One of my sensational self-care clients recently confessed a secret: despite her progess and our work together creating a nourishing diet based on healthy, whole foods, sometimes she still found herself caught up in cravings for the unhealthy options on the menu or at the dinner table.

Here’s how the story went:

“When that big plate of [insert your nutrition nemisis here] is right in
front of me,” she said, “I don’t think about antioxidants, omega-3/omega-6
ratios or why fiber is fabulous.  It’s just soooo tempting, I really have a
hard time remembering why I should say no, especially just this once.”

Ah, “just this once.”

Has this ever happened to you?

Of course.  It’s happened to all of us.  The other day I had to relocate my stash of unsweetened dried cherries to the tip-top shelf in my kitchen because it was tough to stop noshing on them, even though I know inside and out that dried fruit is a “moderation snack.”

You see, that’s the thing.  I know it.  Intellectually.

But intellect and logic and remembering all of the facts isn’t always going to help you choose the quinoa, kale and currant salad over the bacon cheeseburger with curly fries.  In the face of temptation, especially if we’re under stress, our brains simply don’t work as efficiently.

It doesn’t help that nutrition is a controversial and confusing topic these days, either.  Some people are pumped about Paleo; others swear that raw is the way to go.  And, for the love of all that is holy, what is the deal with wheatgrass?  Is it really worth it?  Really?

I don’t know all of the answers, but I do know this:  our body gives us a lot of information.  It’s really, really smart.  It tells us what it needs.  Fatigue, unusual weight gain or loss, upset digestion, heartburn, colds — they’re all signs that something is way out of whack.  Once we start actively listening to those messages, we can respond with intelligence and mindfulness.

Working with a knowledgeable professional, like a nutritionist or wellness consultant, is an outstanding way to get super support, but in the end, you’re the one who decides what goes on your fork.

Here’s a simple trick I suggest for all yogis (and, no, you don’t have to be a mat-toting, legging-wearing, meditating, bendy tea drinker to be a “yogi” — you just need intention, movement and breath):

Eat what you would eat if you were sitting on your yoga mat.

It may not be freshly-squeezed green goddess juice, but chances are it’s not gonna’ be a funnel cake, either.

The idea, of course, is that most of the time you already know what you should (or shouldn’t) be eating.  Your mat simply helps you remember.  After all, it:

* represents that sacred corner of the planet that’s reserved just for you
* allows you to express, receive, give, build up and let down
* encourages recognition of your divine and virtuous self
* commands that the rest of the world’s responsibilities wait for a while

In other words, your yoga mat offers a space where you honor yourself.

After a while, your body gets this, matches the mat to the delicious feelings gleaned from it.  Psychology refers to it as associative learning, but the simple math is this:  yoga mat = self-care.  And when we make decisions with the intention of taking extraordinary self-care, we make much, much better decisions.

You are your own greatest teacher, cupcake sugarplum sweet pea, but you’re also the student.  Listen carefully.  Learn a lot.  Don’t cheat [yourself].  Eat your vegetables.

What do you have to do today?

(Go ahead, take a moment and mentally run down the list).

If your list is full of amazing, congratulations.  You can stop reading right here and go get started on all of those incredibly fun, fulfilling things to do.  If, instead, your list is endless, exhausting or just generally a total buzzkill, there’s something — yes, to do — about that.  It’s called reframing.

Reframing is a type of neurolinguistic programming — a communication pattern that affects our actions, behaviors and other outcomes.  It’s an integral part of yoga practice (and I use it with all of my clients) because it clarifies the conversations we have with ourselves, magically modifying the mindset.

Here’s why:  put simply, reframing changes your outlook, or the “frame” from which you view the world.  It’s like wearing the same glasses for most of your life and then getting a new prescription.  Turning black and white to color. Things illuminate.

Here’s how it works:

First, recall your to-do list.  Then, imagine for a moment that everything that you “have” to do becomes something that you “get” to do.  In each instance, simply exchange the word “have” for the word “get.”

In other words, change your frame from having to do something to getting the chance to do something.

This takes practice — after all, we’ve been glueing our current framework in place for years — but when performed, it works nearly every time.  Even our less pleasurable tasks are usually things that, on some level, are chances and choices:

• Exercise?  You get to do this because your body is healthy enough, and your heart committed.
• Eating better?  You get to do this because you have the insanely good fortune of living in one of the most abundant food meccas on the planet, and you have the opportunity to regularly allocate your resources accordingly.
• Paying bills or spending money?  You get to do this in exchange for receiving products and services that improve your quality of life, contribute to a cause or company, or otherwise cause some chain of events in your experience of the world.

This is reframing at its best: by replacing “have” with “get,” we can see that our to-do list actually offers opportunities for mindfulness and gratitude so surprising, it might as well be gift-wrapped.

Go ahead and give it a go.  You might be pleasantly surprised at all that you’re getting.

Vacation, Great Barrier Reef

Vacation, Great Barrier Reef, reframed

One of my all-time favorite experiments is what I lovingly dub the “chock full ’o stress” study, done by Stanford professor Baba Shiv and Alexander Fedorikhin.   They divided college student participants into two groups, asking the first group to remember a two-digit number, and the second group to remember a seven-digit number.  The participants then walked down a hallway, where they were offered the choice between two snacks:  fresh fruit or chocolate cake.

And this is where it gets interesting: the participants who were tasked with the seven-digit number, our group two gunners, were twice as likely to choose the cake.

Yep, that’s right.  Scientific evidence is proving what you and I both experience all of the time:  when we’re tired, it’s a lot more challenging to make the healthy choice.

The study concludes that when we have more to think about and, hence, more stress, we carry a heftier “cognitive load.”  That heavy mental lifting, in turn, exhausts our prefrontal cortex — the area of our brains that makes rational, reasonal decisions — and our choices become less so, accordingly.

So, this means that we get to eat cake whenever we’re tired, right?

Yeah, right.  You’re not going to get a free-for-all, sugar-laden license out of me (even if chocolate cake is my favorite food).  We can, however, use this helpful data in our daily diets.

When we are mindful of the chock full ’o stress factor, we become more aware of when we’re tired, cranky, irritable, moody, stressed out or overloaded. We remember that we’re more likely to “choose the cake” and, therefore, that might just need to give ourselves something even sweeter:  SELF-CARE!

Taking care of yourself helps heal the underlying cause of the cravings chaos demonstrated in the Stanford study: exhaustion.  Experts are seeing evidence that giving the brain much-needed rest and lowering stress levels may help unload the prefrontal cortex so that it has more energy for awesome, authentic choice-making.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have your cake, of course.  Just don’t strain your brain beforehand.

Image Credit: foodess.com.
(Check our their amazing moist chocolate cake recipe!)

If you’re reading this, you probably know a thing or two about yoga.  Yoga for adults is the norm these days, especially in big, stressed-out cities like Washington, DC.  We know (or know someone who knows) how incredible yoga can make our bodies feel… but we’re just now starting to realize the boundless benefits of yoga for little bodies, too.

Not that there is certainly no shortage of activities for kids these days.  Ask any neighborhood listserve, and find an immense archive of opportunities for your son to learn to swim, your daughter to learn to dance, you to become a bonafide soccer mom.  But the big truth is that yoga is exploding as a fun, go-to activity for little ones.

There are specially-designed children’s yoga studios, classes, workshops and programs all over the planet, and there’s good reason these providers are popping up faster than your child’s growth charts.  

Like grown-ups, kids often leave yoga classes with an increased sense of well-being, happiness and awareness of themselves and others.  Their bodies benefit tremendously from the physical activity, and their emotional selves come into balance by learning how to breathe effectively.

You could research for hours to learn the plus side of a kids yoga practice… but if you actually have children, I’m going to assume you may not have those hours to allocate.  Instead, here are my five favorite reasons — what I call “the 5 Cs” — for why kids yoga is so incredible:

CONNECTION
children connect positively with themselves through movement, stillness and breath, and with their peers through team-building and practicing yoga principles, like ahimsa (nonharming)

COORDINATION
yoga poses and games practice hand-eye/bodily movement coordination

CREATIVITY
yoga art and games encourage creative thinking and problem-solving

CONFIDENCE
children gain immense confidence when they see what their bodies can do!

CALM
your child’s yoga mat can be a wonderfully safe space for settling down from stress

Another awesome thing about kids yoga is that it’s a super way to expose your child at a very young age to a practice that can provide immeasurable benefits throughout his or her entire life.  And that’s something that not many playgroups, or soccer leagues, can score.

Tip: To get your child on the mat, check out Lil Omm Yoga, a yoga center for the entire community that provides kids-only and family yoga classes, in addition to its prenatal, postnatal and adult yoga offerings (they also offer childcare while you practice — love that!).  For child-focused yoga at home, check out the books and DVDs from Itsy Bitsy Yoga, Storyland Yoga and Shanti Generation Yoga. 

This post also featured on DC Metro Mom, a free online guide to the best shops, services, activities, and everyday essentials for raising a family in the DC area.  Visit DCMetroMom.com for more.

Have you ever read an article about the importance of “unplugging?”  This idea that, if we turn off the electronic devices that connect us to the world for a while, we’ll start to get some of our Zen back?

Whenever I float this topic to one of my clients (or, well, any person, any place, at any time), I usually hear something like: “mmmm, that’d be so nice, but impossible with my life because ___________,” or “if I turn off the __________, I’ll miss something important.”

The truth is, while unplugging ourselves out of constant chaos can help us refill our inner peace tank, it’s hard for most of us to actually do. Sometimes it’s easier to reframe this thing away from how we connect to the outside world and, instead, invite in an internal shift toward what we’re plugging in to ourselves.

Visually, we’re like those power strips that we use around the house, maybe connected to the television or computer.  If that strip has 8 outlets, it can only supply energy for 8 recipients…and that’s if they’re created equal.  In reality, of course, some things get more outlets than others. We may give 3 to the kids, 2 to our partner and 2 to work, leaving 1 lonely spot left for our household tasks, errands, pet care, grocery shopping, transportation, vacation planning, bills, relationships with others… and then there’s that often-neglected relationship we have with ourselves and our own self-care.

Put simply, it’s a power supply-and-demand problem.

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer, of course, but to find a solution that works for you and your family, one smart start is getting crystal clear on exactly how you are spending your energy:

What and who are plugged into you, into your vital power source?  
How does that allocation line up with what you hold most dear in this life?  
What shifts can you consider to bring things a bit more into alignment?

When we ask these kinds of questions, we create more mindfulness.  When we create more mindfulness, we see that we also create and choose how to expend energy.  Shine the light of awareness onto where, and with whom, you’re sharing that power supply.  It’s precious, sometimes priceless, stuff.

This post also featured on DC Metro Mom, a free online guide to the best shops, services, activities, and everyday essentials for raising a family in the DC area.  Visit DCMetroMom.com for more.

But it’s hard to remember that sometimes.  Even as a teacher, I forgot it for a while … for months, actually.  I didn’t end my personal yoga practice, or quit helping others continue their practices.  I stopped doing something else that nourishes my soul.  Forgetting that every artist creates differently, feeling that perhaps my process didn’t keep up with my peers, I stopped writing.

It was a quiet relief at first.  It freed up some valuable mindshare to devote towards business development, up-and-coming service offerings, marketing strategy, even the growing stack of administrative tasks.  Eventually, though, that fresh air formed a cloud of criticism:

• You haven’t written in months!  How ever will you start again?
• Did you see what _________  just published?  Brilliant!
• You should really have stuck to that posting schedule, and stocked that library full of “emergency” posts for droughts like this one.
• How hard is it to just publish one little post?  I mean, it’s only once per month!
• You have SO many ideas, titles and half-written pieces.  What is the problem???

Well, here’s the problem: with that kind of internal environment, nothing creative happens.  Deliciousness cannot thrive in the midst of harshness, self-criticism and your own personal, pissed-off peanut gallery. It’s wildly infertile ground. Everyone’s creativity garden needs a little manure to flourish, but nothing healthy grows in the middle of a wasteland.

As uncomfortable as it was, though, I kept working.  And working, and working.  And last week, in the middle of a particularly dry, anxious day, something broke through:  I remembered, respected and honored my angels, those genius forces that help us create (note: I don’t adhere strictly to any one organized religion, but I’ve always referred to these “assistants” as angels… and it seems I’m in good company, too, as Steven Pressfield uses this terminology exquisitely in his extraordinary book The War of Art).

The honor-your-angel theory is pretty simple: you and I work and, in so doing, we pave a passage for the good stuff that our genius forces (i.e., angels) offer.  We slide into a space that says sometimes there is no set timeline.  It encourages a little more magic and a little less control-freak.  It promises progress if we each honor our own process.  As a yoga teacher, I help others honor their angels every day; I am not responsible for the messages, but instead for helping students clear their pathways so that they can fully receive them.

I’ll be honest with you, though: creativity angels are awesome at self-protection.  In my experience, those beauties don’t like to make appearances when we’re amped up, strung out, closed off, etc.  Our toxic energy tarnishes their halos, and it’s up to us to make our environment more inviting.

And that’s where the Zen-ing and dog cones come in. They’re two super-effective ways to clean up your act.

#1, “Zen-ing,” is doing any action that creates more easy, breezy peacefulness in your workspace.  I use a whole list of hints for proper Zen-ing, but here are a few crucial components that keep my creative ritual kicking:

• Use calming music for soothing subliminal messages. Keep an old iPod and speaker system in your office, with soft music constantly playing.  It might be classical piano, Native American flute melodies, white noise or blues guitar.  The calm seeps into your system, physiologically combating the stress chemicals that set up shop there each day.  Think of it as the exact opposite of having a blaring, doomsday news channel on in the background.
• Keep a candle nearby. Fact: candles can cause happiness.  Aromatherapy is widely used around the world as a natural healing practice, and is gaining popularity in the West.  Consider using them to increase your Zen.  If you can’t have a flame in your workspace, a bottle of aromatherapy oil fits nicely in a desk drawer.
• Stop checking email so often. Take it down to twice a day (okay, once an hour??).  A helpful way to force this is to actually log out of your account so you have to log in manually.  The less time you spend responding to crises, the more time you have to be brilliant.  Trust.
• Get a mantra going. Keep a list of encouraging quotes, empowering blog posts and faithful statements nearby.  Recite before you start working and re-apply as necessary.
  

#2, wearing a dog cone is less action, more mindfulness.  Just as when a dog is injured and has to wear a wide, plastic protective collar around its head to keep it from excess damage, a mental version can be extremely helpful to block out the outside world when it gets distracting or discouraging (especially unhelpful comparisons of yourself to others).  I mean, how can the external environment get into your line of vision if you’re rocking one of these?

So, you’ve designed your Zen space.  You’re working your dog cone.  You ask: where are these angels and when will they arrive?  My answer: everywhere, all of the time, and at your service.

Here’s the thing…

Forget thinking that you have to create something great.  Instead, just create a calm, centered space where the rest of the world isn’t all up in your business.  Close the door to all of that.  Sit with yourself and your experience.  Breathe.  Stretch.  Honor your individual, different, diverse, off-the-mat, yoga-inspired, angel-amped process.  Be still.  Be quiet.  Be patient.  Listen. You might just hear them sing.

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I arrive home, good morning hello for the cats who greet me at the door, breakfast of whole grain toast with sliced avocado (freshly-cracked black pepper, sprinkle of sea salt), gathering of the notebooks.

Then, the coffeehouse.  Caffeine courtesy of a cortado.  Separately, a shot of hesitation begins pumping in like little sparks of electricity.  That’s called Fear, and its malignant cells multiply to make Overwhelm.  I mean, have you ever noticed that 98% of your body can say “go,” but 2% of paralysis can nail your ass to your seat?

For something that so heavy, it begins pretty simply.  What to do today?  This morning?  Right now? I check this week’s to-do list to find answers.  They’re easy enough.  Because, though it still presents its challenges, this delicious, day-to-day yoga+wellness biz I manage is, well, manageable.  But what about the next level that is underneath, making my skin feel too tight? What am I creating, exactly, here?  What does it look like, feel like?  How does it taste?   Will it make money?  Will I know enough?  Will it help the customers about whom I care so deeply?  When will it happen? Not as easy now.

Breathe.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

I open my book ready to read; my notebook, ready to write.  And I sip my coffee.  My clients ask whether I am “always so calm.” I smile softly, ‘tell them you don’t get Zen without having plenty of material to work with.

I continue with the breath, feel the fear surrender into the right side if my torso, a little bit smaller, quieter, less demanding of my attention (or perhaps more defeated?  I really don’t care).  I begin my work, my creative process.  I make something, send something, post something (this something).  I share stuff, expose stuff, I make some contribution to and connect with those in my universe.

And I remember, I remind myself, that there are days, weeks and, indeed, months like this.  If you’re on the right track.

Keep going.

At first, I naturally felt uncomfortable about this… and then I realized that it all brings me back to one of my favorite, although sometimes forgotten, mantras:

I am an imperfect person.

Oh, ah, the relief of resting in divine imperfection. 

Yep, it’s true: imperfection can be a source of divinity, of otherworldliness and messy, beautiful bliss.  Imperfect timing, circumstances, experiences and efforts all assist in the makings of our crazy, wonderful lives.

This thinking is a far cry from the unsustainable, almost imperceptible pressure present throughout my earlier years, though.  As a kid, I strove for 100%, for 100% of the time.  An “A-” on a test was likely to generate a teary waterfall.  Anything less than “the absolute best” just was. not. an. option.  I wore my Type A badge with bright, beaming pride.  If there was a line to draw, I drew it straightest.  If the teacher had a task to do, I got the job.  Reliable, dependable, efficient, effective, in control, on the ball, put together, uber-professional-even-at-the-tender-age-of-7.   To say I could’ve benefited from yoga as a young person is a massive understatement.

If you know what I’m talking about, you also know that this behavior is often strongly encouraged.  Praised.  Admired.  For me, it went on well into my collegiate years.

And then something happened.

It started with my failure — or at least what I perceived to be failure — to not make it into the top 10% of my class at my top 10 law school.  This might not seem like much to many people, but lemme’ tell ya: when you’ve spent most of your life defining yourself by grades, it’s kind of a big f*ing deal. And when that breaks, it has the ability to break you open.

Here’s what I’m getting at: when you’ve defined yourself by doing things the “right” way, by being in control of your outcomes, by pushing forward and being strong and making the grade (literally or figuratively), what happens when you fall short… as your inherent human-ness ensures that you eventually will?

Even if you’ve been an academic underachiever, that sneaky, subtle pursuit of perfection can rear its head in a myriad of impossibly clever ways.  For instance, are you:

• a ball player who’s game falls apart if you miss a basket, a hit, a goal?
• an artist who goes nuts if that latest creation isn’t genius?
• a hard worker who’s bought into the work ethic of miniscule (or no) vacation time at the risk of your own health?

And if these aren’t you, still, you know who you are.  The examples are as endless as the expectations, and this is where the yoga comes in:

Your yoga practice can be a powerful antidote to that drastically draining perfectionism.

At its core, yoga encourages acceptance of imperfection of body, mind and spirit.  We yogis work on letting go of our egos in challenging poses, on softening our competitive drives with others and ourselves, on giving in to the present moment, as it is, as we are.  It is a practice often referred to as “simple but not easy.”

Of course, there are yoga disciplinarians, hardcore asana athletes and bootcamp-ish teachers… everybody’s free to have their own style.  But consider defining yours with more spaciousness instead of rules, more curiosity instead of competition.  Work on building room in your practice to just try, flounder, fall and, yes, fail. And if your reaction is to defend an impractical standard of nothing less than the best, remember that saying “I’m a perfectionist” is really the same as saying “If I’m not perfect, I’m not good enough.” Ouch.

So, stay safe on your yoga mat, but add some softness.  Support yourself and your practice with enough room to make mistakes.  And once you acquire that new skill set, introduce it into the rest of your life, applying it to your to-do list and your [crucially-important] self concept.  Do your best, then rest.  Have faith that, even if you screw something up, you’ll probably also figure it out.

There’s a saying: “great is the enemy of the good.”  Go for the good, knowing that it’s plenty good enough… and that it might just be the best thing overall.

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Last month we celebrated the start of the new year with the first 10 of a top 20 list: selected suggestions on ways to rock out your 2011.

So, you can guess what I’ve got for you this month: the next 10.

These aren’t your usual tips (well, okay, you might be able to guess the first one).  They are, however, all things that I’ve used, that my clients use, that have offered results and infused light into many, many lives.

Which will you choose to help guide you towards a better-than-ever year?

#11   |   Stop smoking.  Now. Let’s start with a basic-but-couldn’t-be-more-important one, and let’s be perfectly unapologetic here: smoking slowly kills you (or at least 5 million of your friends). When you smoke, you are actually killing your cells (and, I’d offer, yourself).  Buy a patch.  Get gum.  Join a support circle.  Try those new electric gadgets.  Or go cold turkey.

If it seems impossible, try this personal story on for inspiration: when my younger brother, Charles, was really young — to the tune of 4 years old — he and my dad would go fishing.  On one of these beautiful bonding trips, this couldn’t-be-cuter kid had busied his brain about our dad’s cigarette habit, and proclaimed “Daddy, I want you to stop smoking.” When dad replied, “why’s that, son?” he responded, very matter-of-factly, “because if you die you can’t take me fishing.”  It stopped that day. It can be done.  DO IT.

#12   |   Get outside at least 3 times a week. While our society is better protected now than ever from the sun’s harmful rays, we’re actually not getting enough of the sun’s good stuff, often due to long work hours indoors and winter weather (which can alter Vitamin D availability).  Change that this year.  Ask your doctor for how much you need, but a good baseline is 10 minutes’ exposure.

#13   |   See beauty often. Gorgeous things can be found all around town.  Look for the kindness in a person’s eyes, engage with the enormous, cloudless sky overhead, admire a stunningly plated dish before you devour it.

#14   |   Get a physical once this year.  Pay attention. See.  Your.  Doctor.  At least annually.  No matter how healthy you appear, it’s always a good idea to check in with your physician at least once every 1-2 years.  Ask questions.  Do the random battery of tests.  Check in before you check out.

#15   |   Take a multivitamin every day. Generic or brand name.  Chewable or whole.  Adult or kids (really).

#16   |   Sleep as close to 8 hours a night as humanly possible. I know it’s hard to do every night, but make it a priority.  When you do have extra time to watch a movie before bed or catch up on a bunch of emails, do me a favor and turn it off.  As an experiment, go to bed one night at or before 9 p.m., see how you feel when you wake up, and then thank me in the morning.

#17   |   Have sex at least 2x/week.* The above notwithstanding, sex is an excellent barometer for your overall health.  WebMD, Newsweek, Dr. Oz, ABC News, Men’s Health Magazine and expert Dr. Laura Berman all agree.  Get busy.

*Consenting adults only, of course. Underage readers, please rock regular exercise for the same results.

#18   |   Write stuff down whenever you can. Keep a journal of your goals, of what’s going on as you move through the months of the year, of your feelings about those goings on.  Use your notes as information on how authentic your actions are to your ideal plan.

#19   |   Always accept and honor setbacks. Sounds like crazy-talk, I know, but consider this: we are taught to punish ourselves when we don’t meet a goal.  We’re told to play to win, and to win all.  We are an uber-competitive breed, and guess what: it isn’t working.  Stop the setback-bashing.  The next time you fall short — and you will, my friend — just check it out.  Ask why it happened, how you feel about its occurrence, and what might be done differently next time.  In other words, be mindful about your actions (or lack thereof).  Pick yourself up again and carry on, committing to learning from every setback, every time it happens.  If the same setback keeps happening, trust that it will vanish once you’ve truly learned the lesson it is there to teach you.

#20   |   Be quiet once a day. Something interesting happens when we’re quiet.  Once we stop talking — or thinking about what to say, do, be — our other senses become heightened.  We see, feel, listen more intently… and intensely.  Our bodies actually relax.  Meditation is a great way to tap into this, but any “quiet” is a good start, and there are pockets of it everywhere.  Turn down your own volume (and any music) at least once every 24 hours, whether it’s in the car, in a cab, in the elevator, at your desk, walking the dog, on the treadmill.  Search and find those few minutes, and sink into them.

This is the time to find specials on gyms, discounts on health-related services, advertisements for super-cleansing detox diets.  Everybody wants to lose the holiday pounds, and start a new chapter with a pretty, clean, smooth slate.  Time automatically hand-delivers that fresh start at midnight… but then what?

How, exactly, do you kick off 2011 in a kick-ass way?

If you feel even 0.001% overwhelmed, unsure, or frozen in the face of the big, BIG possibility of the new year, don’t even sweat it — you’re about to get 20 easy, practical, to-do ideas that will turn 2011 from a year of potential into one of promise.

Now, I know 20 new things to do might be a bit overwhelming — especially with that standard January resolution push — so you’re only getting 10 to try on this month.  And this first one’ll lift the pressure right off your shoulders:

#1   |   SKIP THE RESOLUTIONS. Yeah, I said it.  Generally speaking, I don’t like resolutions, never have, and here’s why:  they’re always too short-term, too grand, too demanding. Inevitably I break them, and then feel the phenomenal weight of failure.  That’s supremely unfortunate because  feeling like a loser actually leads to perceiving the world as a loss.

Once I figured out that resolution pattern, I knew with 110%-magic-crystal clarity that the Failure Feeling had to be tied up, boxed in, burned and buried.  So I killed it.  I stopped listening to the subtle, sneaky message behind most resolutions that says: “You’re not good enough.  You need to be different, new and improved in order to be okay.”  And I started creating intentions instead.

Here’s how you swap a resolution for an intention:

• Instead of starting with what’s wrong, start with what is.
• Instead of change rooted in what you don’t like, change based on awareness + acceptance + gratitude + patience + practice.
• Work to improve, but stop cracking the emotional whip that beats you into thinking you suck if you don’t.
• Drop the pressure to make a miraculous change as soon as possible, and check in regularly to see if you’re living in accordance with your intentions.
• Continue evolving from a place of kindness and curiosity, noting that it’s all a glorious work in progress.
• Take a deep breath and celebrate who you already are, as you are.  Give yourself a big, juicy break.

There, doesn’t that feel better?

#2   |   PUT YOUR INTENTIONS INTO PRACTICE WITH SMALL, ACTIONABLE STEPS. There’s this awesome story about a guy named Allan Bacon, a 9-to-5, cubicle resident who basically woke up one day and said “hey, I want to change my life dramatically.”  Instead of making a 180-degree turn that day, though, he went methodical.  Smart.  Slow.  Calculated.  Careful.  He started by changing his daily lunch routine — literally, that small shift — and still got a borderline mindblowingly genius outcome that involved creating a dream job and moving his family across the pond to Paris. Sometimes you leap into the next big thing, but often you support that jump by first building a foundation from completing small, actionable steps.

#3   |   BREATHE DEEPLY.  AT LEAST ONCE A DAY. It not only physiologically calms your body and mind, it also stretches, strengthens, improves respiratory efficiency, and maximizes the air capacity of your lungs.

#4   |   EAT WHOLE FOODS. Not necessarily from Whole Foods.  We’re talking real, fresh food found on the outside perimeter of the grocery  — fruit + veg, [organic] meat and fish, whole grains — as well as nuts and other unprocessed foods.  Stuff you can recognize, pronounce, recreate at home.  Go vegetarian for a week or more.  Let go of the artificial sweetener and that fat-free stuff.  For guidance, I love Michael Pollan’s book “Food Rules” – easy, everyone-can-do-at-least-one tips.  His mantra:  “Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.” Good stuff.

#5   |   DRINK WATER AND NO (OR AT LEAST LESS) SODA, REGULAR OR DIET. Buy at least 2 reusable water bottles: work and home.  Keep extras in the car or fridge.  Add lemon wedges to your glass if you get bored, or get spa-licious and slice pears into a water pitcher.  Staying hydrated helps you look younger, gets your skin glowing, and makes your body move more smoothly — it’s  lubrication for joints and the digestive system.  If you’re really committed, try an antioxidant water booster (whether they work is up for grabs, but I love the concept).  Soda, on the other hand, is bad for you and everybody knows it.  Empty calories and chemicals just aren’t helpful.

#6   |   MOVE YOUR BODY. SQUEEZE, STRETCH, SWEAT AND SCHEDULE IT DAILY. If you’re reading this, I’ll assume that yoga’s a viable option for you.  If not, there are a trillion others.  Walk, jog, run, bike, swim, Zumba, P90X, kickboxing, basketball, football, baseball, soccer, marathoning, triathaloning, martial arts, ballet, weight lifting, Pilates, horseback riding, playing with kids, trampoline jumping, vigorous housecleaning.  Master the art of movement, and make sure it’s in your calendar.

#7   |   EAT MEALS WITH YOUR FAMILY + FRIENDS EACH WEEK. Imagine this: when you share a good meal with someone, your body actually produces a hormone called oxytocin that encourages intimate and fond feelings toward him or her.  Take advantage of the chemical reaction, and connect with those closest to you.  Prioritize your people.

#8   |   MAKE A LIST OF GREAT, HEALTHFUL GO-TO SNACKS. KEEP THE LIST ON YOUR FRIDGE. KEEP THE SNACKS HANDY (CAR, PURSE, OFFICE DRAWER, ETC.). A great way to keep metabolism high and prevent binge behavior. Some of my favorites are all-natural Larabars and Kind bars, individually bagged almonds and/or mixed nuts, hummus whole wheat wrap, honeycrisp apples, individual 2% Greek yogurt cups, Nut-thin crackers, roasted chickpeas and coconut water.

#9   |  WHEN YOU’RE FEELING SICK, ALTERNATE WITH ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE. You can still go to the doctor, but pretty, pretty please, just consider getting acupuncture.  Or cupping, or herbal remedies, or any one of the many alternative medicine techniques that are now arguably maintstream.  There’s a reason they’ve been working effectively for thousands of years in the rest of the world:  they actually do work.

#10   |   PRACTICE MEDITATION DAILY. I saved the best for last.  If there is one thing — one thing — you chance this year’s changes on, let it be meditating.  Find a quiet space, sit comfortably, place your hands on your knees, close the eyes gently, observe your thoughts, and begin to notice your breathing.  Keep it up for 2-5 minutes to begin, then gradually go deeper.   If the mind is bouncing, that’s normal… but after enough bouncing, it’s bound to get tired.  Stay.  Breathe.  Practice.

Now go create an incredibly cool, mindful, marvelous start to your year!