How to get out of my head! 150 150 admin

How to get out of my head!

There can be a tendency to be stuck in your head – especially if you’re a really logical and analytical or if you habitually go there.

You know what I see people do? If there a person that’s stuck in their head and trying to figure it all out on their own you’ll see this a lot from them ? That’s a “roll-eyes” emoji, but I mean it more in the sense that it’s a look I see when someone is trying to think up a solution or a response instead of sitting with the feedback for a moment and responding from the heart.

This can lead to recurring problems that you can’t seem to solve. That’s because some problems just aren’t a good match to solve at the head level. And some problems aren’t a good match to solve at YOUR head level.

“Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.” – Albert Einstein.

If you’re this kind of person, you might also feel the limitations of this approach. You might see people having way more fun and flow and having better results all around the board, and you look at this logically and it’s like WTF? How?

Head: logical, analytical, step-by-step, systems, equations, formulas, repetition

Heart: Fun, flow, creativity, teamwork, co-creation, funny, heart-centered events, deep dives, explorations, sharing, surrender and trust

Volunteering is a great way to get into your heart. Take a day feeding the homeless or helping animals. Have an intention to spend your time genuinely caring and having fun with others (flow).

Going to a heart-centered event. Something that would seem fun to you. Genuine. Fun. To. You.

Dive deep into your interests shamelessly.

Hanging out with other heart-centered people can help you shift too!

Feeling gratitude now can put you in a heart-centered mode.

Co-creating anything cool with others who have an intention to also create something cool…maybe a project or an experience or a group call or workshop.

Understand that I’m suggesting that you swing the pendulum here towards the heart – not leave the head out all together forever. Head is too great to leave out! ? ?

If you’ve been exclusively head, then switch to the heart mode. When you can get the head and the heart in sync and dancing together, there can be some magic! I’m talking Careless Whisper magic. Have some great sax like that song.

Stop making fun of me! A solution to handle being made fun of for being overweight as a kid 150 150 admin

Stop making fun of me! A solution to handle being made fun of for being overweight as a kid

The only thing that can make me cry is thinking of the experience of overweight kids today in school. I am curious as to how it is in schools today. Are there more overweight kids now? If there are more overweight kids, then they might fit in more. Since there is a lot of information available as to better ways to eat, are there less overweight kids because the parents are more aware? Or is this going in a worse direction? I don’t know because I haven’t visited elementary schools in a long time.

If their experience is anything like my experience, it can really effect them long term. During my elementary years in school, all the teasing just made me just want to isolate myself from everyone. I couldn’t stand going to school.  I was angry at being forced to have to keep going. I gravitated towards eating because it was at least some pleasure I could experience without thinking about being made fun of. I could at least let my guard down around food.  I played a lot of basketball in my own driveway with my basketball goal, because playing basketball at school I was made fun of more. I didn’t ever find a satisfactory solution in school either…as in…one that seemed aligned with what felt right to me.

I also felt pretty powerless to change my weight. I just wanted to be a normal-sized kid and have a great time, but that was definitely not my experience. There were some horrifically bad experiences, and many of the bad experiences of overweight kids that are used for entertainment in TV shows and movies are true. Being in PE and just not being able to do any exercise that most other kids were doing easily. Going to doctors offices and having them embarrass me and not give me any real solutions when they were paid to do this. Not being able to fit in clothes and not knowing what weight I was going to be.

I dreaded school because I was always getting made fun of.  I used to try to hide from all the ridicule and be on the lookout for it. Looking back that actually made it worse, and it was exhausting. I’m glad I didn’t try to go and learn all these insults to go back and forth. It would have never ended and been futile. There are so many fat jokes it’s ridiculous. I might have had to be a Kevin Hart kind of person and build up this library of insults. Think about the amount of people I’d have to bring down to make myself good at the art of “being funny”.

Fights

Since I wasn’t as good with words, I did end up fighting a lot. These results weren’t good either! If someone was hurling insults at me, and I wanted them to stop and they wouldn’t, I would punch them. A fight usually followed that got everyone else hyped up, and if I won the fight it might make them stop with the insults, but it just ignited more fights elsewhere. Other people would see and say “I bet you can’t beat me!” and bam! another instant fight I was scheduled for. It also led to resentment from the loser and this bad feeling that I carried around until it died down. It’s like my ego was gratified, but there was always this inner voice saying that wasn’t the right thing to do. And that’s just if I won the fight. I lost fights too, and it really started to hit home that this way of dealing with ridicule and teasing was not the best way to go. I started losing a lot more fights as people started actually training in middle school for sports, so that meant I would have to train to become stronger and faster as well. I felt like this would be a never-ending cycle if I wanted to solve this problem this way. I couldn’t fight the whole world unless I wanted to take my life in that direction and become a professional fighter or something. That decision would have been purely reactive though – not a conscious one I sat down and made a decision about, but one that was just reacting to being insulted.

What would I say to the “young me” now? (or any kid going through this)

If I were to have a conversation with the young me, I’d say to not resist it. Don’t hide from it. Accept it and keep moving. Give it the least attention as possible. Maybe even call it out from that person…say something like “I don’t want to make fun of you and bring you down to build myself up like you’re doing to me” and stand on that. Don’t lower your consciousness. Don’t contract – expand! Make that person and others aware of their actions, and expose it as much as possible. Refuse to play the game of going back and forth with insults. Invest in other people and volunteer to help them. Instead of contracting and trying to hide from the ridicule, take responsibility for it and lift other people up. Maybe even lift that person up that ridiculed you. If he’s bringing you down with hurtful insults and teasing for no reason, chances are things aren’t going so well for him. Swing the pendulum towards investing in others. I might even say do volunteer work outside and/or inside of school.

That’s a lot to ask of a kid, and it’s very counterintuitive, but I think that approach would have garnered a lot less ridicule and much more respect and support and would have built some great habits that would have served me throughout the rest of my life.

How to lose weight without feeling hungry 150 150 admin

How to lose weight without feeling hungry

I went to a 12-step program for food addiction. I believe one reason why it delivered such great results was that it checked off so many boxes for me that other programs I’d tried before didn’t.

  • the food plan consisted of normal food I could buy at pretty any grocery store
  • I didn’t have to count calories
  • It was free…I could let my guard down and really trust because there was no ulterior motive
  • I wasn’t hungry unless I was supposed to be (right before meal time) because the meals were full and satisfying
  • I knew exactly how much to eat because we weighed and measured how much it was
  • It made logical sense
  • The scale kept going down
  • I didn’t have to think about food all the time because it was just 3 meals a day with no snacks
  • It delivered results to me and to anyone I saw that worked the program
  • It addressed emotional eating with H.A.L.T.S. (hungry, angry, lonely, tired, stressed)
  • It helped me be aware of my triggers (my strongest ones from HALTS were hungry and lonely)
  • I ate a lot of food and a lot of veggies. Way more food than normal, but way more nutritious foods also
  • It was based on principles that taught me a lot outside of addiction and eating
  • It relaxed my obsession with food
  • The food tastes good (this was hard to believe, but your taste buds can change!)
  • There was no exercise plan, so if you didn’t exercise and you still kept losing weight, you knew the food was the primary reason why
  • I actually learned how to eat! (this was huge)

I’m thankful I decided to go this route. There are still more problems to solve for me, but this program changed me forever. Once you see that this simple solution actually delivers tremendous results, it’s hard to turn your back on it. It’s like turning your back on the truth. To be struggling with something for 20 years, and have the problem just dissolve month by month from simple habits you put in place feels like ?

How to lose weight when you can’t exercise 150 150 admin

How to lose weight when you can’t exercise

Knowing that I could lose weight without exercising really opened my eyes to what was causing the weight gain and how much of it had to do with nutrition – (A LOT if not all).

It made me wonder why I wasn’t taught this? I feel like…if there’s an instruction manual on the basics of being a human being…how to eat should be somewhere close to the front of this manual – and definitely not left out totally.

It also made me wonder how many people were unaware of how easy it is.

I was going in a complete wrong direction focusing on discipline and beating myself up for not being disciplined. I would try to force things. “I will not eat _____ anymore! I am going to eat healthy this year!” All hype, no results.

I found my answer going social. Like…real in-person meetings with people who had solved this problem. It was the second time I had solved a problem socially.

There are so many benefits to exercise. I’m amping it up this year, so I value it so much. For most, it’s just not necessary for losing fat from your body. This can be solved at the level of nutrition. 3 meals a day. Lots of vegetables per meal (1.5 lbs of veggies a day). Low to no sugar and flour (if you’re me, then no sugar or flour products!). No snacks, but sufficient meals. No late night meals past 7:00PM.

Think habits. Think long term. Think of solving this problem at a habitual level that you do for one day, then repeat.

I’m being pretty vague here, because I don’t want to tell you exactly how I solved it – partially because I’ve gained the weight back after losing it. This has been due to work and career, so I’m learning that. But losing it did show me it’s not as hard as I thought. And I’m also pretty vague because if I tell you exactly, I rob you of the opportunity to solve this problem socially. Talking with many people who have gone further down this journey is so worth it. They can eliminate your sticking points. They can inspire you and get you over your self doubt.

This is so possible for you. Don’t go at it alone. Enlist all the help you can and focus more on health than weight loss. In fact, during this time of losing all this weight, we were only to look at the scale once a month. Weight loss (or weight maintenance if you reach your desired weight) is the by-product of healthy habits. Healthy habits will serve your for a lifetime!

Fat Acceptance: How to Challenge Negative Attitudes and Stereotypes About Fat People 150 150 admin

Fat Acceptance: How to Challenge Negative Attitudes and Stereotypes About Fat People

One insight I received after losing about 110 pounds (332lbs to 220lbs) is the constant thought “I’m fat”…that society drilled into me…was not true.

Before
After

I looked at my much smaller body and wondered where the weight had gone. Did it evaporate? Was is still physical matter somehow? Could I go and visit it somewhere?

I also realized that no matter how big or small I was, I was not my body…because if I was my body then a part of me would leave when I lost weight. I didn’t feel like any part of me left though when I lost weight, so I could not be my body.

A more accurate statement is…I am a steward of a physical body that is fat. If I say I’m fat – then I merge me with my physical body. While they are connected, they aren’t the same.

I have been placed with the responsibility to be a steward of my physical body. Some people do a better job of being a steward than others, but “I’m fat” cannot be accurate because it would mean the “I am” is my physical body and that’s not true.

It’s similar to the insight Eckhart Tolle had when he had the thought “I can’t live with myself”. This was the moment things began to change for him, because he realized that if he couldn’t live with himself, there had to be two separate entities for that thought to be accurate.

I’m stupid, I’m scared, I’m confident, I’m sleepy are also technically inaccurate too. I’m stupid indicates you are your intelligence. I’m confident and I’m sleepy indicate you are your state of being. All not true.

You might say “hey…I’m not anything specifically…I’m a combination of many things” or “I am all those things in totality”.

Let’s say you have a person named Bill. People think of Bill as a tall, fat, loud, annoying human being. But is he really? or are these just labels we’ve used to identify him in our minds.

Just something to think about on this New Years Day…and know that all these labels are just that…labels – not who you truly are. And hey, while you’re not your body, you ARE a steward of your body, and it’s in everyone’s best interest that you take the best care of it you can.

I feel like “blah” 150 150 admin

I feel like “blah”

I remember telling my 12-step program sponsor one day (who I talked to every day at 6:30 AM) that I was feeling apathetic. It was like this “blah” feeling about life. Things were going well, pretty much all around the board, but I was feeling very empty and disinterested. She said something that was a shift in how I view being apathetic.

Up until that point I thought apathy was the absence of feelings. Even the definition lends itself to that way of thinking.

The dictionary defines apathy as lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.

But she told me, “maybe you’re feeling and thinking so much that you’re overwhelmed”.

That was actually an answer that felt very right! Viola! It was like I overloaded the system mentally and emotionally. I remember I had a lot going on at that time as well. Good things, but just many responsibilities and moving parts to pay attention to.

If that “blah” feeling was an absence of feelings, like I initially thought, then that would have actually been a great thing. It’s like a meditative state. Like 0. You’re in an open state for things to come through you, and for you to be the watcher, watching them flow through you.

Have you been feeling “blah” about life? Maybe it’s just overwhelm. Try some meditation (turning your mind off for a bit). I’m not saying that apathy = overwhelm…I am saying that it’s another perspective, another lens to look through.

365-day Challenges are Badass? 150 150 admin

365-day Challenges are Badass?

I don’t fuckin know wtf. I’ve never done this before. This is scary as hell!

Again…WTF

BUT I will be posting every day here for 365 days (every day of 2020)! I will publish text, audio and video here every day. I would like to be a more consistent character overall, and I feel like this will help me with consistency and inspired action across the board. The point is to turn the volume up on consitent creative output and inspired action to weave creativity, inspiration and consistency into my character.

Biggest fear? I’m afraid I’m going to forget a day honestly. I think I can overcome that if I post right when I think about it and suppress the suppression.

Speaking of supressing suppression – to give credit where credit is due, the whole idea to do this was inspired by this post on Creating a More Action-Oriented Character.

Jump in with me! The water is fine! Would you like to stretch yourself in the area of creative output? I would definitely recommend sharing as much as you can…because sharing is caring right? Lemme know in the comments! ?

Social Skills are Badass 300 388 admin

Social Skills are Badass

Social skills are badass and having a badass social circle is badass.

  • Problems get solved way easier
  • Relationships overall are a big factor in the quality of life
  • A great social circle can pick you up quickly when you’re down
  • Giving to a social circle that appreciates the real you can be fulfilling and rewarding
  • You are the average of the 5 people you hang around most
  • A great social circle naturally encourages you to be your fullest, authentic self
  • Many of the answers you seek will come from people in some form or fashion. (In-person, book, program, podcast, blog, video etc).

I didn’t always start off with a great social circle. I isolated a lot and spent lots of time alone. I didn’t even see this as a bad thing, but I look back and realize there were so many missed opportunities. I always wondered in the back of my mind how other people created these huge social circles, and why some people attracted other people to them naturally and others repelled other people.

Click below to download a Mind Map I created on how to go from isolation or a social circle that doesn’t really fit you, to one that empowers you and fits you like a glove!

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