It is interesting that people continue to make resolutions that will not be kept. Perhaps we HOPE for change, rather than do the WORK to bring change. I get it; change is hard. Here is something to help.
It takes just 30-45 days to develop a new habit. I tried it this past year. I decided it was time to start an exercise program. I have known for many years that this was necessary, but I just never got around to it. This was the year. So, in June, I started going to the gym every other day. Religiously. It helped to have a trainer for 12 sessions (a bonus for joining the gym, so cost nothing extra). I was accountable to someone. I had appointments and a loving but no excuses trainer to answer to. The sessions were taken over a 6-week period. By the end of that time, I was on my own, and the only one I would be accountable to was myself.
I began to feel I "needed" to go to the gym - rather than I "had to" go. Yes, this new habit, and the shape my body was in, were my rewards. I had a break from my usual routine for 2 weeks, when I had minor surgery. It was hard to get back, but I knew if I persisted, I would do it - and I have.
So, decide what you need to change and stick with it for 4-6 weeks. Make the change manageable so you will be successful. Don't change anything drastically. Take baby steps. If it is smoking you want to quit, smoke one less cigarettes from days 1-5, then 2 less for the next 5 days, etc.
If it's food you need to control, change one small thing about how you eat. Break up your meals into 2 and eat twice as often. Your metabolism will be primed to work harder and burn more calories, before you even take one step to exercise! Eat more slowly. Eat on smaller plates. Leave over some food (cleaning your plate won't help starving people anywhere, as your mother told you). Never skip breakfast. Your body has gone without food for 10 or more hours and begins to conserve fat and calories for survival. It doesn't differentiate between not needing food to survive and needing it. Your metabolism shuts down. Eating as soon as you get up is exactly what you need to crank up the metabolic engine.
Substitute something pleasurable for every thing you give up - and give up only one thing at a time, over a period of time, for best results in your efforts.
Get a friend to be your coach or co-conspirator. It helps to have someone to account to.
What will you change this year, and how will you do it differently this time so you will be successful?
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Friday, December 24, 2010
Family: a New Dynamic
This is the first school break we are spending with our sons, both home from college. I have noticed how different this feels from those school breaks when they were little and ten days in close proximity was not always happily anticipated.
As "older parents," we were hard pressed to find the energy to full-time parent our active sons when they were young. When they started school, we only had to muster energy for part of each day, so it was manageable. When the specter of 10 days at home together approached, I would panic. Snow for a few days, hot chocolate, a fire in the fireplace, some board games, cocoa, etc. - this was fun. After those few days, the kids were bored, complaints ensued and we all couldn't wait for school to start.
As they grew older and more independent, they entertained themselves with computers and friends, so time together was much more enjoyable (for my husband and I, anyway. As for the kids, there were periods they didn't want to be caught dead with us, which happily, they outgrew). Vacations were now less work for us as we didn't have to cater to constant meals and snacks. Yes, the good news was that they were growing up. That was also the bad news.
The dynamic this past summer vacation was different and wonderful. The boys each had a friend with them, so it was like a huge family; especially the one night we all shared with my sister and my two nieces. I treasured watching the boys in the kitchen fixing dinner together and serving us! The only thing to even hint at imperfection was that the time we had together was too short.
Then we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at my cousin's house - like a sister and brother to me, my cousin and her husband have been close to us since the boys were born.
Now here we are at the holiday break and we have our younger son home for a full winter break. He and his friends have already been here jamming: drums and electric guitars shaking the rafters. Our older son is here for nine days, which is the longest we have been with him at one time, since he went back to college in Boston. He is cooking up a storm for us, for his friends and for Christmas dinner at my mother-in-law's house. Our grocery bill just quadrupled, I've gained 7 lbs. since he got here last weekend, and my kitchen is hostage to food preparation and its aftermath.
It is annoying? Yes. Does it feel intrusive? Yes. Is it wonderful? Oh, you can bet your life, it is!
As "older parents," we were hard pressed to find the energy to full-time parent our active sons when they were young. When they started school, we only had to muster energy for part of each day, so it was manageable. When the specter of 10 days at home together approached, I would panic. Snow for a few days, hot chocolate, a fire in the fireplace, some board games, cocoa, etc. - this was fun. After those few days, the kids were bored, complaints ensued and we all couldn't wait for school to start.
As they grew older and more independent, they entertained themselves with computers and friends, so time together was much more enjoyable (for my husband and I, anyway. As for the kids, there were periods they didn't want to be caught dead with us, which happily, they outgrew). Vacations were now less work for us as we didn't have to cater to constant meals and snacks. Yes, the good news was that they were growing up. That was also the bad news.
The dynamic this past summer vacation was different and wonderful. The boys each had a friend with them, so it was like a huge family; especially the one night we all shared with my sister and my two nieces. I treasured watching the boys in the kitchen fixing dinner together and serving us! The only thing to even hint at imperfection was that the time we had together was too short.
Then we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at my cousin's house - like a sister and brother to me, my cousin and her husband have been close to us since the boys were born.
Now here we are at the holiday break and we have our younger son home for a full winter break. He and his friends have already been here jamming: drums and electric guitars shaking the rafters. Our older son is here for nine days, which is the longest we have been with him at one time, since he went back to college in Boston. He is cooking up a storm for us, for his friends and for Christmas dinner at my mother-in-law's house. Our grocery bill just quadrupled, I've gained 7 lbs. since he got here last weekend, and my kitchen is hostage to food preparation and its aftermath.
It is annoying? Yes. Does it feel intrusive? Yes. Is it wonderful? Oh, you can bet your life, it is!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Honoring Loss / Ode to Joy
You may be thinking, "Why would I want to honor loss?" It's such a bad feeling, but it is part of our lives, as sure as is breathing.
Over the life span of this blog, you will probably read more than one entry about loss. It's because we all experience it, and we do so in many ways. Throughout our lives we all lose loved ones, animals, things, experiences, hopes and dreams. But why dwell on it, you may wonder? It is important because it shapes the very fabric of who we become.
From early on, when we lose our first teddy bear, to the present when we lose our keys, loss invokes a sense of hopelessness, frustration, anger and maybe even despair, when the stakes are high. Surely our personal temperament adds a layer to how we cope. Being organized helps us not to lose our "stuff," and is an easy strategy, within our control, that we can employ to reduce these negative feelings.
When loss is thrust upon us and not in our control however, it shakes our foundations. We can't do anything to stop it, control it, prevent it. When loss is premature, it is somehow more unfair. When a life is well lived and fruitful, we accept loss with a little more understanding.
This past month, a dear friend passed away after a decades-long bout with cancer. It kept coming in new places and she kept on seeking treatments, conventional and unconventional. What was striking is how she lived with this incurable disease. She had so much left to do in her life, and cancer wasn't going to interfere (only temporarily during treatments). She reported the latest medical news of the past year each summer, where we saw her at our lake cabin in Maine. Each summer in past years, as I knew the cancer stubbornly kept returning with greater vengeance, I feared she would not be at the lake. In the last 2 summers, my fears were realized as she was in too much pain to make the long trip. Instead, I visited her upstate NY where she lived year 'round.
In spite of horrific pain that not even morphine would control, she continued to make her plans from the couch: another article to be mailed, a story to be written (she was a writer). I hurt for her, mostly saddened to see what cancer had done to her body, and fearful of how much more time I would have with her, all the while not wanting her to suffer. The doctors could not explain how she held out in the past years as her condition was so frail and she was riddled with cancer in every organ and bone of her body. She simply wasn't ready to die, I reasoned.
Last week I tried calling her house numerous times and got no answer. I had a feeling, and kept trying. She had been in and out of the hospital and I assumed she was back in . . . . or worse. Finally the call came on Saturday, that she passed away the previous Friday - when I began calling her home.
Her family tried to find my phone number, knowing I would want to know, and that their mother wanted me to know. Just in time, we got the call that the memorial service was the following day. I sobbed only when we first sat down in the church. Once the service began, I felt a warm embrace from my friend, for she was still looking after those who loved her.
She loved music. She raised her children with music all around, and produced several talented musicians among them. Various family members played and sang just the right music, spoke the right words and prayers and later at the reception, showed photos from her life, set to music. Indeed, this was a fitting tribute and celebration of an amazing life, that we were all privileged to share.
So while I will miss her, I am grateful for being chosen to share in her life. She had enough love for a family with six siblings, six children, a dozen grandchildren and a great-granddaughter, to give some to her many friends. I am blessed to have been one of them.
So I say to my dear friend Joy, who was so appropriately named by her parents, be at rest now after your painful journey; embraced by the love of everyone you loved here on earth.
Over the life span of this blog, you will probably read more than one entry about loss. It's because we all experience it, and we do so in many ways. Throughout our lives we all lose loved ones, animals, things, experiences, hopes and dreams. But why dwell on it, you may wonder? It is important because it shapes the very fabric of who we become.
From early on, when we lose our first teddy bear, to the present when we lose our keys, loss invokes a sense of hopelessness, frustration, anger and maybe even despair, when the stakes are high. Surely our personal temperament adds a layer to how we cope. Being organized helps us not to lose our "stuff," and is an easy strategy, within our control, that we can employ to reduce these negative feelings.
When loss is thrust upon us and not in our control however, it shakes our foundations. We can't do anything to stop it, control it, prevent it. When loss is premature, it is somehow more unfair. When a life is well lived and fruitful, we accept loss with a little more understanding.
This past month, a dear friend passed away after a decades-long bout with cancer. It kept coming in new places and she kept on seeking treatments, conventional and unconventional. What was striking is how she lived with this incurable disease. She had so much left to do in her life, and cancer wasn't going to interfere (only temporarily during treatments). She reported the latest medical news of the past year each summer, where we saw her at our lake cabin in Maine. Each summer in past years, as I knew the cancer stubbornly kept returning with greater vengeance, I feared she would not be at the lake. In the last 2 summers, my fears were realized as she was in too much pain to make the long trip. Instead, I visited her upstate NY where she lived year 'round.
In spite of horrific pain that not even morphine would control, she continued to make her plans from the couch: another article to be mailed, a story to be written (she was a writer). I hurt for her, mostly saddened to see what cancer had done to her body, and fearful of how much more time I would have with her, all the while not wanting her to suffer. The doctors could not explain how she held out in the past years as her condition was so frail and she was riddled with cancer in every organ and bone of her body. She simply wasn't ready to die, I reasoned.
Last week I tried calling her house numerous times and got no answer. I had a feeling, and kept trying. She had been in and out of the hospital and I assumed she was back in . . . . or worse. Finally the call came on Saturday, that she passed away the previous Friday - when I began calling her home.
Her family tried to find my phone number, knowing I would want to know, and that their mother wanted me to know. Just in time, we got the call that the memorial service was the following day. I sobbed only when we first sat down in the church. Once the service began, I felt a warm embrace from my friend, for she was still looking after those who loved her.
She loved music. She raised her children with music all around, and produced several talented musicians among them. Various family members played and sang just the right music, spoke the right words and prayers and later at the reception, showed photos from her life, set to music. Indeed, this was a fitting tribute and celebration of an amazing life, that we were all privileged to share.
So while I will miss her, I am grateful for being chosen to share in her life. She had enough love for a family with six siblings, six children, a dozen grandchildren and a great-granddaughter, to give some to her many friends. I am blessed to have been one of them.
So I say to my dear friend Joy, who was so appropriately named by her parents, be at rest now after your painful journey; embraced by the love of everyone you loved here on earth.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Possessions, Creativity and Clutter
All day, I was doing paperwork, cleaning up and cleaning out, moving "stuff," shining shoes (yes, I actually do shine my own shoes, with the old fashioned brushes and paste shoe polish), looking for a variety of misplaced objects. Seems to me I lost a whole day. I know things get misplaced when we straighten up and I know it's because there is too much in this house! For sure, I blame my husband for a lot of misplaced things. Like last month I asked where our mitre box and saw was. He couldn't find not the one, not the second, and not even the third set I know we own. He offered to go to Home Depot to get another one. I was nearly hysterical! Who needs 4 mitre box sets in one home?
I resent all the attention we need to give to our possessions. It seems to me that the more tools and gadgets we get to make our lives easier, the more work we have to do to; clean them, put them away, and worst of all, find them when we need them again. I swore some years ago that I would start downsizing. I was beginning to feel my "stuff" owned me, rather than the other way around, so I struck a bargain with myself. If something new came in, something old would have to go. If something needed special care, it was off the list. I was good for awhile, but being the pack rat of "things that will be good for a future art project," the stuff just kept piling in.
Who could resist the bargains at Goodwill or on closeout? What about all those interesting "found objects" (read: junk; garbage) that would look great in the next piece of art I want to create? I need things to carry things around in, containers to store things in, shelves to put them on . . . . and on it goes!
Maybe for next year, I will resolve to use all the things I have in my studio before bringing in anything new materials. Yeah, maybe . . . . .
I resent all the attention we need to give to our possessions. It seems to me that the more tools and gadgets we get to make our lives easier, the more work we have to do to; clean them, put them away, and worst of all, find them when we need them again. I swore some years ago that I would start downsizing. I was beginning to feel my "stuff" owned me, rather than the other way around, so I struck a bargain with myself. If something new came in, something old would have to go. If something needed special care, it was off the list. I was good for awhile, but being the pack rat of "things that will be good for a future art project," the stuff just kept piling in.
Who could resist the bargains at Goodwill or on closeout? What about all those interesting "found objects" (read: junk; garbage) that would look great in the next piece of art I want to create? I need things to carry things around in, containers to store things in, shelves to put them on . . . . and on it goes!
Maybe for next year, I will resolve to use all the things I have in my studio before bringing in anything new materials. Yeah, maybe . . . . .
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Frustration
Frustration comes in many different shapes and sizes. We are frustrated at times, with ourselves, spouses, friends, bosses or siblings. Frustration is born from a feeling of helplessness to "fix" a problem. Granted, when frustration comes from our own deeds, we have the chance to correct our own course. But what happens when it is because we see a loved one spiraling out of control?
I live with a man who is as good as gold. I'm frustrated that he won't take better care of his health. I've cajoled him, begged him, pleaded with him, sent him articles - you name it, I've tried it. The kids have asked me to talk with him and I tell them to express their feelings directly to him since I don't have the power to make him change. They have, and it has done nothing to move this mountain.
I can't understand why he is not more concerned himself. He has enjoyed relatively good health in spite of careless treatment of his body - up to recently. As we age and systems break down, his will break down faster and he'll be more seriously impaired. Yes, this is one of my greatest frustrations, on a daily basis.
It hurts when someone you love doesn't care enough about himself to care for his body and mind. It hurts that I will watch his health decline, without being able to do anything about it - all the while resenting too, that my life will be impacted because of it.
What do you do when you feel frustration? How do you cope?
I live with a man who is as good as gold. I'm frustrated that he won't take better care of his health. I've cajoled him, begged him, pleaded with him, sent him articles - you name it, I've tried it. The kids have asked me to talk with him and I tell them to express their feelings directly to him since I don't have the power to make him change. They have, and it has done nothing to move this mountain.
I can't understand why he is not more concerned himself. He has enjoyed relatively good health in spite of careless treatment of his body - up to recently. As we age and systems break down, his will break down faster and he'll be more seriously impaired. Yes, this is one of my greatest frustrations, on a daily basis.
It hurts when someone you love doesn't care enough about himself to care for his body and mind. It hurts that I will watch his health decline, without being able to do anything about it - all the while resenting too, that my life will be impacted because of it.
What do you do when you feel frustration? How do you cope?
Sunday, November 28, 2010
On Moderation
So you ate too much this Thanksgiving. Now you will enter the holiday season of massive shopping and gluttonous eating and drinking.
Have you considered the price you will pay? Maybe it is going into debt that you have to dig yourself out of, come January. Maybe it will require you to start a diet, or at least resolve to. Join a gym, go to the doctor?
Moderation has always been the sensible course, yet it is so hard in the face of the merriment all around us. Why not give yourself the gift that keeps on giving, this holiday season? Moderation is not deprivation. Eat, drink and be merry, but also be sensible. Today's overindulgence leads to tomorrow's regrets and the need for abstinence.
Resolve to enjoy the company, the spirit of the season, and what you eat, so you won't feel the need to deprive yourself later.
Have you considered the price you will pay? Maybe it is going into debt that you have to dig yourself out of, come January. Maybe it will require you to start a diet, or at least resolve to. Join a gym, go to the doctor?
Moderation has always been the sensible course, yet it is so hard in the face of the merriment all around us. Why not give yourself the gift that keeps on giving, this holiday season? Moderation is not deprivation. Eat, drink and be merry, but also be sensible. Today's overindulgence leads to tomorrow's regrets and the need for abstinence.
Resolve to enjoy the company, the spirit of the season, and what you eat, so you won't feel the need to deprive yourself later.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
A Message About Your Unique and Awesome Power
There was a passage spoken to the young, female character in Akeelah and the Bee that has moved me and many others. It has been quoted in other movies and in a speech by Nelson Mandela. It has often been incorrectly attributed. This was written by Marianne Williamson in her book "Return to Love." It stands on its own as a tremendous work of inspiration and I wish to share it with you.
Our Deepest Fear
by Marianne Williamson
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
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