How to Implement Positive Change in Your Life Today!

Hello friends!

I really hope you enjoyed last week's blog all about my 50-foot pole climb while I was at Tony Robbins’ Life Mastery Seminar in Fiji a few weeks ago! Today, I am sharing my experience during the health cleanse portion of the seminar. So, a large part of the seminar was focused on learning ways to optimize our healthy and energy. While we were learning through listening to amazing speakers, we were also being guided through a juice cleanse. Every 2 hours, we were offered either juice, wheatgrass, or Udo’s oil. Additionally, a small group of us were offered salad three times a day. The premise was to cleanse and detoxify the body. I got a little tired of eating salad the last couple of days, but other than that I actually felt pretty great throughout most of the cleanse. After the seminar, I knew that I wanted to find a way to integrate some of the experiences that I gained through the cleanse with the Ayurveda principles that I have already been living with for the past few years. 

Right off the bat, I knew that I was going to return to eating cooked vegetables. According to Ayurveda, vegetables are more easily digested if they are cooked. This was a change that I made to my diet many years ago when I stopped eating salads throughout most of the year and switched to eating primarily cooked vegetables. Since making this change, I have personally noticed a significant improvement in my digestion and how I feel every day. So, I knew that I would return to cooked vegetables back home. But, I still also wanted to find a way to integrate some of the other benefits that I experienced while I was in Fiji along with the Ayurveda dietary principles that have played such a large role in my life. 

Ayurveda recommends experimenting with how different foods and practices feel in your body, and I am a big believer in trying things out. Since we all have different body types and varying proportions of the energies that make up our constitution, we are all completely unique in our body-mind constitution and digestion. This is why I love Ayurveda! It is not “one size fits all.” Ayurveda recognizes that we are each unique in our beautiful ways. Ayurveda states that we must take our constitution, season, and lifestyle factors into consideration when creating our food plans, and that there is a bit of experimentation in determining exactly what is best for our bodies in any given moment. There are overarching principles, and then there are the actual practices. This is the art and science of Ayurveda. 

That being said, when I returned home, I began experimenting with the principles learned at the seminar and Ayurveda. The first week was really hard, because I realized that I was not actually giving my body everything that it needed. You know, as part of the seminar, all of our food was prepared for us and offered to us on a pre-determined schedule. So, coming back home to a situation where I had to create the schedule and food myself was a bit different. When I returned home, I had a huge “action list” of things to integrate, implement, and research. I got overwhelmed, and as a result jumped into a dietary routine that left me feeling depleted. 

Well, just as I was experiencing all of this, I was also preparing to deliver an Ayurveda Immersion program all about digestion! Preparing to teach this immersion offered me a great reminder of the most important principles in Ayurveda digestion that I wanted to keep in my life. Teaching this program also offered me a lesson in my own teachings, and this came on the very last day of the immersion. 

On the last day of the immersion, I wanted to give my students a really simple, practical method for integrating Ayurveda into their daily lives (so that they would not get overwhelmed as I did!). I asked them to create a huge list of every possible action that they could take to integrate Ayurveda into their dietary practices. Then, I asked them to pick just the top 3 action items that they felt they could really commit to over the next 3 weeks. I asked them to be really specific in the action items they were committing to, and to forget about the rest! My advice was to really focus just on those 3 action items for the next 3 weeks until they became a habit. I wanted them to then notice how those consistently taken actions felt in their body. Keep what felt great, let go of what did not, and then look at their list and choose another 2-3 items to integrate over the next few weeks. Great plan, right? I loved guiding the class through this process, and my students also left the session feeling empowered with really practical ways to start using the principles that they learned about that weekend. 

Well, when I came home from teaching, I shared with my husband this exercise that I had led the class through. I was also chatting with him that evening about how I was feeling overwhelmed about integrating our seminar with Ayurveda into my own life that past week. And so, my husband, the caring genius that he is (and just one of the many reasons why I love him so!), lovingly reflected back to me the exact exercise that I went through with my class! It was exactly what I needed! Sometimes teacher needs to become student and re-learn her own lessons, which is actually part of why teach. I teach things that I have experienced in my own life and the tools that I have used to help me move forward to feeling better in my own body and emotions. And so, that evening, I committed to 3 action items and decided to not worry about the rest!

The three things that I committed to for the next 3 weeks are: 

1. Wheatgrass juice in the morning. We took wheatgrass shots twice a day in Fiji. I enjoyed the taste and how it felt in my body. Wheatgrass juice is chockfull of vitamins and minerals. So, I decided that I would have wheatgrass juice every morning after my morning cup of lemon water. I eliminated coffee while I was in Fiji, and so am replacing it with wheatgrass!
   
2. Ensuring Omega-3 and Omega-6 in my diet. While in Fiji, we were also given shots of Udo’s Oil daily. Udo’s Oil is specifically designed from a combination of organic oils in the ideal proportion of Omega-3 and Omega-6 that our body needs. Honestly, I wasn’t super excited about taking shots of Udo’s oil in Fiji! Since coming home, I have been drizzling Udo’s oil on my cooked vegetables and enjoying this much better! I also did some research and was excited to find out that ghee, clarified butter, is also a good source of Omega-3. Ghee is used often in Ayurveda and I use it in my cooking. So, I am committed to ensuring that I get a good source of Omega-3 and Omega-6 in my diet through either Udo’s oil or ghee.
   
3. Rebounding while reciting Affirmations. I am committing to jumping on my trampoline every morning for at least 5 minutes while reciting my affirmations (or, incantations). Getting on a trampoline is a great way to get the day started with some movement! Now, I already start out my day every morning with a brief practice of qi gong and yoga. And, now I am following that up with the trampoline because it is fun, really active, and a great way to engage the body while reciting affirmations, statements of all that I am and all that I am becoming! This is a powerful and fun practice get the day going with even more movement and intention.

So, these are three actions I have committed to taking over the next 3 weeks, and I no longer feel overwhelmed. In fact, I am able to enjoy these 3 actions all the more since I have made it very tangible and practical to integrate these principles. 

We can all do this! So often when we decide that we are going to work towards something in our life, such as building greater energy or health, or achieving another goal in life, we can get overwhelmed thinking of all the steps that may be involved. Recalling from last week’s blog, maybe we only need to look at “What is the next step?” What if we just pick 2 or 3 really tangible things to focus on until it becomes a habit, and then, only then, consider the next step. Don’t worry about the rest. You know, we make it so easy to feel bad about ourselves these days, why not make it easy to feel good instead? Pick two or three things that we can stick with, celebrate our success, celebrate our progress, and enjoy this beautiful life that we're living!

Let me know what resonated with you the most from today’s blog! How can you apply this into your daily life? Leave a comment..I can’t wait to hear from you!

Sending you so much love!!

Keep Reading:
Why I Climbed a 50-Foot Pole in Fiji…?
Fall in Love with Ayurveda
What is Ayurveda?