Category Archives: Help Getting It Done

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

The One Thing That Prevents Success

For those of you who’ve been following these posts, you know about all the things I’m trying to do right now. But for those of you who don’t, let me catch you up.

I’m a practicing OBGYN and Lifestyle Medicine physician, a married mom of four homeschooled kids ages 7-13, and a certified holistic nutrition and life coach. I’m building my coaching practice and am creating an online weight loss course to help other busy professional women to find success in weight loss the way I have. I love my projects and I enjoy being busy and accomplishing things. But I’ve also learned that my tendency is to pile so much on my to-do list that I create a sense of overwhelm and discouragement. I’ve spent years growing my prayer life and practicing mindfulness and meditation to keep me close to God and find balance among the frantic pace of life.

That’s a good summary, right? Sounds pretty peaceful and organized, nice and neat, wrapped up with a bow. And just like people’s timelines on Instagram and Facebook, the story in the background is much more messy, nuanced, and intricate. So let’s talk about what happened this week.

I just came off of a weekend working in the hospital, after which I crashed and slept most of the remainder of the weekend. It was needed, but I really wanted to be conscious to work on the digital course I’m creating. I thought that I’d catch up early in the week because I had two days off and that should be plenty of time to get a ton of work done. And this weekend was “Fall Back”, so I’d get an extra hour of sleep (my favorite night of the year!). But I conveniently let my brain ignore the coaching appointments and homeschool group that meets all day Tuesday and the sales copy I needed to write and the sneakers that my son needed because his shoes had holes in them and the videos I needed to record for my YouTube channel and – well, you get it. There wasn’t as much “free” time as I thought.

So I forged ahead, calendared everything I could, worked through all the lunchtimes, and set aside some work time on Saturday and Sunday. When my meeting Sunday evening was moved to Monday, I celebrated a little. I had time to throw together a quick dinner of garlic green beans, brussel sprout saute, rosemary baby potatoes, and toasted sourdough. We watched part of Coco (it was Dia de Los Muertos), and I got to bed early.

Then I met with Eric, my website creator and all-around tech genius consultant.

Yep, that’s a huge pothole…

As I drove home, I noticed that I kept wanting to stop the car and pick up food. I almost drove through McDonald’s to get some fries. Then I passed a Thai restaurant that we hadn’t gone to for a long time and I thought that would make a good dinner. Then a glass of wine seemed like the first thing I should have when I hit the door. It took me a moment, but I realized that I was feeling stressed. My brain (poor thing) was trying to offer me easy comfort options, those tried and true ways that I’ve used in the past to try to combat my stress and anxiety. Fortunately, I caught onto my mind and talked myself down.

Now, don’t get me wrong. My meeting was not difficult or harsh in any way. Eric is not only a tech genius, but he’s also a soft touch. If anyone can deliver the overwhelming message of what it will take to create what I want from a tech perspective and not make me want to throw myself off the nearest bridge, it’s Eric. But what did come out of the meeting was a much more clear understanding of what was going to be needed from me to be ready to launch this course, and I was crystal clear of the scope of the work I still needed to do (at least for now). It was A LOT. And my brain was ready to throw in the towel. Cash me out – I’m done. I had ALL the thoughts: I don’t have enough time to do all this. The kids need me too – I can’t do more stuff and ignore them. It’s going to take me forever to do all these slides for the course – who has time for all that? My anniversary is this weekend and I don’t want to work then – it’s not fair I can’t take a break. The busiest time of the year is coming – everyone in this family except me has a birthday and the holidays are coming and what in the world made me think I could do all this and create a course at the same time anyway?! It was pretty loud in my head.

But here’s the key: I will not quit. I have my moments, sometimes much more frequently than I’d like when I entertain the thought of quitting. I can justify it and give you all the reasons why it would be better if I quit. But I won’t. That’s why I was successful at weight loss and keeping the weight off – because I did not and will never quit. I won’t stuff myself with fries because I’m stressed, but if I did I’d pick myself back up and get back on my plan tomorrow. I could quit and try to convince myself that I can create this business after the kids go to college, but I won’t. I may have to slow down, change my plan, try a different way, but if I keep going I will get there.

You cannot be a failure if you don’t quit. That’s how so many of us self-sabotage – we keep quitting on ourselves. We believe the thoughts that tell us that we can’t lose weight or that a normal BMI is out of reach, or that we are destined to be big because of our family, or that cooking for ourself is too much work, or eating healthy is impossible with this crazy schedule. All those are thoughts, and not one of them is true. You can do whatever you want. That’s one of the great things about being a grown-up! If you want to lose weight and you never quit on yourself, you will do it. It might be slower or faster than you planned, it might require you to change things you’d rather not, and you certainly are going to have to stop eating your feelings and your stress. But you will make it.

We all have days we want to quit. Many of them we work through, pick ourselves up, and keep going. Do you know what makes it easier? A coach! If you want help with your thinking so you can make it to your goals, comment below and we can set up a mini-session. You can make it!

4COMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Recipes

Vegan Cuban Black Beans! (Instant Pot)

Have you ever tried a recipe that after the very first time you make it become part of your meal plan arsenal? This is one of them, so get ready! When we went plant-based as a family more than a year ago, this became the filling for tacos and burritos on Taco Tuesday dinner (the kids decided Tuesday was for tacos – I don’t know who told them!). I had been buying premade black beans and seasoning them when we didn’t have time for cooking a batch from dried beans, but with six of us to feed and all the extra salt that’s in canned beans, I decided to find a recipe that tasted better and was healthier and cheaper.

I love beans. When we stopped eating animal foods, the first question we got from friends and family was often “Where do you get your protein? Well, beans and lentils are great sources of protein as well as fiber, which most Americans don’t get nearly enough. One cup of black beans has 15 grams of protein and 15 grams of fiber as well as folate and other nutrients. They really are a nutritional powerhouse! And they are delicious, so what’s not to love? This recipe has onions and garlic and green pepper and cumin and oregano – the kitchen smells amazing! We make these black beans and stuff them in tacos and burritos with black rice (my favorite kind!) and guac and salsa and chipotle hot sauce (and a little vegan cheese shreds for the kids). But the best thing of all is that you can get all this deliciousness fast, and for me, that’s what makes this a keeper for our family. Delicious is required, but if it’s too complicated that recipe just won’t get made too often. If you remember to soak the beans the night before, you can have this ready to eat in one hour with about 15 minutes of it hands-on time. If you actually make this in the Instant Pot, you could make this the morning of and leave it on warm until you get home. Or, make it in advance and warm it from the refrigerator. You can even freeze what you don’t eat for a later meal. Trust me, you will want to make this one again!

Ingredients

1 pound black beans, soaked overnight or 8 hours

4 cups water

1/2 cup olive oil

one onion, chopped

one green pepper, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced (I use more because garlic and beans are lovely together, but the recipe only calls for 4)

1/4-1/2 tsp cumin (I use a generous 1/2 – I love cumin!)

1/2 tsp oregano

3-4 teaspoons salt (sounds like a lot, but it flavors the whole pound of beans)

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

2 tbsp white vinegar

2 tbsp white wine (optional, but good)

First, soak the beans. Soaking removes phytic acid which may impair the absorption of some nutrients. Also, it may help the beans to cook more evenly. Some believe soaking makes the beans more digestible – but it may be that people who eat beans adapt and digest beans more easily anyway. There are arguments about all of this, so do what you want – you’ll just need to cook your beans a little longer. I soak the beans.

Gather the ingredients.

Put the water and beans in the pot. Cook your rinsed beans on high pressure for 35 minutes.

While the beans are cooking, chop your pepper, onion, and garlic.

Saute them in the olive oil with the salt, pepper, oregano, and cumin until they are softened. Smells so good!

When the beans are done, add one cup to the pepper/onion mixture and smash the beans. Then add it all back to the big pot of beans.

Add the vinegar and white white and simmer for a few minutes (we usually don’t wait that long, but you can!).

Enjoy!

2COMMENTS

Help Getting It Done

Celebrating The Wins

Am I the only one who struggles to see the progress they’ve made?

I was meeting with a coach today to talk about some of my frustrations with growing my business. While I was griping about how I couldn’t find the answers I need in the entrepreneur course materials and describing my irritation at how slowly I was moving along, I had a moment. It was weird, almost an out-of-body experience. I watched myself repeat these thoughts about how I thought things ought to be and realized that even though this situation of growing a business is newer, the thoughts are very old. Becoming a doctor was all about learning to do things the right way, to learn the information, and then implement it in a very particular fashion. To me, it seemed that business building ought to be the same – out of the millions of people who’ve started businesses there must be a basic road map to creating a business structure! Apparently not…

Each time I get ready to move forward to the next step, I feel like I’m blocked. I check a bunch of stuff off my list, I create the things to do and then I get to something I’m not sure of and my mind says I’m starting from scratch. Feeling inept and uncertain sucks – I do not like those feelings! I’d much rather feel confident and prepared for action. I’d like to be able to blame it on the experience of being a novice, which is only avoidable if I choose to never start anything new. Well, that’s not going to happen. Even if I chose not to build my coaching business, assuming I keep living I’ll still have to learn to be the mom of adults, to parent with my husband as they grow up, to live in my body as I age. So I’m always going to have to learn to cope with being new at something. No, the problem is not being a learner in a new situation. My problem is how I’m thinking about it…

Being a learner is a neutral circumstance. Some people love the excitement of a new challenge in front of them, so it’s not really the situation that’s the problem. My brain tends to think that doing something new ought to be easy, or that there are rules or guidelines somewhere and I need someone to give them to me. When I don’t know what to do, I tend to switch over to my thought around commitment which says I’m going to do the work anyway because I agreed to do the work. SO I get things done, but I’m often gritting my teeth and muscling through the process. When I’ve gotten some things done, I put my head down and write a list of more things and get those done. Eventually, I get the result I’m aiming for, but then the whole thing is over and I need a new goal. Sounds like lots of fun, right?

Right – about as much fun as eating gravel. So if I’m going to spend time pursuing dreams and building things, why am I torturing myself along the way? The easy answer is this: That’s the way I’ve done it before. It works, but I spend very little time actually enjoying the process. I recently watched a recording of a coach who advised her client to spend more time celebrating both her actions and her results. She reminded her that it takes A LOT to follow through with the plans we make. Sometimes we drag ourselves kicking and screaming through our work, whether it’s sticking to a weight loss goal or disciplining our kids or building a business. How often do we look back and acknowledge the work we’ve actually done? For me, the answer is very rarely. I almost never look back over my day or week and honor the work I’ve completed. How many patients did I help or how many times did I explain something to my children or how many times did I respect my eating plan? How many things on my list did I actually finish rather than lament all the things I didn’t get done yet? Even when it comes to the big moments, when I look back at different accomplishments in my life, they almost seem like a blip in time. I don’t even really remember taking much time to celebrate graduating from medical school – I was too busy looking forward and planning for residency.

There are three problems with thinking this way. One, we all spend most of our lives working toward something, so it seems to me that we ought to enjoy the process. Otherwise, we’re spending an awful lot of time making ourselves miserable. Two, if the only thing that matters is the goal or the result of the work, then we only enjoy those milestones, which are much fewer than most of the moments of our lives. And three, if we treat ourselves as if new goals require us to be miserable because the whole process is awful, then we will pursue and produce much less with our lives. Managing how we think about approaching new things matters. How we think about this will determine what we make of the time we have in this life. I want to do everything God has planned for me to do while I’m here!

So here’s what I’m doing to help myself as I grow and expand. Since I’m a list maker anyway, I plan to review my lists and my calendar every day to reflect back on what I’ve gotten done. I’ll dwell less on what I didn’t finish or still have ahead – I have scheduled time to work on that already! When I’ve looked at what I’ve done, I plan to practice a new thought: “I’m amazing – look at how much I got done today!” Yep, it feels weird, like I’m bragging. But I prefer to think that I’m encouraging myself, just like I would for one of my girlfriends. Enjoying the work that I’m doing makes me much more motivated to do more. So I want to celebrate all the accomplishments, the small and great ones. I want to acknowledge the progress, even on the days it seems I got very little done. On those days, the roadblocks and interruptions are also the way forward if I choose to see them that way. And when my brain wants to gripe and complain and remind me that I’d be much more comfortable if I wasn’t trying something new, I can remind it that building something new is worth a little discomfort. And I’ll enjoy the celebration as I grow!

Do you have trouble celebrating your own growth and accomplishment? How do you acknowledge your wins? I know it can be hard – seems like there’s always something more to do! If you want help managing your mind, that’s exactly what a coach is for. Let me know in the comments below – I’d love to help!

Here’s last week’s weight loss video if you missed it. I’m talking about weight loss and hormones!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done

What’s Blocking You?

I haven’t been feeling right all week.

It feels like I’ve lived a month in the past week. So many things have happened! We hired a new teacher and were without a teacher (or childcare) for 1 week. We have transferred homeschool communities and that’s almost taken an act of Congress, between all the conflicting information and conversations. We figured out my oldest was skipping over the math work she didn’t understand, so my husband and I have both been math tutors this week. I received my life coach certification (yay!) and got my business structure created for the coaching business (double yay!). And, I’ve been gearing up for the business building portion of this year, which includes two courses: a traditional online coach business building one and an online course building academy, both which started Monday of this week – the same day my new teacher started with us.

I’m so tired.

Now, I’m very tempted to blame my exhaustion on these circumstances. And while it’s true that I haven’t gotten as much sleep as I generally need to feel normal, it’s not why you’d think. I’ve been running and it’s been very busy, but that’s not the problem. I’ve been waking up waaaay too early, my mind has been racing around all the details that need to be handled, I’ve had this terrible intense back pain, and I’ve had a mild headache on and off all week. I realized when I started having extra trouble with getting my mind to settle down what the problem was.

I’d let go of managing my mind.

Here’s the thing: I’ve been coaching and meditating and working with my mind long enough that I can recognize where my misery comes from. I’m very quick to see the thoughts that aren’t useful and work toward a different kind of thought. But I’m also like everyone else – when things get really busy, the “optional” stuff falls off my to-do list. Somehow, my brain decided that doing active thought work wasn’t needed in the midst of several big transitions in my life.

Big mistake.

Not managing my mind is always going to lead to a place I don’t want to be. On a daily basis, I need to clean up my thinking, tune into what my mind is offering, and choose intentional ways of thinking so that I can move forward in the way that I’m called. Not doing my mind work is self-sabotage, because my brain will always veer toward the most common patterns of thinking I’ve practiced in the past. If I want to grow, I have to practice new thinking which takes work. So when I looked at my e-journal and realized I hadn’t been writing on my gratitude list or doing my thought downloads for weeks, I knew instantly why I was feeling so badly. My brain was in charge of me instead of the other way around.

Here’s the thing: the brain is an excellent secretary. It does good work on any assignment you give it. But the mind is a terrible master. It wants to protect you, keep you safe, and will not voluntarily put you in any situation that it believes is a threat, real or perceived. The brain also likes to conserve energy, so it will always go with the path of least resistance. That means thinking old thought. That’s how you get in a rut – the brain finds this an easy place to go. And if you don’t like it, well at least it’s familiar. If you want to grow and change, your brain has to expend more energy and this is harder. You have to direct the mind to spend the energy or it will stay in default mode and find the ways of doing and thinking that you’d already practiced. This is what I was doing.

What I did made perfect sense. I had a bunch of new and some unexpected tasks to handle and I started thinking that it was too much. That caused me to feel overwhelmed (that feeling never takes you anywhere!), and I started worrying. I started snacking and eating salty and sugary junk food, and I kept looking at my to-do list with despair, thinking I’d never get it done, that I’d taken on too much, that I just couldn’t handle it all.

Here’s what was different this time: I feel compassion for my brain. Of course it was overwhelmed! I let it step into the role of master which it isn’t designed to fill. I stopped taking care of it and cleaning it up with thought work, so the thoughts kept piling up, so the way my mind chose to manage was to go into default worry and overwhelm. Instead of reminding myself as the changes came that I needed more mind management, I got into execution mode. I focused on the tasks more than the thinking that would help me to not only get the tasks done but feel great about the work that it took to complete them. Normally I would beat myself up, pointing out every mistake and tell myself how stupid it was for me to do it this way. Then I’d go into my impostor mode, wondering why I think I can guide or coach anyone if I’m not doing a perfect job for myself. By the end of it all, I’d feel so low and small that I’d be ready to cancel any plans or creations I’d started, and be wondering why God would even trust me with the family and job and friends that I have now. Yep, I’d really go there.

Not this time.

Not Today GIFs | Tenor

This time I took a mental step back. I noticed what had happened and I looked at my mind with interest, wondering quietly to myself why my default is to let go of what helps me. When I realized that this was just a learned pattern, a practice that I’ve repeated for years and that I’m still learning to make my default thinking more patient and kind to myself, it was much easier to start again. Gently, I picked myself up and dusted myself off, and changed the way I planned to approach the work ahead. It wasn’t that the work had changed or that the circumstances were different. The way I was going to get it done was different. Yes, I’d have to adjust my plan, but the most important thing was that I would move ahead with love and compassion for myself. I’m doing a lot – aren’t you? Getting it all done and beating yourself down in the process is a terrible combination. For me, moving ahead had to include the five or ten minutes a day to dump out my thoughts in written form and recognize what my brain was worrying about. I needed to take a moment regularly to feel my feelings instead of rushing through tasks to stuff the feelings down. There are lots of things to do and many other people to take care of, but I am at my best for all of them when I take care of my mind first.

How are you doing with caring for yourself and your mind? Sometimes it’s a challenge to do alone, but that’s what a coach is for! Let me know in the comments how I can help!

NOCOMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Inspirations

How I Helped My Family Go Completely Plant-Based

This is the first time in four years I’ve re-visited a blog post. I was talking to a friend recently and she wanted me to write a blog post teaching other moms how to help their families go plant-based. Her comment reminded me of this post, so I thought I’d bring it back with a few new suggestions. We’ve been successfully eating a plant-based diet for more than 16 months!

Read to the end to get an update and my new reflections on how to help your family move away from animal foods to a plant-filled diet!

After I came home from the Plant-Based Prevention of Disease conference, I decided that I wanted to try to move our family toward eating plant-based instead of eating plant-based by myself. Now, while I’d read a book or articles, do research and look up expert opinions, I knew the best tactic in our house to jump-start this discussion was to do what would make the biggest splash: We’d have to look at a screen. We may be a family of readers, but this time drastic measures had to be taken. I mean, I wanted something to happen now, not in a few weeks after everyone had read a book that I recommended. Besides, my six year old needed to come along too and the books I have are a little above her comprehension level. Nope, a screen would be the best approach.

So we sat down as a family and watched Forks Over Knives on Netflix. Now, I already knew about the health benefits of plant-based eating, but seeing it on a screen and seeing patients who radically changed their health prognosis was powerful. Even with all the amazing stories and information in the movie, it was after it was over that the most shocking thing happened. My husband looked over at me and said, ” OK, I’m on board.” I almost fell off the couch! My husband has never considered even trying to be vegetarian, much less eating vegan. Even though he’s in good health, he knows his family medical history, and the health benefits really are that compelling. The kids jumped in with their support too (the older three anyway – the six-year-old wasn’t sold, but she went along with the big kids). So I got busy figuring out what we’d eat that week.

In the background, I was working on my master plan. See, I know the health benefits and I agree with the need to eat a whole foods, plant-based diet, but I also know that it can be tough to stick to a healthy eating plan, especially if you’re feeling well and have no medical problems. No, I needed to light other fires that would keep us convinced when we started to waver.

Fortunately, God was helping me out. When the kids went to the library, my twin girl saw a book that she knew I’d like and brought it home. It was called Food Is The Solution, and the first 60-70 pages are all about the environmental impact of animal agriculture. It’s incredibly powerful – the graphics, essays, and stories shared will move you. When I shared that the foreword was written by James Cameron (director of Avatar, Titanic, and others), Perry got interested. The kids passed it around and took turns reading. I talked about it at work. And since Forks Over Knives was so successful, I looked for more documentaries to watch. This time we started watching Cowspiracy, which emphasizes the environmental impact of animal agriculture and what forces are at play to prevent the public from becoming educated about it. It was maddening – but also galvanizing.

It’s been weeks since our family has eaten any animal foods except a few things that were leftover in the freezer. And when I’ve suggested that we eat some meat that is in the frig, the kids have wanted to know why. They want a good reason to go against their commitment, and I’m so proud of their integrity! My husband has started making his own veggie sandwiches for lunch instead of ordering out. He’s lost 10 lbs and feels full and healthy. I feel good (even with a mild head cold I picked up yesterday), and even more, I feel inspired and strong.

Buffalo chickpea quesadilla with vegan sour cream – so good!

Everyone needs their own why to make a change. For some people, it takes a health threat to do it. Sometimes, the ethical reasons are the reason. For others, that the environment we live in needs to be rescued is the compelling why. There are also people like me for whom all the reasons matter. I want to live a healthy life and not live a slow, painful decline on multiple medications. I also want to restore and care for this earth we are responsible for. The ethics matter to me too: I can’t eat a piece of chicken knowing that the ammonia dust from chicken waste is poisoning poor communities who can’t stop the spread of chicken houses being built in their backyards. I can’t live with the thought that my demand for eggs and chicken drives worsening health for communities full of people, many who look like me. I can’t eat pork knowing the horrific conditions the pigs live under for the duration of their lives (same for most chickens and cattle). I don’t want my desire for a steak to contribute to the growing dead zones in the oceans and pollution in our waters. I’d rather eat grains and fruits and veggies. I know there is an environmental impact from the mass production of any food – but by far the heaviest impact is coming from animal food. With 7 billion people of the planet (and heading toward 9 billion), we can’t keep eating such a meat-heavy diet and think we’ll never run out of our natural resources. We already are. And for those of us in the US, we are the number one users of these resources. As people who have a powerful sense of self-determination, ingenuity, and creativity, I think we can do better.

This is true for any change we want to make, diet or otherwise. Change can be hard! We are creatures of habit, and changing habits takes a lot of effort and momentum. Do you want to start exercising, develop a meditation practice, eat more plants, or get more sleep? Without a reason, we generally just fall back into our normal routines – it’s just human nature. But we can choose to change if we have good motivation, and that takes finding a compelling why for making the change. It doesn’t have to be a good reason for everyone: It just has to be one for you.

We started eating plant-based as a family in May of 2019. Now sixteen months later, we haven’t wavered. Well, I’ve wanted a piece of fish every so often, but not badly enough to go get it! A plant-based diet certainly can contain an occasional animal food – it’s just the exception, not the rule. Eventually, I may want to have something that’s not plant-based, but so far I haven’t felt the need.

So what have we done to make this work for our family? The first thing that I did was make sure that I wasn’t being dogmatic during the transition. A whole foods, plant-based diet is supposed to be minimally processed for maximum health. But there were certain things that I needed to be flexible on. For example, my kids LOVE cheese, so eliminating cheese altogether wasn’t going to work. We found some vegan cheese slices and shreds that they liked (Follow Your Heart brand is good, especially the smoked gouda flavored slices) and ate those instead of cow’s milk cheese. They’ve naturally started eating less of the vegan cheese.

Since we eliminated our hard-boiled egg breakfast day, that left oatmeal, cereal, and granola in the rotation. Sometimes I make granola, and sometimes I don’t get to it. Granola is expensive and my youngest has lots of nut allergies, so it’s best if I make it for the family. But I don’t always have time. So they eat cereal some days. I limit the sugar by requiring them to mix it with puffed millet, but I’m not taking it away.

We use meat substitutes from time to time. I know they’re vegan junk food and are highly processed, but when they want to have burgers for a cookout, we eat the Beyond Meat burgers (or their equivalent from Trader Joe’s). I use their ground not-meat in spaghetti sauce sometimes too. Is it a regular menu item? Nope – nutritionwise it’s not better than ground beef. But it has less of an environmental impact. I also think meat substitutes can be useful in making the transition to a whole foods, plant-based diet, so I think they can be used sparingly without harm. We use them less often than we did in the beginning, and since we started the kids have found certain whole-food recipes that they love (check out our black lentil chili recipe!), so we keep those in the rotation.

In order to make the shift for your family, you have to decide what works best for you. Maybe you start by trying some whole-food meatless Mondays. Maybe you save meat for weekends. Maybe you just go down to one meal a day with animal food. But if you get radical like we did, make sure you’ve got your staple recipes ready, because you need a go-to when you’re living your regular life. Otherwise, you’ll go back to what’s easy and familiar. But I know that if we can do this, so can you!

Have you thought about eating a whole foods, plant-based diet? What’s your why? Or why not? Do you need any help from me in moving toward a plant-based life? Please share in the comments below!

Here’s the last video in the Weight Loss Going Deeper: What Should I Eat? series – join me!

3COMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Mind Management, Top 15 Weight Loss Posts

Fear Of Fasting

You know, there’s talk about fasting everywhere. The new diet craze is intermittent fasting or IF. People are generally using IF to lose weight, but there are other reasons to fast. Some fast to clear their minds, some do it for spiritual focus and prayer, some do it to decrease inflammation and allow the body to rest. All are good reasons, and the benefits of fasting are legion. But…

Every time I think about fasting I don’t want to do it. Fasting is one of those things that brings up immediate resistance for me, almost every single time. Even when I’m the one who makes the plan and has all the good reasons for planning a fast, I still dread doing it. And it’s not like I’m a novice at fasting. I have spent many days doing IF and I’ve fasted for times of prayer both in and outside of the church. They’ve been beneficial each time. So what’s the problem?

It’s my brain. The thoughts I have about fasting tend to center around deprivation and fear of discomfort. I decided a long time ago that I don’t like the feeling of hunger. Even though I know now that I should welcome hunger, that hunger is needed for weight loss and maintenance, and that clear stomach hunger is a good sign that my body is working well and that eating is a healthy thing to do if I have time, I still don’t want to feel it. Years of avoiding hunger has trained me to think of it as the enemy, as something to keep away at all costs. That’s how I stayed overweight for all those years! So when a day of fasting at church was announced, I was dismayed to find out that it was scheduled for my day off, a day when I wouldn’t be distracted by seeing patients or doing surgery, a day that was less likely to fly by with busyness.

Fasting also makes me feel like I’m going without something I should have. My mind says that if I’m hungry, I ought to be able to eat. Other people get to eat, so why do I have to miss out? Besides, I like having my cashews or coffee or soup or whatever I’ve planned, so why can’t I have them? Here’s the thing: I can. I don’t have to fast. But if I choose to fast, then these thoughts are designed to produce feelings of deprivation, resentment, resistance, and fear that make the fasting experience SO unnecessarily unpleasant. Physical hunger alone is not the only thing that makes fasting a challenge. It doesn’t have to be as difficult an experience as my mind wants to make it.

Let’s break one of these thoughts down. As an example we’ll take the first one, the “I don’t like the feeling of hunger” thought. The fact is that I am observing a day of fasting. The thought I have is that I don’t like the feeling of hunger. The feeling that thought produces is dread. When I feel dread, I think a lot more thoughts about how much I don’t want to fast, how I really wish we could do this on a day when I’m busier, how many different foods I’d like to eat that day, and I argue back and forth with myself about whether I want to participate in the fast anyway. I also might eat extra snacks or food the day before because I feel like I should fill up before the fast. (That doesn’t work. I’m not hibernating for the winter. I’m going to get hungry the next day regardless.) So in the end, I spend a lot of time in a mental tailspin, I overeat the day before the fast, and I reinforce the belief I have that I don’t like the feeling of hunger. So the next time I’m considering a fast, the thought that’s easy for my brain to offer up is this same one.

This thought isn’t working for me. Actually, it’s working against me and sabotaging not only my weight goals, but it’s making my spiritual day of fasting unpleasant in a way that isn’t useful. So what can I do? The good news is that I am the mother of my mind, and I can train it to think differently. It takes some effort and practice, but it’s doable. How do I find a more useful thought? There are different ways to come at this, but I want to feel something other than dread when I think about fasting and hunger. Actually, I’d like to welcome hunger. So, if I want the feeling I have about hunger to be “welcoming”, then what thought would help me feel welcoming about hunger? The thought I choose is: “Hunger is a useful feeling”. When I think this thought, I can come up with lots of reasons why it’s true – feeling hunger helps me know I’m eating when I should, food tastes better when I’m hungry, I know I’m eating for my body instead of emotional reasons, and when I eat only for hunger my body finds its correct weight. Now, in order to feel welcoming, I am going to have to practice thinking that hunger is a useful tool. It’s not going to be automatic like the “I don’t like the feeling of hunger”, because I haven’t practiced it as long. But if I remind my brain that the first thought is not helpful and practice the new thought, I will retrain my brain and the suffering that comes from the first thought is removed from my practice of fasting. When I plan a fast and welcome hunger from the thought that “Hunger is a useful tool”, I will look forward to the fast and the benefits that come from experiencing hunger. I won’t overeat to prepare for the fast, I won’t torture myself with the resistance, and I’ll expect and welcome the hunger when it comes. I’ll see the hunger as helpful instead of to be avoided. My entire experience of the fast becomes more calm and peaceful instead of a painful slog to the end.

I hope this helps you to work on your thoughts, whether they’re about fasting or something else that causes lots of mental chatter and bother. Coaching yourself through your thoughts is incredibly powerful! But if you feel like you’re not able to make as much change on your own as you’d like, that’s what a coach is for! If you’d like to do a mini-session to try out coaching for yourself, especially in the area of weight loss, then I’d be happy to set up a time with you. The mini-session is free of charge and you get to try out coaching and see if it’s for you. Let me know in the comments below!

NOCOMMENTS

Blog, Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

Do You Want To Think That?

I was due for an on-call night spanking. I got one.

For the last few overnight shifts I’d done at the hospital I’d been surprised by how decent the nights had been. Even when I had a large patient census or lots happening on labor and delivery, I still got a run of hours at night where I could sleep (even if I tossed and turned throughout). So I knew that it was about time for a tough night to come, not because the labor gods were angry at me (like my midwife said was happening for her!), but because at some point, I’m going to have a night where a lot is happening and I’m the one who’s there to take care of it.

Monday at 3 pm I walked into our team sign out to a large patient census and already four more incoming patients to admit to the hospital and a surgery that needed to be done urgently. By the time everyone came in, got settled, the surgery was done and I laid down, it was midnight. Fifteen minutes later, I got an emergent call to assist with a patient hemorrhaging. I ran down and took her to the operating room and took care of her. Around 2 am, I laid down again. After a few more calls and another emergent call to attend a mom whose baby was having a hard time in labor, I finished signing out to the morning team around 8 am and headed home. I probably got 2 hours of sleep for the night.

After decontaminating myself when I got home, taking an hour-long nap, and running a couple of errands, I was running on fumes. I still had things to do and hadn’t gotten the few things I had planned on my calendar done. But I was toast. I needed to sleep. So I laid down for another hour and slept, but when the alarm went off, my head was foggy, I was irritable, and I was pissed that I hadn’t gotten the things done that I needed to do. That meant I needed to move them to another time and the rest of the week was already scheduled pretty tightly. I needed to get my behind in gear and salvage the rest of the day.

I sat down with my laptop and my to-dos and tried to get started. By this time it was close to 5 pm and the kids were milling around, trying to get dinner ready (with supervision) and every little noise was on my nerves. I was tired, aggravated, and very easily bothered by everything. I needed more sleep, but I’d gotten as much as I could and the next opportunity was going to be bedtime. I was trying to work but I was spinning my wheels. Was I going to throw my hands up and quit until the next day after I got some sleep? Or would I snap at the kids and be resentful while I tried to work?

Fortunately, I’m a life coach and I know that the way I felt (physical fatigue notwithstanding) was entirely within my control. I felt irritated, frustrated, and aggravated because of the thoughts I was thinking. I didn’t know what they were, but they were jacking up my night, so I stopped what I was doing and grabbed my notebook to do a little self-coaching. What was I thinking?

The first thought that came to mind was “I wasted this day sleeping.” Now, whether or not this is true is a wholly different conversation. I know I needed sleep, and maybe I should have canceled the errands and slept more! But this was the thought that I was unconsciously choosing. The problem was that this thought was causing my feeling of frustration. When I’m frustrated, I act irritable, snap at the kids, try to get things done but spend more time in my feeling of frustration than in doing the things that need doing, so in the end, I don’t get the things done that I need to do. This confirms my original thought that I wasted the day sleeping because look at all the things I didn’t get done! Never mind that I have time right now and I can get some stuff done now – I’m just wasting time feeling frustrated about how I spent the hours earlier in the day.

Now, here’s the turnaround: Is this a thought that is supporting me and I want to continue to think? Absolutely not. I do not like feeling frustrated, I’m not getting done what I need to, and being annoyed and snappy with my family is not how I want to show up. So, I decided that the thought “I wasted this day sleeping” was not helpful and I needed to choose a new thought. The thought I came up with (that I believe – has to be a thought that is believable or my brain will reject it) was “It was a rough night but I can still get a few things done.” When I practiced that thought in my brain for a few moments, I started to feel resolved instead of frustrated. Resolved helped much more than frustrated! When my kids or the teacher interrupted me to ask a question, I answered it and got back to work. When the dog started barking, I corrected her and got back to work. When something was happening that didn’t really need my attention, I ignored it and kept working. At the end of the hour I’d set aside, I’d done my coaching homework, scheduled a drop-off of groceries to be delivered to me at the hospital Thursday, refined the grocery list, reworked the calendar, and prepped the dinner I’d picked up earlier. Actually, I’d gotten quite a bit done!

The thoughts we think matter. There are different ways to manage thinking, but they all start with capturing the thought. Once I realized the thought was damaging and I wanted to think differently, I could have started with simply asking myself, “Is it true?” Actually, I hadn’t wasted the day at all – I’d talked to my father, picked up dinner, bought some tanks tops I needed at a deep discount, and gotten some sleep. Realizing all I had accomplished might have taken the sting out of feeling tired and behind at the end of the day (“Look at what I did accomplish!”). I took a different tactic because I didn’t really need to feel better about how the day had been spent. I needed an empowering thought to use to propel me forward. So I chose a thought that made me feel resolved, so I could take the actions of getting some things done. Choosing thoughts intentionally can make all the difference in the results you get. Unintentional thoughts can lead you to a result that you don’t want. But choosing thoughts on purpose can get you to the exact place you want to go! I salvaged my night from a downward spiral of my own negativity and created a more peaceful and productive evening. Yay me!

And that, my friends, is the work of coaching. I was able to coach myself through this situation because of the coaching practice I’ve learned. If you find this work compelling and are interested in working with me to learn how to work through some of your own thinking, I have space for just a few more clients in my last free slots. Let me know if you want in!

How do you turn your thoughts around when you’re spiraling downward? What are your tips and tricks for changing negative thinking? Please share in the comments below!

And here’s the next Going Deeper class on Weight Loss – come through!

3COMMENTS

Help Getting It Done

Weariness and Inspiration

I’m tired.

Remember last week I said that anger is exhausting? Well, that was the truth. I used up a lot of energy in frustration and anger and rage. Even more energy was used trying to exercise patience with situations and people that I felt weren’t moving as quickly as I wanted or weren’t trying to help. I spent a lot of time gritting my teeth and using the little ability I had to smile and get through the day. My mind kept circling back to the same thought: Why are we still here? It’s been more than 50 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr asked, “How long?”, and more than 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation. So why are we still fighting racial injustice?

At one point I had the thought that this is a human problem. We are wired to see difference as a possible threat. Humans have been attacking and fighting and enslaving and warring against each other since creation. Maybe we can’t solve this problem. Maybe a society built on mutual trust and our common humanity is too high a calling for us on this side of heaven. I mean, this isn’t heaven, so it just may be that this is our lot and we need to learn to bear up under it.

It’s a dangerous train of thought. There’s just enough slivers of scriptural truth in it to be convincing. And my mind agreed, but also resisted. And that push-pull was wearing me out! I wanted to put myself to bed and not get up. The strain of living in a pandemic, the emotion of seeing again how the evil of racial injustice still pervades our society and trying to care for patients and my children started to feel very, very heavy. It was tempting to give in to the feeling of hopelessness, to believe the thought that this is not a solvable problem and that whatever little I can do isn’t worth very much. I mean, who cares if I share a story of injustice on my Facebook feed, or help people manage their thoughts and emotions in a post or YouTube video, or reassure one more patient before she goes under anesthesia for me to do her surgery? What difference does any of it make?

Then I got an email from one of my patients, thanking me for helping her feel safe before her surgery. Several friends shared some posts that I put on my page. One of my friends from church (who is white) has been consistently posting on race and changes she is making and encourages others to make. An elder’s wife from church came to my house to give me two of her tomato plants, and we talked about race and change for much of the morning. She’s white too. A colleague called to ask me how I was doing, just to check on me.

There’s a lot of love in this world. The protests and media uproar are evidence that many people care about racial injustice. I am not alone – and neither are you. We don’t all see things in the same way, and we don’t all have the same opinion about how to make change. But this problem is big and pervasive and insidious – we need all people to work on solving it. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do in the long term. For now, I’m mourning and remembering history and teaching my kids and practicing kindness and supporting legislative change and participating in boycotts. I’m talking where I feel safe and sometimes where I don’t. I’m encouraging those who have the courage to speak out.

Once the protests end and the fervor dies down, then what? That’s the part I’m most concerned about. What are we going to do to keep another 50 years from going by without solving this problem? If we don’t stay focused on change, it won’t. I think one of the hardest things to do so far has been to talk to each other across color lines. Black people have been talking to each other about racial inequity all along. We were talking to each other more during the Civil Rights era. But when the 1980’s and the Rainbow Coalition came, many of us agreed with the ideal of an equal and post-racial society. The mistake we made was thinking we were already there, which allowed us to stop talking about issues of race and inequality. I’m committed to staying in the conversation for change. As discouraging as it might be to see that we haven’t yet arrived, the lives of Amaud Arbery, Breanna Taylor, George Floyd, Martin Luther King Jr, Emmett Till, Freddie Gray, and many others are worth continuing to fight for change. What will I do? Where will I focus my energies for the long haul? I don’t know yet. But I will figure it out. I’ll keep reading and teaching and talking and sharing and raising my kids to create the world that we all want to live in. I see so many others doing the same. And that gives me hope.

How are you feeling? Are you weary or inspired or hopeful or angry? What are you doing with all your emotions? Please share in the comments below!

And for those of you following, I have a new weight loss series: Going Deeper. Join me and hear why this even matters in the midst of the times we’re living through right now…

1COMMENTS

Help Getting It Done, Mind Management

What Can I Do?

My downward spiral started when I burned a hole in my exercise ball on the space heater…

This thing is HOT!

What? How? Let me explain. I had one day this week to work from home and do telemedicine, so I was sitting at my desk calling patients. The mornings have still been crisp and cool, so I turned the disk heater on medium-high and directed it right at me. Sitting at a desk all day hasn’t been helping my hip strain and I had started using my exercise ball to sit on, hoping it would help. But it wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped, so I’d moved it aside and brought in a desk chair. Between calls as I was charting, I heard a hissing noise and when I looked over, the ball had rolled into the disk heater and air was leaking out of the hole that the heater had burned into it when it touched the ball.

It was unrecoverable.

I tried to fix it with gorilla tape. That didn’t work.

Okay, no big deal, I’ll just order another and replace this one. It was many years old anyway and probably wasn’t expensive. Moving on, right?

I could have. But as other things unfolded during the week, they became these nagging little annoyances. I had a conversation with a colleague that bothered me, even though it worked out perfectly well. I went to get groceries and was irritated because I’m tired of having to wipe down all the groceries before they can be put away because of coronavirus. And then when I brought them home, the kids were out at the park and no one was home to help put them all away. Because I wash the clothes I wear out to the office or the hospital I’m doing laundry more frequently, and I’ve gotten behind on putting my clothes away. So my closet is a junky mess and that gets on my nerves. Then both my and the girl’s showers weren’t draining well, so I knew that meant that there was a bunch of hair caught in the trap. I hate cleaning that because it’s nasty and Perry usually does it, but he has so much to do this week that I didn’t even want to fix my face to ask him to do it. Also, my kids are in the process of learning to clean up the whole kitchen after themselves after meals (not just put their dishes in the dishwasher), so that means my kitchen is also very often a hot mess and I’m sick of calling them back over and over to get them to do their clean up correctly. I want to go get my nails done cause I’m overdue for a mani-pedi, but I just can’t see going to the nail shop just yet.

Eventually, I got to this place where my brain was screaming that I don’t want to go to one more store and if the kids won’t clean up then I’m not cooking and why is there a bag of moldy lemons in the frig and do they think I’m the maid around here and why doesn’t anyone appreciate me and if this coronatine is gonna continue and I have to be in this house with these people and go to work and deal with one more thing I’m going to rent a house on the beach by myself and leave all these people right here and NOT COME BACK!

I’m OUT! Okay, not really…

I had to take a minute to breathe and pray…

What I realized what that I’ve had this hum of disapproval running in the background of my life about the situations in my life. The voice in my head judges the circumstances as negative and slaps on a label of “wrong” on them. The truth is that the circumstances are just what they are – not negative or positive, just neutral. And because they are neutral, they can’t make me unhappy. When I have a negative thought about the situation, that’s what makes me upset or angry or frustrated. When I let a bunch of these negative thoughts pile up on top of each other, that’s what makes me miserable and ready to drop my life like a bad habit.

So I have a choice. I can let my mind offer up all these negative thoughts and allow them to rule my emotions, or I can give my brain something constructive to do. One way I’ve found to do this that’s been very helpful is to ask it good questions. This helps in two ways: One, it keeps my brain working on something positive, and two, it gives me solutions to the perceived problems I need to solve. The question I started asking this week was, What can I do? My brain had gotten very practiced at showing me what was out of my hands – I can’t magically get my kids to learn to clean the kitchen or make COVID-19 go away, or snap my fingers and get the hair out of the drain. But when I ask my mind to find what I can do, options start to come up. I’m very clear that my goal with these kids is to raise them to be independent adults one day, so they leave my house and have productive and self-sufficient lives. So actually, I’d rather put in the effort to train them to do their work completely now, than have them develop into adults who can’t take care of themselves or their homes. So I can choose not to be as bothered because I know that making them come back and do the job right is good for them. With the drains, I just decided it had to be done and I put it on my calendar, but I made sure to ask my husband about it so I’d do the job right and he just handled it. With COVID-19, I’m looking at what we can do as a family that’s fun instead of going to the conference that was canceled. Maybe we’ll go camping or rent a house somewhere. I can also order the farm box from Fry Farm – there’re no bottles or packages to wipe, we get fresh local produce, and I support local agriculture. Win, win, win! And when I go to the store, I’m glad I can get the food we need and I’m grateful I have wipes for disinfecting, so I’m actually glad I can wipe down the groceries.

Not messing around…

We get to decide how we want to experience our world. There will always be circumstances that come up in our lives, but it’s up to us how we think about them and whether we take charge of our thoughts or allow our brains to be the boss of us. I’m choosing to put my mind to work for me!

Have you been feeling frustrated/irritated/overwhelmed while living through this pandemic? What constructive ways have you found to cope? Please share in the comments below!

And in case you hadn’t seen it yet, I just started a weight loss basics class on my YouTube channel. The classes come out on Tuesdays and the intro and class 1 video are already up. There’s no need for coronatine weight gain! Come check it out!

1COMMENTS

Help Getting It Done

The Key To Joy

I haven’t always been a joyful person.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a lot about positive thinking, managing my mind, shifting my focus and seeing the good in my life. The one thing I have figured out in learning to do these things is this: Joy is not natural. Sure, we all know the rare individual who seems to be smiling and full of good thoughts, but for most of us? Not natural. It’s much more natural to gripe and complain, to see the messiness and disorder, to point out the flaws and inconsistencies.

I used to feel really guilty about my negative, glass-half-empty personality. Who am I kidding? I still sometimes see myself that way. When I was a girl, I remember being told I was a pessimist. I just accepted that this was fact, that this was how I was made. I didn’t think that it was something I might be able to change. At the time, the concept of neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to adapt and change) wasn’t being taught yet. And certainly I didn’t know that I could train my brain to think in different ways!

Learning that my primitive brain is designed to scan for danger and threat, to look for what is out of place or off, to warn me when it sees these things helps me to be more patient with my brain. When I also recognize that I’ve been practicing the skill of seeing what’s wrong for decades, I can acknowledge that this finding fault is just a skill I’ve gotten good at performing. Very good. The act of finding what is right, the practice of seeing what is good and joyous – well, that’s something I’ve only been working on as an adult. So, I’m growing and I’m learning a new way to be. The good news for you is that I can share the things that have helped me to rewire my brain, to find the good, to live with more joy. Am I happy all the time? Of course not! That wouldn’t even be normal. Life is 50% positive and 50% negative on average. When we allow our brains to practice negative thinking, we tip the balance to the negative side. Practicing joy – that keeps us in balance. So let me show you my most powerful tool in finding joy…

My Gratitude List

I’ve been working on my lists for years now. I started this practice after reading 1000 Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It was an incredible book, but even more importantly it gave me a concrete way to learn gratitude. I think reading the book is absolutely worth your time, but let me give you the gist so you can get started now. Write down three things every day that you find beautiful, helpful, useful, lovely, or otherwise good, and in one year you’ll have a list of 1000 things that you were grateful for. In a year you can see (in written form), 1000 gifts that you were given in your life, 1000 good things that you’ve been grateful for. The key is not the number of gifts. It wasn’t looking back after a year of writing that helped shift my mindset. It was tracking the good things that helped me grow in being able to see the gifts as they appeared. Writing down the gifts slowed me down enough to notice the gifts.

Let me warn you of the loophole almost everyone wants to take. Most people start writing their list, and after not too long they start to think, “I can just remember three things from today that were good. I don’t really have to write it down.” Before you know it, the practice is done every other day, then you fall asleep before you can think of three things, then all of a sudden you can’t remember when you even thought of something you were grateful for. There’s also something about writing it down that helps cement it in your brain. You have to write it down.

The question I often get is this: Do I have to write it on paper or can I do my list electronically? I still love the scratch of pencil or the glide of ink on paper. And filling a notebook brings me a particular joy that I just don’t get from an electronic document. That being said, you’ve got to do whatever helps you to keep the practice going. Even I have started using my notes app on my phone to record my gratitude, even though I love my notebooks more. Why? Because I always have my phone with me, even if I’m at the hospital all night, or I have a super early surgery morning and I’m doing my morning practice on the go. Since I open that app to food journal daily as part of my weight management practice, it’s a reminder to hop over to my grateful list and jot down a few items. If you never use your notes app, you probably won’t use it for your grateful list either. A notebook on your bedside table might be a better reminder.

Let me show you some of the things I’ve recorded in my list. Remembering how I felt when I reread them brings back the gratitude too!

Sweet lavender sprouting in my yard – had to put it on my desk!

Sun rising over the trees – His promises are new every morning…

My new plant

Let me tell you a story about how the grateful list practice changed me. For many years after we were married, my husband prayed for me to be able to be more peaceful and joyful. He saw the turmoil and anxiety that my way of being caused me, and he wanted my suffering (self inflicted though it was) to ease. He bought me a book one time on a bible study of Phillipians, hoping that I would learn joy from studying the scriptures (it helped, but I still didn’t grasp joy the way I needed it). After my first 1000 gifts list, my husband noticed major changes in my perspective, in my thinking, in my attitude. Unknown to me, he took an electronic copy of my list and sent it to his cousin (who is an artist) and commissioned her to create a piece of art using my list. This is the mixed media piece she created:

See the strips of “grass”? Those are the items from the list, the roots from which the woman blooms…

Gratitude is the key to joy. There will always be trials and difficulties and challenges. But in the midst of it all, we can find the beautiful and lovely and praiseworthy (Phil 4:8). And this is where we find joy!

How do you practice gratitude and find joy in your life? Please share in the comments below!

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