All posts by Janis Rosen

Different Ways You Can Look and Feel Your Best

Photo via Pexels

Your approach to the way you look has a major impact on how you feel in life and in doing so, it promotes your mental health in general. Thus, it’s important not to let yourself wallow at home idle when you’ve completed all your day’s activity. Instead, wear some make-up and put on beautiful clothes. Do an exercise routine or prepare a healthy meal. You’ll feel more confident, more positive, and happier when you look good.

Here are some tips from author Janis Rosen to help you look and feel good.

Have a routine

Have a daily routine and follow it. A routine is only effective when it’s adhered to. Having structure in your everyday life is also very productive for your mental health and well-being. Set aside time for things you have to do and things (that) you enjoy doing. Hobbies should come later to avoid wasting any time you’ve set out for requirements. Ensure (that) you’ve put time aside for exercise and hanging out with friends. It helps to make the most out of your time.

Having a healthy routine is especially important if you have a stressful job: nurses and retail workers are in industries identified as having the most stress. So, make sure (that) you’re setting aside enough “me time” to help balance out the stress of your career. Otherwise, you could find yourself on the road to burnout.

Exercise

Getting in shape is good for your internal health. Start by taking 30 mins of simple exercise each day as you elevate. Exercise helps alleviate stress as well as making you feel happier and confident in yourself. Make it a habit to go for short runs, walk, or take advantage of virtual fitness classes which will strengthen your muscles, joints, and mind.

If you maintain a busy schedule, try to find ways to get exercise throughout the day. Downtime during cooking can be an excellent opportunity. Grab a chair for a few triceps dips or do a few walking lunges while you wait for the water to boil, for example. Even putting on some music and dancing to your favourite tunes are good ideas.

If you decide to create a small workout area at home for your new routine, make sure you keep it clean and organized. Clutter can trap negative energy and cause a spike in stress levels, so it’s important (that) you keep this space — and the rest of your home — as tidy as possible.

Eat well

 What you eat has a significant effect on the way you feel and look. A diet full of fast food will make you have low energy and negatively impact your health and look. Therefore, the Health Service Executive notes that you should make sure you’re eating an abundance of fruits and vegetables to give your body the nutrients it needs. Drink plenty of water to keep your body performing at its peak and leave your skin looking radiant and slack-free.

Be watchful of your teeth

You can have a beautiful smile! Your teeth and oral health are a significant part of your overall health. Taking care of them is important.  Brush your teeth regularly, before and after you sleep, then after every meal. Frequent the dentist for regular checkups and eat lots of apples and carrots to strengthen your teeth, look good and be comfortable.

Take care of your skin

Poor diet, lack of exercise and harsh situations of stress and anxiety, can play a huge part in your skin’s health. Eat healthily, exercise regularly, and create a skincare routine for healthy and radiant skin. Also, be keen on the type of product you use on your face; research before consuming. Know your skin type to be able to take good care of it.

Socialize

Mayo Clinic points out that interacting with your loved ones helps to foster a sense of belonging. Socialising also gives you an outlet to share your troubles and gives you emotional support. By frequently engaging with your friends and family, you can always talk to a trusted person about what’s bothering you.

People who are close to you and want the best for you can offer you genuine advice on serious issues like changing your career if your current one doesn’t work for you anymore.

Treat yourself

 Don’t be too hard on yourself. Everyone is struggling in some way. So, you shouldn’t feel like you need to be constantly forcing yourself to maintain good habits.

You can treat yourself at home with candles and music. Or, take yourself out to that restaurant you’ve been eyeing up for weeks. Buying yourself something you’ve wanted for a while isn’t a bad idea either.

One great way to both care for yourself and reward yourself is by visiting a chiropractor. Whether you are trying to promote your general wellness or seeking relief from a specific issue, a visit to a licensed chiropractor can help you feel your best. With adjustments, soft tissue treatments, and specific pre-and post-natal care available, a visit to a chiropractor can meet your needs.

Practise Excellent Hygiene

 It’s important to maintain hygiene. Bathing can be pleasurable, stimulating, and at times remedial. Do the laundry and ironing regularly to keep you looking and smelling fresh all day long. If you’re the caregiver, take the time to show your loved ones the ropes and establish a routine.

Conclusion

 After the pandemic, a lot of people are focusing on their finances rather than self-care. However, from setting a routine and exercising to eating right, and treating yourself, you must take care of yourself not only for your looks but also your health as well.

Contributed by Sophie Letts. Sophie Letts has been practicing meditation for five years. Her practice has helped her in many ways, including improving her ability to focus and reducing feelings of anxiety. She created meditationhelp.net to help others get started with meditation, dispel meditation myths, and provide the resources others need to connect with their bodies, calm their minds, and embrace their true selves.

Janis Rosen is a life coach, counsellor, and hypnotherapist who can help you get your life back on the right track. Book a session today by calling (204) 475-3444.


Guest Post

 

 

Don’t Stress: Preventing Anxiety Attacks Before They Take You Hostage by Sophie Letts

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Anxiety attacks are awful! They can make you feel hopeless and helpless. It’s estimated that 11% of Americans experience panic attacks. They’re overwhelming, sneaky, and downright scary.

This article will give you a variety of practical measures you can take to prevent prevent anxiety attacks, including spending more time in nature, grounding exercises, optimizing your home office space, writing, and listening to calming music. Read on to find out more.

Spend more time in nature

Being outdoors is a great way to (pardon the pun) ground you. One study found that people who spend more time outdoors, particularly those with an abundance of green life, were less stressed than those who tend to stay indoors. Your general stress level can have an important impact on your overall well-being, and thus your potential for anxiety attacks. You can even practice mindful meditation outdoors, focusing on the green trees, the blue sky, the birds chirping in the distance, and more. Even just 15 minutes in nature can lift your mood, so take a walk, go for a jog, or even go to the local playground and take the swings for a whirl.

Grounding exercises

Often, you can feel an anxiety attack preparing to overcome you, and you need a quick resolution to prevent it. Grounding exercises help you establish that although your body is telling you there’s danger, you’re actually safe. Start by closing your eyes and beginning deep breathing. This resource from the University of South Africa details the 5-4-3-2-1 method:

  • Identify 5 things you see
  • Identify 4 things you can touch
  • Identify 3 things you hear
  • Identify 2 things you smell
  • Identify 1 thing you taste

There are all kinds of methods. The key is to remind yourself that your head is tricking you; you’re secure.

Optimize your workspace

Even when you enjoy your job, work tends to bring about stress. You must ensure that your workspace is stress-free and conducive to a productive work day. This eliminates the likelihood of anxiety attacks by keeping your work stress to a minimum. For a stress-free office space, start by checking your lighting. Poor lighting leads to eyestrain and fatigue, both of which contribute to stress. Add table and floor lamps as needed. Additionally, be sure you have a comfortable, ergonomically correct chair. You spend nearly all of your day seated there, and if it isn’t giving you the support you need, your mood will suffer on top of your back, neck, or legs. If you’re using a chair from another room (like the dining room), start shopping for an office-specific chair that offers ample lumbar and leg support.

Write

According to Verywell Mind, “journaling can help reduce anxiety, lessen feelings of distress, and increase wellbeing.” Best of all, you can do this as part of your daily routine or when you feel a panic attack coming on; both habits will be helpful on their own and even more so when you do both. You can vent about what’s weighing on your mind, anxiety triggers, or your feelings in the moment. It can be a few words, a paragraph, or pages and pages of thoughts and feelings. Try writing an uplifting letter to yourself assuring that you’ll not only get through your anxiety, but you’ll thrive afterward.

Listen to calming music

“Calming” means different things to different people. For you, it might be listening to your favorite album, even if there are stimulating songs on it. The University of Nevada, Reno notes that Native American, Celtic, Indian-stringed instruments, drums, and flutes are excellent for relaxing the mind. Some also find comfort in listening to natural sounds like rain and thunder. In the end, it comes down to two questions: do you like the music, and does it actually relax you? This is a good practice for times you feel stressed in general and for moments you feel an anxiety attack coming on.

Anxiety attacks are awful. Though they make you feel hopeless, there are measures you can take to prevent them. Try spending more time in nature, grounding exercises, home office optimization, writing, and listening to calming music to battle anxiety attacks and find inner peace.

Sophie Letts has been practicing meditation for five years. Her practice has helped her in many ways, including improving her ability to focus and reducing feelings of anxiety. She created meditationhelp.net to help others get started with meditation, dispel meditation myths, and provide the resources others need to connect with their bodies, calm their minds, and embrace their true selves.

 

Guest Post

 

 

There is No Right Way to Do the Wrong Thing– part 2

 

body-mind-you

There are things that break your self-esteem more easily than others. The ball-breakers of self-esteem. Here are some common esteem breakers:

  • Debt
  • Smoking
  • Being overweight
  • Cheating
  • Lying
  • Not being creative
  • Saying yes when you really want to say no
  • Being a general doormat in your life
  • Not being present in your relationship
  • Judging yourself
  • Judging others
  • Not to mention killing, violence, hurting others, destroying what others value.

So when you are in pain and you really want that cigarette, how do you stop yourself ad keep your self-esteem in tact. How do you get past things that are really hard?

Some people join a group, get a sponsor, and use them. Some people distract themselves, some people pray, or go for something inspiring. There is a way to temporarily stop the esteem-breaking behaviour.

But the most powerful way is to feel the pain, embrace it or honor it, make a place for it. I know you just want it to go away, so you numb it out. You just want to get away from it. But when you are done with that bag of cookies, it’s still there.

You can make a choice to deal with your pain and issues while keeping your self-esteem in tack. While doing the right thing. It’s a harder choice in some ways, but it is the most direct way to your goal.

You started smoking for a reason, you gained weight for a reason. When you decide to deal with the reason, rather than the reaction; with the cause, rather than the symptom; your true transformation begins.

That is what the Alchemy of Weight Loss is about. That spark of esteem that ignites true transformation.


General, Self-Esteem

 

 

There is No Right Way To Do the Wrong Thing or why it is important to have good habits part 1

You’ve decided that you want to lose weight. You want this. You think about it every day. It’s important to you for many reasons.

You know that to lose weight, you need to practice good eating habits, make the right food choices most of the time and have good portion control. You need to live a healthy lifestyle, exercise regularly and take care of yourself by getting enough sleep and managing your stress. These habits allow you to successfully reach your goals and maintain them.

So you’ve set these goals for yourself and you’ve decided how you want accomplish them. You decided what your good eating habits look like.

So what happens if today, you don’t eat right, you make bad food choices? You eat foods that don’t support your weight loss and may even sabotage it.

You then feel bad about yourself because you did something wrong. You feel guilty, ashamed, and angry that you didn’t follow through.

Why is it important to do what you say you want to do?

Well you want to reach your goals of course, but more important is that when you make decisions that go against what you really want, you feel bad. You feel bad about yourself.

When you make a bad or a wrong choice, you then have to go through the regret and upset, recover from it and get back on track if you can. Getting back on track can be hard, as you know.

Or you rationalize or deny the bad choice and tell yourself that it wasn’t so bad. It’s not a big deal. You will do better tomorrow. But underneath you feel bad about yourself whether you admit it or not.

And rationalizing can lead to numbing out and producing more bad choices. A vicious cycle is created and you fail. And worse, you feel like a failure.

That’s your self-esteem. When you feel bad because you made a bad choice, it’s like taking a hammer and banging your self-esteem into the ground.

When you do the right thing, you feel good about yourself. You raise your self-esteem. And of course, it’s you who decide what that right thing is and you who know when you aren’t doing it.

Self-esteem has to be earned by you – from you! It’s earned by doing the right thing, even when nobody is looking and even when it’s really, really hard. And believe me, sometimes it’s really, really hard to do the right thing. Ultimately though, it feels really, really good when you do the right thing, especially when it was a struggle and so tempting not to.

You need self-esteem to meet goals, especially those that change and transform you, and you need self-esteem to create great habits and sustain them. Self-esteem is a key component in changing anything.

True lasting change never happens by feeling bad or beating yourself up. It happens by making choices and creating habits that make you feel good about yourself, that raise your self-esteem. Lasting change only happens through positive motivation (such as love, healing, esteem, compassion, forgiveness, hope).

Self-esteem is about having character. It’s character that you use to apply your principles and values in your daily life.

You know the difference between right and wrong because you decided for yourself what is right and wrong for you.

When you live by the principles you set for yourself, you build character and raise your self-esteem.

Self-esteem – holding yourself in the highest possible esteem is key to successful and sustainable change in any area of your life, including weight loss.

Eating the right foods, having portion control and living a healthy lifestyle in a regular and sustainable way comes from good self-esteem. It really does!

The good news is that self-esteem can be built. You can earn esteem from yourself. Truly there is no other way to get self-esteem but to earn it from yourself – by repeatedly doing what you believe is right. And you value yourself enough to give yourself what you really want and deserve out of life.

Before you act, ask yourself are you doing the right thing? You will know. There is no right way to do the wrong thing. When you do what’s right, I guarantee you; your self-esteem will grow higher and higher. You will feel good about yourself, you will gain confidence and meet your goals.

 

 


General

 

 

Let Your True Story Come Alive! Part 6

what-storyYou tell a story to:

  •  Work something out
  •  Illustrate, teach or share information
  •  Entertain
  •  Create intimacy
  •  Manipulate or indoctrinate
  •  Enlighten
  •  Persuade, convince or convert
  •  Be known

Please visit my coaching page to learn more about my program on transforming your story.


General, Let Your True Story Come Alive

 

 

Stories of Hope and Healing – Elizabeth

ELIZABETH

Liz was my friend. She died too young. She died as she lived – prepared, organized, no unfinished business, except the business of living which she would have liked to continue with but could not.

The year before she died she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer that had spread. She made the choice to fight it and win. She took every treatment and healing strategy available and reasonable. She was a reasonable person.

Liz was a creative person and took a creative approach to life. She lived her life in a conscious way and she did the same through her illness and death. She was a curious, thoughtful, examiner of life. She believe in personal growth and was a person of faith. She tried to learn from every experience, and leave things better than she found them.

She always made an effort to put positive energy into the world. She loved relating to people and had many friends and loved ones.

Sometimes an illness is a portal for unification, a miracle, for love, a path to raise up a person or a family which are already beautiful, good and true. Sometimes illness is a wake-up call to redirect one’s life, to let something go, to change. Sometimes illness is a way to find out who loves you. Sometimes illness is the path of life itself.

hAnd sometimes illness is a path to die. It is the way out and the body will not survive. Along the way though healing can take place.

Liz’s illness was like that. It was her path to die. As much as she wanted to get better, the cancer was always at least one step ahead of her, never remitting, never giving her a break, but racing onto it’s final conclusion, continuously taking more and more of her life as it went.

Liz spent the final year of her life at home, cherishing each day, hoping for the best outcome, caring for her loved ones, letting go. There came a point where she realized she was going to die.

She liked order and organization and process in life and she had a death that gave her that. She closed off each part of her life skillfully and impeccably. She let it grow smaller, while staying fully present to the experience and felt every emotion. She planned her funeral, picked her music, said good-bye to each and every person she loved in a special and unique way to each. She bequeathed her possessions thoughtfully and carefully. She celebrated and quietly went to sleep and died in her bed at home.

Liz died the same way she lived. In the weeks before she died Liz said,

“This is a good time to die. I have left nothing unfinished. My life is complete.”


General, Stories of Hope and Healing

 

 

Stories of Hope and Healing – David

DAVID

David is a 45 year old man who lives with a mood and anxiety disorder that is treatable with medication, but has no cure. He is able to function fairly well on a daily basis and have a full personal, work and family life. He goes through cycles where the illness demands more of his time and energy and he has to adjust his life and activities accordingly.

He has learned to cope with what each day brings. He has learned to be flexible, listen to his body and state of mind and act accordingly. He has learned to change things on a dime, to live in the moment, and to breathe. He is a lover of life and has a tremendous capacity to embrace life and whatever it brings everyday.

He is not comfortable with the word healing, but is more comfortable with the word recovery. For him, healing implies closure or resolution. There is some inference that if you are going to heal at some point you will be done. Healing is something you undertake with a particular outcome in mind.

hHe likes the idea of recovery because to him it contains a sense of movement, or is a process toward greater health and well being that is ongoing. Recovery for him is not spiritual but physical – with physical results of greater freedom and capacity to function.

Recovery exists in the present – a kind of biofeedback in relation to what has come before and what you want to do in the future. But it is always expressed in the present. The present communicates to you about how you feel right now in relation to the past- you feel better now than you did last week. In the now, you feel satisfied that you can function and what you want to do (future) and what you can do are closer together.

He sees recovery as “that in-between place where there is movement demonstrated in your life right here and now as a physical being.” That place between what I did and what I want to do. It measures itself in the moment.

He sees illness as a deepening into life, a life path. He says:

“The problem doesn’t have to go away. We just learn how to better cope with it and grow ourselves in a way that leads to a deeper connection with ourselves and life in general. Now, if the problem is resolved and goes away, well, then I would say that this would be a full and complete recovery.”


General, Stories of Hope and Healing

 

 

Stories of Hope and Healing – Jann

JANN

On Nov. 11, 2000, at age 50, Jann was diagnosed with a mass in the right brain. He had been losing weight, feeling tired, and having headaches. He had brain surgery to remove the mass. The surgery left a slight depression on the right side of his head but otherwise he recovered nicely form the surgery. It was followed by debilitating radiation treatments that caused burning pain in his mouth and jaw, made it impossible to taste, difficult to swallow and eat. He lost a lot of weight and had little energy. Recovery was long and slow and painful.

hHe viewed this life-threatening illness as an opportunity to explore his life,his relationship to God and the Universe, and to re-evaluate his core relationships. He went to work on his life, faced his mortality, and gained new perspective on what was truly important to him. He became a better husband and a better father, less critical and less removed.

About half way through his radiation treatments he became despairing that he could not go on and finish these devastating treatments. He felt trapped by the expectations of his medical team and his family to fight the fight and finish the treatment. But it was so painful and debilitating.

The turning point came when someone said to him that he did not have to finish the radiation if he did not want to. He could say no. It was then that he recognized that it was his choice to continue and was able to own that choice. It made coping with the side effects more manageable.

He came to realize during this ordeal that healing was a comprehensive personal process. He built for himself a multi-layered healing program that involved many layers and modalities. He learned that healing was not necessarily based on one modality or only took place through the medical system. He adopted an investigative approach to his recovery process. He felt that by creating his own program that included numerous facets, he was able to take ownership of his healing process and it became more powerful.

He felt a connection to his spirituality that was deeper than ever before in his life. He examined his beliefs and read about many religious, metaphysical, and mystical ideas and writings. He felt a sense of aliveness and immediacy to living that was unparalled.

Over the following years, Jann became involved the day-to-day mundane of life as his health returned. He went back to work, got on with earning a living for his family. He lost touch with that sense of aliveness and immediacy, though always felt grateful for life. He forgot some of the things he had learned and his passion for his spirituality became somewhat lost in his mundane life.

In November 2009, after experiencing symptoms of headaches, dizziness, and slurred speech, Jann was once again diagnosed with a brain tumor, in precisely the same place as the first one nine years earlier.

He immediately responded to this diagnosis as a wake-up call to reconnect with his spirituality.

He family, as they did the first time, stepped up to support him in his healing, each in their own unique way creating a synergy of support.

His treatment this time was to be 4 weeks of radiation, followed by one gamma knife treatment.

He felt that he was in a different place in his evolution this time than before. He had continued to read and explore cutting edge ideas about consciousness and quantum physics and he had come to believe that the mind could control what happened in the body, that the mind and body could be allies, that the mind could direct the body. And he set to work putting his beliefs and ideas into action, into practice.

It was interesting to him that the tumor this time was mostly fluid, not solid. He felt that it was a reminder to him to truly embrace a living spirituality every day that he had forgotten about over the years.

He decided that the outcome of this recurrence was less important than the messages from his Soul. He realized that a 2nd cancer, made longevity an uncertain proposal. He was at peace with that uncertainty and believed that he could still heal, even if he did die.

He once again created a healing map, chose for himself a number of healing modalities that he felt appropriate. He set to work to create a new platform for his life of being deeply connected to his true self, his Soul, and his spirituality.

Using hypnosis, he worked with his subconscious, his beliefs, and his life story. But most vital for him was to realize that he had a passion for his spirituality that he would never let go of as long as he lived. That for him was his key and his core.

He decided that this time he would create a completely different relationship to the radiation treatment that once before had brought him to his knees. He decided to remain calm, focused, and empowered as his baseline attitude.

He set out creating the belief that having understood the reason for his recurrence, that it was already gone. It had done it’s job by bringing his spirituality back into focus. That the radiation was the physical means, the tool, to remove the physical manifestation.

Throughout the treatment, he maintained his weight, he ate, and continued to function well, and recovered from the treatment much more quickly. He regularly envisioned the tumor shrinking and disappearing.

At this time the tumor is gone and the treatment has been deemed successful. Jann does not see this as a success though. He sees healing as a spiritual process that we all have to do in our lives, synonymous to growth. He believes that you have to work at it. It is something you orient yourself to as a continuous day-to-day way of life.

Jann sees healing as a relationship in which he is not isolated or alone.

We are all aiding one another – there is healing going on everywhere, all the time, in a quantum physics kind of way. We are all part of the field; we all can help one another heal.

His thoughts about health, healing and longevity when recently asked are this:

“I wake up everyday, I feel grateful – hey, I am alive and where I find myself today is where I find myself.”


General, Stories of Hope and Healing

 

 

Let Your True Story Come Alive! Part 8

readingAre you living the right story:

  • Are you living your dream or do you keep pushing it too far in the future?
  • Where do you belong? Who is your community? Your tribe?
  • Are you confused about what you want to do or how to get there?
  • Do you feel guilt or self-doubt?
  • Are you afraid of success or failing?
  • Do you deserve and are you willing to receive what you want?
  • Do you want help in rewriting your story?

Please visit my coaching page to learn more about my program on transforming your story.


General, Let Your True Story Come Alive

 

 

Let Your True Story Come Alive! Part 7

bookJust the high points

  • Our lives are a story.
  • Stories are an integral part of our life from birth.
  • In your life there is a true story you are trying to tell.
  • You tell your story by living it.
  • Iwork with people who are not living their true story.
  • Your true story is the story of your Valued Self: awareness, respect, esteem, love, confidence, worth and realization. It is a story of being good enough.
  • Your true story is the story you came here to tell. The one you really want to live.

When you uncover your true story and start to live it:

  • Life won’t be so hard.
  • You’ll experience a richness and a fullness that wasn’t there before.

Please visit my coaching page to learn more about my program on transforming your story.


General, Let Your True Story Come Alive