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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Choice:
- I’ll explain how your choices create your life and how your life creates your choices
- I’ll talk about the three choices you can make in any one moment
- I’ll describe how meditation can improve your choice selection
- Finally I’ll share what’s really behind the Power of Choice
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Life is made up of moments and in between these moments is a gap. This gap represents the space between your thoughts. It is in this space where you will find pure potential and endless possibility, for it is in this space where you have all the power in the universe – the power of choice.
Choice has power because the choices you make determine the moments you experience.
Your life and everything in it including who you are, what you have, how you think, feel, and act, the people you surround yourself with, the job you have, the money you have, the happiness and the love you have, your entire life is a result of the choices you have made.
However, only a very small amount of the choices you end up making come from this space of possibility.
The majority of your choices I’d say over 90% of them actually come from your past, from earlier life experience. For example you know you like chocolate ice cream (well I do anyway) over vanilla ice cream because you’ve tasted them already. You know you have an issue with heights because the last time you stood near the edge of a cliff or you were on a bridge you felt dizzy and almost fainted. You know not to make noise at 2pm in the afternoon while your mother is having a nap because the last time you did that she woke up in a very foul upset mood leading to an unexpected meeting between you and her shoe… ouch!
So while you have the power to choose whatever it is you want in your life in between moments, it is your previous life experience that will determine the majority of your current choices which will determine the way you think, feel, and act in the future. Altogether these will lead to the results you get in your life.
Thus we have the circle of choice where:
“Your choices make your life and your life makes your choices.”
I’ve learnt from Holistic Health Practitioner Paul Chek that in life you have three choices.
The first is the optimal choice. The optimal choice involves having open and honest communication with yourself and the important people in your life. This choice moves you toward your dreams and helps you achieve your goals. Not only does the optimal choice improve your happiness and health, but it also helps with growing the happiness and health of people in your life. The choice that unites and is open to joy is the optimal choice.
The second choice is the suboptimal choice. The suboptimal choice means getting what you want now, but at a cost. This choice gives you instant pleasure, but will eventually cause pain within yourself or with another person. The suboptimal choice disrupts and slows your dream building and happiness and health progression. The suboptimal choice also interferes with the growth and improvement of the people you care about. The choice that divides, that is closed and depressing is the suboptimal choice.
The third choice is the choice of no-choice or doing nothing. Doing nothing has both a negative and positive side.
The negative of doing nothing is having an apathetic attitude where you lack interest in participating in life and just don’t care. This uncaring attitude means you will do nothing when in reality you should be doing something. This apathy will cause you to become isolated by creating distance between you and what it is you really want (your dream) as well as creating distance between you and the people in your life. Not only that, but by not choosing you prevent and stop altogether any further progress or growth or evolution of yourself and others.
The positive of doing nothing is you may not be able to make a choice in this moment due to not having enough information. You can use this time out to reflect on your options and to gather more info to learn more about the situation. This time of reflection may not be an optimal or suboptimal choice, but there is potential here for you to make one of the other two choices.
So the first two choices are awesome choices. They help change your way of being. They move you from one thought, feeling, and action to another. The optimal choice does it by being in flow with your dream and your dream team. Remember your dream team is anyone who is involved in getting you from where you are now to where you want to be. With the suboptimal choice even though you experience pain this choice still creates a learning experience from which change can happen.
The third choice of do nothing on the other hand keeps you from growing and evolving. However, there is the potential for change when you take some time out to gather more information before making a well-informed choice.
In today’s society where you are expected to always be on point and available and to not take any breaks to stop and smell the roses your thoughts end up going a million miles a minute and you become disconnected from your true feelings in that moment. Not being able to just sit with your own thoughts and feelings can create distance between how you think you’re being in this moment and how you’re actually being in reality. Meaning you may think to yourself, ‘Yeah I’m happy and healthy. I’m feeling good’, but that work colleague who just said hi to you and who you completely ignored and the oversized clothes in your wardrobe say something completely different.
If you don’t know who you are and what you want in life is it any wonder then that when you’re presented with a choice you either end up picking the choice that doesn’t serve you or you find the available options difficult to understand and end up not doing anything at all.
Mediation is a great practise that you can use to help you make better choices. During meditation you focus on one thing and anytime your mind wonders to different thoughts you bring it back to that one thing. Every time you notice and realise that your thoughts have strayed from what you should be focusing on there is this gap between your thoughts and a space of opportunity to choose to bring your thoughts back to your original focal point or your centre.
Daily meditation practise does one of two things.
First it increases your ability to become aware and mindful of your thoughts and feelings connecting you to your true self and how you’re being in reality
Secondly, and an even bigger benefit to practising meditation I believe is that it forces you to pause, to slow down in order for you to sense what you never sensed before… which are the gaps between your thoughts, the space where you have the power to choose.
It’s during meditation that you train your awareness of self and where you learn more about who you are. It’s also during meditation that your ability to choose improves because you learn to live not just in your thoughts, but also you learn to live between your thoughts. By living in the gaps between your thoughts you get more comfortable with emptiness and space and nothingness and will come to realise that here in this space anything is possible.
Then when you’re outside of meditation during your normal everyday life that’s when you get to put into practise this better knowing of self and improved ability to slow everything right down and to see what’s possible.
The next time you’re presented with a choice or two no longer will you be frantically trying to analyse the options trying to decide which is the wrong or right choice, and no longer will you feel flustered and confused, because now in this moment where you must choose you will know yourself better, you will know what it is you really need in that moment because you will sense your true thoughts and feelings. This will allow you to select the choice that aligns with your dreams, your core values, and your dream team.
Meditation comes in many forms including sitting, movement (such as Tai Chi and Qi Gong), and walking meditation. Whatever meditation you practise focus on one thing. This one thing becomes your centre. For example during sitting meditation you can focus on your breath. During walking meditation you can focus on your steps. You can also focus on a single thought like a mantra or positive affirmation such as ‘I receive love from the world, I give love to the world’ that you repeat in your mind or out loud. Another thing you can focus on is sound such as ‘oooommmmm’ or ‘aaaahhhhh’. No matter the meditation and focal point anytime your mind starts to think about something else bring it back to that focal point. Bring it back to your centre.
The more you practise meditation the more you will know your true self and the more aware you will become of these gaps between your thoughts, giving you more chances to pause, making it easier to bring your thoughts back to centre, giving you better focus and clarity of thought, so that you can make better choices.
I will share a couple of quotes to help show what I believe to be the true power behind choice.
The first quote is from Henri Nouwen a Dutch priest and professor who says:
“We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there… it is important to become aware that at every moment of our life, we have an opportunity to choose joy… It is in the choice that our true freedom lies, and that freedom is, in the final analysis, the freedom of love.”
And along these lines are a few lines from the 80s hit song from the Back To The Future movie soundtrack ‘The Power of Love’ by Huey Lewis and The News:
“The power of love is a curious thing
Make a one man weep, make another man sing”
What these passages are saying to me is that the power of choice lies in the freedom you have to choose love in each and every moment.
“In reality the power of choice is the power of love.”
To be loving, to have love to give, and to do loving things for yourself and others in each and every moment of your life. That’s the true power of choice.
Of course you don’t have to choose love, right? Because as always the choice is yours or as Captain Planet a 90s cartoon superhero would say:
“The power is yours!”
Links and Resources
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Food Cravings:
- I’ll explain what food cravings are
- I’ll talk about three different types of food cravings and what causes them
- Finally I’ll share my top tips on how you can better manage yourself when it comes to food cravings
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Let’s first make the distinction between hunger and food cravings.
Hunger is a normal physiological response by your body meaning hunger is a normal physical function that your body performs. Hunger happens in response to your cells being low on nutrition and energy and information. You know you’re really hungry when you receive growling sounds and feel physical sensations from your stomach. Hunger leads you to eat any food in general.
A food craving is a physical, emotional, and mental want or need for a specific food.
As I always say life is in flow and always in motion and if you’re not moving then you’re not living, you’re not growing, and you’re not changing.
Food cravings come from the fact that your current way of being, your current lifestyle is stuck in a rut.
“I define food cravings as a craving for change.”
Having a fixed mindset or being stubborn or not being able to go with the flow will lead you to become physically, emotionally, and mentally stagnant. You will find yourself repeating the same actions, expressing the same feelings, and believing the same thoughts over and over and this my friend is the root cause of all food cravings.
A physical food craving is due to your body lacking specific nutrients. If you find yourself eating the same foods day-in-and-day-out for long periods of time you will be getting plenty of nutrients in fact probably in excessive amounts from that one group of foods, but you will be missing out on a lot of other nutrients found in different foods. If you’re also eating a lot of fake pretend food-like products aka processed and packaged foods well these have hardly any nutrients in them. I mean there’s plenty of energy and calories in these foods, but where’s the nutrition?
Movement, either too little or too much causes physical food cravings. Nutrients and energy and information from the foods and beverages that you eat and drink get digested, absorbed, assimilated, and metabolised when your digestive juices, your blood, and your lymph fluids are all in flow. When you don’t move and you stay in the same physical position for long periods of time your lymph fluid doesn’t flow and your heart has to pump harder to keep your blood moving causing nutrient traffic jams. When you’re doing strenuous exercise stress hormones increase and this stops your digestion in its tracks.
Now if your breathing is short and shallow and if you’re drinking tap water then the nutrients in your body will not be transported as effectively as they could be. Proper breathing massages internal organs and keeps your cerebral spinal fluid in flow helping to move nutrients in and waste out of your cells. Quality water has no industrial chemicals and has the right amount of minerals to form healthy blood vessels and other fluids needed to move nutrients around your body.
So to sum up physical food cravings while eating the same real foods all the time and eating fake foods may give your cells certain nutrients and plenty of energy your cells will still be screaming out for other nutrients and different building blocks they need to do their job. Now with no movement or with excessive movement not all the nutrients that you eat will even get to where they are needed most due to the lack of lymph flow, inefficient blood flow, and too much stress shutting down your ability to digest and absorb your food. Also proper breathing technique and quality water are needed for effective transportation of nutrients in your body.
An emotional food craving is due to certain feelings triggering physical hunger signals. When emotional needs are perceived to not be met by self or by others then food is used as a replacement for emotional support. If you experience chronic feelings of fear, resentment, apathy, anger, worthlessness, being lost, or pain (yes pain is an emotion) this usually means you’re missing out on love, connection, being cared for, peace, meaning, inspiration, and pleasure and food can act as a substitute when these are lacking in your life.
In fact deep-seated emotions, positive or negative, that have been repressed or ignored or neglected will show up in your bodymind in a number of ways and not just as food cravings. A bit of a sidetrack here, but while what I’m about to say hasn’t been shown in scientific papers I personally believe that cancer, yep the Big C, is the biggest symptom of unresolved emotional issues today. I say this from personal experience having witnessed family members make it through cancer therapy and having to say goodbye to other family members who have died from cancer.
Anyhoo… back to food cravings.
A mental food craving is due to your thoughts being out of alignment with your feelings and your actions. Remember back in the podcast episode about Dream Building I talked about how your dream must align and be in harmony with your core values in order to live a happy and healthy life and to achieve living your dream. Any time your thoughts, feelings, and actions do not correspond to your values and your dream then stress, pain, and suffering are not that far behind.
Another thing is if you’re constantly ruminating about past events or thinking about what may happen in the future this can cause depression and anxiety leading to food cravings.
A foggy head with stinking thinking stuck in the past or trying to forecast the future will cause you to crave foods that do not serve you or your dream.
Okay so how do you go about managing yourself when it comes to food cravings? First some prevention tips.
With all types of food cravings physical, emotional, and mental you want to nourish your body with nutrient, energy, and information rich real foods from Mother Nature. When you nourish your cells with all natural ingredients and building blocks your feelings and thoughts will also be in alignment with the principles of nature meaning you will feel happier, healthier, and start to think how you can be of service to others as opposed to how others can serve you. You want to eat seasonally and locally as well as. This will ensure your diet is varied and fresh and changes with the seasons.
Something to take note of is that different physical food cravings relate to different nutrient needs by your body. For example if you crave chocolate this may be a sign of magnesium deficiency. If you crave cheese this may be due to not having enough fat and/or calcium in your diet. A craving for sweet foods could be due to a lack of sulphur and the amino acid tryptophan. Craving salty foods is often due to a lack of chloride.
So based on what you are craving have a look at your current diet and see if there may be some room for improvement by including different foods with higher sources of the nutrients that you may be missing out on.
Okay do yourself a favour and do a ‘Kitchen Cleanse’ or ‘Pantry Detox’. This is where you remove all processed fake foods that you crave for. Out of house, out of sight, out of mind.
Do not stay in one position all day long. Sit, stand, walk, squat, lunge, and fidget if you have to. Set a timer to 25 minutes and change positions or go for a one minute walk every time it goes off. The more you can move your body the easier it is for nutrients to be transported to where they’re needed most.
Remember to breathe diaphragmatic breaths. Breathing through your nose with your mouth closed and tongue resting on the roof of your mouth behind your teeth and expanding your belly for the first two thirds of the breath and then allowing your chest to move only in the last third then letting the breath out naturally either through your nose or mouth gives your internal organs a nice massage and expands and contracts your muscles as well as your spine creating movement of fluids and nutrition.
Make sure you keep yourself properly hydrated with quality spring or filtered water. Depending on your body weight, your activity levels, and your environment your H2O needs can range from 2 litres a day to 4 litres a day.
So move often, breathe deeply, and drink real water.
Now when a food craving does hit you what can you do?
First thing to try is deep belly breathing for one minute. Count 4-8 seconds on the in breath and the same amount of seconds on the out breath. Do this for a minute and wait and sense if the craving is still there.
If you still got a craving try drinking a big glass of water and wait 20 minutes.
Still got the craving?
Try a spoonful of extra virgin coconut oil or a shot of extra virgin olive oil. Yep you heard me. Get some real fats into your body. Again wait 20 minutes and see if the craving is gone.
If you still have the craving what I’m about to suggest next may not make sense, but give in to the craving. Now this doesn’t mean to go chomping down on whatever it is you’re craving okay.
I’m about to describe a mindfulness ritual that you can practise that will help you to give in to the craving, but at the same time stay in full control and awareness of how you’re being around that food.
Okay so pick up the food you’re craving and smell it. Take a deep breath in… really sniff that scent in.
Now break up the food and crumble it between your hands and fingers or dip a finger into it and pick up a bit of the food listening to the sounds that are happening as you do this.
Fully be present with the smell, sight, sounds, and feel of the food. Does it have an intense smell or is it mellow? How many colours can you see? Does it sound hard and sharp or soft and quiet between your hands or fingers? Feel its texture and temperature and notice the differences. Is it cold or hot? Does it feel smooth or rough?
Now put a piece of the food in your mouth allowing it to rest on your tongue, but don’t eat it! Just savour the flavour. Can you describe it? Can you describe the taste?
Finally, start chewing. Don’t swallow it. Just notice what your senses are telling you as you eat the food. Does it taste good? Does it feel good?
Alright, choice time. Now you have to choose whether to spit out the food and be done with the craving or swallow it.
If you do swallow it you will have another choice to make. Do you take another bite and continue eating or are you done with the craving?
This mindfulness food cravings ritual doesn’t work for everyone and if it didn’t work for you then what you have on your hands is not a physical food craving, but more an emotional or mental one.
To help with emotional and mental food cravings daily affirmations and daily meditation can help.
Affirmations don’t have to be overly positive and they can be as simple as, ‘I am here in this moment and this moment is all there is’. This type of affirmation removes past and future thinking keeping you in the present.
Meditation helps train you to be aware of your thoughts and to keep yourself focused on one thing. There are many types of meditation. You can do sitting, breathing, movement, walking, even gardening meditation. All of these will help balance your bodymind. You could do two minutes a day, two minutes every hour, two hours a day, whatever works for you just make meditation a daily practise as consistency is king when it comes to changing habits and ways of feeling and thinking.
Again meditation is about focusing the mind and one of the best ways to meditate or focus your mind is through play. Go outside and play tag or hide and seek with family and friends. Climb trees, fall off a tree, play fetch with Fido. Whatever it is you do for play let go of any expected outcome and just have fun. That’s what play is all about.
Another way to manage your emotional and mental food cravings is to keep a Food Mood Diary. This is where you note down date and time, place, people nearby, and how you’re feeling every time a food craving comes up. Over time you will notice a pattern begin to emerge. Emotional and mental food cravings can be triggered by a number of things and you may be able to find out what your personal triggers are by using a food mood diary.
Your ability to manage yourself when it comes to perceived stress plays a huge role in balancing out your thoughts and emotions. Self-management in terms of stress comes down to how much integrity you have with your thoughts, words, and deeds. If you say you’re going to do something then do it. If you write down a date that a task needs to be completed by then when that date comes that task better well be completed. And if you fail to do something that you said you would do apologise to the parties involved and if it’s just you apologise to yourself.
Integrity and harmony are key to having a clear bodymind that includes clarity of thought and a light heart.
Listen to the podcast I did on stress (podcast #3) to learn more on how to manage yourself and the perceived stressors in your life.
Here’s a quote by American philosopher and psychologist William James:
“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”
Emotional and mental food cravings fundamentally come down to not feeling appreciated when you expect to be and by not showing appreciation when you should. This includes self appreciation and giving yourself a pat on the back and loving your true authentic self.
So put down that pint of ice cream, that piece of pastry, that sugary cookie, that bar of milk chocolate, those salty chips, that crispy fried chicken, and choose instead to give yourself a hug and I want you to think, feel, and say to yourself, ‘I appreciate my life. I am worth it. I love me’.
If you find that difficult and don’t believe those words (and I know for some of you it is a struggle to show yourself authentic self love) how about thinking and feeling and saying this, ‘I have the potential to appreciate my life. I have the potential to be worthy. I have the potential to love myself’.
If you’re listening to this to my voice right now hear this, what I’m about to say for it is true: I Jason Marinovich appreciate you and your life. You are worthy for you are the reason why I record these podcasts. I thank you and give you all the gratitude I can give for listening and for giving me purpose. I love you my dear beautiful listener.
I’ll leave you with this thought.
Sameness begets staleness creating an unbalanced lifestyle leading to sickness, disease, and food cravings.
So keep moving forward.
Don’t let yourself get stuck in one way of being.
“Be water and keep in flow.”
Links and Resources
- WGP 014: Dream Building – How to Create the Life You Really Really Want
- WGP 003: How Stress is Making You Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
Please leave a 5-star iTunes review for the Whole Guidance Podcast
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In this podcast I’ll be exploring the topic of Dream Building:
- I’ll explain why having a dream is necessary to living a happy and healthy life
- I’ll talk about personal core values and how they help you build your dream
- Finally, I’ll share some tips on how to build your own dream that will move you toward the life you’ve always wanted
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
A lot of people today feel lost and live out their lives without really knowing what it is that makes them truly happy and what they really want from life.
What does this have to do with dream building?
Well dreams aren’t just what you experience during REM sleep. Dreams aren’t just visions and ideas created in your mind. Dreams aren’t just fantasies disconnecting you from reality. Dreams are much more.
Dreams act as your North Star a guiding light and give you direction in your life. Having a dream gives you purpose. It gives you the desire and the will to experience and live the life you want and to live it on your own terms.
Your dreams also make up your legacy where your legacy is your gift and your contribution to the world.
In order to live out your dream though you need to set goals.
Goals give you two things. Firstly goals give you an intention and provide you with a target to aim for. Secondly goals give you a means to reaching that target. So for example, if your dream was to be healthy and full of energy then one of your target goals could be to reduce excess fat and reduce your waistline by a certain amount before a set date. In the process of reaching that goal you would need to change up your diet and other aspects of your lifestyle. It is in this process of learning how to live a healthier lifestyle where you develop and grow as a person becoming someone different to who you were before.
So goals aren’t just something you achieve, but are also a means to learning a new way of being.
Without a dream your life becomes like a ship without a map and compass and without clearly defined goals that ship is without a captain on board. A ship that has set out to sea without direction and purpose will sail on endlessly going round and round in circles.
As the saying goes:
“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”
Having a dream gives you your GPS coordinates telling you exactly where you are now and where you want to go. Having clearly defined goals programs that GPS to give you the most effective route to achieve your dream.
Now I’m sure at one point in your life someone has told you to ‘stop daydreaming and pay attention’.
Now imagine if historical figures like Jesus Christ, Rosa Parks, William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo Da Vinci, Kate Sheppard and Mary Ann Müller who have directly or indirectly changed the course of human history imagine if these people stopped dreaming and did exactly what everyone else was doing.
Martin Luther King Jr would not have been inspired to lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement and make his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech, but instead would have had to unhappily sit on the sidelines and settle for having to live out somebody else’s dream.
This is where your own personal core values come in.
Your personal core values are the needs you have when it comes to living an awesome life. They define how you want to live, they guide your choices, and they determine the type of person you want to be. Core values also influence the types of personal relationships you want to be in and also what communities and organisations you wish to join.
Basically core values help you choose when to say yes and when to say no.
Living in harmony with your values creates a very happy and well-balanced life free of major and chronic stress. However, if you don’t live your life according to your own set of core values then stress just begins to pile up and up and up and you’ll never achieve true happiness and health.
For example if you value health and vitality, but are eating fast food on a regular basis the image you have of yourself in your mind compared to what you see in the mirror may just shock you. Another example what if you value free quality education for all yet you work for a very expensive and exclusive private school with horrible teaching strategies. Working in a place that has a very different set of values to you will give you more stress then you bargained for giving you a lot more than a mere shock as time goes on.
Now if you aren’t willing to live your life and make choices that align with your core values then realise what you’re actually doing is choosing to live your life according to somebody else’s value system. To take control and responsibility of your own life means to live it in full alignment with your core values otherwise in reality it’s another person or organisation that is driving your ship wherever they want it to go.
Some categories of core values and basic needs you should be aware of include:
- Physical health
- Emotional health
- Mental health
- Spiritual health
- Financial needs
- Time needs
- Relationship needs
- Social needs
When it comes to building your dream you want to make sure that your core value system is in full alignment with your dream. If your values are opposite to your stated dream you will end up working against that dream so change your values to be more dream affirmative.
If your dream is to be healthy and full of energy then valuing eating whole foods over processed fake food-like products is in harmony with your dream. But if you end up eating fake food half the time then there’s a conflict between what you want for your dream and what you need in your life leading to stress and eventually unhappiness.
Okay so now that you know why you need a dream and a goal and to live life according to your core values and that these values need to be in harmony with your dream let’s get into how to build a dream worth living.
First up, find your dream. What is your dream?
You want to make your dream big enough to energise you and to move you. This energy in motion will give you the motivation and the inspiration to move forward in the face of challenges and obstacles that most definitely will come your way. You want a big enough why to inspire you to achieve what may look like the impossible. Realise though that impossible is simply another way to say I’m possible!
Your dream statement can’t be superficial. Something like wanting to lose weight or to look good naked or to be rich would be superficial. You can start here, but then ask yourself why do you want to lose weight? What will that give you? Maybe it will help you keep up with your children while playing or allow you to travel and walk the century old streets in Europe. Why do you want to look good naked? Is it to have more confidence and be a better lover to your partner? Maybe it’s so you can live a longer quality of life where you’ll be able to see your great grandkids one day and still be mobile and agile enough to pick them up. Why do you want to be rich? Is it so you can volunteer your services for free and help others who wouldn’t normally be able to afford them? Maybe being rich is a means for you to have more free time allowing you to support charities and other non-profit organisations.
In these cases you would reword the dream from wanting to lose weight or look good naked or to be rich to I want to be full of energy so that I can play with my kids without getting tired and out of breathe or I want to be healthy and fit so that I can travel to Europe and walk the ancient streets of Rome or I want to be able to give my full time and attention to supporting a particular charity.
So what is your dream? Is it to live in another location in a nice home surrounded by family? Is it to complete a half-marathon? Is it to climb Mt Everest? Is it to make vice president or to gain employment at a specific organisation? Is it to build a real foods delivery service? Is it to keep working in your current job to create enough financial security so that you can take time out for a whole year building your own business?
Write down your dream on a piece of paper.
If you’re finding it difficult to come up with a dream then think about what makes you come alive and are passionate about. Think about things that inspire and motivate you.
If you’re still struggling think about what you despise and hate or what’s causing you the most stress in your life in this moment. For example I hate the fact that food outlets even gourmet organic restaurants still use industrial seed oils like canola oil as their cooking fat of choice. So I could have the dream of becoming a real food advocate for getting natural animal and fruit fats into food outlets and getting seed oils out. Or I could have a dream of owning my own restaurant that served only real food without a single pretend fake food-like product in sight. Maybe you use public transport and hate the fact that the timetables and scheduling are out of sync with what people actually need. Your dream could be to create your own private transport service that provides more availability and flexibility. Perhaps your biggest stress right now is with your husband or wife and your dream is to renew your vows of marriage and to a have a loving and respectful physical and emotional relationship together.
Whatever your desire, pleasure or pain there’s a dream in there somewhere.
Next write down your personal core values. These relate to what it is you need to live your dream and to be happy. Write down at least five core values for the eight different categories I listed previously and feel free to add more categories such as career needs, equipment needs, or environmental and location needs.
Ask yourself in each category what do I need? For example regarding physical health you could ask yourself what are my dietary and movement needs? For spiritual health you could ask yourself what are my meditation and being outdoors in nature needs. For mental health you could ask yourself what are my needs in terms of challenging my brain and having some quiet time to myself.
Remember your core values should be congruent and in harmony with your dream.
Next step is to create your dream team. Your dream team are the people in your life who will support you in realising your dream. This could include family members, friends, personal trainers, business coaches, doctors anyone who is on your side and wants to see you succeed and that you need the support of in order to achieve your goal. Write down a list of people who will support you in realising your dream.
Next come the ABCs of dream building. ABC is an acronym which is actually read backwards beginning with C.
C stands for Clarity, B stands for Belief, and A stands Action.
Starting with clarity you need to be clear on what it is you need to do, how much time it will take, and the resources and energy you will need in realising your dream. This is where goal setting comes in.
Goals need to be SMART that is S M A R T which is another acronym.
S stands for Specific. So be clear on what it is you want to achieve and why, example ‘I want to decrease my body weighto isn’t as specific as ‘I want to feel happier and have more energy by decreasing my body weight by 10 kg’.
M stands for Measurable. This qualifies and quantifies the goal so you know when you’ve reached it or not. So sticking with the previous example you know you’ve reached your goal when you’ve decreased your weight by 10 kg.
The A and R stand for Attainable and Realistic. Your goal needs to be achievable and within the realms of possibility. So wanting to drop 10 kg in four weeks is a lot more attainable and realistic than four days.
Finally the T stands for Timeliness. Your goal needs to have an end date. This gives you two things. First it gives you a sense of urgency as you make progress toward your goal. Second it gives you a completion date on which you can check on the results you got or didn’t get. From here you can evaluate what worked and what didn’t work and then get cracking on a brand new goal.
Your turn. Write down one or two goals. Your goal should be both target-focused and means-focused or create one goal for each respectively.
So a target-focused goal would be wanting to decrease your weight by 10 kg before the 1st of December for example. A means-focused goal would be wanting to feel happier and have more energy making you a better father and husband or an employee that contributes positively to the workplace. One goal focuses on the end result while the other goal focuses on how you’re being in the process of reaching the goal.
Next, but still with the C of ABCs you need to create a plan of actionable steps that you need to take in order to achieve your goal and realise your dream.
Write down what you need to do and have done in the next 91 days or three months. Next write down what you need to do and have done in the next 28 days or one month. Then write out action steps for the next 7 days. After you’ve got your action items written out for the next 91, 28, and 7 days from today onward you are going to write down what it is you need to do today as part of completing all the action items for the week. This is your plan.
Once you’ve completed a week, review your 91, 28, and 7 day plans again and update when necessary and create a new weekly and daily plan. Repeat this process till you reach the end of your goal and evaluate the results.
After planning and gaining clarity comes belief.
Belief is a huge factor in realising your dream and accomplishing your goals. You may have a dream that seems beyond your current capabilities and skill set right now. Well believing in yourself is about having a vision of who you are going to have to be in order to realise your dream and who you will become once you’ve lived your dream. Self belief will drive out those limiting and negative thoughts that keep you as you are and prevent you from changing.
Napoleon Hill author of Think And Grow Rich, which is an oldie but a goodie in terms of personal and spiritual development books, said:
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve.”
And as Arnold Patent author of You Can Have It All says:
“To live life in ideal terms, you must first conceive of it that way.”
So before you can realise your dream in reality you must realise it in your bodymind. You must see it, envision it, embody it and fully embrace your dream. You need to believe in your self and know that you have what it takes to make your dream come true.
Now that you’re clear on what you need to do and believe in yourself the next and final step in building your dream is to take the necessary action required. You can read every single book in the world on how to ride a bike or swim, but until you put butt to bicycle seat or get your feet wet and actually have the experience all that knowledge will be of no use.
It has been said that ‘knowledge is power’, but in reality knowledge is potential power. Applying knowledge by being in action is when you are the most powerful version of yourself.
As Morpheus said to Neo in my favourite movie of all time The Matrix:
“…there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”
So use your empowering belief of self and take action on your plan.
“Experience is real power.”
One last thing to keep in mind is that life is a journey not a destination. Life is an ever changing process and you will need to understand that challenges and obstacles are a part of that process. The path toward your dream will be littered with many stumbling blocks. You will be able to steer clear of the most obvious hurdles that show up, but there will always be finer bumps in the road that you will never see coming that will trip you up.
So one the best tips I can leave you with when it comes to building and following your dream is to expect hardship and difficulties to show up every now and then and while you should follow your plan to the T, like a boat at sea surprised by very strong winds, don’t forget to make adjustments and course corrections along the way.
Your mission isn’t to get from A to B without a hitch. Your mission if you choose to accept it is to get from A to B with the least amount of clumsy hilariously goofy looking trips and falls as possible and to get up and stand up taller every single time.
Here’s to living the life you’ve always wanted.
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Mate – Tucker Max, Geoffrey Miller PhD
(Buy from Amazon; Buy from The Book Depository)
The #1 bestselling pioneer of “fratire” and a leading evolutionary psychologist team up to create the dating book for guys
Whether they conducted their research in life or in the lab, experts Tucker Max and Dr. Geoffrey Miller have spent the last 20+ years learning what women really want from their men, why they want it, and how men can deliver those qualities.
The short answer: become the best version of yourself possible, then show it off. It sounds simple, but it’s not. If it were, Tinder would just be the stuff you use to start a fire. Becoming your best self requires honesty, self-awareness, hard work and a little help.
Through their website and podcasts, Max and Miller have already helped over one million guys take their first steps toward Ms. Right. They have collected all of their findings in Mate, an evidence-driven, seriously funny playbook that will teach you to become a more sexually attractive and romantically successful man, the right way:
– No “seduction techniques”
– No moralizing
– No bullshit
Just honest, straightforward talk about the most ethical, effective way to pursue the win-win relationships you want with the women who are best for you.
Much of what they’ve discovered will surprise you, some of it will not, but all of it is important and often misunderstood. So listen up, and stop being stupid!
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
The Highly Sensitive Person – Elaine N. Aron PhD
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Are you a highly sensitive person?
Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams? Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water? Are you “too shy” or “too sensitive” according to others? Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you? If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).
Most of us feel overstimulated every once in a while, but for the Highly Sensitive Person, it’s a way of life. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Elaine Aron, a psychotherapist, workshop leader and highly sensitive person herself, shows you how to identify this trait in yourself and make the most of it in everyday situations. Drawing on her many years of research and hundreds of interviews, she shows how you can better understand yourself and your trait to create a fuller, richer life.
In The Highly Sensitive Person, you will discover:
* Self-assessment tests to help you identify your particular sensitivities
* Ways to reframe your past experiences in a positive light and gain greater self-esteem in the process
* Insight into how high sensitivity affects both work and personal relationships
* Tips on how to deal with overarousal
* Informations on medications and when to seek help
* Techniques to enrich the soul and spirit
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
Better Than Before – Gretchen Rubin
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The author of the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, tackles the critical question: How do we change?
Gretchen Rubin’s answer: through habits. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life. It takes work to make a habit, but once that habit is set, we can harness the energy of habits to build happier, stronger, more productive lives.
So if habits are a key to change, then what we really need to know is: How do we change our habits?
Better than Before answers that question. It presents a practical, concrete framework to allow readers to understand their habits—and to change them for good. Infused with Rubin’s compelling voice, rigorous research, and easy humor, and packed with vivid stories of lives transformed, Better than Before explains the (sometimes counter-intuitive) core principles of habit formation.
Along the way, Rubin uses herself as guinea pig, tests her theories on family and friends, and answers readers’ most pressing questions—oddly, questions that other writers and researchers tend to ignore:
• Why do I find it tough to create a habit for something I love to do?
• Sometimes I can change a habit overnight, and sometimes I can’t change a habit, no matter how hard I try. Why?
• How quickly can I change a habit?
• What can I do to make sure I stick to a new habit?
• How can I help someone else change a habit?
• Why can I keep habits that benefit others, but can’t make habits that are just for me?
Whether readers want to get more sleep, stop checking their devices, maintain a healthy weight, or finish an important project, habits make change possible. Reading just a few chapters of Better Than Before will make readers eager to start work on their own habits—even before they’ve finished the book.
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.
Holistic and Functional Health Practitioners such as myself do not treat symptoms or disease. We treat you, the person.
Symptoms and disease are the last expression of an underlying problem happening in your body.
As health detectives we dig deeper and investigate further to uncover the root cause of dysfunction in your body. Once we find the real issue, the root cause and restore function back to those weakened areas of your body the symptoms and disease will eventually heal.
Besides working with me you can locate other like-minded Holistic and Functional Health Practitioners at the following websites.
Picture: Stuart Miles | freedigitalphotos.net
Podcasts are digital audio programmes similar to a radio show.
You can download a majority of podcasts for free to your computer or smart mobile device using applications such as iTunes, Stitcher, and Pocket Casts.
Below you will find a premium selection of wellness podcasts that will assist you in improving many different areas of your life including health, wealth, love, and happiness.
- Wise Traditions – Weston A. Price Foundation, Hilda Labrada Gore (download from iTunes)
- The Model Health Show – Shawn Stevenson (download from iTunes)
- Love-Life – Jane Donovan (download from iTunes)
- Soul Doctor – Rebecca Dettman (download from iTunes)
- The One You Feed – Eric Zimmer (download from iTunes)
- Happier with Gretchen Rubin – Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft (download from iTunes)
- The Quote of the Day Show – Sean Croxton (download from iTunes)
- Bruce Lee Podcast – Shannon Lee (download from iTunes)
- The Cognitive Rampage – Adam Lowery (download from iTunes)
- Tangentially Speaking – Dr Christopher Ryan (download from iTunes)
- The Tim Ferriss Show – Tim Ferriss (download from iTunes)
- Up For A Chat – Carren Smith, Cyndi O’Meara, Kim Morrison (download from iTunes)
- Balanced Bites – Diane Sanfilippo and Liz Wolfe (download from iTunes)
- Rewild Yourself! Podcast – Daniel Vitalis (download from iTunes)
- Katy Says with Katy Bowman – Katy Bowman (download from iTunes)
- Ben Greenfield Fitness – Ben Greenfield (download from iTunes)
- Fitness Confidential with Vinnie Tortorich – Vinnie Tortorich (download from iTunes)
- The Fat-Burning Man Show – Abel James (download from iTunes)
- Jocko Podcast – Jocko Willink and Echo Charles (download from iTunes)
- The Joe Rogan Experience – Joe Rogan (download from iTunes)
- Bulletproof Radio – Dave Asprey (download from iTunes)
- Revolution Health Radio – Chris Kresser (download from iTunes)
- The Sean Croxton Sessions – Sean Croxton (download from iTunes)
- Body IO FM – John Kiefer and Dr Rocky Patel (download from iTunes)
- Underground Wellness Radio – Sean Croxton (download from iTunes)
Picture: digitalart | freedigitalphotos.net
There are over four billion websites online dedicated to health, dieting, and weight loss.
With mainstream advice not working for a lot of people and the fact that most of it often contradicts itself where does one go for consistent practical wellness information that works for 99% of individuals when applied in the real world?
Below you will find 20 websites that are the pick of the wellness bunch that are backed by human history and factual non-political, non-financed science. These websites also have real world evidence as reported by real people who have healed and cured themselves following the lifestyle recommendations and whole food recipes that are detailed within.
Click through to a better, stronger, healthier, and happier you.
- WestonAPrice.org
- PaulCheksBlog.com
- UndergroundWellness.com
- ChrisKresser.com
- MarksDailyApple.com
- PerfectHealthDiet.com
- Body.io
- FatBurningMan.com
- BenGreenfieldFitness.com
- RobbWolf.com
- BalancedBites.com
- BulletproofExec.com
- GlutenFreeAnna.com
- WellnessMama.com
- NomNomPaleo.com
- CivilizedCavemanCooking.com
- EatDrinkPaleo.com.au
- NourishedKitchen.com
- AgainstAllGrain.com
- ZenbellyCatering.com
Have you ever attended a conference, seminar, or workshop and wished to yourself that you had a video or audio recording? What about having a full transcription of the entire event that you can read at your own leisure?
The online seminar or summit scene is very popular at the moment. You get options for video, audio, and transcripts that you can purchase for lifetime access.
The following health summits are the most cost-effective way to educate and upskill yourself in your own time and improve you and your family’s health and well-being along the way.
- The Gluten Summit – from theDr.com
(visit product page) - Real Food Con – from UndergroundWellness.com
(visit product page) - Detox Summit – from FoodandSpirit.com
(visit product page) - Digestion Sessions – from UndergroundWellness.com
(visit product page) - Thyroid Sessions – from UndergroundWellness.com
(visit product page) - Evolution of Medicine Summit – from FunctionalForum.com
(visit product page) - Paleo Summit – from UndergroundWellness.com
(visit product page)
Picture: Stuart Miles | freedigitalphotos.net
Disclaimer: This page contains affiliate links that may provide monetary compensation to help support the Whole Guidance Vision of Creating a Happy and Healthy Planet should you make a purchase. We very much appreciate and thank you for your support.