“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”
~Jim Rohn
Why is what we eat and drink important? Why is moving our bodies regularly essential to balance and happiness in our lives?
Our bodies and minds are intricately connected. In fact, in my humble opinion, every physical ailment begins as a thought””the etiology of every illness is mental.
To keep your thoughts positive and avoid illness and live the Best Life Ever, a few things are essential:
1. Eat clean, healthy food, including greens, on a regular basis. Does this mean only salads? Deprive yourself? Be dogmatic? Absolutely not. Freedom is also essential, as you’ll read in number two. It’s what you do most of the time that matters.
2. Be light and free and easy about what you eat and drink. Lighten up! Physically and mentally. Make prepping and eating food fun and relaxed, not serious and stringent and restricted.
There’s nothing worse than having someone over for dinner who can’t eat this and won’t eat that and talks about it endlessly and hovers over you as you make the salad dressing to make sure you don’t use too much oil. Tune into the situation, read the energy and make choices based upon that, not on some rule you’re wedded to (and secretly feel resentful and weird about).
Remember, it’s all about energy. It’s better to eat something made with love that’s not the healthiest thing in the world than to eat a perfectly balanced meal made with feelings of resentment and deprivation.
3. Move your body on a regular basis. I don’t wanna hear that you don’t have enough time. We make time to do what we really wanna do. Do what you can in this moment. Do your best with breath and ask the Universe for help.
After my very first yoga practice I was hooked and knew it was my dharma, but I had no idea how I’d fit it into my daily schedule, as my Spirit was guiding me to do. I was a single mom in an intense doctoral program. I asked the Universe for help, and it all worked out. People, places and things rearranged themselves so I could get on my mat daily. I’ve practiced every day since.
Exercising or practicing yoga releases endorphins and other brain chemicals that encourage positive mood. You’re also releasing stress and fear and anger and resentment, among other things. You are moving energy. You are clearing and cleaning the slate. Beginning again. Again and again.
It’s important to begin again””to take out the daily energetic “trash” that accumulates in your meridians, just like you take the trash out of your kitchen on a regular basis.
By setting an intention to put healthy things in your body and to move energy (exercise) on a regular basis, you’re half way there. Half way! Then once you “show up,” you’re 90 percent there. I always tell my kids that showing up wholeheartedly with an open mind and heart is 99 percent of anything.
You’ll be amazed how the mind and body truly do work in concert with one another – how when you eat well and practice yoga (or move your body in another way that you love), your thoughts change, and so does your life.
Have the best day ever!
Namaste!
Taylor plus 5
Taylor Wells, M.A., M.Ed., RYT, owns Prana Power Yoga, Inc., super-mom.com and Prana Super-mom Consulting. She is also a Boston Herald columnist and blogger, United Nations Yoga Peace Ambassador, activist, and happy Super-mom of 5 kids.