Reshuffling the Hand We're Dealt

There's someone in my life that I care very much about who has been perpertually miserable for quite some time now. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call her "Daisy." 

Granted, Daisy hasn't had the easiest of lives, she certainly doesn't have the worst life possible- not even close. She may beg to differ as she's been so immersed in her own negative energy for so long that the half-filled portion of her glass may as well be invisible to her. She believes that the only way her life will be better is if the people and situations that surround her change. 

See the problem? 

It's what I always say: Change your perspective, change your experience, change your life. 

There's only so long we should be allowed to indulge ourselves in self-pity. We can keep our faces long and cry about the cards we've been dealt, but after a while that song gets old and tired. After a certain amount of time, it becomes a matter of personal responsibility to take the situation in our own hands and reshuffle the deck, instead of perpetually staring at the crappy hand. 

The Serenity Prayer comes to mind...

"...grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference..."

There are things we have no control over and sometimes that's unfortunate. Daisy can't change the fact that her family members deal with addiction. She can't magically double her income to alleviate her financial woes. She can't take away her parents' pains associated with old age. 

But, she can change her attitude. She can change how she sees things. She can shift her focus on to what she does have to be grateful for, like a home, a steady job that challenges her ample abilities and family that loves her regardless of her grumpiness, instead of honing in on what's not so perfect. She can stop scoffing at me when I suggest she try these things and realize there is no harm in trying something new that would only do her a world of good. 

Today is actually Daisy's birthday. I gave her a hug, wishing her a good day, and she coldly responded to my open arms with what could hardly pass as a hug. She said, "thanks," as if we were passing strangers. 

Later in the day, I got a call from Daisy's family member ooking for gift suggestions, asking if I knew of anything Daisy needed. 

And all I could think of was...

A smile. 

Predicting Success

My grandmother intuitively knew when my mother was pregnant, both times, with my brother and me, without ever having to be told. She's made "predictions" like this multiple times- enough to be, almost, eerie. 

But, she's no psychic. 

She picks up the most subtle of cues in my mother's voice when she speaks and senses her energy, even from halfway across the world, in Korea. 

But, my mom believes my grandmother to have superhuman, prophetic powers. 

And therefore thinks her word to be the be all end all.

Good or bad. 

Grandma has told my mom to pursue business opportunities in the past because she felt they were sure to be successful. She's told her to have patience with me because she knew I would eventually come to my senses. She's told her to have faith in my father because he would do the right thing in the end. 

And each time she's been right.

Don't get me wrong, my grandmother has a powerful gift of intuition that she's strengthened over the years and it is awe inspiring, nonetheless. But, I can't help but wonder, what's really going on here? 

As much as I enjoy imagining my grandmother like this...

 

I'm thinking more that there's a self-fulfilling prophecy effect happening here. 

My mom trusts her own mother's judgment, putting faith in her words, never questioning their validity. If Grandma says it will be one way, so it will be. 

Most of her "visions" happen to be of positive nature, with my mother's best interest always in mind. Naturally. Every mother wishes the best for her child. 

When my mom gets off the phone with Grandma, she's always filled with not only wonder and amazement, but, most importantly, hope. 

Hearing my grandmother's encouraging words fills my mom with positive energy, illuminating her outlook on the future. Grandma assures my mom that everything will be okay- so it will be. 

Without hope, a positive attitude or trust that things can and will go the way we will them to, the already unpredictable future becomes overshadowed with with anxiety-provoking unease. 

To shine a bright light on our perspectives, seeking out the best possible outcome, and putting faith and energy in to pursuing that beautiful prize greatly increases the probability of success without even having to make the first move. 

Our minds are more powerful than we can ever imagine. 

We all have the ability to damn ourselves from the beginning by believing the worst will happen...

or

We can confidently have faith in ourselves and our individual greatness from the get-go.

Sometimes we need that "It's all going to be okay" push of positive energy from someone we love and trust to bolster our potential. 

But, how wonderful would it be if we could each start from within and be our own greatest source of positive reinforcement? 

"Make it a Great Day"

In high school, the Dean would come on the loudspeaker and make the morning announcements. He would notoriously sign off with, "Make it a great day." 

It was customary to mock and laugh at that closing statement, especially since the tone of his voice was always so stoic and robotic with little to no warmth. It also didn't help that he was a disciplinarian that was somewhat feared among the students. 

Hearing it every morning, five days per week, for four school years, I must have subconsciously absorbed it; it popped in to my head, seemingly out of nowhere the other day even after being out of high school for years now. Today, though, I look back at those five words in a completely different light. 

Make it a great day. 

Not, "Have a great day." or the more informal, "Have a good one." 

MAKE IT a great day. 

It was as if he was empowering us all to choose the fate of our own days, hoping we would opt for the good over the bad. Maybe he was. 

It would be nice if "bad days" didn't exist. It would be wonderful if every day we felt healthy, motivated, energetic, positive. If only everything was always rainbows, glitters and unicorns. 

But, it's not. 

And that's reality. 

The bad days do help us to appreciate the good days much more, in comparison. After all, "the sweet is never as sweet without the sour," to quote "Vanilla Sky."

Here's the beauty of the Dean's sign off message though...

To a certain extent, we all have the power to choose to make our day as great as it can be. 

Yes, there are limitations on what we can control in the level of greatness possible in our days. We can't control the weather, the jerks on the highway that should have their licenses revoked, the clerk with the attitude or the mosquito that chooses to bite you on the nose on the day of your blind date. 

But, what we can control is our perception. 

I've said it before: change your perception, change your experience. 

Look through rose colored glasses and the world seems much more beautiful. Positive energy is a powerful force and one that is far underutilized. If we see our glass half full, the empty portion isn't just a lack of filling- it's a space for opportunity. 

It would be wonderful if everything in life always lined up so perfectly as to never have a bad day to suffer through. Wouldn't it be just peachy if every day, "goodness" just fell on our laps? Don't you envy those that seem to never have an "off" day? Those that are surrounded in and radiate positive energy? Lucky them...

But, does luck really have anything to do with it?

We could all benefit from being the positive force we want to attract in to our lives. We could all do well to laugh more and take the little things less seriously. We could all feel so much better about the lemons we are handed in life if we just learned to breathe, smile, respond instead of react, and make more lemonade... or at least make it a great day. 

To Be a Performing-Artist-Nutritionist-Author-Trainer

"So... what? You're going to be a performing-artist-nutritionist-author-trainer?" 

That was the scoffed response I got as a junior in high school when a friend and I pondered what we'd like to be when we "grew up." I shrunk back in defeat, knowing that no one was looking to hire a "performing-artist-nutritionist-author-trainer."  

My interests were always everywhere (and still are, for that matter). I love art and writing, dancing and performing, cooking and nutrition, fitness and wellness... anything that stimulates my mind/body/spirit and challenges my creativity. I spent more time than I'd like to admit trying to figure out what career path was right for me. 

Finding myself was proving to be a terribly difficult task. 

I envied those that knew exactly what they wanted to do and the clear paths that laid in front of them. My path looked to be more like a tangled mess than anything with a sense of cohesiveness. 

For years, I slowly loosened the knots in the tangles, finding my way little by little, sometimes creating bigger messes along the way. I had a new job every few months and thanks to boredom and lack of passion, nothing seemed to stick. The promise of a big income or a steady paycheck seemed empty if it meant doing something I didn't truly love. 

So, it hit me.

If my perfect career didn't exist, I would create it. 

And that's exactly what I did. 

From that early age, I knew, at my core, what my calling was, but the noise of societal norms and the "shoulds" of life got in the way. Even though I always had a smile on, I knew I felt anything but comfortable behind a desk in an office or waiting tables and serving drinks. I ignored my instincts to follow my passions and instead pursued the things I thought I should be doing, instilled by my parents and the idea of what "grown-up life" was supposed to look like. 

But, as I grew up, the noise diminished, giving way for reason and passion to scream for me to take notice and take action. 

So I began with the things that made me happy and checked them off, one by one.

I love art and writing... started a blog

      dancing and performing... created my own stage with Zumba

            cooking and nutrition... became a nutrition counselor and play with recipes

                  fitness and wellness... got certified as a personal trainer & health coach

Voila~ I am a performing-artist-nutritionist-author-trainer!

It was only when I allowed myself to trust my heart that I began making sense of the tangled mess of a career path. I am still combing through the knots, gradually morphing my business, YOUfit, in to what it will eventually become. 

The progress is slow...

and, at times, discouraging...

but it's progress nonetheless...

and I'm okay with that...

because I know that this path not only keeps a smile on my face, but makes that smile authentic, from the inside, out. 

Why I Hate Calories-Burned Monitors

By the time I was done with my highly intense 20 minute, hop-on-hop-off, sprint-a-minute-walk-for-two, interval training on the treadmill, the calories burned monitor displayed a whopping 428!

Yeah, right. 

In the world of fitness and weight management, numbers receive far too much power than they deserve. Calories, pounds, fat grams, carbohydrate counts... (all of that, in fact, is an entirely other topic in and of itself that I could go on and on about, but I digress...) I say- keep math in the classroom, where it belongs and leave the calculations to our accountants. 

If I could, I would smack a sticker that says "enough" on the calories burned monitor of every piece of exercise equipment. Instead of feeling the pounding of our hearts , the beads of sweat on our skin and the endorphin rush in our brains, we look to the digitized number on a machine to tell us good our workout was. 

I don't think so, ya big ol' pile of metal, wires, plastic and rubber! 

"I just burned 500 calories on the elliptical!" Great. Wonderful. But, how do you FEEL? 


When it comes to fitness, let's forget the numbers and reassess the reasons for working out in the first place. 

The truth of the matter is, exercise is a very inefficient way of burning calories. Gasp. I know. A bold statement coming from a personal trainer. But, think about it: In order to burn off the equivalent of one tiny M&M, you have to walk the entire length of a football field. No thank you, I have better things to do with my week. 

So... am I saying that working out is a waste of time? NO!

I don't know about you, but getting in a sweaty session at the gym makes me feel wonderful, regardless of what any caloric-expenditure equation will be able to tell me. 

At an intimidating 5'0", I feel empowered as I feel the heavy weight of cold metal in my hands. The feeling of accomplishment from hauling my body weight up into a pull-up and pressing twice that weight with my legs? There's nothing like it. 

When I'm doing my thing at the gym, I'm not thinking, "must burn off the slice of pizza I had this afternoon." 

...but, rather "wow, my body is stronger than I give it credit for!" and that's what it should be about- appreciating the strength of our muscles and recognizing the awesome abilities of our bodies. 

We should be constantly celebrating our individual power rather than suppressing it by punishing ourselves with diets, workouts that we have to rather than want to do, and telling ourselves we are somehow bad for eating one thing over another.  

I feel sad for those that drag themselves to the gym, miserably trudging along on the treadmill, glaring at the calories burned monitor, waiting for it to reach some magical good-enough number... They're missing out on a chance to really experience what it means to do something wonderful for their bodies and overshadowing a chance to experience a natural uplifting of their spirits by focusing on a number that, in reality, is far from accurate, to be quite honest.

Exercise is a beautifully intoxicating experience that I partake in on most days of the week. I don't do it to manage my weight, change my appearance or balance out my food intake- those things come as a bonus. I do it for me, for the health of my mind and body and to remember that I am strong, able-bodied and powerful beyond what any number will ever be able to tell me. 

There Is No Rejection, Only Selection

Change your mindset, change your attitude, choose your experience. 

To be a hopelessly positive person, is to see that there is a silver lining no matter how dark the cloud. 

There must be.

Lost a job? = It wasn't your true calling.
Got dumped? = Bigger passion is waiting for you.
Offer wasn't accepted? = It wasn't meant to be.
Hurt yourself? = Learn from it and improve. 


Among the few emotions that are frightening to me in their pain potential, rejection is a biggie. To be rejected is to have my ego bruised, my intentions turned away and my life invalidated. 

Okay, maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch...

So let's spin this:

 "There is no rejection, only selection." 

Ah. How refreshingly painless!

Amazing how a simple reconfiguration shines light on a dark, frightening thought, revealing its positivity potential. 

In my last post, I mentioned that we are responsible for our lives and that our personal realms of control are larger than we give ourselves credit for. This applies here, as well. 

To feel "rejected" is to fork over power to the "reject-or," leaving us no choice but to become the "reject-ee." Knock it off.

Just as I have a right to choose, so too does the rest of humanity. Being turned down is the opposed's choice to go a different route. In that, I graciously accept the new opportunity that lies waiting for me that I may have missed otherwise. 

There are no mistakes in life. 

Sure, I've shed some tears or ground my teeth in frustration over what I've instinctively labeled as "rejection" in the past, but had those experiences not been, I wouldn't be where I am today. I can look back and find reason for all that has ever happened to me and thankfully appreciate them for happening in the first place. 

I willfully use my power to choose to claw out the positive message hidden in every NO, THANK YOU, each GOOD BYE and all of the NOT SO MUCHes. It's always in there, somewhere and if it isn't...

Choose Happiness

At every moment, we are responsible for exactly where we are and where we are not in life, how we feel, what we have and do not have and how we choose to perceive our surroundings and situations. 

Responsibility sucks.

Hang on. Let’s adjust this thought. 

Responsibility is empowering.

To helplessly throw hands up in the air is admitting defeat.

Surrendering to feeling things that aren’t ideal, rolling over and pouting over being unhappy with where/how/who we are at the moment- living the “it is what it is” mentality in general, is a cop out. Don’t like it? Change it. 

Yes, the Serenity Prayer’s preaching of accepting that there is only so much we can control and letting go of that which we cannot is still valid, but far too often, we skew the ratios, doing ourselves a major disservice. 

Happiness is a right. Choosing to be chronically miserable is just that- a choice. For the most part, we are all equipped with the ability of choice. After all, is that not one of the fundamental features of pump it means to be human? 

Erring on the side of restraint, I will choose to pump the breaks on the preaching and leave it at this: 

Take responsibility. Figure out where your joy lies and take the first step towards it. We are more powerful than we allow ourselves to believe. There is power in choice. Choose happiness.