First, understand stress is not all bad. It is a primal response designed to prepare us for challenges and threats. Stress can infuse you with heightened alertness and enhance your ability to complete tasks. In this sense, stress can serve as an energy source that propels you.
Read MoreIn the realm of building resilience, mindfulness helps you reframe challenges and setbacks as steppingstones rather than stumbling blocks. Thus, you become an alchemist transmuting adversity into opportunities for personal growth. This reframing is a powerful tool. It is a shift in perspective, one in which you embrace challenges with a sense of purpose.
Read MoreWhen it comes to emotional intelligence, mindfulness magnifies your ability to discern emotional subtleties. Are you upset you spilled your coffee or simply nervous about a presentation you have at work? If you tune into the physical sensations, thoughts, and impulses associated with each emotion, you gain a deeper understanding of yourself.
Read MoreMindfulness encourages you to be fully present When you cultivate mindfulness, you awaken to the world around you and within you. This heightened awareness becomes a wellspring of inspiration. This is the source from which innovative ideas emerge.
Read MoreResearch suggests that mindfulness exercises your brain and nurtures its growth. Through mindfulness, regions associated with attention, memory, and emotional regulation thicken. These mental exercises, much like lifting weights, sculpt your brain, making it more adept at navigating the complexities of life.
Read MoreThe mind has intrigued sages and scientists since the beginning of time. The phenomenon of thinking has allowed humanity to cultivate crops to feed the world, build roads to ease movement, create medicines to heal, and write words which inspire. All are miraculous achievements and there’s more to come.
Read MoreThis is not airy-fairy, woo-woo and whales in space. The benefits of present-moment awareness are profound and far-reaching. Check out this excerpt from my book Mindful Mastery.
Read MoreMy dad lived 81 very active years. Carpentry was his profession and he also spent his nights and weekends remodeling the homes we lived in when I was a boy. Later in life, the 14 acres he owned in East Tennessee required year-round maintenance and he took pride in doing it himself. His daily movement was the key to his good health. Despite the fact he ate too much of my mom’s cooking, an active lifestyle protected him from many of the ravages of time.
Read MoreWho you are and all you are becoming improves your life and inspires others to do the same. When you let your light shine, you light the way for others to follow. This is what being empowered means.
Read MoreThe benefits of practicing gratitude are many. It’s not simply that you feel better because you appreciate rather than depreciate what’s around you, but you literally improve your physical and mental health. This is why an attitude of gratitude is so important if you want to live in a state of optimal health.
Read MoreYou have chosen to live in a state of optimal health. This is unique to you and not just because of biometrics, your medical history or how long you can hold a plank. Your highest level of living is tied to how you view the world. So, does your perspective give you happiness?
Read MoreOne of the great things about being an adult is you can choose new interpretations about anything in your life. Moreover, you can consciously integrate new, empowering associations to any aspect of your wellness. At any time, you can recreate the meanings about your health.
Read MoreYou are the master of your life. You are the guru. You are the one who gets to choose what optimal health looks and feels like. If juggling oranges while riding a unicycle is your idea of a fun way to workout – do it! – and send me a video. What you are doing must empower you.
Read MoreI’m an optimist by choice, if for no other reason than life is better with a positive outlook. Looking at the bright side helps me reach goals even when I want to quit. Choosing to see the good in any situation empowers me to see possibilities above the challenges. This approach, balanced with a rational acceptance of what is, is being put to the test as I write this.
Read MoreIf you haven’t noticed by now, the Empowered approach to creating a state of optimal health in your life, is about more than your body. This is about creating a beautiful quality of life by caring for your whole Self. Yes, that is a capital “S” because you are so much more than just a body. Having made it this far into the contents of the book, I trust you agree with this perspective.
Read MoreKnowing that what you’re thinking in a moment of weakness is one thing, but you also need to know how to defuse the power of the excuse. What follows is a simple process you can use to regain your power whenever one of those self-defeating thoughts arise.
Read MoreConsistency is vital to long-term wellness. The thoughts you hold in mind on a regular basis lead to actions, which create (or frustrate) you on your path of optimal health. What you hold in mind also sparks feelings that can propel you into the gym early in the morning and may compel you to choose a salad over a cheeseburger.
Read MoreThe thing is, change takes time and happens one step at a time. Your mental energy is finite and every decision you make uses it. This is especially true if you are using “willpower” toward a new endeavor or one in which you’ve struggled in the past. The key to successful change is giving yourself permission to master one change at a time.
Read MoreIt is time to build on your clean, strong foundation in this excerpt from EMPOWERED. There are three things which happen when you reframe the way in which you eat and exercise. First, you change from external to internal meaning. Second, you make choices from autonomous strength, rather than following the dictates of others. Third, your motivation becomes positive and not negative.
Read MoreYou continually get messages which influence you. Today more than ever, you are inundated by social media, traditional media, advertisers, so-called influencers and, not to mention, the ideas and opinions of your family, friends and peer group. You are a social animal and you have adopted, at least some, of other people’s views about diet and exercise. It’s time to decide which ones to keep and which ones do not serve you.
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