is that he kinda is, we just call it something different.  Where I say "intuition", he says "gut feeling". I would say my husband is quite intuitive. 

Where we get into a bit of a pickle is when I try to help me or give him advice about health and healing, and what I think he should do.  I know, I know.....it never works when you tell someone what to do.  I know this, and honestly with everybody else I am really good at NOT "shoulding" on them.  But with my husband.....I can be a pain in the ass.  I know this. 

Here is the thing, I am really intuitive and I know what he is doing isn't working.  He is super stressed with work, and has lots of stress related issues as a result. But because I am on the outside looking in, I have the bird's eye view. I also happen to have the spiritual energy healing know-how to help him.  But, he doesn't want my help.  He just doesn't. He sees it as me telling him what to do.  I get it, but but but.

The point of today's post is to remind myself and you if you happened to be married to the same kinda guy, is that I can offer to help, and I can lead by example, but I cannot make him (or anybody) do anything they don't want to do even if it is just the best-est thing in the world and I just know it will help him.  Sigh...a challenge for me at times I acknowledge, but something I want to change in my relationship. Sometimes I just keep doing what I know isn't working, in the hopes that perhaps one day it will work.  Isn't that the definition of insanity? 

Weekends can be tough.  During the week, I have a schedule for myself.  I know what I need to do with my kids, the meals I cook are planned out pretty well, I have my housework stuff I do on certain days, my business has all of its' moving parts.  I just have a flow that works for me.

Weekends are another story.  There are things we need to do with the kids and the laundry and grocery shopping and all of that, and then there is free time.  The rhythm of the weekend is slower and more relaxed, and that can be challenging when I am endeavoring to lose weight.  It is very easy for me to take a nap and eat out.

Now I am not saying there is anything wrong with taking a nap and eating out.  I love a good nap.  But since my focus is now on moving my body more, it feels a little tricky to get the balance of it all.  We tend to eat later on the weekends.  We tend to be a little bit lazier on the weekends.  Again, all good stuff.  I am just having a harder time navigating it with my goal to release some poundage.

I suppose I could all "weekend warrior" on my family, but I hate being super sore, so that is out.  Walking the dog is always a great way to get my butt outside and moving, so that is a great option for me. 

I don't have this one quite figured out yet, but I am going to keep on keeping on and shoot for more fun, more movement and maybe a little nap on Sunday!!

My morning meeting with my weight loss guide team, "The Bad-ass Body Brigade" was not what I expected it to be.

I thought I would get some advice about getting off my butt and exercising more.  Boy was I wrong.  As I sat and typed a conversation with them (that is how I do it by the way-I connect and then I write or type) they told me I needed to check in with my feelings.

Oh God, no, not those feelings!!!  I mean I don't wanna look at the stuff I don't wanna look at.  You know what I mean?  The relationships that aren't working as well as they could, the things I am ignoring in other areas of my life.  That stuff!!

I just want you guys to give me eating and moving advice.  Nope, not today. So after I had a bit of a mental temper tantrum, I began to do some writing.  I asked myself how I felt in general with all areas of my life, not just my body.  It led me to writing a letter to my husband.  I basically held nothing back in that letter, got it all out. 

Now the guidance I received was for me to dive in and not necessarily to confront anyone.  There is a difference here.  I usually try to save my soapbox rants for my journal.  I really do try not to go off on people.  Sometimes the act of just getting it all out of my mind, body and spirit goes a very long way to overall balance.

And sometimes you need to get your head out of the sand and have a talk with someone.  Today was about me getting it all out on paper.  It allowed me to look at the situation I was choosing to ignore, how I really felt about it, and all the nasty and totally immature things I wanted to say without hurting anyone's feelings.

I know a conversation is coming with my husband, but I also know it will be from a place of love and not total crazy-town because I took the time to check in and get it out.

My big takeaway from my morning meeting is that things aren't black and white, and weight issues are complex and intertwined in all areas of your life.  You cannot address one aspect and expect to release weight in a balanced and healthy way. 

You gotta deal with the stuff you have been sweeping under the rug.  Look at it.  Sit with it.  Love it.  And then let is go as you move into the space of self love and forgiveness (of self).

I am eating less.  I started eating off of smaller plates, and I have to say this little switch is making a huge difference in how much I eat.  My salad plate is all I need to feel totally satisfied, and my eyes see a full plate of food.  You know we eat with our eyes as well as our mouths.  I am trying to savor my meals as well, meaning I am not just inhaling my food. 

I am not a super fast eater, but sometimes I don’t chew as much as I could.  I am trying to do that now more than not.  Trying being the operative word.  I have also been adding more vegetables to my diet.  I like sautéing veggies with an egg for breakfast, a big hearty salad for lunch with toasted walnuts (my new favorite thing) and some sort of vegetable or two with dinner.

I am not over complicating any of this.  Right now I am focusing on eating less and adding more nutrient dense vegetables to my diet.  When I was at Costco the other day, I even bought these green smoothies.  I don’t normally buy this sort of thing, but this was organic and really just greens.  Well, it tasted like grass, and I actually don’t mind earthy tastes.  This was a bit green even for me.  I had to add some fruit just so I could drink it.  You win some, you lose some.

The one area I am struggling with more than anything else is moving my body more.  I don’t dislike exercising.  I walk the dog, and I do some stretching.  I have even been hopping on the Total Gym for some arm work, but I know I can do more.  It is just really easy for me NOT to exercise.  I can come up with very creative excuses why I don’t exercise.  

So my next focus on improvement is moving more throughout my day.    I will keep you posted on this one, as it has been my particular challenge for a while now.

Today I was thinking about all the things I am good at, and I spent a few minutes just reflecting on those things.

So often we get stuck in focusing on where we don't feel worthy enough, good enough, fit enough, thin enough, smart enough.

STOP THAT NOW!!

You are more than enough because you came to this planet at this time in the body you are in!!

Let's celebrate YOU today.

I would love for you to answer:

I AM AWESOME BECAUSE...

(I know you are awesome, do you??)

Yesterday I did something I don't often do.  It is not that I didn't want to do it, but it just didn't occur to me to do.  Are you ready?  Yesterday I did a full healing on ME!

What, what?  I know, it is comical how often I forget to use all of my tools on myself.  It reminds me of when I was a massage therapist working with folks all day, relaxing their bodies, working out knots for them, but never getting massages myself.  Sigh.  Do you do this as well?

You would think after all this time, I would know better, but I get busy doing doing doing, that I forget to give myself the same amazing healings that I give others (if I do say so myself-which I do).

So, I tuned in and I did a great healing on some "allergens" that were causing me to not release weight in a more flowing way.  Remember we are emotional beings, and emotions and thoughts and things we buy into and plug into can block us, cause us inflammation and ultimately keep us and our bodies in disharmony.

I have to say, I am feeling pretty darn good today.  I have decided and declared and proclaimed to myself that I will in fact give ME the time and space to receive healings from myself every week.  It will be like the ultimate self love and self care I give myself (and it will be free cause it is me).

Are you ready to join "Losing Weight & Feeling Great, so that you can release your extra body weight with more ease, more flow, more fun and fully supported by a community who knows how it feels to be overweight?

So a few days ago I held a morning meeting in my mind's eye with my weight loss spirit guide team.  I just closed my eyes, called a meeting in my mind and off we went.  If you have no idea what I am talking about, "Team, what team is this?" check out this link to find out.

Okay so back to the team meeting.  I endeavor to check in with my weight loss team every morning if only for a few minutes.  These are my people, I called in, to help me.  So I best be talking to them.

Anywho, I asked my team a few days before I got the idea to start blogging about all this wacky stuff, what I needed to do (notice I said to do-as in action steps) to lose weight?

Now your team can give you awesome advice, but they won't tell you what to do, and even if they have suggestions, you can totally not listen to them.  We always have free will!!

But alas, I asked them what to do (cause I just want someone to tell me what to do sometimes).  And they responded with this:

*Why do you want to lose weight?
*How much weight do you want to lose and how long will it take you to reach your goal?
*How are YOU going to do this?

Damn, you mean I have to make my own plan and be clear about the whys and how I am going to show up in this process??

After I scoffed for a minute, I wrote down the questions and got on with it.  Now, I am not saying your team will give you the same advice.  My team knows that I know what to do, but I am being lazy and trying to get them to spell it out for me.  Sigh...

However once I did in fact just sit down and write thorough answers to these questions, I really did feel quite empowered with a plan that I can totally do.

More on my actual plan tomorrow.

My struggles with my weight began I think when my parents got divorced.  I was going into the third grade, and my sister and me had to move from North Carolina to Nevada to be with my mom and her brand new, half her age husband.  That is a whole other crazy story.  And yes I have had tons of therapy around all of that chaos.  

But I think that is when my body stuff began.  I have a sister who has always been the opposite of me in body type.  Where I was shorter, she was tall.  Where I was thicker, she was really really thin.  She had her own insecurities about being scrawny.  We are never happy are we? 

Any hoot, I remember being allowed to snack all the time and eat whatever I wanted, soda, junk food, fried foods (my mom was a true southerner with all the fixins).  Oh and this was the late 70’s, so we were left alone a lot after school.  We didn’t have all the play dates and scheduled sports games and all that.  We just ran around the neighborhood like wildlings.  It was very free back then.

One year I think I was 12 years old, my grandparents came to visit us, and I remember my grandmother fussing at me a lot to slow down while I ate.  She seemed so concerned, and that was I think my first recognition that I was kinda chunky.  But I didn’t really let it get to me too much at that age.  

The next pivotal experience around my body was when we moved yet again, this time to California.  I hated it.  It was the LA area, and it was so different for me.  It was then that I really began to be aware that I was bigger than other kids.  Now I am not talking super sized, but I was getting overweight.  I didn’t exercise at all, I ate whatever and whenever I wanted and it was beginning to catch up with me. Oh and let's not forget all the hormones at that age.  Let's just say I was an early bloomer. 

And for the first time, I was called “fat” by a kid in school.  As a 13 year old kid, that hurt.  Thankfully we didn’t live in Southern California for long, and when we moved I lost weight.

I gave up the sodas (switched to diet actually-I know, gross) and my hormones balanced out, and I shot up instead of out.  By the time I was a freshman in high school, I was no longer chubby. I was thin actually, but because I still had a sister who was really really thin and I had years of being chubby.

I didn’t know I was thin.  My brain still saw the pudgy Caroline.  I went on like that for years, thinking I was fat, obsessively exercising and worried all the time about how I looked.  Sound familiar?  What a waste of energy that was.  

I had no support either.  My mom who was doing her best to just cope with life was an alcoholic in yet another bad marriage.  She had her own struggles with weight.  In fact quite often I would be compared to my mom by well meaning asshats.  And like I said, my sister had the opposite issues of being called skinny, bony and scrawny by the same well meaning jerkoffs.  So here I am, all of 110 pounds wet, thinking I am fat.  I laugh at the absurdity of it now, but it was not funny at the time.

I am now 47 years old. I have been married for 16 years, and we have two beautiful kids.  My body had two vaginal births and both kids were breastfed.  I have stretch marks and cellulite (I hate that word, don't you?).  I do.  I also have a second degree black belt that I earned with this body.  I am pretty proud of that accomplishment.

I have gained some weight over the years.  I am definitely not 110 pounds any more.  But I really do love myself and my body so much more than I ever did when I was 110 pounds.  Perhaps that comes with maturity and experience.  It has taken me a while to get to the place of being okay with my looks.  I do want to lose some weight though. 

I would love to drop 30 pounds.  But not from a place of self loathing; from a place of total self love.  Losing the weight would be the ultimate act of self care and nurturing in my mind because it would mean caring about myself so much that I choose to move it often and eat foods that nourish and fuel my body.

My journey is far from over.  I am not quite where I would like to be weight wise.  But if I take one step at a time, I know I will get there.  And I will get there using all the tools I use with my clients (the irony of that is not lost on me).  And I will do it with so much freaking self love!! 

Want to join me?  They say it takes a village to raise a child.  I think it takes a village to do most things.  We need each other.  We need the support. We need the tough love at times when we fall into the victim mode and act like a toddler kicking and screaming.  Together we lift each other up.  Together we can reach our goals.  Together.