The Body Diaries

I have been on a mission in recent days to really be in touch with my wondrous body. I have been thinking more about clothing it in comfortable clothes, paying attention to its need for more rest and sleep, taking measures to stop pushing my mental activities as I have a habit of doing, and generally assessing all my patterns ... aka, the ways I think about and treat my body. One thing I started are my Body Diaries. I have heard, and experienced, that keeping a food diary is a huge factor in weight management. I want more than that. So, since I want this wondrous body of mine to partner with me for an optimal life experience and to be able to fully engage in all the wonderful experiences I have been dreaming about, I decided to take this one step further.

I started an electronic Body Diary. I created a beautiful template that encourages me to keep moving forward on this path and started to record everything I put into, AND ON, and DO TO my body. It includes any exercise, chiropractic treatments, dental care, meditation experiences, pedicures ... you get the idea ... that my body experiences through the course of each day. So the egg-white face soap regimen, the shampoo I used, the body lotion ... all which get absorbed into my wondrous body through my skin, and nurture my body ... these all get included.

The basic idea is that I have a folder in my documents directory that will contain a file of each day's diary. This might seem like a lot of work, but it's not. Each morning I just duplicate the template I made and have that file open on my desktop all day to flip open to record the things I do as the day progresses. It takes just seconds to record each entry, and if I forget (or don't want to) do it every time I do something related to my body, then it is open at the end of the day as a reminder to get everything recorded before going to sleep so that I capture these activities before my mind forgets the details of the day.

It is already amazing to see how much I do throughout each day that impacts my body, and how much my body is supporting all that I do. I hope you will be inspired to start your own Body Diaries as a means to deepening your experience with your own Wondrous Body.

Toodles,

CJ

Whose at the Helm?

I was reading a passage in a book by Deepak Chopra called, Reinventing the Body; Resurrecting the Soul, when I was compelled to create a blog ... for myself mainly ... to track my thoughts about my body and my life, and how my spirit is willing all aspects of both. Then I remembered ... I had a blog! When I found it I was delighted by the name I had given it, so I am now resurrecting the blog. Now, to it!

The passage in the book said: "Ninety percent of people believe they have a soul, and that it gives their lives ultimate meaning." And then a few lines later it said: "If you look into the wisdom traditions of every culture, you find that the soul has other meanings. It is the source of life, the spark that animates dead matter. It creates the mind and emotions. In other words, the soul is the very foundation of experience. It serves as the channel for creation as it unfolds in every second." And it hit me clearer than ever before ... my soul is leading this parade I call my life, and as the leader it calls the shots, so why not surrender the body part of my life to what the soul has in mind and stop trying so hard to control everything in that regard.

The soul will know exactly what to do ... what exercises will delight me and work on what needs working on, what foods will be optimal, etc ... and if I can line up with that (think Law of Attraction), I'll be in great shape (both literally and figuratively) sooner than I can imagine! If the soul gives ultimate meaning, it is striving for ultimate meaning and will, in its natural state of striving, like water, find the most obvious course to take to reach its objective.

I like this idea that has meandered across my mind! Yes! That is what I'll do!

Okay, Soul, time for you to take the helm.

Here we go! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

CJ

New Year's Day

As this divine New Year's Day comes to a close, I hope you have included gratitude for your wondrous body in your New Year's intentions.

Many blessings,
CJ

Post-Christmas Thoughts

Well, it is two days after Christmas. I have not deprived myself of anything during the holiday season. I don't make it a habit to weigh myself very often, mostly just to confirm that I am losing weight when clothes seem to feel a bit loose. But this holiday season I weighed twice. I weighed in on Christmas Eve and again this morning. I had lost 7 pounds recently and today it appears that I have gained back a few. It could just be water retention from eating Christmas ham (salty) and its leftovers, so I'm still not disturbed by the numbers appearing on my scale. Now it is once again tucked away for a while (the scale and the ham), until I need to rejoice over some lower numbers again.

It's important not to discourage yourself. Remember the Law of Attraction and The Power of Positive Thinking! What you think, and vibrate, you are. So now it is time to focus again on thin, vibrant, healthy, flexible, strong, active and wondrous! Just think about how wonderful our bodies are ... healing cuts and illnesses, learning to cooperate when we try new things, growing hair and nails at amazing rates, giving us signs when we are out of balance, collaborating throughout our lives to respond to our every thought and action. What amazing things our bodies are!

I'm actually now moving on to my New Years thoughts, but you'll have to wait a few days to hear those. Enjoy this holiday feeling! It reminds me of the book "In The Meantime" by Iyanla Vanzant. First of all, I just have to say I LOVE THIS LADY! Second, if you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it. And now back to my thought about how the holidays are like this book ...

Iyanla talks about how our lives are like a house, with the different floors representing different phases of our lives. But it is her analogy of the stairways that really thrilled me. The place between places, where you can pause, reassess, get your focus, set your intentions. I also recently saw the movie The Holiday. At one point in the movie, Cameron Diaz's character says, "This is what a vacation is supposed to be, right, you're supposed to vacate your life, do the unexpected ..."

I would ask you, now, what are you doing this holiday season that veers from the "norm" of your life and enters the realm of the unexpected? How can you vacate your life and envision something new for yourself? Can you take the time this holiday season to be in the space between your life and the pregnant future that holds boundless possibilities for your life-yet-to-be and sink the teeth of your imagination into some juicy morsels of dreams that you want? Can you feel the excitement of knowing that these dreams can be your reality?! Spend a little time dwelling there, on the stairway between your now reality and your dreams and your dreams may just greet you at the top of the stairs!

Well, I'm off to meditate ... to be on the stairs ... dreaming ... so, for now ...

Toodles,
CJ

Here I Begin

From where am I starting? I'll state it here for you, and me. This is not about complaining about my journey to this point, but merely a statement of fact, or the documentation of a baseline, perhaps.

I grew up thin, physically active and fit, and feeling myself a part of my environment very completely. I had 3 babies in my early twenties, but lost all my "baby fat" after each one, returning to a flat stomach and pre-pregnancy weight each time. Even with 3 children, I remained physically active ... playing sports on my church leagues (softball and volleyball) and of course, running after 3 little ones.

Somewhere in my mid-twenties I began to think of myself as fat.

This wasn't always the case, but about that time this was how I began to see myself. And the weight seemed to hear my thoughts (my vibe?) and on it came! For the past 20 years my weight has fluctuated up and down, but mostly up, steady rising to numbers I don't even want to tell you (but I may, to act upon my new desire to be fully present and seen). Which brings me to today when I am hovering near the highest weight I've ever been.

I used to have a serious eating issue, consumed with thoughts of food all day, every day. I found relief in Overeaters Anonymous years ago and I've been free of those thoughts and impulsivities ever since (though I am not saying that OA was a cure for this, nor that anyone else will have the same experience I had, but rather, that it was a catalyst for my release from this obsession).

Now, I have a love affair with healthy food. I love stuff that most people don't think much of ... like vegetables, tofu, lentils, salads, but mostly vegetables. They feel so fresh and refreshing to me! I love the meditteranean cuisine and love exploring the delights of Indian, Thai and other middle-eastern dishes. I just got my first Ayurvedic cookbook and I can't wait to explore the recipes in it. My favorite drink is water ... you wouldn't believe my love affair with this beverage. I rarely think about food, often missing appropriate meal times because I am so absorbed with whatever I am doing. I love my life and am filled with endless excitement for all that my life now is.

I have always been a deeply spiritual person. I have made my spiritual growth my main objective for over 20 years. Just a few of the forms this journey has taken have been going through a seminary (The Seminary of Spiritual Peacemaking), studying the Law of Attraction, and training to be a Spiritual Coach.

So, then with years of eating well, getting lots of water and building a deep spiritual well within, why am I so overweight?

My self-assessment and personal belief system leads me to conclude that Law of Attraction and the universe have given me exactly what I was aligned with ... fat for a fat frame of mind. I have plenty of padding ... to stay invisible while I did a whole lot of spiritual journeying? Seems likely. Throw in a couple of car accidents that made my body want to steer clear of exercise (it hurt, and I often hurt myself more by trying to force it) and the choices I made and the thoughts I thought just confirmed over and over again that my body wasn't on the Thin-and-Fit track.

But something happened recently that has changed all that. After years of trying to find my way to feel thin and get thin (through law of attraction exercises and playwork), one day recently something inside of me just flipped on. It could be that I reached critical mass with all the things I'd been doing to heal this aspect of myself, but whatever it was, I knew right away that something had changed and I felt like a part of me that had been gone for a long time had finally come home.

This turning point happened while I was on a trip a couple of weeks ago, and to date I have released 7 pounds. I haven't changed a thing that I can identify. I eat the same. I haven't started to exercise yet. I've even had wine and chocolate (thanks to some lovely friends who visited recently).

So, given all that has been happening recently, I thought I would begin to document my journey to see if I can trace what is happening. Perhaps the journaling of my adventure will illuminate, for me and you, what's really woven into a journey of this kind. I decided to allow myself to be transparent ... to bare my thoughts, feelings and actions here for all to see, especially me.

I can't promise anything about where this journey will take us or what we shall gain from it, but for what it's worth, I'm showing up and embracing this adventure for all it is worth. I hope you'll join me here often and that you find some measure of peace or other substance you can extract to beautify your own journey.

Thanks for visiting!

Blessed Be,
CJ