Model Citizen & Mom of the Year Nominee!

As I was driving home from work today i was stopped at a red light waiting for traffic to go.  I got bored as i do if i am not entertained for more than five seconds.  i started looking around people and car watching. 

There was a minivan behind me that I noticed.  The driver was smoking.  This is a problem because smoking is terrible for your health.  In a moving vehicle is even worse as it is huge distraction from driving.  Funny thing I noticed that she had her windows closed. 

Light is still red.  She then raised her hand up and she was holding a Blackberry texting away.  So neither hand was on the wheel of her minivan.  She was going back and forth between her smoke and the Blackberry. 

Light turned green.  I glance back before I go there was children jumping around in the car WITHOUT seat belts on.  So she was smoking with children in the car with the windows closed, texting, while driving with the kids hopping around from front to back and side to side. 

We drove off and stopped at the next light.  She was parked beside me.  I was so mad because she did not touch the steering wheel the whole time she drove.  Texting and smoking away kids still not belted in.  I got out of my car but she sped off before i could bang on the window to tell her to put her phone down, get her kids belted in, and put out that damn cigarette. 

Cinderella Was Not Saved - She Was a Happy Person All Along!

Love This Compelling Argument I found today. Just goes to show if you do not love yourself who will love you.

Would the prince have chosen Cinderella to marry if she was a miserable young woman? If her stepsisters were beautiful but miserable, would he have chosen either of them?

Are you living under the delusion that when you meet your soul mate you will finally be happy - that your misery is because you are not in a relationship or not in the right relationship?

Most people who are happy in their marriages were ALREADY HAPPY before meeting their spouse! Happy people make happy marriages. Unhappy people either don't marry or generally continue to be unhappy after getting married.

While Cinderella wasn't happy with her circumstances, inside she was a loving, happy person. And so was the prince. "Happily ever after" is often not the result of getting married, but the result of two basically happy people getting married to each other!

Lover and over I hear from my clients: "I need a relationship to be happy." Over and over I say to them, "Focus on learning how to make yourself happy now and then you might find the relationship you are seeking."

If you think about it, it makes sense. If you were a basically happy person, would you be attracted to a basically unhappy person? Not likely.

When you make your happiness dependent upon another person, you are handing them responsibility for your emotional wellbeing. Why would someone else want this responsibility? And, since we are attracted to each other at our common level of woundedness, the chances are that the person you are attracted to and who is attracted to you is also looking to you to take responsibility for their emotional wellbeing. This is called a codependent relationship, not a happy relationship, and definitely not happily ever after.

There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting a wonderful relationship. But the chances of finding that wonderful relationship if you are unhappy is slim. When you are already happy, then you want a relationship to share your love, your happiness, your joy, your learning and growth, and your interests. When you are unhappy, the chances are you are looking for a relationship to make you happy, and this is likely not going happen.

Back to Cinderella. Because she was a caring person, she tried very hard to make her stepmother and her stepsisters happy. But they were never happy. Why? Because they were angry and blaming people, making Cinderella responsible for their happiness. No matter how kind and wonderful she was, it did not matter, because their misery was created by their own beliefs and ways of treating themselves and others.

The same is true in today's relationships. I have worked with many people who were never happy, no matter what their partner did to make them happy. As long as they were judging themselves and others instead of learning how to take responsibility for their own feelings, they were sad, empty, alone inside, hurt and/or angry. As long as they looked outside themselves for the source of their unhappiness, they were stuck being unhappy.

The way out of this unhappiness is to learn how to take 100% responsibility for your own pain and your own joy. Anyone can learn to do this, but, if you are stuck in the false belief that you need the right relationship in order to be happy, then you will likely not be motivated to learn how to do this.

Fall Start Up 2010! Random Thoughts

Now that September is here for many of us it is time to return to routine life again. I call this the Fall Start Up. Everything seems to start in the fall. Sports, School, work stuff, budgets, fall fashion, clubs, I could go on. Summer holidays are over, back to work for some, back to school for others etc. Sometimes our summers are so busy we need a break from our holidays.

By taking some time for yourself to be calm and breathe and refocus yourself you will get that break. This makes it a good time to check your goals and see how you are doing with them. Weight how well you have acheived them. If you have not acheived them ask why, it does not mean you have failed by any means. Thing happen in life that can change or pospone the acheivement of them. As long as you can have a true and justifiable answer as to why then you are off the hook. It better be good!

If you have not set any this is a great time to set some make them short term ones. Set some that you can evaluate in December so you can set some new ones for January. When setting goals be sure that they are achievable but you do have to work for them. A goal should never be easy! Cause all that means is YOU ARE LAZY!

For me most of my goals are private I do not always like sharing them with people. But you need to be accountable to them some how. If like me you are not comfortable sharing them write them down somewhere so that you can revisit them and check in with them. Do not just store them away and never look again. Have your goals in a place that you can see them to remind yourself.

You may remember that one of my goals was to put on 10 lbs of muscle mass. Well I am at 7 lbs right now. It is coming along nicely and I have been working my butt off (often literally) at the gym. Remember for your body it is not just about the gym, it is about fueling your body to perform life and to live.

Remember that fitness is part of life, it is NOT life. There is a huge difference. We need to balance our lives for other things that are important to us. We also need to deal with life happenings that come up from time to time. In my cause happened all summer.
I have two 80 / 20 rules that I follow;
#1) Eat well and clean 80% of the time so if there is an indigence that presents you can eat 20% and your body will be okay and your soul will not be starving for that delicious morsel.
#2) Your body is based on 80% or work and 20 % whole healthy balanced nutrients. If you do not have the 20% nutrition you body will not respond as planned. If you are only fuelling yourself with energy drinks and not sleeping and not eating properly you body will not care if you are working out like crazy.

Think of it this way: If you cannot take care of yourself and your well being how can you take care of others.