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Archive for the ‘Body-Mind Health’ Category
Thursday, January 26th, 2012
If you follow me on Facebook, you’ve probably noticed how proud I am of my family, and most all of my nephews.
For me, living in LA (far from my hometown in Sweden) has been GREAT – being here, I have been able to explore, grow, and evolve. But one of the things that I have missed out on is the growing up of my siblings’ kids. We get by with constant communication (thank you, Universe, for SKYPE!) and I’m always cheering on all of their endeavors.
One of the things that gives me the most Life Force is the love I receive from them and the communication we keep. The crazy thing is that we’re actually able to stay close, even with the Atlantic Ocean between us.
Everything is possible if fueled by Love!
My nephew Miki, whom I held at the hospital when he was born, has grown into a man and is an entrepreneur. His baby brother Alex has recently discovered training and fitness, healthy eating, and girls. My nephew Ivan has turned to boxing and is a super champ already, planning to come to the States and box. And my nephew Marco was just crowned the 5th most beautiful man in the world! (As a little boy, he was pretty quiet, always glued to my side. I remember the days when he would sit in my lap, just quietly observing the world around him.) My fifth nephew is the newest and youngest gnome. I feel confident he will do amazing things with such brothers and cousins!
I have changed their diapers, wiped their noses, and held them when they were sick. Now they glow, grow, and shine, to make this world better, and to teach us aunts and uncles, parents and grandparents, something only they know. They have the spiritual goods to Evolve and Progress, and the exquisite genes to make it happen. Born Warriors!!
I am grateful for my family. They give me Life.
P.S. My Marco just announced he is taken off the market. Sorry, ladies.  But do check out his Swedish blog over at improveme.se!
Tags: family
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Thursday, January 19th, 2012
 Many people even think that tons of rigorous workouts can be beneficial for stress, but according to studies this can actually have the opposite effect, if misused. Try these methods, instead:
1. Find an exercise program you like. If you actually enjoy the workout, part of the stress relief has already taken place. Create, or get help creating, a program which is based on 2-3 resistance weight workouts and 3-5 cardio workouts per week.
2. Do breathing exercises 2-3 times per day. Breathing helps calm down the nervous system physiologically and helps the body find balance in stressful situations.
3. Meditate a few times per week. It can be a guided meditation, it can be sitting to your favorite music or in a quiet place, and it doesn’t have to be any more mysterious that that.
4. Eliminate unhealthy foods from your diet. Processed foods, refined sugars, and too much caffeine put stress on the body. Treat your body with healing products and energy-rich foods such as fruits and berries, fresh organic vegetables, and lean meats. And heal your metabolism by eating small meals every three hours.
5. Give to others. One of the most powerful ways to heal yourself, get stress relief, and feel joy is to give, give, give. Whether you choose to lend an ear to a friend in need or open the door for someone, give a gift every day!
As you can see, stress relief is about so much more than just working out. Get out there and Live as Loud as you can!!!
Image: Helga Weber
Tags: breathing, diet, exercise, giving, meditation, stress
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Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012
The busier we become, the more we steal time away from our “joy” time. If work demands more time and effort, chances are that our gym time will suffer, and when our kid has yet another tantrum, our desire to watch a movie or paint our toenails goes out the window … Does this sound familiar to you?
According to a study (Lewinshon, Munoz, Youngren and Zeiss, 1986), the first activities that get voted off a busy schedule are the ones that would actually make us feel better and less stressed in the long run. How is that for irony?
The more sad and depressed we feel, the lower self-esteem we have, resulting in doubt that all the things that previously lifted our spirits have the power to do so again. In the absence of these moments of joy and positive emotion, it becomes more and more difficult to separate ourselves from work, bill paying, and everyday routines.
Harvard economist Juliet Schor (1991) reported that when workers in an English factory had to give up their overtime hours due to the bad economy, they recovered both physically and mentally shortly after. Because of the new extra time they had on their hands, they started hanging out with their friends, and their zest for life returned. Money lost its close grip on their minds, and even the ones with bigger families to take care of found it thrilling that they had been given more time with their loved ones. Life was worth living!
Finding joy and happiness in our everyday lives is something we can learn to accept and implement. For many of us, it is not an automatic thought. More often than not, negative thoughts are quicker to arise than positive ones. Many times it is easier to eat sugar or drink alcohol to feel the chemical high of what seems like joy for a brief moment.
However, it is very possible to make a conscious choice to do things we truly love, to be with people we truly love, and to give ourselves permission to enjoy these things. When we give to ourselves, there is more for others to enjoy, too. We enter a good cycle of giving and receiving.
Maybe the challenge is to find the joy in all things possible? Most of all, I know that there is joy to be found in the freedom of self-love.
What makes you laugh, enjoy, and feel joy? How can you share these feelings and moments? Can you stop and smell the roses a little bit every day?
Sunny ideas:
• Never skip your work out
• Begin to feel, smell, taste again. Smile.
• Before you do an activity, visualize in your mind what it is going to look like. Let yourself know that no matter what happens, it will be good.
• Experience new things in progression, especially if you are nervous about them. Note that you have done a great job. Every time.
• Exchange “I should” for “I would like to”
Life is your gift – living it is your choice!
Live Life Loud!
Image: Robert S. Donovan
Tags: balance, emotion, joy
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Thursday, December 1st, 2011
Consider three stories that you have told yourself and others for years.
It could be that you are bad at communicating or your parents never taught you how or, for example, one that I believed for many years, which was that I was not smart or creative enough.
Write the stories down on paper, and think a little bit about how you can change them, and if they really are true.
Who is it that made you believe them? Do you dare to tell a different story? Most of all, can you change how your stories affect you?
Write down three parallel stories, which are founded on three basic rules for change:
1. In your attempt to create a new story about something, link it to a primary value such as family, integrity, and kindness.
2. Present reality – the way things really are – as much as possible in your new story.
3. Create an abstract idea of hope and attach it to your new story – the idea that change is actually possible.
How does it feel to discover how much power your stories have over you? The stories may have been true, but after having dissected them, they have lost their grip, right?
Try this exercise in the weeks to come, discuss it with trusted loved ones, or just do it on your own.
Want the tools to develop life-long health habits?
Check out my e-book, Your Life Force: Training for Strength & Harmony.
Image: M Car
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Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
 …you are going to end up somewhere completely different.
My training is my life force. I have learned to exercise in a way that feels almost meditative. I don’t mean calm and soothing, but that the only thing going on in my head is the task at hand. My breath. My motion. My strength. My focus is complete, as my body moves to renew itself and to live … and sometimes just survive.
This is a process that has taken a long time and has been born from my joy in physical movement, my mental focus, and repetition, repetition, repetition. One day at a time, one week at a time, from moment to moment in a never-ending flow.
When I am healthy, I follow my plan with the big picture in mind, knowing that every moment spent on the health and well-being of my body and mind is worth every drop of sweat and minute of pain. That is reality for me. I realized early, coming from a family that was prone to illness and stress, that my health was a privilege and not something to be taken for granted.
A sure path to unhappiness is to avoid the reality of your immediate world. Sometimes it is easy to get stuck on something that is not real, and then a whole existence is built upon a foundation that is unstable and unreliable. Maybe this resonates with you. I think we all carry that defense mechanism; I know I do! It can be anything that hurts: a friend who is not truthful or honest (but we choose to not say anything about it), or telling yourself that smoking is not really bad for you (you smoke because you “choose” to).
And exercise really falls in the same category. The body is meant to move. Not moving causes illness and discomfort, which has been proven by endless studies. Just the phrase, “I don’t have time to exercise” usually hides other issues. But it’s like saying, “I don’t have time to be alive and healthy.”
A client of mine would come to the gym with a constant hangover, tired, grumpy, and if it wasn’t “food poisoning,” it was almost always “sore knees.” Of course, the sore knees and pains were some kind of cry for help in my ears, and it was also a clear case of this person not wanting to stare reality in the face. It was going to take sweat, effort, and sometimes pain to get healthy. It was also going to take a detox of alcohol and sugar! Defense mechanism ON! I used to be a smoker a very long time ago, and I did the exact same thing. I could light one up and completely “forget” that I was literally putting a time bomb in my mouth.
I designed a plan for my client that was not only a physical journey of the body, but also a cognitive journey of concepts. Dream world versus reality. Establishing a foundation for feeling good more often versus the instant gratification of quick fixes. When the body starts to detox, it wants more of what makes it feel better!
But without a destination we care about, we won’t end up in the right place. Without focus, the task at hand seems unmotivating and unimportant. Without repetition, we can’t establish a new healthy pattern. Next time you are slipping away from your conscious living, remind yourself of the beauty you will create by seeing and being present.
The reality is, we can’t all look like Jennifer Aniston … but we can do the best with what we have. That is one thing we all share. There is NO point in buying expensive supplements, fancy gym memberships, or personal trainers, if you don’t use your body and mind with full focus in the process.
The closer to the truth we choose to live our lives, the fewer misunderstandings and surprises we will encounter. All of a sudden, you will have created a satisfying life environment where you will experience flow, love, joy, sadness, and most of all balance. That is a foundation to build lots of goodies on and you are definitely worth it!
Live Life Loud!
Want the tools to develop life-long health habits?
Check out my e-book, Your Life Force: Training for Strength & Harmony.
Tags: attention, awareness, focus, motivation
Posted in Body-Mind Health, Fitness | No Comments »
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