Pause and Reflect

The gifts have been opened.  The visitors have come and been fed and entertained.  The kids are still off school.  Mind-numbing, bone-chilling weather has arrived to bring in the new year.  That's a lot if you think about it--which is exactly what it is time to do.  Let's take a few moments to go inward, literally and figuratively and consider the happenings of 2017 so we can leave them behind and move on to something fresher.

Let's review this past holiday, for example.  Do you like the choices you made?  Would you make them again?  How do you feel physically?  Did you learn anything from how your time was spent, how your smart points were spent?  No judging one way or the other.  We are just noticing.  If you like how things went, then consider that a great move.  If you'd make different choices the next time, then do so.  That's all.  No judging one way or the other. 

What about the bigger picture?  What about how you are spending your precious time and where you put your limited energy?  Are you feeling that your values and how you'd like to be living are prioritized?  Are you noticing you'd like to do something else or try something new or take on a new challenge or recommit to your health and wellness?  Whatever pops up when you slow down long enough to notice is exactly what has been there all along.  We can listen for those messages.

Your body doesn't know whether it is 2018 or 2017.  It doesn't have an on/off switch like the ball in Times Square in New York.  Your body says every single day of every year, treat me right.  Feed me well.  Exercise me.  Relax and restore me and let me sleep well.  Your body says keep me hydrated and in motion, engaged and challenged by new activities.  Your mind can easily follow suit. 

Good health and wellness, weight loss/weight maintenance are not resolutions.  They are lifestyle commitments to what really matters.  The holidays are really over, and it's time to leave them behind.  It's time to move along and refresh your commitment to more order in your life, fewer distractions and more self care.  That's the perfect gift every day of the year.

Here's to more joy, more health, more wellness, more weight loss and maintenance in 201