Have you ever felt a hole inside your heart—feeling alone and lonely even while surrounded by a huge group of people, people who love you, care about you and are willing to do anything for you? If you’ve ever felt like this then you know that for some reason there seems to be nothing that repairs this hole, nothing that can fill it or take it away—this hole is bigger than everybody’s good intentions, love and support; it’s darker than the deepest night and heavier than the load of the Universe on someone’s shoulders…. Or at least that’s how it seems in the moment….

What happens to us in the moments when nothing seems to have a purpose, reason or meaning, when everything seems to be the opposite to sunny, happy and joyful is that we are focusing only on the past—what was a moment ago and we are not able to let go. We are not able to let go for quite a few reasons: this is what we “used to” identify ourselves by; the fear of the unknown is so big that we don’t even want to think about it; the secondary gain of being attached to the “past” is much bigger than any possible achievement from the new reality; and in the moment there seems no other options available.

In reality, all those reasons are simply different parts of the same equation—we don’t know how to adapt to the change, how to see light in the end of the tunnel as we are only able to see one way—the way we’re used to and the way we are familiar with….

First things first! What does it mean to be used to the identity? Our identity is something we start building pretty much since the day we are born—it’s how we see ourselves, our core beliefs and values, our understanding of the world and people, what makes us happy, what we like and don’t like. It’s who we are deep inside our hearts. When things happen and the ground starts shaking under our feet, the identity either needs to adapt accordingly or we need to create a new identity. Both changes can be rather challenging and require lots of time and work on ourselves.

Well, we all go through changes in life constantly, whether it’s just a change of wardrobe or food choices or a bigger change of lifestyle in form of a new job, living conditions or partner. As you know, change is constant and probably the only thing we can count on in life—everything changes regularly starting from the weather and the cells in our body—there’s nothing we can do about most of these changes yet there is always something we can do about the way we choose to look at them.

If I would build up my life on a dream of having the exact same weather conditions for 365 days a year, I would most likely be disappointed for 364 days a year! Even if I would dream of the weather being similar each day I would probably still be disappointed more than satisfied with the circumstances, as the perfect state only exists in my head and I have no way of “talking the weather into changing accordingly.”
Now, if I choose to accommodate my life according to the moment, waking up every morning, seeing how the weather looks like and then making the necessary adjustments to my attitude and also wardrobe—I will more likely succeed in being satisfied and also be emotionally in a much happier place.

Having no expectations and taking it just the way it is, changing according to the need and adapting to situations when they appear instead of planning the end results before the outcome is clear, will definitely be resulting in bigger portion of emotional satisfaction and happiness.

That’s why I like the 100/0 principle—where I always do my best to give 100% in any given situation and expect 0% in return. This way, I will always be happy and positively surprised with whatever life offers, what others do or don’t do and what situations appear, as in this case, even 0,5% is much more than what I expected.
This way, I don’t need to create stories in my head on why things didn’t go the way that I had “planned” as they rarely do anyway…. Remember, if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans! ;)

I guess having a hole inside the heart only means that we need to adapt to the situation, learn from it and create new possibilities, new outcome and new understandings of happiness and belonging….

In the end there are always two ways of looking at things and it’s up to us, which way we choose!

Long gone are the days for the Western world when food used to be there just to keep us alive, enable us to work and help us survive in the brutal weather and living conditions. For the Western culture food has become so much more than just a single piece in the survival puzzle, quite on the contrary, food has for many become a puzzle piece in the scenario of “suffocating the pain and shutting down the body.” We blame the fat, sugar and calorie content in the food, in us becoming heavier and less healthy, forgetting that no one really forces the food down on us and that we no longer eat to satisfy the hunger—we eat in order to protect our souls.

We can control the calorie intake, eat healthy and workout according to the plan, yet often nothing really changes—the pounds we’ve gained stay on the body as a supporting, safety cushion—reminding us constantly what we don’t like about ourselves. The funny thing though is that the same things we are running away from while eating—sadness and fear—will come back to us when we see the results of the food on our body.

Now don’t get me wrong—it’s not like everyone in the Western world has gone into food binge and overeating constantly! In fact I know for sure that there are millions of people who are strictly watching what they eat and put a lot of effort into their workout regime. What is it then that keeps a lot of those people still feel not satisfied with themselves and especially their bodies, experiencing challenges with certain extra pounds?

I believe that even though experts say food has to do with up to 65 or more % of the weight controlling in our life—food and exercise are definitely secondary in keeping our bodies vigorous and weight to the healthy levels. It’s the underlying emotions that control our behavior without us even being aware of it. And if we are not aware of it how can we ever change it?

Now, most of you might say that there are no unresolved emotional issues in your life that would keep your body asking for extra food and/or keeping the weight on. Well, the truth of the matter is that we often not really aware on most of the things our unconscious mind holds on to.
A lot of times extra weight around the belly—your wonderful tummy—is simply there to protect you form some things that you didn’t like in your past. Up until you choose to resolve, release and forgive to yourself for whatever those things are—your tummy will still do its job—to protect you and stay where it is, no matter how much you work out, eat healthy or control your life.

As funny or weird as it might sound to you, unless we really choose to take charge and change our understanding nothing will happen. So, in order for us to really let go of the extra weight in those specific body parts, there are few steps that need to be taken:

1. First, love all of it—the extra pounds, the fat, the cellulite and, in your own mind, the not so cute parts of your body.
2. Then take time to thank all of it for being there for you, for protecting you in thick and thin and for loving you even when you didn’t love yourself fully.
3. It’s important that you forgive yourself for not being able to be there for your body, mind and soul fully—for shutting down in fear of what certain things might mean to you, for not wanting to change and take charge.
4. Once all of this is done, you can finally ask the extra weight to let go of the protective role. Assure it that you can and are able to take care of yourself emotionally, mentally and physically. That it’s time for the extra weight to go for good.
5. In order for you to stay in charge and keep your body healthy, you need to be aware of your emotions and how you are treating yourself throughout the life.
6. Put yourself first at all times! Self-love is the key in every situation and challenge (and keep in mind, it’s also totally different from selfishness!)

Let’s bring the self-love into equation while talking about food, exercise and vigorous body-mind-soul combination!

Happy 2012^th to everybody—may this year be filled with lots of love and blessings and realization that you get to choose what you want your life to be like!

That being said I need to vent about the whole concept of New Year and the famous Resolutions…. I have a feeling that we all have a bit of a love/hate relationship with those resolutions—I mean, who wouldn’t want to better their life and do all those things we know in our mind that would help us feel better about ourselves and reach more of our goals!
Yet often we also realize that just because we have made some resolutions to start a “new life” from January 1^st it might not always work out like that…. In order for us to change something either about ourselves or in our lives we need to be ready for that change, want that to happen, realize what exactly this change means and most of all—to be committed to that change with every cell.

I know hundreds of cases (due to the long career in Fitness industry ;) ) where people start the New Year with a “hurray” and join a gym—start working out 4-5 times a week and really feel how their body changes and become proud of their accomplishments—and then… after 4-6 weeks it has been too much and too big of a change in their lives, they continue working out maybe 1-2 times a week and in couple of more weeks they simply stop going, feeling miserable because they “failed” in their resolution….

Now why is this you might ask?
Well, the simple answer is that changes work best when happening in small stages—one small, tiny baby-step at a time—just like babies learn everything in life—it takes them months to get the hang of everything and master all the tasks of humans. Somehow, when we grow up we forget how long time it has taken us to learn most of the things we now master without even thinking about them—like walking, eating, brushing our teeth, using the washroom. We seem to have forgotten that when we were born we didn’t do anything very well, except learning how to cope with this new world….

So, why do we expect to make huge changes in our lives every January and hope that from one day to another we need to master new tasks and even more so, to stick with those massive changes?
Changes are challenging, they bring us out from our comfort zone and make us feel like babies again—having to learn how to cope and master something we are truly not comfortable with. Changes often make us feel like we’re not good enough because we fall several times while learning new things and that doesn’t make us feel very good about ourselves, as we see falling as failing. Although, if we would look back at our childhood and remember how many times we fell while learning to walk or how many times we missed our mouths while learning how to eat with a spoon—well, needless to say, it was definitely more than 1 or even 10 times ;)

Hence, if we really want to stick to our New Year’s resolutions and make changes in our lives that will be long lasting, some of the key things to remember would be:

1. 1. Break those resolutions down into several tinier parts—just like setting any type goals. Once you know what are the smaller steps it’s easier to figure out what it takes to reach your promises.
2. 2. Remember that Rome wasn’t built in one day! Just because you cannot see results in couple of weeks it doesn’t mean that they won’t happen. Think of babies and how long it takes them to learn new things and keep in mind that the longer it takes for you to learn something the longer the new habit will stick with you.
3. 3. Figure out what is your WHY in doing this. What made you decide to go for this change in the first place—keep the end in mind at all times.
4. 4. Reward yourself every time you reach one of the tinier goals on the way. Acknowledge all the things you do in order to reach your goals—just because you haven’t gone the whole way doesn’t mean that you can’t rejoice along the way….
5. 5. Falling simply gives you a chance to learn how to get up again! Falling isn’t failing and it just is what it is. If you fall off the track then simply do it all over again—one step doesn’t determine the end result of your marathon!

This year, instead of making New Year’s resolutions, I am devoted to simply choose whatever is best for me in every situation; I am devoted to enjoy the journey no matter where it takes me; and I am devoted to love myself along the way!

What are you devoted to?

I am sure you have noticed that we often limit ourselves both physically and mentally/emotionally—how we perform is rarely based on our actual abilities and what we can; on the contrary, we use other’s beliefs as a measuring stick on our own capacity and limits. When it’s written on a paper it sure does seem to be absurd yet somehow this is how we are habitually choosing to see ourselves—through other’s eyes!
And I don’t need to go far in order to give you some examples. Have you ever looked in the mirror and not be satisfied with what you see—believing that you are not beautiful? Well, I certainly have!

It’s incredible that I am still willing to believe someone else’s stupid statement about me not being pretty! It’s incredible that this silly one time comment lead me to decide that I am not beautiful! And the strangest thing is that this belief is so strong that no matter what anyone else tells me or what I see in the mirror—I am not willing to let go of that old belief….

The same way we are often also limiting ourselves physically—not even realizing that what keeps us from reaching certain goals or enjoying some things we are really good at, like sports, is not necessarily because we are not “fast, tall, strong or skilled” enough. Most of the times it’s because of what emotions are attached to some specific physical movement and what limiting beliefs we have attached to them.
An example could be a man who has all the physical qualifications in form of height at 6’10” to be a great basketball player yet who has been told as a little kid by a parent or a teacher that he sucks at basketball. That would mean that no matter how much he practices he would keep proving himself right in “not being great at basketball,” until he changes that limiting belief that is.

It’s not like changing and getting rid of limiting beliefs is as challenging as putting a man to the moon, yet it takes time to even come to a realization that we have them…. I mean, why on earth would we ever think that we stop ourselves from being great—it’s not like we consciously would like to keep doing it!

The thing is thought that we all have several limiting beliefs—we let our past stop us from experiencing new and amazing things by telling ourselves that we already know how it’s going to work out and choose to play safe rather than going for the magic of new encounters. Yet he question “how to change our beliefs” remains…

What I have found out is that being vulnerable in these moments where we usually would go on autopilot is a great way of breaking down the old habits and beliefs—showing what we really feel and expressing it to the fullest helps others to understand where we stand and support us in our challenges. Also—in order to get new and different results, we need to change the way we are used to do things….

So, I choose to work on my vulnerability and stop playing it safe—just because I can and because I want to see the magic future holds for me!
The question is, what are you choosing?

Hopefully you are spending the wonderful holiday season with your loved ones–feeling grateful for everything that life has brought you and for having a chance to see your friends’ and family smile and hug you…

In the case you are a not that lucky (just like me) and are missing your family and dear ones–let’s just hope that next year will bring us many more opportunities to celebrate with them and send some cyber love and hugs to them :)

I love you all and wish you wonderful end of the year–let’s leave this 2011 with gratitude and love in our hearts!
Blessings and light!
Silja

I have always felt that the Holiday season is quite an oxymoron—we say that we’re looking for a quiet time with friends and family, time to reflect on our lives and to appreciate everything that we have and yet, we are focusing on stressing ourselves out by shopping endless and pointless gifts, decorating our houses bigger and better than the neighbours and creating plans that will even make president Obama’s daily schedule blush due to lack of activity.
Why on earth would we want to do that to ourselves has always been a mystery to me—wouldn’t it be so much nicer to simply take it slow, relax and practice gratitude?

Every year I get the same questions from my clients, friends and family: “what could we do in order to keep the negative stress levels low and keep ourselves more balanced in this crazy holiday-race?” So, this year I decided to write some of my ideas and suggestions down and blast it out to all of you in hope of helping the season smooth its way into more relaxed and poised being ;)

First things first, and as you already know—I am a big advocate of focusing on yourself first in order to be able to focus on others around you:

1. Make time for yourself!
   Take small breaks during the day, to make sure that you are actually being in the moment instead of always doing things and keeping yourself busy creating reasons for being even more busy. We are after all human beings and not human doings, so this could be a nice way of making it work.
   Make sure that the time that you take for yourself involves no friends or family, no phones and no computers—it’s time to de-stress and relax, to keep the “usual” things out of your mind and way and therefore has only to do with YOU—keep the focus on what’s most important!
2. Keep a good daily wellness routine throughout the stressful times.
   Eat healthy and nutritious food that gives you the best energy. Keep yourself focusing on how good something is for you at that very moment, whether you enjoy eating it and how much great energy will you get out of it, instead of whether the things that you eat are considered the best “diet” or how many calories it contains.
   My way of seeing this is—if you like it and want it then do it in moderation and make sure you enjoy every bite! That’s when the food will be your friend instead of turning into enemy and ending up in “not the right places on your body.” This certainly helps to remove the stress out of food…

   Drink plenty of water to keep you hydrated—just because it’s cold outside it doesn’t mean that your body cannot be dehydrated. Water also keeps your brain functioning no matter how stressful situations you end up in and gives you energy to cope with everything life brings your way.

   Focus on your breathing—deep breaths from your tummy keep your body functioning. Follow the 5/5 or 4/6 breathing rhythm—inhaling on count of 5 or 4 (1, 2, 3, 4) and exhaling on 6 counts will make sure that you are breathing enough oxygen into your system and relaxing your muscles, which helps to release the negative stress in your body.
   Make especially sure that you exhale well—releasing all the emotions that have caused the stress levels to rise instead of keeping it together and stepping away from being vulnerable.

   Exercise when possible—whether it’s just half an hour during the day or couple of times a week for 45 or 60 minutes doesn’t matter (we are not talking about getting into great physical shape, we focus on releasing negative stress). Also, it doesn’t matter what type of physical workout you engage yourself in—you could go for an energetic walk, do some meditation, dance or do something that gets your creative juices flowing ;)—the “what” really doesn’t matter! What matters is that you keep yourself going and create a healthy routine for your body as well as mind!

3. Find time for your friends and hobbies.
   After stressful days at work and especially during the holiday added stress, it is vital to give yourself a chance to recover mentally, being able to relax while doing something you love. Whether it’s just a half an hour a week or longer isn’t important, what matters is that you spend time doing things that you love and make you happy—being passionate about life and the people in it.
   Nothing keeps the negative stress away better than endorphins and smiles!
4. Take time to practice gratitude.
   Practicing gratitude works particularly well when you feel stressed, angry or would love to scream or kick someone’s bum in fury. It works miracles in traffic, in bigger and smaller crowds, of course also at work and in not so relaxed family situations. Choosing gratitude will take the focus off negative thoughts and put energy into great things in your life, changing the dynamics and helping to create positivity. You can choose to practice gratitude towards your friends & family, for the things you have in your life and/or for all the gifts you are blessed with.
   Choosing to see what’s great in your life and how blessed you are will keep the good energy flowing and make it so much easier for you to keep the negative stress where it needs to be—away form you!

Whether you have time to do one or all of those things is up to you, yet what matters is that you choose to want to keep the negative energy levels down and focus on the beauty of the holiday season. It is always our choice—even when we choose not to choose….
Are you ready to celebrate and bring the holiday sprit into your life? ;)

There are so many things in my life that I can say are magical—my friends, the way things go with the flow, the way I am able to support and help people change their lives, the love that I experience and am able to give and the smiles that I share with everyone around me…. And then there are things that go less great—I am not always able to support myself at the financial level that I want to which pushes me into low’s and makes it sometimes really challenging to keep smiling at all times.

What I am saying is that I am just like anyone else in this World—having highs and lows and every now and then in need of support. I do tend to believe that I am a superwoman and can carry everything and everyone on my broad shoulders, that letting go, opening up and being vulnerable isn’t anything I need to or could do…. Yet every so often my dearest friends remind me of the fact that this is exactly what I need to do! That being vulnerable is like a message to the Universe about I need help, I am willing to accept help and support and I trust that everything will work out the best way possible!

Does it always feel great, wonderful or comfortable—hell no! Yet, does it always end up serving our highest good and bringing the best out of ourselves—oh, yeah! Big time!

Sometimes the things that are the scariest and in our eyes hurt us the most, are the very things that help us and bring us to the next level—making us enjoy life even more and bring us the most magical love we otherwise couldn’t even imagine of….

So, here goes to everyone who has ever felt that vulnerability is a scary monster that can hurt us! Here goes to everyone who is terrified of opening up and showing the hurting parts of yourself! And here goes to everyone who is still willing to take the steps towards doing the things that scare us, simply because we want more than just average and plain—simply because we deserve the best and all of it! ;)

Fall can be a magical season with all its beautiful colors and harvest, and yet we often see it as a transitional period from the luscious summer temperatures to cold winter and often only focus on how dark, cold, windy and rainy it is outside…
To me fall means abundance, new beginnings, quiet reflections and above all fresh breathing. See, I am a Halloween-girl, being born on this fantastic day of souls and celebrations—I truly appreciate all that fall brings. Yet I can also understand why a lot of people see fall as something that’s gloomy, dark and a bit depressive. As we all know—life is all about attitude, no matter what we’re dealing with, attitude is everything. It can either bring us up to new heights or break us, which ever we choose—sometimes we simply don’t realize that it’s all about ourselves not what the weather is like.

That happened to me just the other day—I was, as I usually am, in great mood and all of a sudden I found myself being brought back by my thoughts into a situation several years ago, when I didn’t feel empowered and had let myself feel a bit down…. Guess what, my mood changed in an instant I felt energy leaving me and I started to see the day as somewhat depressive. I didn’t even realize what had happened or what has brought this sudden change to my day and I believe that’s what can happen to most of us.
Luckily for me, I have had a bit of training and that helped me to take a bit of time out, sit back, reflect and catch the thought what had let me go on this “feeling sorry for myself” trip back in time. Once I realized what thought it was, I needed to think what about this made me feel not so good and figure out what was the difference between the situation back then and in the present moment. After this couple of minutes of thinking was done, change of attitude came as a piece of cake—I was able to tell myself that it was all in my head and switch the memory of the past into feeling great about the present.

The fact is that this kind of “being brought back into the past feelings” happens to all of us regularly. The only difference between our reactions is that often times we don’t know what happens or how to deal with it…. Once we know the small tricks how to detect the feelings being brought up, the cause and the past experience—changing the attitude and outcome is super easy.

How do you deal with the challenging situations?

Inspiring positivity in Fall

Check out this short video and let me know how you find the motivation in a gloomy Fall day?

To your happiness!

We meet hundreds of people every day and yet we often claim that we are not inspired and can’t find motivation to keep moving towards our dreams…. What is it that makes some people so inspiring that almost everything they say, do and believe in becomes almost like a magical pill that we yearn and look for in order to get the fix of inspiration?  Those of you who know how huge fan of Apple’s core beliefs and of course also products I am, know that Steve Jobs and what he stood for, was definitely one of those people for me….

We can say that there’s nothing more magical about one person than someone else, yet the truth of the matter is that we choose instinctively whom we’ll follow and who’s belief system works for us just as fast as we choose who is not the “type” that can inspire us. It happens within a split second and no matter how much we reason about it afterwards—our gut feeling tells us that right away. Some people call it the X-factor, others say it’s the leaders’ gene, others’ say it cannot be explained…. And still, we go for that “magical type” that can inspire, motivate and keep us going with their spirits, energy and values.

To be honest, I really don’t care what we call it—we all know that it has to do with this person being authentic and standing for one’s beliefs, enjoying what they do and having a higher purpose in their lives. Those people who inspire us even in the darkest moments are people who know their own value and are very clear about what they stand for, they are not willing to sell out, settle or put themselves last, yet when it comes to decisions, they still choose to focus on what they can create and how they can help others—creating a legacy that speaks for itself for much longer than they themselves are going to be around….

Inspiration means different things for people, just like we all fall in love with diverse types, come in dissimilar shapes and sizes and understand different things according to our past experiences that vary extensively. And even so, we all realize when people are being authentic about their beliefs, follow their heart and are passionate about what they talk about—we FEEL it in our hearts and souls and very often it makes us wish we would be able to be happier, more balanced and satisfied with our own lives and mostly why we do what we do and are who we are….

Depending on a situation and a person, inspiration can come in very interesting forms ;) for some of us it can be the words, smile or touch; for others it can be the example, goals achieved or things someone is doing. Since we are not able to read others minds and can only guess what works for them—the best thing is to simply be who we are and hope that what we do out of our purest hearts will inspire someone else to do what they wish and what their heart desires….

This is your life, your happiness and your peace of mind!

-       Do what inspires you!
-       Don’t settle for someone else’s sake!
-       Play full out in every situation!
-       Search for smiles even when there are only tears!
-       Love because you are able to!
-       Turn to others with kind words simply because you choose to!

And most of all—KEEP GOING! One day it might be you who inspires others….