Life is, for the most part, the way we see it.  So, when life’s not fair – it may be time to check your focus” -Robert Schuller

Every month I choose a word to focus on as an intention for that month and this month’s word is  “Acceptance”.

Accepting my health, my body, my mental and emotional state in the moment as they are.

Accepting that every feeling state can change and improve if I allow it  and cease resisting it.

August, Acceptance and…

Another “A” word, Allow.

An affirmation for every day this month could be, “I allow Peace and Love to energize my body, and heal whatever needs healing. I accept this process with Patience”.

When I was thinking about August,  I began playing with acronyms and here are something’s I came up.

• A Acknowledge, Acceptance, Awareness, Action, Allow
• U Uplift, Unconditional Love
• G Give, Gather, Gratitude
• U Undo, Unearth, Uncover (those things that no longer serve you)
• S Sustenance, Surprises, Sunshine, Seeking, Self love and Self Care (is necessary, not selfish)
• T Thankfulness for all that IS working in your life

What words would you like to add?
How might you apply some of these concepts to yourself care program this month?

Self care is a cornerstone of self love and self love will lead us to greater physical, spiritual and emotional health.

When one mind is changed the world is changed. -CIM

I am committed to changing my own mind by taking pinky steps when change feels challenging.

Change is a gift. And it is difficult for our minds to believe and yet resistance is a gift too.

Change and resistance offer us opportunities to go deeper into our process of who we are and what we are seeking in terms of having a body we feel great about.

I read this quote the other day, “I have learned to use the word impossible with great caution”. I love that as I believe in what is possible, rather than what is impossible.

What is your word for this month?

I welcome your sharing that here.

And one more thing from me.  I offer complimentary consultations about my one on one weight release mentoring and I am interviewing for my next 12 week  Body Image Mastery course. Please feel free to email me to set up a time to speak, laura@onepinky.com

A cheerful mind has always been a perfect guide to a healthy body.

-Sri Chimnoy

Here I am joyfully awaiting to see Sir Paul McCartney in S.F. on July 10th.

It was an amazing show and although every song felt like my favorite, Let It Be took the lead.

I encourage everyone reading this to read the words of the song. And then connect with something that you are ready to accept or let be.

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. Yeah
There will be an answer, let it be.

And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Let it Be, Let it Go and Enjoy This Moment.

It makes my heart sing to have this soulful connection across the miles, actually across the equator!  I feel like she and her husband Leigh are family to me. We just know we will be meeting soon in person. And I think I can speak for both of us and say, we cannot wait for that day to come!

We will keep you posted on when that will take place.

I am so proud of your work Leah and your willingness to keep on keeping on no matter what presents itself.

You are an inspiration to this community and to the world.

And speaking of inspirations…

Gina who has kept her commitment to blogging daily, YOU GO GIRL!, recently wrote to tell me she is coming to California and will be stopping by my county. I am thrilled to say that she and I have a date to look forward to in April. More connecting with a Pinky. Love that.

I look forward to meeting many of you in time. It will happen.

And one more thing, before Leah and I got off the call, I read her something. This was a spiritual mind treatment I read to myself for many years. Actually, there were two, one called “Love” and the other called “Peace”.

I was happily surprised to find them in a drawer recently.

Leah loved hearing it and I loved reading it to her.

So here is the piece on “Peace” and stay tuned next week for the piece on “Love”.

Peace

The peace that sings throughout the cosmos wells up in me. I detect Its presence in my heart, my attitude and my body. I feel It, I believe It and I welcome It. With this Peace in me, nothing can move me from It. For wherever I go, there I find myself in the midst of Peace.

Peace to you Pinky’s!

I love you, XO

Laura

P.S. Please join us for a free teleclass this week with Steve Sisgold, on Wednesday, February 24th at 1pm PST.

Steve is an author, speaker and body-centered therapist who has taught thousands how to use their BQTM (innate body intelligence) to create better health, prosperity and more authentic relationships.

In his book, WHAT’S YOUR BODY TELLING YOU? (McGraw-Hill; July 2009) Steve teaches us how to breathe into our emotions, release stress from our bodies and maintain our physical and emotional health. This call will support you in having a body shift and I hope many if not all of you will be on the call.

This is a public call and please RSVP to info@onepinky.com and the call in information will be sent to you.

that people care…they really care

that I have it in me to follow through with anything I say I will do

and if my goals are not met, I will keep going until they are

that limitation is a state of mind

that there is hope in the darkest days

that this is not goodbye, it is see soon

that your body never lies

that opportunity is here in every moment and we can all tap into it (it may not show up for a bit and it is present)

that I can hold people, and I love holding the space for Leah and her progress as well as all other Pinky’s around the globe

that I have embraced this Fall

that I am taking care of my body and it is stronger and my weight is exactly where it is suppossed to be at this moment

that I am taking really good care of myself by exploring ways to serve and heal my body

that I love you Leah wholeheartedly and am looking forward to our face to face meeting. It will happen.

In the meantime, I will speak to you tomorrow on our call ( I am really looking forward to that!) and I look forward to this new chapter of a new beginning for us with weekly blogging.

Peace and Love, XO

Laura

“May today be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be… May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you… May you be content knowing you are a child of God… Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love. It is there for each and every one of you.”

I am away like you Leah, funny we are both away at the same time. :):)

I hope you and Leigh are having a great time. You deserve it.

I miss the Pinky’s, and I am looking forward to our call Monday night…

A simple practice for today….

Take a moment to stop, as you are right now,  to breathe deeply, to stand and hold your arms out from your body and to squat down and feel the ground under your feet. You ARE RIGHT NOW. You are not in your worries or your plans or the endless stream of thoughts in your head. You are in this moment. If you find yourself distracted by the chaos of others or your own endless, beautiful mind, you can do this simple exercise of stop, breathe, center and GROUND yourself to the moment you are in. Center your thoughts on the Earth. Ultimately, we ARE the ground. We are part of everything around us.

Be the grounded space you are.

Sending you Love and Peace, XO

Laura

The answer is revealed now…Kathleen shares the rest of her story…and how swimming makes her heart sing.

(for those of you who have no idea what I am referring to, go back and read yesterday’s post on Day 70, OnePinky Student Shines, Part 1.

Kathleen went off to her beloved pool and started her swim.  It’s her practice to check her watch starting with the first lap so she gets an idea of what kind of pace she’s on.  She noticed right off the bat that she was about 2 seconds faster that normal.  She then checked her watch at the 6-lap mark and again noticed a lower time than usual.  That’s when she thought she might have a very good swim that night.  By the time Kathleen made it to the half-mile point, she realized that it was actually possible, if she kept up this pace, and didn’t lose focus, that she could indeed break the 30 minute mark.  She swam that last half-mile repeating to herself, “Seize The Day” and “Eyes on the Prize”.  When she finally made it to the end and reached up to stop her timer, she was rewarded with the number 29:55.  She was proud and happy that she had achieved something that had once seemed so out of reach.

As I said earlier, Kathleen swims mainly for the joy of it.  She feels she will never give up swimming again (On her business card, under her name, it says “swimmer”).  And that her commitment to it, in spite of the fact that she’s not as fast as she was 20 years ago, rewarded her with a sense of accomplishment that will never go away.

So swim on Kathleen…I am so proud of you. :):)

And to all of us, move today in honor and reverence for our bodies. They matter, they count and they deserve to be moved and stretched.

As I always like to say, we came out of the womb kicking and moving.

The body knew what it wanted and needed right at birth.

Sending you Peace, Love and Movement.

XO, Laura

Proud of this stuff and want to share it with the world via this post.

Were you aware that:

We Magazine, For Busy Women on the Move…honored OnePinky.com?

http://wemagazineforwomen.com/we-magazine-hall-of-fame-honorees-announced/

We still have room in the Thursday Body Image Mastery Course that started last week (we can include newbie’s up to the 3rd week).

So please feel free to reach out to those you know and love who want:

- to get through the holidays feeling more peace, rather than avoiding the scale.

- that don’t want to dread getting dressed for holiday parties. (or dread their closets any longer).

- that want to start 2010 off without shame and gain.

Who do you know? Someone you know who needs support and needs to hear from you today?

And Leah, I love your insight in yesterday’s post!

Your line of questioning is fantastic!

“Please tell me if you disagree, my feeling about the woman who was putting down woman who have plastic surgery; for her is it really about the surgery?  And, a ‘way out’ of what exactly?  Interesting; “particularly those who choose breast augmentation to be more attractive for men.”  My interpretation is she doesn’t feel good about herself and her own appearance and dislikes it when woman that want to do something about their appearance do, especially when these woman want to make themselves more attractive to attract a partner?  Am I now judging the woman who judges woman who have plastic surgery?”

Women learn very young to compare themselves and to judge other women. They are mostly not aware of how critical they are of other women. So to answer your question, no it is not necessarily about the surgery as much as it is about women who choose to make their looks more important than who they are. And women judge that about other women and then turn around and make other women wrong.

And here is my solution and attempt to not judge those who judge, I write, “Her judgment was towards women who choose plastic surgery as a way out,  particularly those who choose breast augmentation to be more attractive for men. I was hovering above her, listening on one hand and feeling a bit uncomfortable. Underneath, I was blessing her and those women. I was listening and aware of all that was going on while listening.”

Leah, I noticed the judgment and am sharing about it with a deep understanding of what was going on. My goal is never to treat judgment with more judgment.

Make sense? I Hope so.

It is a process and I work on it every day. Grateful I have the tools to do that and students like you who are anxious to change old habits that serve no one most of all themselves.

Live, Learn, Let Go and Love to you “L”eah,

Love all those “L’s”, don’t you?

:):):) XO,

“L”aura

This just in from a New Pinky and I am going to use this space to reply to her and also see if you have anything to chime in with?

She writes, “The call on Monday night was very inspiring, thank you!   Pls let me know what you think.

I have a couple questions… I noticed there were several women on the call that have gone through the course already.”

Do a lot of the members go back to repeat the course?

Repeating the course is optional and is not a sign of weakness. It is more a sign of strength.

Let’s put it this way. It took most of us many years to adopt the core beliefs that hold us back…and sometimes it takes longer than we think to break down patterns that hold us back. So doing lesson 1 over and over and over is something that supports women and I highly recommend it. 12 weeks is a great start to change….and some of us need more than that. I love the question and I encourage us all to stay in this one pinky moment at at time.

For me personally, you want to guess how many times I did Jack Canfield’s workshop, level 1 before I said, OK…I think I am done now. I did it at least 5 times, maybe more…and every time I did it, I learned something new and more new…and grew deeper as a person.

What is this percentage? I would say a quarter or more of the women who do it once come back for more or move onto level 2 which you will learn about as well.

Do you encourage the group to weigh themselves?

This program is not a diet plan so weighing and measuring is something that is individual to the women.  The goal is to get to a peaceful place with your body and with the scale and you can…

If so, how often?

How often is up to each individual. Some women are not in a place of feeling peace with the scale so until that day comes, I suggest you put it away and measure your success in other ways. How do you feel for example….

Do you have to follow one of the “diets” you recommended to lose weight? I do not recommend any one plan….each body has different needs. What I do emphasize is detoxing through cleansing especially if there is a good amount of weight to release and I recommend that one eats as much whole food, from the earth as possible. I can go over this more on our calls in the next couple of weeks. Just remind me to touch on this, OK?

I’m not a big diet fan and never have been.  What are your thoughts on artificial sweeteners?  Soda pop? I use stevia to sweeten my tea, green tea and discourage any artificial foods/sweeteners/soda pop. They are not from the earth. I strongly suggest you listen to my call located in the forum/community that I did with Mariel Hemingway….

It will give you some great insight on nutrition and health.

Thank you for these questions…and..

Leah, is there anything you would like to add to my answers?

Whooo Hoooo for our new Pinky gal from our Monday call for reaching out and asking for what she needs. Love that.

To Learning, Loving, Living and Letting Go!

I Love you, XO,

Laura

Have a super day!

Live in the Bay Area? Come to my free workshop on Saturday October 24th, 2009 from 1-3pm at Bay Club Marin.  Email support@onepinky.com if you would like to attend.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…Congratulations! Leah!

Leah,

I am so proud of you my dear. Thank you for digging and allowing all this new growth to just wash over you (like being in the ocean) and sink in down deep inside of you where you can process, learn, love and let go.

I so appreciate your commitment to spreading the word about the course. My goal is to attract those who are called to this work without putting any pressure on them. I had quite a few women who were ready to sign up and they all seem to be changing their minds. Not everyone is ready and able to do this work…and I understand. They too have arrived where they need to be in the moment…and when and if they are ready they will join us in this transformation and change and growth. Just think of this circle of love we are forming around the planet, how cool is that?

I got the kindest email from Florrie today which I will send out to my Pinky’s and I wanted to thank Wendy for calling me today to see how she could support me and this crusade to attract more Pinky’s…very cool and Wendy and were loving you if your ears were ringing.

Leah, there is so much I want to say and share every day. Sometimes the ideas just don’t quit….so when I sit down I write what rolls out.

I wanted to share this quote from the Dalai Lama,

“The basic sources of happiness are a good heart, compassion, and love. If we have these mental attitudes, even if we are surrounded by hostility, we feel little disturbances. On the other hand, if we lack compassion and our mental state if filled with anger or hatred, we will never have peace or feel peace.”

I am a lover of Dalai Lama and have seen him live…what a treat that was.

Leah, the other thing that keeps me going everyday is just looking at my pages and pages of sourced statistics just like these below that I have sitting on my desk…This is a sampler and not fun to read and yet  I want people to see the facts. I will continue to send more because I have lots of INTERNATIONAL STATS AS WELL.  There are a lot…I have work to do! and it is Pinky’s like you that will turn these statistics around by leading by example.

Body Image Statistics (Domestic)

The diet industry makes between $40 and $100 billion every year selling temporary weight loss products—more than the combined federal budget for education, welfare, and health. (1)

People who diet are five times more likely to develop an eating disorder; those who diet often are 18 times more likely. (16)

95 – 98% of dieters regain the weight that they lose back within 5 years. (1)

35% of women in the United States are obese, as well as 33% of men. (7)

An average bulimic person binges about 11 times per week. (16)

Two-thirds of adults in the U.S. are overweight. (10)

300,000 people die of obesity each year. (9)

The total cost of obesity in the United States is $117 billion. (11)

Sending you light and love and you have arrived  Leah…drink this in…”an opportunity does not arrive because it is already here….we just may not be able to see it yet.”

The universe is abundant.

I love you, XO

Laura

God of love,
turn our hearts to your ways;
and give us peace.
Amen.

Leah,

Every day I pray, most days I meditate, every day I write, and every day I listen, every day I hurt, every day I laugh with joy ( I try to laugh many many times a day even on my worst days)…every day of my life contains a vast range of emotions, Thank God that every day I feel my feelings…and the beauty for me is that no matter how far off course the range of emotions may feel…I STAY committed to self love and self improvement.

The joy outweighs the pain in my life a million times over and it is hard to remember that on days like…yesterday.

Today is a better day and yesterday was a really hard day for me. It did not come through in my blog post so I am telling you now, it sucked…

A short digression here. This course I am taking.

It is a business course and I signed up with the intention to take OnePinky.com to a whole new level.

So if any of you out there who heard me share about my going back to school, if you were secretly wishing you could do, thinking I was going to take basket weaving, think again, this class is work…a lot of work.

And I will STAY.

Leah, thank you for letting me use this space to ask for help, share my truth and below is a gift to you and all the readers who need these words today. It is so appropriately called “The Invitation” since I am inviting new Pinky’s to come and play with us.

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

-Orion Mountain Dreamer

Love You Leah! Thank you for your staying power.

XO

Laura

http://www.bodyimagemastery.com/community/