How Being Naked Transforms You

August 17th, 2011
Woman splashing in the ocean

Taste the freedom

In my book club, we just started reading a book about being naked. Well, it’s not about being physically naked, but about stripping your life down to just this moment.

My friend and colleague, John, says he’s started to believe that transformation is a “subtractive process,” a journey of shedding the weighty illusions that get in the way of our living from our cores. Transformation requires incredible vulnerability and acceptance–and, frankly, a powerful faith in God. (The more we reveal of ourselves, the more we come to know Him.)

All of this got me thinking about real nakedness, the physical nakedness I said the book did not address. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Secret to Finding the Time

June 7th, 2011
Running in Rumi's Field

When was the last time you ____ -- just because?

In my last blog about money, I invited you to consider surprising ways you could find and spread your wealth.

Perhaps, like me, you also think that time is a scarce commodity. Time is money slipping through your fingers, only the currency is shrinking minutes in the day.

It’s all a farce, ya know. If you assessed all the tasks you accomplish for which ones add breath to your life or a kind touch to someone else’s, could you really find the time for those? And… even though you say you don’t have the time… how often do you squander your time on the Internet or with other trivial excuses? It seems time is quite relative, and it all depends on how you look at it.

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Money, God, and Living in Abundance

May 19th, 2011

Happy man lying in field of grass looking up at sky

How are money worries keeping you small?

When was the last time you lost money? Perhaps it was an investment gone bad, or something as trivial as wasted produce that soured in the fridge.

I lost a client today. Circumstances changed at her job and I was looking like an expense she (I’ll call her Olivia) couldn’t afford.

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What Everyone Ought to Know about Dieting

January 31st, 2011
Woman biting a cookie

Is your diet making you fat? Probably!

First, let’s talk about what constitutes a diet.

Some possibilities: Eating according to a highly recommended meal plan rather than one of your own creation and choosing (i.e. any prepackaged meal system or plan outlined as part of a fitness craze); eating to the exclusion of certain foods (i.e. low-carbohydrate diet); eating to “cleanse” your body (i.e. detox diet); eating in a way that sucks the time, energy, and life out of your day (any diet.)

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How to Make Your Health Commitments Stick

December 29th, 2010
Man doing a horizontal handstand--yes, tough!

Now, that had to take practice!

Last post, you learned about the folly of making resolutions (after all, you are not someone in need of being “fixed.”) Hopefully, you then went on to declare a new vision for your year.

However, your declaration—as beautifully sunny as it may be—won’t do you a lick of good unless you put some specific commitments on paper. Here’s why and how.

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#1 Health Resolution to Avoid, and What to Do Instead

December 28th, 2010
Hand holding a compass before a fork in the road
Invent your own way

New Year’s Resolutions. Yuck. If weight loss tops your list, then you’re in good company. Fleetingly hopeful, mostly depressed, self-critical company.

The dread you feel is your flight-or-fight response getting ready to kick in, and neither a green tea-stimulated purge of your kitchen cabinets nor a week-long “Survivor” program with Boot Camp Bobby will be effective or healthy in the long run.

Carve an inspiring path for yourself instead. Here’s how.

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The Pursuit of a Healthy Weight (Heaven Part 2)

December 9th, 2010
Running through grass on a summer day

Your life is worth the freedom

Marianne Williamson, in her famous quote about our brilliance (“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure”) ends by saying that “as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

When I—and you!—gloriously pursue, and gracefully accept, a healthy weight, we radiate that magnificent energy outward. It’s as if we are walking down the street and subtly nodding and beckoning to those we meet: “You are worth it. Come experience how fantastic it feels.”

At age 19 and 127 pounds, I had a summer job, no boyfriend, and a constant unsettled feeling as to who I was and what I was doing in this world. Today, at age 37 and a blissfully undulating, perfectly healthy weight, I am happily married, living into my calling, and slowly settling into my own skin. Cellulite and all.

You are worth it, too. Come experience how fantastic it feels.

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The Pursuit of a Healthy Weight (Heaven, Part 1)

December 7th, 2010
Happy woman wrapping her arms around a weight scale

Happiness is a healthy weight

Following Geneen’s line of thinking: What if heaven were wanting life to be exactly what it is? To be unmistakably content no matter the number on the scale. To even rejoice when it fluctuates because then I know I’m alive—growing, stretching, loving my husband, eating, running, getting my period.

As a Christian, I am continually moving from grace to glory—from a state of sanctification and “elegance or beauty of form” (Dictionary.com) to a state of even greater praise, adoration, and splendor.

What if I let myself believe that I am already perfectly made? How would that free me to pursue the even more admirable vision of a healthy, God-honoring weight? (I say admirable because it requires perseverance to seek and maintain health. To embrace “good enough.”)

Next post: Our radiant brilliance and Heaven, Part 2.

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The Pursuit of the Perfect Weight (Hell, Part 2)

December 2nd, 2010

Little girl seemingly pushing a boulder up a hillIt took me 8 months to shed 4 pounds and reach my goal weight of 132.6 for my July wedding. It took a determined degree of discipline. I didn’t go to extremes, mind you, because I will still maintain that I didn’t diet per se.—I just kept an even more keen eye on my moderate eating and exercise plan.

Yet, on the best day of my life, I still felt just the teeniest bit on the hefty side. I still had cellulite. And I still wasn’t in love with what I saw in the mirror.

I was clearly at a “healthier” weight—at least according to the charts. But I also had noticeably diminished energy. And I thought I could still stand to lose a few more pounds. Darned if I do, darned if I don’t.

By fixating on a perfect weight, I created the perfect hell for myself.

In Geneen Roth’s incredibly insightful book, Women Food and God, she writes that hell is “wanting life to be different from what it is.” Disregarding reality. Checking out of my own life. (By focusing so maddeningly on just this one aspect of my life—a fluky external measurement—I am choosing to miss experiencing the abundance in the rest of my life).

I’m living in a sick fantasy world of my own making because I refuse to see that what I think I want is unattainable. I buck the belief that it’s crazy. I dismiss the thought that my body knows best and 129 is an honest threat to my health. I mean, I haven’t even been able to maintain my wedding weight, let alone slim down further.

Next post: The Pursuit of a Healthy Weight (Heaven, Part 1)

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The Pursuit of the Perfect Weight (Hell, Part 1)

November 30th, 2010

I stopped dieting a long time ago.

When I gained 50 pounds in my junior and senior years of college, and slowly took it off in the couple of years afterward, I simply started choosing food more wisely, and that’s also when I picked up running again. I haven’t felt like I’m on a diet because I enjoy eating well.

Although I stopped dieting a long time ago, I realized today that I’ve been putting myself through another kind of hell over the years. The pursuit of the perfect weight.Woman's feet on a bathroom scale

I hit my perfect weight for one single season of my adult life. It was in the spring semester of my sophomore year of college. I was 19 years old, 5’6” and 127 pounds.

And I stopped getting my period.

That alone should be an indication to me that my “perfect weight” is anything but perfect for me. In reality, that particular weight is utterly wrong for me. Completely unnatural. My body told me so in a clearly identifiable way.

And yet my mind, which is just as susceptible to ads of Victoria Secret models as the next woman, is stuck on 127. Or at least 129.

Next post: My wedding weight and Hell, Part 2.

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