Re-invent yourself by re-connecting to your body.

This month marks more than turning a page on the calendar.  October signifies a shift in the seasons, too.  In the Fall…

1. The leaves change color
2. TV shows change time slots
3. The students change grades, and sometimes schools.

 And you change into warmer, and sometimes larger, clothes.

 Mother Nature controls the firs point, network executives control the second, and teachers control the third.

You control your clothing choices. Regardless of the season, often you achieve your body’s comfort zone with your clothing choices.

For the sun worshippers: With your last swim, you put away your bathing suit. You replace last summer’s cover-up with cable sweaters, baggy sweats, and swirling skirts. You smile in relief with the knowledge your days of exposing yourself to the scrutiny of the others on the beach or at the pool are over…for now.

For the sun avoiders: You relax in the knowledge there will be no more invitations to pool parties to regret, no more hiding in your home or office until it is “safe” to transition to another environment, no more squinting, sneezing from allergies, and no more sweating.

Fall is an ideal transition between the two extremes of summer’s and winter’s uncontrollable temperatures as it eases you from thin, light weight to thick, heavy weight clothing. Prior to covering her up, take advantage of this shift in seasons to get to know your body…before she goes into hiding on her way to hibernation for the winter.

Fall is the time to declare a truce with your body.

We practice this in the Body Knowledge System®

Here are some reminders but please feel free to add more by contacting me.

• STOP covering her up i.e. Allow her to breathe with pride
• STOP confronting her in the mirror i.e. As you see her let her know how much you love her
• STOP corrupting her with excess i.e. Practice thinking of her needs first
• STOP condemning her with every thought and word i.e. Remember she hears you, be careful

Re-invent yourself and reacquaint yourself with your body, your Buddy. Your body is there to help you, not hinder you. Your body works very well WITH you, FOR you, and always in your best interest. Getting to know her comes with body knowledge. Familiarize yourself with her as she renews her relationship with you. Teamwork, partnership, and support between you and your body accomplish miracles.

A new moon, a new month, a new season leads to a new you. Go with the flow of the calendar and change yourself with the season.

Re-invent yourself and reacquaint yourself with your body, your Buddy. Your body is there to help you, not hinder you.

Before September’s shift from summer to fall, we enjoyed that last burst of heat and sunshine present in Indian summer, the last kiss of the sun prior to the rains and snows of the upcoming seasons. Regardless of where you live, your climate, your urban or rural environment, when summertime fades into fall, the heat recedes into the past season.

Summertime heat affects you and your body in many ways. For some of you the warmth is welcome as you peel off layers of clothing to welcome the weather. Some of you peel off extra pounds from the winter hibernation, too. Others fill their days with good intentions to fit into last year’s bathing suit, then eventually give up and buy the next larger size when August fades into September. Labor Day signifies the swimming season is coming to a close, so all those good intentions fade with the colors of the leaves and you’ll lose those pounds, get in shape for next year’s swim season.

Part of your procrastination is a result of the warmer weather’s effect on your motivation. There’s a reason tropical climates are more relaxed than seasonal ones. As the sunshine warms us naturally, it also mellows us to not take ourselves so seriously. Vitamin D3 comes from the sun and is known to affect our physical and psychological well- being. In northern climates, physicians recommend supplementing our diet with D3 during the other seasons.

Increased temperatures create excessive perspiration. We need to drink more water to maintain our physical and mental health. Dehydration is not only depressing, but also dangerous to our well-being. Since your body is mostly fluid, when you lose too much you lose vital minerals as well and it weakens every aspect of you. Your immune system becomes unable to fight off infections without the minerals you’ve lost in your increased perspiration.

Increased humidity in the summer can also take a lot out of us—not just moisture. As the water content of the air increases, so does the swelling of your extremities: feet, ankles, and hands, fingers. Perhaps the number on your scale remains within 5 pounds of your desired weight, but your clothing seems to shrink as it covers moist, sticky skin. Increased humidity brings your sunny spirit into the shadows, as if you retreat in order to return to your comfort level.

Skin damage from the sun’s rays age us prematurely and is a known source for cancers. Even though the sensation of warmth on our skin elevates our spirit as it colors our skin, too much of any good thing can be toxic. Whether sun worshipping is a part of your daily summertime routine or available only over the weekend during breaks from your office work, it is one of the pleasures available to us during that cheerful season. Vacations, road trips, beach picnics, long weekend holidays, family reunions are all part of that season of expansion, growth, and relaxation for some of us.

Specifically, like flowers some of us open to welcome the rays of the sun on our skin. Others detest the results of summertime heat on the way we look, the way we feel, and the way we move. Some of you bounce from bed, climb into your bathing suit or sundress, slather yourself in sunscreen, and then skip outside with the early rays of the day. Others pull down the blinds, turn down the a/c, and reach for a cold drink to wait for the relief sunset brings.

Summertime heat and all that sunshine can energize you if you respond well to it, or it can drain and depress you by restricting you to the darkness of indoors. The seasons change and regardless of how you feel about summer, you resist change because you are a human being.

Change is the only constant; and seasonal change is as radical as the climate you live and work in. For those in the tropics the change is hardly noticeable, for those in more temperate climates, the transitions between seasons can be subtle or radical depending on the current weather patterns.

Re-invent yourself and reacquaint yourself with your body, your Buddy. Your body is there to help you, not hinder you.

Your body works very well WITH you, FOR you, and always in your best interest. Getting to know her comes with body knowledge. Familiarize yourself with her as she renews her relationship with you. Teamwork, partnership, and support between you and your body accomplish miracles.

A new moon, a new month, a new season leads to a new you.

Go with the flow of the calendar and change yourself with the season.

Share Tags: Body Image, Body Relationship, Eating Healthy, Mind Body Connection

I get a lot of questions on “What is Cortisol and Why is it Making Me Fat?”

Well, cortisol is a hormone and when stressed these levels rise. Cortisol will increase blood sugar levels, blood pressure, and suppresses the immune system, which is part of the body’s fight-or-flight response. It has two effects on weight. At first it suppresses the appetite in order to do battle ‘fight or flight’, but then afterwards the cortisol will increase your appetite and store fat trying to get your body back into what it thinks is balance. It is thinking you should have used up the extra carbohydrates and fat while ‘fleeing’. It can also slow down your metabolism.

So you can be doing everything right as far as eating and exercise and still not be loosing weight do to stress and cortisol.

Here are some things to consider …

When your body is holding emotional and physical stress….your body is in defense so it produces again a hormone called cortisol. This will not harm you and what it will do is make your body hold onto unnecessary weight and make you feel ‘heavy.’

Now, with practice you can help yourself. You have to move with your body and acknowledge what she/he is feeling. Move your body. In this way the feeling will be less intense, and therefore move out of your body (thereby feeling lighter)…and when you feel lighter you make better choices in all areas of your life.

Cultivating optimum health is a way to support the intelligence of the body. When your body and emotions function optimally, you are better equipped to turn around the body’s stress drug—cortisol—converting it rather than storing it. Maintaining a state of mental and emotional well being boosts your immune system. When your immune system isn’t working properly, your body holds on to cortisol, increasing the tendency to store fat. The body thinks she needs to fill herself up to respond to stress. If you keep developing internal health, other aspects of health are likely to follow.

Make sure you are doing the right things to keep you healthy and as stress-free as possible.

Let me know if you found this post helpful.

Share Tags: Body Image, Body Relationship, weight loss

“Ooooo!” Frances, my client, exclaimed while practicing the Body Knowledge System® Dance as she released the anger she felt for her ex-husband during the final stages of their divorce. When I asked her how that compared to the chronic headaches and abdominal distress she had suffered over the past year, she giggled. “Those were ‘ouches’, this is release.”

In this case, “dance” is defined as motion. We believe the motion expressed in physical action reflects the emotions inspiring it. If those emotions are joyful, the dance reflects their happiness. If, on the other hand, the emotional energy behind the movement is less than positive—the physical exertion allows release of that negativity, which in turn releases the physical pain that resulted from it.

Traditional and alternative health and wellness experts seek drug free methods to cope with their patients’ chronic pain from injuries, illness, or their imagination. Involving breathing, heat/cold therapies, drugs, aromas, massage, pain management specialists run down their menu of treatments depending upon their focus on what works for them and their patients. As medicine became more specialized on individual body parts in the last century, practitioners lost sight of the whole person. The previous narrow approach still applies to a broken bone, but only applies to back pain if the patient’s back is broken. With the dawn of the new millennium, medicine expanded their perspective to a holistic approach to treatment of the individual.

When treating pain, every expert considers the source. Pain is our body’s early warning system that something is wrong. The challenge is to locate the problem. Often the source has no physical origins, and even when it does, once the physical problem is “cured”, the pain can continue. When developing the Body Knowledge System® I became aware of the importance of constant communication with your body to interrupt and stop the cycle of pain associated with personal challenges—whether they are physical, emotional, or spiritual.

When my clients, and practitioners, seek trustworthy guidance for any life choice, the first place they look is to their bodies. They begin the conversation with movement in their Body Knowledge Dance. This movement is as individual as the partnership performing it. My client and her body have developed their movements over the course of renewing the intimate relationship they enjoyed at birth. Through ending the estrangement with their bodies, my clients can go directly to the source of their pain when performing the Body Knowledge Dance.

Your key to success is through the link of your visualized intention with the movement in your dance. “The BKS® is harmony. It brings body, mind and spirit together.” (Page 12, Body Knowledge System®, An Awesome Intelligence, 2010)

People in harmony with their bodies seldom experience pain in the physical sense. On the rare occasion they do, their open communication with their bodies allows them to process their pain and release it through movement. After practicing the Body Knowledge System® Dance, body-mind-spirit balance is restored and the BKS® dancer glides gracefully through life—their life, their way.

This Dance of Motion is great to do to release any physical or emotional pain you are experiencing. This unique method is easy to learn and fun No need to keep suffering.

Share Tags: Body Image, Body Relationship, Dancing

Learn one tool of many that will help you to not gain weight this holiday season.