1.                 I’m a slave –shackled to my worry and guilt concerning my ever-increasing weight.  

2.                 I’m a slave to the unhealthy foods that I consume in exorbitant quantities.

3.                 I’m a slave to my discomfort and ill-ease as I painfully sit in your tight jeans, or when I feel my inner thighs rub, or when my upper back fat hangs over the bra-line area of my tank top!  

As I’ve been dieting virtually all my life and exercising in hopes of becoming super fit without drastically changing my eating habits, I’ve gone beyond the point of frustration. I’ve resigned. I’ve giving up on weight loss and simply focus on loving and accepting myself as I am. Doing so has helped my self-esteem yet my desire to be my best self still remains.  I do want to be fit and lean. It’s a personal desire and not a fulfillment our society’s ‘standard of beauty’ requirements. I feels good to exercise and to be secure in one’s skin. Yet regardless of how sexy I may feel as I am today, I definitely wouldn’t mind being able to pull it off 100% –like managing to wear something out of Cat Woman’s wardrobe ;0)  But then again, I’m tired. Be it with dieting or fighting for the right to be considered attractive even as a ‘fat girl.’ It’s exhausting!

And then it happened, as if the Universe sensed my conflict, I came across a fitness coach’s comments in regards to people being ‘works in progress.’ She went on to use three key words: Decide, Commit and Believe. She stated, “Once you connect to the fact that you want change, you have to commit to the process. You may miss a day of training here and there, or shove a stress doughnut into your mouth, but the only way for you to get back on track is to recommit. Create the change you want.”   

‘RECOMMIT!’ That word empowered me. It created a drastic perspective shift. I went from feeling like a weight loss burnout to a potential weight loss success. Just knowing that if I fumbled along the way, I could always renew the promise I’d initially made to myself, “I’m going to become mentally-emotionally-physically-financially healthy no matter how long it takes!”  

Of course the next question that popped into my head was: Can I commit?

“Yes, I can. But it has to be for something worthwhile and important.”

“Aren’t you ‘worthwhile and important?’”

“We’ll yeah, but I didn’t see it like that.”

-Perspective shift! 

As a semi-vegan, I’m committed to not eating animal flesh. That choice is something I renew on a daily basis. My trigger is in reminding myself that the flesh on the grill or in someone’s plate was once a living creature. It’s easy for me to associate all meats, seafood and eggs with death and decay. Yet I can’t seem to do the same with sugary/white/processed/fatty foods. Intellectually, I know that those types of foods cause illness and subsequently death, if abused. But I’ve not acquired the emotional releasing mechanism necessary for kicking my unhealthy food addiction. 

So what’s it going to take? I’m not quite sure but I think making a true commitment to COMPLETE WELLNESS –a total mind-body-spirit connection is imperative. Stephen R. Covey states in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: “… we find two ways to put ourselves in control of our lives immediately. We can make a promise –and keep it. Or we can set a goal –and achieve it. As we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives. By making and keeping promises to others, and ourselves little by little, our honor becomes greater than our moods. The power to make and keep commitments to ourselves is the essence of developing the basic habits of effectiveness. Knowledge, skill, and desire are all within our control. We work on any one to improve the balance of the three. As the area of intersection becomes larger, we more deeply internalize the principles upon which the habits are based and create the strength of character to move us in a balanced way toward increasing effectiveness in our lives.’ 

Will keeping a weight loss journal, strengthen my character or create a balanced approach to increased effectiveness? Not entirely, but I think it can play a significant role if I tweak it a bit.  This week while attending a coaching class, I learned the difference between a client who is ‘trying to reach their goal’ and a client that is ‘committed to his/her reaching their goal.’ Trying means that the client is only attempting to reach his/her goal without doing all that is necessary to achieve it. But a client that makes a commitment binds him/herself to his/her objective in terms of it being a promise or a pledge.   

For years I’ve tried to ‘get thin.’ But I wasn’t committing to it holistically. Making a promise to become ‘whole’ is much more liberating and strengthening than simply wanting to lose excess weight. Be it committing to a single relationship, getting a professional coaching certification, or sticking to a wellness program, for me 2008 is proving to be the year that I must rise to the challenge of a complete transformation. It is a challenge that I must carry out with courage, determination, enthusiasm and poise. Therefore, I won’t waste another minute of this New Year feeling bad about myself, uncomfortable in my clothing, or stressing about the upcoming spring and summer seasons. 

“Do I wear a bathing suit –and feel exposed to critical eyes.” OR 

“Do I burn up in this black t-shirt and jeans that’s hiding my flabby stomach and thighs?” 

 The answer : “Do whatever it takes to be thrilled with who you are without losing sight of what is important: mind-body-spirit balance and personal integrity. So with all that said, it’s time to take a giant step toward total health and fitness by having this post be the first entry of my Complete Wellness Journal –the tweaked version of a weight loss food log.

Is defined as an objective and solicited response given in view of a person’s goals and values. With that said, I don’t think that most people are used to getting effective feedback from others based on what is considered important solely to them. Generally in exchanges with family members, friends, co-workers, children etc… most of us are often given or give unsolicited opinions and advice. It’s more difficult to get or give the type of feedback that will provide powerful options, personal growth encouragement and increased self-concept.

In the coaching world, it is believed that solicited and neutral feedback has the potential to empower a client; as coaches have, in part, the role of being a client’s mirror and accountability partner. The premise of feedback, which is free of a coach’s personal judgment, should respond objectively to a client’s actions, reactions and thought patterns in order to create awareness and life altering choices. Being in a ‘safe environment’, where honesty is also primordial, enables a client to eventually become self-directed and self-decisive. 

On a more maternal note, I find that effective feedback not only works with my clients but with my five-year-old as well. That’s not to say that getting her permission to give feedback is easy but asking what her goals or intentions are seems to go over much better than using unsolicited motherly advice.

As a parent I often play the role of dictator, saying things like, “You better clean your room.” Or “What do you mean, ‘you hate school!’” Neither of those two phrases gets a positive reaction. More often than not she starts whining.

However if I were to act as a coach, I would first play the role of ‘mirror’ stating, “ I noticed you didn’t clean your room.” Or “I’ve heard you say that you don’t like school.” I know that the neutral acknowledgement of what she has said or done will allow her to open up in a way that my tyrannical orders won’t permit. She’d become more willing to tell me ‘why’ she doesn’t feel like cleaning her room or doesn’t want to go to school. 

I could then go on to ask her what she thinks school should be like. I’d do so primarily to know what’s she’s expecting of herself –to determine how she perceives herself in regards to her classmates, her teachers and her abilities and her limitations. If she tells me that she thinks that school should be fun and easy, then I’ll be able to understand that maybe she’s finding school more challenging that it was before. And if that were the case, maybe a parent-child-teacher conference would help establish clarity. I would then help align her own idea of school as fun with her teacher’s expectations.

I could possibly hire a ‘cool tutor’ or find her a reading buddy. I find that children love playing grown-ups and being in a position to share their knowledge, so we could role-play. She would play the teacher while I pretend to be her student.

Be it a client or a child, effective feedback creates an empowering exchange that doesn’t occur there is unsolicited opinions, advice or lectures. 

I seize every day that is given to me with fervent passion and pleasure -loving the breath of life that runs through my veins and hoping to make a small difference in this world that I’ve only just recently started to consider ‘changeable.’

I’m hoping that my own constructive self expression will make a tiny difference. If only in my immediate world -my circle of family and friends. But as well in sharing my thoughts with anyone who happens to discover them on this site.  

I’m new to the whole blogging scene. So much more comfortable with the old paper and pen. But it would seem that one has to change with the times so as not to be left behind. So here I am, sharing my thoughts with the world. Scary but wonderful. 

The main reason for this blog is to keep a required written account of my evolutionary/structural  change based on the insight that my Coach training will bring me.  In re-reading my old hand written journals I’ve realized that in the past 13 years ‘insight’ has been coming from my students.

As a novice english language trainer, I had expected to help my students understand the concepts they had to learn and that be the end of my day. I was highly mistaken. They  taught me far more than I bargained for.

Some of the exchanges I had in my classrooms and in my voice studio were life altering. This combined with my own personal struggles elicited a strong desire for personal transformation. 

What is it and why do we need it? I hope writing this blog will help me answer that question as I seem convinced that it’s important for us all to learn to express ourselves in a more constructive manner.

Yet I’m wondering if anyone else cares. I mean, by the looks of what’s happening in the world, it  would seem that overall we’re all just fine with the way things are: wars and crime. 

But I wonder if constructive self expression can play a small role in having our youth express themselves with something other than shot guns and homemade bombs?  That maybe constructive self expression could reduce teenage pregnancy, isolation, illiteracy, ignorance and intolerance?

So I ask openly, how can empowering self expression change our world? I don’t know yet but I hope that thinking out of this currently media-driven-fast-food consuming -dummy-promoting-educational-system-box will help me figure it out!