It's In The Lens

Lost Dog!

Black and tan, short hair, 50 pounds, three legs, one eye missing…answer to “Lucky”!

How you view the world, determines what you will get from it. My dog Yager views everything as an opportunity to dominate, show he’s the boss and put you down (much like many bosses I’ve had!). He wants to play, but he steals the toys Sasha is playing with and then lays down. What a brat!

Sasha, my one year old puppy on the other hand views everything as an opportunity to play and have fun. Whether it’s chasing her favorite ball, or playing tug of war with a stuffed animal that has no stuffing or bumping her head against my foot when I'm walking on the treadmill.

Interesting thing is, when Yager steals a toy she is more than willing to adapt and play with a different toy without fighting, whining or complaining. She is adaptive, flexible and enjoys the interaction more than grumpy who is sitting a few feet away holding on to the toy he knows she wants.

Sasha is also persistent! If she wants to play or go for a walk she asks repeatedly. She’ll wait for awhile—and then ask again. And she asks in creative ways, it’s not always the same approach. Sometimes she lays her head on my lap while I’m typing at the computer and tries to catch my eyes, with a “Please mom, can we go for a walk?” and other times she’s more forceful. Point is? She adapts and finds different approaches to get what she wants. She doesn't let the result get her down.

The amount of satisfaction and enjoyment we get from life vs. the amount of frustration and dissatisfaction is directly tied to the lens we use to view the world and our circumstances!

Yeah, yeah, you know the glass is half empty or half full. But—it goes beyond that. What do you spend your time focused on throughout the day?

• Are you consumed with anger or stress because you’re always running late, or that damn traffic jam?
• Does your day start with you screaming at your kids (or parents) and barking orders to keep them on schedule?
• Or like millions of Americans is your day shaped by the hatred for what you see in the mirror—your body, face, or hair?
  

It’s so subtle, but what we get in life is totally connected to what we focus on. If you constantly focus on something you don’t have (the perfect body, a great boyfriend, kids who behave as you’d like) you’ll create more lack. If however, you focus on what you WANT and spent ten minutes a day feeling what it’s like to have it—right now! It will be here before you know it.

You can vastly improve the quality of your life by getting your thoughts off what’s wrong in life and spending more time thinking about what’s right!

Try an experiment. For the next seven days, make a note of everything good that happens to you throughout the day and write it down. Read the list at night before you go to bed and appreciate all these good things that happened to you.

Experiment and let me know how it improves your life circumstances. I’d love to hear from you!

Holistic approach to overcoming eating disorders

My life was consumed with body image and an obsession called bulimia for 23 years. Then I spent the next 10 substituting alcohol for food binges, but didn’t realize it until much later. Our society is obsessed with the “perfect body”. We all watch our favorite ultra-thin actor or musician and want to be just like them. For me it started in the 60’s when Twiggy was THE model. I didn’t look like her, so therefore I didn’t measure up. I was what they call a functioning bulimic. I lived my life (miserably) and people had no idea I had a problem. There are two types of bulimia, purging and non-purging. Some people use excessive exercise, laxatives, diet pills and strict diets, anything to prevent weight gain. I was a non-purging bulimic; I couldn’t make myself throw up so my binges were followed by bouts of strict dieting.

In my twenties I did some counseling and identified why I became bulimic. But no one helped me learn how to deal with or express my emotions. I continued my search for an answer and rode the waves of mild success and defeat for many years. I felt totally unacceptable as a person. Guys wanted the Barbie doll figures and I sure didn’t look like that. I weighed and took my measurements every Sunday without fail as it gave me a chance to be a little excited at my progress or chastise myself for failing yet again.

When you suffer from an eating disorder there is a huge disconnect between mind and body. We don’t own our bodies—we hate them! And don’t try and apply logic to a person with an eating disorder–there isn’t anything logical about it–it has nothing to do with food.

In my forties I developed a number of health issues and started to connect the dots. There were some chemical imbalances that contributed to my bingeing. As a young child I had many ear infections and was on antibiotics a lot. This completely depleted my “good bacteria” and in my thirties and forties I suffered from chronic Candida. Combined with my binging on “white food” (pizza, pasta, ice cream, etc.) this made me sugar sensitive. If I ate sugar I wanted more – lots more!

I found an alternative approach to my recovery employing mind, body and spirit. Through acupuncture, energy healing, employing my subconscious and meditation I found the answer I was looking for. For me, energy healing (getting all my energy flowing from head-to-toe and getting my body connected with my head) was very powerful. Now at 49 I can look in the mirror and love what I see. That is incredible for me to say! I’ve discovered five strategies that I feel are critical for recovery holistically:

1 – Improve self esteem
2 – Identify and understand what’s causing the eating disorder
3 – Employing the power of the subconscious
4 – Balance nutrition and supplements
5 – Improve physical and mental health work body work

There is help and you can recover! For more information on this approach please visit my website: http://www.Lori-Hanson.com/