Shift Your negative self talk for greater success on a health journey

Trying something new means you Won't be perfect... your inner critic increases cortisol--It's the critic that's your enemy

Have you ever told yourself that the scale is your enemy? That you won't lose that weight?. That you can't? That you are cursed? Maybe it wasn't meant to be? Maybe you aren't good enough to have that body or that love or to feel beautiful? You don't have THOSE genes... If you've sat around in sweatpants in the dark eating a half gallon of ice cream and thought- F-it, I can't do it anyway, you aren't alone. I've heard more than my fair share of women giving up because their inner voice tells them over and over they can't succeed. Their experience is that they can't or haven't. What if it's not reality, that feeds our body, but our mind and the story we tell it that insulates our middle? I've been down the road of losing the baby weight and bouncing between sizes, but, I've managed to maintain a healthy weight and I think half the battle is won when we change our thinking.

Many of my favorite women are on a health journey. Two of them are in weight loss mode. I'm trying to get myself back to my ideal health, which involves shedding a few pounds around the middle, too. One thing I've learned is that everyone's journey toward optimal weight, energy, joy and presence is different. We buoy between motivation, confidence and, sadly, in many cases, I see such self-deprecative behaviors that it is COMPLETELY working against us. Under the surface of our thoughts (the ones we are aware of) is an ocean of swirling thoughts we don't often recognize. If the conscious is a pond of thought, your ocean thoughts are whales that only emerge for air on occasion... only reach the pond when they get strong enough to surface. So, you've got to have a lot of a particular thought for you to become aware of it.

We have to work really hard on telling that nay-sayer thought "out" and switching the dialogue to send more and more positive thoughts deep into the core of our consciousness. But, it's worth it. 

Every time you step up to the scale and think, "It's going to be bad", you create a negative thought/emotion pattern. All of those negative thoughts you think build a stress response in your body, increasing your cortisol. Your cortisol impacts your insulin, therefore impacting your metabolism, sugar levels, inflammation and memory. Increased levels of cortisol shut down other body functions such as digestion and cause your brain to over-react. It isn't good to wake this beast. We want it happy, balanced and regulated.

Instead, use the power of positivity to impact your body. Researchers indicate that the mere thought of us doing something or looking a certain way can impact our reality. If you can imagine yourself doing a perfect dive, as an Olympic athlete, your brain is likely to replicate that image and make it real. If you are like me, and you picture yourself in child's pose during yoga, and you see yourself relaxed, your body actually responds to that image. I have used this practice to imagine everything from an ulcer -free bladder (to heal it before a biopsy) to seeing myself with washboard abs.

So, why not  take it a step further. Pair positive thinking with positive impacts on your limbic system to improve your health? The limbic system is your emotion center. Our oils impact your olfactory system which is directly connected to your limbic system. If you diffuse oils that improve your emotions, you are likely to decrease your cortisol. Your stress response decreases as your favorite essential oils float through (I love Adaptiv, Citrus Bliss, Lime and Serenity). 

So, what have you got to lose by retraining your brain to think more positively about your body, your odds of losing weight or getting healthier? By pairing the positive mojo you make with uplifting oils? Welp, some of your more negative friends and family might get annoyed with your upbeat attitude and isolate a little... or get jealous of you... can you handle that? Hmm... I think so.

Give it a shot and let me know what you learn!

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