Hello March,
I have big plans for you!
I don’t stop eating when I’m full. The meal isn't over when I'm full. It's over when I hate myself.
—Louis C. K.
Food: Any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink, or that plants absorb, in order to maintain life and growth.
Can you believe it is already March? It's the third month into the New Year and look at you! You are sticking to your resolution and still working on living an inspired life! Awesome sauce! March is a month where you can see the light. You have had enough of snow, slush, wet boots, black ice, colds, flu, stomach viruses, and shoveling. Unless you live in the Sunbelt and the only thing you have to shovel is beach sand, we are all anxiously awaiting spring’s arrival. And even if you have participated and enjoyed the fun winter things like a Polar Bear Splash (You mean jumping in the ocean on New Year’s Day didn’t make your wish list? It should!), skiing in the Rockies, sledding at your neighborhood park, hot chocolate on Christmas morning, and champagne toasts on New Year’s Eve, you’re in a rush to see flowers growing and warm sun shining.
I do that a lot. I rush. If you recall, last month I was late for yoga class. I rushed and was totally frazzled when I got there. How often do we hear some form of the expression, “Life is the journey and not the destination”? Yet still we rush. If the winter has been particularly brutal, as was the one in which I wrote this, certainly we all see the need to rush out of it. But since we can’t make time go any faster, maybe this first week of March we can simply slow down and look ahead in quiet anticipation. Rather than barreling headlong in our journey, why don’t we take a moment, pause, and maybe even take a look back? Let’s make March a checkpoint, a time for conscious reflection.
Perhaps you might enjoy looking back at your New Year’s resolutions and reengaging with them. You are still moving forward on your journey in this Year of Inspired Living—and that is terrific! How are you doing with your other resolutions? Did you have the dreaded “February Fallout”? If so, did you bounce back after a day and jump right back on that proverbial bicycle?
I failed in a few of my New Year’s resolutions. One in particular that I seem to fail at a lot for some reason is the 70/30 rule that I set for myself. Fuel your body with clean food 70 percent of the time and allow yourself 30 percent wiggle room for sweets and treats (and wine w)! Is that one of your goals, too? If not, it should be. While we all inherently know that we must make healthier choices, you (and I) feel possessed by stress, hormones, perimenopause, menopause, thinking about menopause, or (gasp) maybe it’s just plain lack of will power. Some days, I find my 70/30 ratio has literally flopped and I have spent a day eating 70 percent garbage processed food and only 30 percent good stuff.
Truth be told, as I write this I find myself sitting in my sunroom enjoying a cup of coffee partnered with a huge piece of cake—for breakfast. WTF? I have no excuse other than laziness (well hormones are kinda my go-to excuse, but truthfully sometimes I’m just lazy H). Are you like me? Here’s one, food is my reward, and the thought goes like this: Job well done, Kelly! Have some ice cream. Even when the only job I have managed to do that day is to get my kids to school and myself to work, and then later a trip to pick up a semi-decent dinner before we all run out to sports practices for the evening. Afterwards, the kids finally head to bed—and I head to the freezer! They are all home, in bed, happy, healthy, and sleeping. Job well done! Now pass the damn ice cream!
The month of March is telling us something. It is telling me—specifically—to put down the ice cream and throw away my king cake (a “must buy” for a girl who lived in Alabama and enjoyed some really terrific Mardi Gras celebrations)! It is telling all of us to focus on food as fuel. It really is that simple. We have to constantly remind ourselves to be doctors to our own bodies, and “first do no harm.” Does that seem impossible for you? Me, too! So before we both agree to give up those resolutions and just finish our breakfast of cake, cookies, and leftover pizza, let’s pause. Let’s look back on the promises we made ourselves on New Year’s Day. Especially the resolutions we made concerning food.
I think perhaps my own relationship with food comes from childhood, when I’d get ice cream after a good report card. It also is a product of my rushing. You, too? Maybe this idea may help. When it comes time to choose a food, before you serve it or eat it, I think the key is to ask yourself the simple question: “How will this food serve me?” If it doesn’t serve you, then why are you serving it? Be kind to yourself and recognize that you can’t be 100 percent good. (Well, some people can but those folks are considerably annoying!) There are times when eating something like a piece of chocolate will serve you (particularly on days that you feel you might kill someone if you don’t get that fix of chocolate). Perhaps our goal for March needs to be a bit more conservative: eat somewhat better than you ate the day before.
Come on, we got this, let’s be present and conscious with our food choices. Throw away the word diet, and focus on lifestyle. Consciously make choices that will allow us to live the most inspired life possible. Slow . . . down . . . breathe before each bite. Write a letter to yourself and tell yourself how different you feel when you eat consciously. I will do the same. But first, I gotta finish my “breakfast” (read king cake) . . . H What I can say? Rome wasn’t built in a day!
Reflections
DEFINE WHAT “CONSCIOUSLY EATING” MEANS FOR YOU. DOES IT MEAN THINKING BEFORE YOU EAT OR SHOP, PUTTING THE FORK DOWN BETWEEN EACH BITE, USING A 70/30 RULE? WHATEVER IT IS, WRITE IT HERE:
You cannot change the people around you, but you can change the people you choose to be around.
—Roy T. Bennett
Terminate: To bring to an end.
“You’re fired!”
—Donald Trump
Remember when “The Donald” was simply a host of the reality show The Apprentice and not the POTUS? The first time I saw the show I didn’t like it. Somehow, it felt weird and intrusive watching someone’s work ethic being evaluated by a boardroom full of people in Gucci suits, only to have the culminating event be a firing. I felt as if the show sent humanity back to the Dark Ages, where public hangings were the only form of entertainment. I would watch this show and say to my husband or kids, “Jeez, that’s mean!” and in the very next breath say, “Wait, don’t change the channel!” So I didn’t like it, it didn’t make me feel good, but similar to when we see a car wreck, I couldn’t stop watching it.
Years ago, I worked for a biotech company. I was employed there for over thirteen years and held various jobs. One job that I held was that of district manager. In this position I was responsible for the management of ten very diverse people and the sales that they either did or didn’t make for the company. I thought I was actually very well-suited for the role. I enjoyed the coaching and watching the growth and development of the sales representatives who worked for me. I truly loved sharing in their success and achievements. I can humbly but honestly tell you I was a beloved manager, and I could also say I had a team that would go to the ends of the earth for me because they saw my loyalty to them. Yet looking back, I can evaluate myself and say I may have not been the best manager. The only person who could answer that question would have been my own manager. I wonder now, did my manager think I was as effective as I could be? No, probably not.
In truth, the job of managing people takes all of the things that I listed above: nurturance, support, and loyalty. But it also takes two more things: honesty and courage. There were times when I seriously lacked both, most notably when it came to fire someone. Recognizing that the employee was not effective in the position they held and letting them go was for their benefit, for my benefit, and, ultimately, for the benefit of the company. Still, I couldn’t do it. I don’t think I let anyone go during my tenure as district manager, and I spent a lot of energy and focus on those people. In the end, I was lucky enough to be promoted to a different position before I had to terminate anyone (one month after my career change, three of my employees were laid off). I don’t think I could have done it. I have this affliction: I genuinely love people and a bigger part of this affliction is that I want them to love me! All people! The idea of actually telling someone they “are fired” seems so cruel. But is it? Maybe not. I am older, and maybe a little bit wiser, and looking back now after my own firing, I realize that in life there comes a time where ties may need to be severed. Not just employment ties, this goes for everything, including our attachments to ideas, beliefs, and even to certain people. If you don’t let go of these things, how can you make room for someone or something else.
In retrospect, I probably wasn’t the best manager because I lacked a certain amount of courage. How about you? Do you find that you lack the courage it may take to remove people out of certain positions that they hold in your life?
This month was a first for me. As the publisher of Natural Awakenings Long Island (NALI), I actually had to decide whether or not to “fire” an advertiser. My advertisers are everything to me. I want their services to be utilized because I am passionate about wellness on Long Island. Likewise, I am passionate about small businesses that offer wellness solutions through nutrition, fitness, and business coaching. I want to like and be liked by them. Who doesn’t want to be liked? Forget liking me, more important, they pay me! In truth, I am their employee, I work for them. Yet in this instance, no matter how hard I worked, there was no pleasing this advertiser. In retrospect, I had probably tried too hard for too long. So, I let the client know that April would be their last contract month; I would be using the termination clause in the contract to dissolve the business relationship. Basically saying, take your money; my soul is worth more . . . or . . . “You’re fired!” (Picture me as Donald Trump for full effect because that was the vision I had in my head.)
If I’d looked at this decision strictly from a business owner’s point of view, it might have seemed like a wrong move since casting off this advertiser meant I lost money. Yet as a human being, I gained something more important: peace. And space. Space for another nicer, better advertising partner. When you “fire” things in your life, you ultimately make room for better things.
So how about you? Is there someone or something you should fire so that you can make room for the new? A person whose friendship has become one-sided, even toxic? A doctor who never “hears” you? Or, as in my case, you may need to fire a business associate or your boss (I say this cautiously, and in the voice of my father . . . do not quit your job until you have something else secured!). But yes, if it is time to fire the current job you are in—and doing so won’t send you into a financial tailspin that will leave you more anxious and depressed than your current situation, not mention unable to afford self-help books J—then do it!
Sometimes it might even be a bad memory that you must fire. I once heard renowned spiritual healer Chandresh Bhardwaj say this about letting go of bad memories, “You have had your experience with the person or situation, that is your memory, but now it’s time to let go. Be it an ex-lover or a beloved who has passed away, whoever it may be, release them all from your memory bank.”
This month think about making room for new friends, new customers, new experiences, new jobs, new loves, and new memories by “firing” some of the less-than-positive elements in your life. Try it. You don’t need a comb-over hairstyle and slightly orange skin tone for it to be effective. Look at the person, place, or thing that you are done with and, in your best Donald Trump voice, say, “Ya fiyad!” Trust me, you will be glad you did.
Reflections
MAKE PLANS: WHO OR WHAT DO YOU NEED TO FIRE FROM YOUR LIFE?
Opinions are like farts . . .
just because you have one in you, doesn’t
mean you need to let it out!
Silence: Forbearance from speech or noise: muteness—often used interjectionally.
The world is changed by your example,
not by your opinion.
—Paulo Coelho
In December 2012, just two weeks before Christmas, a man (who we found out later was really just a boy) dressed in black and entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, opening fire and killing multiple teachers and students. Much to America’s horror, three years later, in October 2015, another man walked into a local community college, requested people stand up, and proceeded to shoot them in cold blood. Fast forward to Orlando in June 2016 to the Pulse nightclub, which catered to the LGBTQ community. A man entered the club on a busy Saturday night and began a systematic killing spree, leaving people screaming for their lives and calling their loved ones from bathrooms prior to being shot, execution style. In October 2017, a man opened fire on concert goers from his room at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, killing 59 people and injuring over 500 others.
If you are like me, you heard the news about these nightmares that occurred at Sandy Hook, Umpqua College, the Pulse nightclub, and the Mandalay Bay and you cried, similar to the way we all cried when we heard the news on 9/11. Evil is incomprehensible. Yet we try to understand, we try to make sense of it, and we often look for someone or something to blame (other than the killer). We also look for people to share our opinions with.
Maybe you went to Facebook or some other social media outlet after these or similar horrific events; it is a way to be with people when you can’t be with people. You probably began to see posts on gun control, on politics, on mental health, on our president. People begin to argue their point of view. These tragedies become an opportunity for some to get their political points across. After incidents such as these, you often see rants about parents and their poor parenting skills, rants against guns and the NRA with counter-responses of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” I have an opinion, you have an opinion; I am sure every person watching these horrors unfold has an opinion.
I am curious as to why people use these tragedies as a soapbox platform. To literally hijack a tragedy to pontificate on your own agenda is just selfish. And in the end, isn’t opinion the catalyst to most of these tragedies? Someone’s opinion that America is evil, an opinion that being gay is wrong, or an opinion that the world is cruel so you should be, too—aren’t these all opinions? Opinions, that when acted on, lead to devastation. Yes, opinions spoken and acted upon are selfish acts.
Selfishness is another form of evil. For humanity’s sake, we can’t let evil win. Evil wins if we use these horrific events and others like it to further our own agendas. Evil wins if we don’t drop our opinions during these times of tragedy. Evil wins if we choose to voice our negativity, rather than sending love, prayers, and positive energy to those who are suffering. At times like these, that is what people need and not divisive opinions.
When national or world suffering is in the headlines, rather than using it as a time to pontificate and rant to further our own political agenda, how about simply praying intead. Don’t pray? That’s okay; then send loving thoughts to the victims. We should use tragedy to create an agenda of love, an agenda of tolerance, and then focus on how we interact with our fellow human beings.
Believe me, as an American (and publisher), I know how wonderful it is to have freedom of speech. Sometimes, though, we should remember what we learned back in nursery school, “ Just because we can say something doesn’t mean we should.”
This letter may be a bit on the dark side. You may even be thinking, What’s the point? This week, I think the point is there are times when we should speak less and listen more. When we listen, we learn and a small part of humanity wins. Evil wins if you begin to argue with your neighbors and friends every time a madman or a terrorist does the unspeakable and we turn it into a fight over what we believe caused it.
The Dalai Lama has said, “When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.”
This week, focus a bit on practicing the art of silence. Spend less time trying to get your point across. You may discover within your silence, a sense of peace during times of chaos. Perhaps in times of tragedy you may actually need to turn away from social media and leave your opinion in its rightful place (your mind). Within your silence you can return to a focus of love: love your family, love your friends, and we can love one another. Focus your energy on love, not opinion, because if we all do that then evil loses and humanity may just win.
Reflections
WRITE YOUR OPINION ABOUT SOMETHING HERE, AND THEN REMIND YOURSELF WHY IT IS GOOD TO KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.