Tag: living

Wednesday Workout: 7 Habits of the Highly Successful Workout

Posted on by Joy Held

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

Habit 1: Make a Plan

Physical activity and exercise are essential to our health and well being. Our bodies have innate schedules we are born with such as digestion and sleep patterns. Exercise is most successful when we plan to exercise and we stick to it. It is super beneficial to exercise close to the same time every day as much as possible.

Habit 2: Set a Goal

Create a general and realistic desire for a physical activity plan such as maintaining good health. Exercise is part of that goal. Go ahead and set weight loss goals or plans to exercise 30 minutes six times a week, but be cautious about setting goals that create unrealistic expectations. This creates stress and exercise is supposed to help alleviate stress.

Habit 3: Do What You Can Do

Start every workout with the mind set to only do what your body is capable of doing that day. Some days are better than others. Learn to listen to your body’s signals. “Today I feel good enough to run two miles.” Sometimes you will hear a different message. “Today I need to take a long, slow walk and do some gentle stretches.” It’s all good.

Habit 4: Reward Yourself In Healthy Ways

Pre-arrange to reward yourself with recognition for sticking to the exercise plan. It’s perfectly fine to celebrate a month of not missing a single exercise date with a tiny splurge. And for those folks who exercise a lot, taking a few days off now and then is also healthy. Moderation is the key to all the habits.

Habit 5: Listen to Qualified Guidance

Every workout should be the result of your active choice to gather good information before hand. This means reading several books about the exercise styles that interest you, taking classes with a good instructor, or finding an exercise buddy to workout with.

Habit 6: Be Open Minded to Change

Your body and your exercise regimen will and should change on a regular basis. Don’t get in a rut by doing the same things over and over. Your mind will lose interest and tempt you with ways to avoid exercise. Keep it interesting with a variety of fitness choices every week. Mix things up with yoga twice a week, walking twice a week, strength training once a week, and sprinkle in some cardio on the exercise equipment.

Habit 7: Be Kind To Yourself

It’s very possible to overdo it with physical activity and exercise by not listening to the signals or setting unmanageable goals. Be kind to yourself if something happens to set you off course in some way. Always, always, always support your workouts with positive self-talk. Your body hears what you say and think, so keep it positive!

Meanwhile, remember to look for a digital or print copy of Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity at Who Dares Wins Publishing, http://whodareswinspublishing.com.

And check out these great blogs for ideas to keep your writing and publishing healthy and prosperous.

http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/ Bob Mayer

http://jenniholbrooktalty.wordpress.com/ Jenni Holbrook

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Kristen Lamb

http://inspiration4writers.blogspot.com/ Inspiration for Writers, Inc.

http://pentopublish.blogspot.com/ Natalie Markey

Have you subscribed to this Writer Wellness blog yet? Get email updates when a new post is added. Click “subscribe” and leave your email. That’s it and thanks in advance! Like this blog? Share it with someone you think would like it as well. 

Be well, write well.

Monday Meditation: Time and Herding Cats

Posted on by Joy Held

 

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

“Time management” is an oxymoron. We can’t possibly manage time. It does what it wants regardless of our efforts to wrangle it into submission. It marches on no matter what. Trying to manage time is frustrating because it’s a little like herding cats or nailing Jello (trademark) to a tree. Time has a mind and a mission of its own. Time cannot be told what to do and it cannot be beat into submission. But time rules the world and we will continue to know frustration until we develop a different relationship with time.

We can either work with time or we can compete against it. The competition idea is largely responsible for our feelings of frustration. “There is never enough time to get everything done,” we say out of habit. “I make lists, but there isn’t enough time to get it all done in a day.” While lists are a proactive method for dealing with our frustrations about not enough time, they too can cause us to “grrrrrr” at the end of the day’s allotted time when we realize how much of the list did not get accomplished.

Try feeling time instead. It’s a practice born of meditation’s ultimate lesson in patience. Begin by, and I hesitate to say it, setting a stop watch or timer when you practice meditation. Do not set the timer for ten minutes, close your eyes, and breathe until the timer goes off. With the timer at zero, first close your eyes, then push the button, and breathe. Meditate until the feeling arises that the session has come to an end. Open your eyes and see how long you have practiced. Regardless of how many minutes have passed, end the session. Do this daily and the time you meditate will gradually increase on its own in a natural way. Putting a time limit on your daily meditation practice is contradictory to the purpose. The purpose is to love your time here, not manage your time here. 

Meanwhile, remember to look for a digital or print copy of Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity at Who Dares Wins Publishing, http://whodareswinspublishing.com 

And check out these great blogs for ideas to keep your writing and publishing healthy and prosperous. 

http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/ Bob Mayer 

http://jenniholbrooktalty.wordpress.com/ Jenni Holbrook

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Kristen Lamb 

http://inspiration4writers.blogspot.com/ Inspiration for Writers, Inc. 

http://pentopublish.blogspot.com/ Natalie Markey 

Have you subscribed to this Writer Wellness blog yet? Get email updates when a new post is added. Click “subscribe” and leave your email. That’s it and thanks in advance!

Be well, write well.

Wednesday Workout: Housework Is Not Exercise

Posted on by Joy Held

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

“I’m going to clean this dump—just as soon as the kids are grown.”

                ~Erma Bombeck

Erma Bombeck is probably the reason I love being a Mom but hate cleaning. She always wrote about hating housework. I read her in the local paper when I was young and to this day think of her column about changing the toilet paper roll every time I do it. She’s the one who asked many years ago why she was the one person solely responsible for refilling the toilet paper when the house was full of other capable people who could accomplish the chore just fine. But any time she sat down, well, being the only one “in charge” of the changing, sometimes she was caught without. Why didn’t the person who used the last sheet recognize the condition and refill the roll instead of leaving it to her? Bombeck never discovered the answer to my knowledge and neither have I, but I keep extra rolls really close by because it happens all the time. Why me?

Cooking and baking are very spiritual, satisfying activities for me, but I really would rather not have to clean house. I love a clean house, and I’m good at cleaning, but it taxes me to the point I have nothing left with which to exercise. And I love exercise. However, I’ve never quite bought into the concept of housework as exercise. The idea is flawed in many ways.

1.Exercise is enjoyable. Cleaning house is not. Who wants to clean hair off the floor behind the toilet for heaven’s sake? The bending required isn’t healthy and neither are the fumes. No physical benefit and no improvement in breathing technique. But I know the gunk is there and eventually I have to swab it out at the expense of my exercise for the day. Ugh.

2.Exercise has recognizable rewards like tone muscles and improved attitude. House cleaning has little if any rewards. I no sooner am dumping the mop water down the drain as a person or a dog is coming in the room with dirty feet or paws. “I just mopped!” is greeted with, “Looks nice, dear.” Grrrrr.

3.Exercise has many success stories. There is no one to my knowledge (if they existed there would be a reality TV show about them) who has lost weight, toned up, and kept off the pounds from cleaning house.

“I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes—and six month later you have to start all over again.”

                ~Joan Rivers

Household chores must be accomplished, however, and many writers have designed a routine to think about writing projects while folding laundry and mentally working out plot problems while running the vacuum cleaner. But these jobs don’t count as exercise, so it’s off to the gym! Have you achieved fitness by cleaning the house? Prove it!

“Women with clean houses do not have finished books.”

                ~Joy Held

Meanwhile, remember to look for a digital or print copy of Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity at Who Dares Wins Publishing, http://whodareswinspublishing.com.

And check out these great blogs for ideas to keep your writing and publishing healthy and prosperous.

http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/ Bob Mayer

http://jenniholbrooktalty.wordpress.com/ Jenni Holbrook

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Kristen Lamb

http://inspiration4writers.blogspot.com/ Inspiration for Writers, Inc.

http://pentopublish.blogspot.com/ Natalie Markey

Have you subscribed to this Writer Wellness blog yet? Get email updates when a new post is added. Click “subscribe” and leave your email. That’s it and thanks in advance!

Be well, write well.

Tuesday Tickle: A Broad Definition of Idiot

Posted on by Joy Held

 

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

I’ve never been a fan of the word “idiot.” It is the ultimate insult to someone’s intelligence in most circles. But words, particularly prickly ones like idiot, get popularized through overuse by a group or a celebrity or some other pop culture phenomenon. Apparently “idiot” is a new favorite word in the world of entertainment.

There are the Alpha Books series “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to fill-in-the-blank” http://www.idiotsguides.com/

My daughters loved the Broadway musical “American Idiot,” a rock opera performed by the group Green Day.

http://americanidiotonbroadway.com/

And there’s the “Idiot Proof Diet” with a picture of a cartoon character saying, “I’m a certified idiot,” with a big smile on her face.

http://idiotproofdiet.com/

I mean, who wants to be an idiot? It’s the greatest reverse psychology marketing idea ever, isn’t it? You don’t want to be an idiot so you need the information or the product in your arsenal to prove you aren’t an idiot. But then two comedians (Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant) come up with an idea for a television show called “An Idiot Abroad.” And even though the word idiot still rubs me the wrong way, this reality series is hysterical in a funny and perhaps a not so funny way. The Science Channel took the bait and the show is running more “broadly” in a second season this spring.

http://science.discovery.com/tv/an-idiot-abroad/

While he’s never actually referred to as the idiot, Gervais and Merchant have convinced Karl Pilkington to visit the seven wonders of the world because he’s a stay-at-home-and-happy-to-be-there Brit who’s not the most culturally aware fellow you’ll ever meet. Or maybe he is. What’s so funny is seeing yourself in what he says and does in all these countries when faced with some culturally bizarre (by some terms) foods, customs and traffic. Imagine Archie Bunker getting a back wax in Brazil so he can wear a Samba costume to Carnivale. That’s Karl Pilkington, just no recliner or cigar.

For instance, not too long into the travels he becomes obsessed with toilets when he discovers that they are not the same abroad as he’s used to at home. He hates crowds, parties and planning, so everywhere he goes Gervais and Merchant have arranged for Pilkington to participate in some major cultural phenomenon that tests his patience and sometimes his stomach. Mostly what Pilkington does is complain. He witnesses the giant statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil and all he has to say about it is the price of a can of Coke is too much, and they can get away with it because there is nothing to compete with.

Needing a voice of reason among the cackles, I turn to Webster. “Idiot, n. 1. Psychol. A person of profound mental retardation.” Just when I think this isn’t going to help, I read, “No longer in scientific use and considered offensive.” Finally, an idiot that agrees with me.

In my opinion it is ignominious to call someone an idiot. Do you agree?

Meanwhile, remember to look for a digital or print copy of Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity at Who Dares Wins Publishing, http://whodareswinspublishing.com.

And check out these great blogs for ideas to keep your writing and publishing healthy and prosperous.

http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/ Bob Mayer

http://jenniholbrooktalty.wordpress.com/ Jenni Holbrook

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Kristen Lamb

http://inspiration4writers.blogspot.com/ Inspiration for Writers, Inc.

http://pentopublish.blogspot.com/ Natalie Markey

Be well, write well.

Monday Meditation: Am I Meditating?

Posted on by Joy Held

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

“Success is never a destination—it’s a journey.”                                ~Satenig St. Marie,

Unless we have a homemade brain wave monitoring machine, we usually don’t have the means to measure our level of success with meditation in a scientific sense. We can feel certain changes and measure them to a degree. The average meditation journey should experience three specific measurable stages:

1.Tension-this is where we notice just how tight our jaw bones are, how sore our backs are and how busy our minds tend to be

2.Letting go-this is when we notice some of the tension releasing and our breathing is slowing down

3.THERE-this is when we become aware of very few things, less and less bothers us physically and mentally we realize our thoughts have slowed down, and we can control whether or not we want to follow monkey mind down its ragged path. We do not follow monkey mind.

These stages coincide with brain wave activity.

Tension = Beta (busy, busy, busy mind)

Letting go = Alpha (focused awareness on our breath and what it’s doing, fewer thoughts)

THERE = Theta (just about to cross the hazy boundary into slumber-ville)

Sleep isn’t meditation as I’ve said before, and theta is the gatekeeper of sleep so the goal is to remain relaxed and aware at the alpha level. Regardless of how messy the day has been, a successful meditation session need only give us a conscious pause from the issues we’re dealing with and that’s enough. Yep. It only takes a few minutes a day to meditate successfully. But what does a successful meditation practice “feel” like?

This brings up the question of goals. Should we have goals where meditation is concerned? Is it better to let things take their course and follow along? Like yoga, meditation is a blend of healthy balance. It’s right to set a goal to meditate for a specific amount of time each day. It’s right to practice particular habits like sitting still and watching breath flow. But it isn’t right to set expectations beyond the realm of the realistic. Why? Because unlike measuring the fact that our brain activity actually slows down during meditation, it creates more stress to attach a measurement or a benchmark for meditation. “If I don’t find perfect peace in my life in three months of meditating, I failed and will give up meditating.” Or “I should notice a major shift in my actions in a set period of time, and if I don’t I will stop meditating because it just isn’t for me.” These are normal examples of our “quick fix”, I-want-it-now mind sets and this doesn’t work with meditation. With meditation, the less you expect, the more you receive.

To answer the question of what successful meditation feels like, beyond the physical and mental releases (which may not feel gigantic, but they occur,) the positive results of regular meditation show themselves in our everyday actions. We are more patient. We smile more. We laugh bigger. We appreciate little things more. We share more. We hold the door more often. We focus better on other projects when our brains are challenged. We are healthier. We are brave. We trust more. We think the best first. We are less critical of ourselves and others. We are more accepting. We are more loving. We are more truthful. We are more understanding. We are more creative. We are more of who we were meant to be.

But it’s a long journey worth every step. Do you have any meditation stories to share from your journey?

Meanwhile, remember to look for a digital or print copy of Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity at Who Dares Wins Publishing, http://whodareswinspublishing.com.

And check out these great blogs for ideas to keep your writing and publishing healthy and prosperous.

http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/ Bob Mayer

http://jenniholbrooktalty.wordpress.com/ Jenni Holbrook

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Kristen Lamb

http://inspiration4writers.blogspot.com/ Inspiration for Writers, Inc.

http://pentopublish.blogspot.com/ Natalie Markey

Be well, write well.

Monday Meditation: Lessons In Living

Posted on by Joy Held

 

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

We are each living our daily lives as we would like to experience our deaths.

“Whoa! Hold on,” you’re saying. “I don’t like to think about dying. I’ll deal with it when it happens.”

It happens a little to everyone every day. Awareness of that tiny fact creates a huge relief in those who notice it. Yoga has a particular gift in this area. It’s a pose called ‘Savasana’ which is Sanskrit for ‘corpse pose.’ The end of every decent hatha yoga class is spent in this one pose for up to 20 minutes. My students call it “the present at the end of the yoga workout party” because with practice ‘Savasana’ is truly a gift on many levels. One of those levels is the practice of our death.

“Okay, too morbid for me. Next blog, please.” 

That’s the normal reaction to a discussion of death. But this is a discussion of the appreciation of life.

I was raised in a ballet school and had to perform on stage quite a bit. Recitals, “The Nutcracker”, and benefit performances used to make me nervous. As a young dancer, I sometimes got so ill I couldn’t go on with the show. Nowadays that’s called “performance anxiety” and the study of it has shown that sufficient preparation and practice of an activity completely alleviates the stress caused by having to perform in front of an audience. I taught myself to practice more often and rehearse my dances in my mind over and over by visualizing the movements night after night before falling asleep. When it came time to perform, no sick stomach or sweats, just a great experience for me and the audience. The dedicated repetition in the studio and in my mind gave me the confidence to perform without tension and without worrying about the expectations. I knew I was doing the best job I possibly could because I had practiced a lot. 

In his brilliant book The Inner Tradition of Yoga, A Guide to Yoga Philosophy for the Contemporary Practitioner, author and psychotherapist Michael Stone explores some of how ‘Savasana’ is an honest, stress-free practice of “life structured by death.” In a pure and simple sense we all make daily living choices that lead us along the path of how we will experience our endings. In the regular practice of corpse pose we gently, slowly, and gradually choose in a small way to live and pass peacefully and with respect toward our world and others. Relaxing deeply in the gift of corpse pose at the end of a good hatha session is an opportunity to make a tiny practice about how we would like to leave this existence. It’s normal to resist death but the miniscule and regular practice of accepting it peacefully builds a reserve in our mind. We can call on those peaceful reserves when faced with stressful expectations and the results will be better for all concerned.

According to Stone, “Yoga teaches us that the dance of all we perceive happens in front of awareness, not inside or behind it.” Yoga helps us practice the dance in front of the audience and with repetition we are not afraid. About the two arenas of life and death he adds, “The ‘practice of dying’ is a matter of learning to live the tension ‘in between’ these two dimensions of existence.” Corpse pose enables us to experience a small death with appreciation for living because after the pose we are graciously given the opportunity to stretch our arms and legs, take a deep breath, and go back to our world. The idea is to take the appreciations learned on the mat in corpse pose and practice those lessons in our lives off the mat.

Visit Michael Stone

http://centreofgravity.org/

Learning to appreciate corpse pose as more than a physical relaxation is learning gratitude for life. Don’t be afraid.

Meanwhile, remember to look for a digital or print copy of Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity at Who Dares Wins Publishing, http://whodareswinspublishing.com.

And check out these great blogs for ideas to keep your writing and publishing healthy and prosperous. 

http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/ Bob Mayer

http://jenniholbrooktalty.wordpress.com/ Jenni Holbrook 

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Kristen Lamb 

http://inspiration4writers.blogspot.com/ Inspiration for Writers, Inc.

http://pentopublish.blogspot.com/ Natalie Markey

 Be well, write well.