We humans are hardwired to be in a constant state of dissatisfaction. What we have is never enough. Once we attain something, we want something else. This design of constant craving clearly had evolutionary advantages. Imagine being a long-past hunter-gatherer who was truly present in the moment and grateful for her current state of abundance one summer. Come winter, her peers who felt they never had enough would have socked in loads of extras, while she would have missed the opportunity to stock up during the time of plentitude. This trait of always wanting is connected to how our bodies are wired to not feel full until 20 minutes after we are sated. Why in the world would we have evolved to overeat if not to take advantage of food while it was available even if it was more than we needed at that moment in time? These days, we experience this aspect of evolution as dissatisfaction, which doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. It can give us the drive or motivation to make positive changes. Even if things in our lives are going pretty well, we're always wanting something to be different. Whether it is food or material positions or work or family, it is very hard for us to be content with what we've got. I gave some tips for creating successful New Year’s resolutions in my December newsletter. (Check it out here, and be sure to sign up for my mailing list so that you won’t miss a single issue of future editions!) For today’s post, I want to offer a few other thoughts about living the life you deserve. We all just want to be happy. All of our striving for whatever it is that we think we want is because we think it will take us one step closer to being happy. Consider the following as stepping stones on your journey to the life you want to be living. Have and hold the vision. What do you want your future life to look and feel like? What will you be doing? With whom? How will it make you feel? You need to know where you are headed before you can set out on the road to get there. Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. For example, for your future self say “I am fit and healthy,” and not “I’m not sick and tired anymore.” We get what we focus on, so keep it positive. Money won’t make you happy. Research shows that lottery winners revert to their former level of happiness within a year’s time. Focus on a vision of your future self that is about how you feel, not about what you have. It’s about flow and meaning too. Research also shows that in addition to having a pleasant and fun life, you also need to have activities that challenge and absorb you (called flow), and you need to feel like you are making a difference in the world. Figure out what gives you flow and where you feel you can contribute to the greater good, and make time for these activities on a regular basis. Take inspired action. Now that you have the vision of your future self, set out on the path of making the vision a reality. Keep your eyes open for possibilities. You never know when you might meet your next collaborator or find your next source of inspiration. Make time for gratitude. This one is surprisingly hard for me to remember. Take time to appreciate all of the good things in your life right now. Happiness happens in the present, and being grateful for what you’ve got right now can buoy you and carry you along on your journey. [Sign up for the mailing list to get Gluten Free: Practical Advice for a Happy, Healthy and Gluten-Free Life, plus the monthly newsletter and other updates, offerings, tips and more! (I never sell or share my mailing list.)] I have been feeling very out of whack since I learned of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary. I have two sons, ages 9 and 11, and I can barely bring myself to think about those kids, the teachers and staff, the parents and the community. There isn't really a way for me to directly offer support, solace or comfort, which makes me feel helpless. Over the last couple of days, I have had some learnings about what to do and not to do to help myself and my family cope.
1. It's okay to not feel bad every minute. I'm glad the boys and I went to the gluten-free meetup and cookie swap on Saturday. The baking beforehand was enjoyable and productive and I got to spend some time with my 9-year-old making chocolate peppermint cookies. The party itself was very fun. 2. No matter how good all the gluten-free cookies left over from the party are, too much sugar sends me to a rather bleak place. I need to remember that sometimes its easier to eat none than think I can just eat one, which I usually can't. 3. Say yes to interaction and people. Too much screen time or alone time makes it harder for me to pull out of a tailspin. I really wish I had said yes to a game of Apples to Apples with my kids yesterday. 4. Make healthy comfort food. I made my mom's pea soup for dinner. Sometimes you just need your mom. 5. Remember what it's like to be a kid. My boys are troubled by what happened too, but they don't really have the verbal or emotional vocabulary to express it. For the first time in a long time, we all piled in bed together last night. I think it helped all of us. 6. Get some exercise. Even though it's cold and rainy/foggy this morning, my half hour run was a sanity-saver, a moving meditation, that helped me find my emotional bearings. 7. Write. Being able to put your thoughts down on paper is like sharing a burden so that you don't have to carry a heavy load around with you all the time. 8. Listen to music. I've been alternating Charlotte Church and Julia Fordham and October Project on Pandora. It helps. 9. Appreciate EVERYTHING. Tell your family you love them. Watch the sunrise. Look at pictures of happy times. Savor your morning coffee. 10. Convey gratitude. Thank those people who have loved and supported you and kept you safe. Write them a letter. Tell them. Even if they are no longer with us, trust that the effort you put into thanking them will boost the positive energetic vibration that we all occupy. Peace be with you, today and always. A big thank you to Shanie Matthews at My Happy Path for inviting me to post about my celiac experience. Check out my piece here: http://www.myhappypath.com/finding-happy-in-the-midst-of-celiac-disease/. I love guest blogging and talking with folks about the journey to gluten-free!
Shanie did a guest blog post here at So What CAN You Eat? You can check it out here: http://www.clairebakerok.com/1/post/2012/06/finding-positivity-living-with-celiac-disease.html Shanie's got a fun photo-captioning contest going on at www.facebook.com/MyHappyPath. Check it out! I'm happy to share this post from guest blogger Shanie Matthews, a freelance writer who focuses on writing on ways in which we can assist each other in developing our own highest potential. She is the founder and creator of a happiness advocacy website, www.MyHappyPath.com, which acts as a stage of introduction into the various ways we can increase personal joy.
Living with the pain, sickness and debilitation that comes with celiac disease are life changing. This shift in the way life is lived doesn’t have to be in the negative. Sure, having to remove gluten products from the diet can be frustrating. The thought of facing a condition that is “forever” is frightening. Working through fatigue, nausea and pain is taxing. But the tools that the challenges force us to bring into life, so that we may live a happier existence, help not only the disease at hand, but our overall quality of life. Here are three tools we can introduce into our lives that makes a challenge like living with celiac disease a blessing not a burden… Enjoy the Benefits of Yoga with Vocal Exhales: Yoga creates the opportunity to develop a pattern of creating a time that focuses on love for self. Yoga offers an ability to bring in an overall sense of calmness into one’s life. But it is in the breath that Yoga offers one its most beneficial aspects. It is with the exhalation and inhalation that Yoga supplies the conduit of pure joy that resides in all of us. Do a Little Meditation with a Smile on Your Face: Unfortunately, there tends to be a lot of seriousness that is attached to meditation that scares some away from doing the practice. But it truly is not something to be feared. Meditation, in reality, takes on many, many forms. This includes just sitting quietly with a happy smile on your face. Science, according to studies done at Harvard, is showing that visualizing changes our reality by actually increasing the capacity of the frontal lobe of the brain. The feelings associated with grinning from ear to ear do slowly infiltrate into and break up negative emotions. It might sound silly to some, but really, this easy way to create meditation assists in pulling ourselves out of a funk. Make a Gratitude List: Gratitude is one of the best practices to incorporate into life when facing challenges. The mind is only able to think one thought at a time. In the state of pain, or illness, if we shift our mind to being grateful about something that is attached to the challenge at hand, it helps the perspective to shift. The change allows a deeper understanding to unfold. Even if all you can be grateful for in the moment is the ability to breathe, this moment of gratitude gives the brain a moment to cognitively see how many fabulous, wonderful, great things are going on in life. Way too many, really, to be upset at all. Even in the face of disease. Yesterday on my Happy Healthy Gluten Free facebook page (go here to "like" it!) I posted that the family was going to the Phillies game last night because my older son Corley (of gluten-free product video review fame) was going to be singing the national anthem with his school choir. We had another momentous trip to a Phillies game in 2008 in which we came up with a Ryan Howard homerun ball. That event is captured (forever, I hope) in the MLB video vault, so I sought it out and posted the link for everyone to enjoy. That baseball game was one of the most exciting and memorable events of my life. Watching the video revived all those feelings of fun and excitement. And I also think I had one of my best parenting moments -- you'll note at the end of the clip it was I who picked up the ball and I immediately thrust it in Corely's hands so that he got to be the big star on the Jumbotron. So fun! And I have a great story to go along with it if you ever want to hear it -- it goes a little far afield for the point I'm trying to make here. The point, you ask? There is evidence out there (I've read it and I'm looking for the source and will post it in a comment when I find it!) that indicates that looking at old pictures makes you happy. There is no way I can't smile when I look at the screen grab of Corley holding that baseball. Or when I look back through old facebook posts, or scroll through the pics on my phone when I'm standing in line at the post office, or when I get around to working on scanning our old photos that are in boxes in the basement. My friend Jeannine goes on photo walks, and she also posts pictures of her morning coffee of Facebook. We haven't talked about it specifically, but when I've tried to do something similar, the act of finding the right angle or staging the photo helps me look for and find the beauty in settings I might overlook otherwise. So, I think this type of mindful photography, in addition to looking at old snaps, can give a body boost to their mood. In this age of digital photography and cameras on phones, it doesn't cost anything extra. Worth a shot, right? |
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