Choices

2017 is about choice!

More is not better, better is.

We are 1 week into the new year and I already feel overwhelmed by all the emails I get about how to make 2017 great. I of course also want to help you make 2017 amazing and I could try to yell louder than everyone else and say pick me to help you make 2017 great.

BUT… I don’t believe in yelling louder. I believe in making a difference.

Now, there is something about making things great that has been ringing for awhile now and even if many don’t agree with what great stands for, we still pursue great. It is in our nature to pursue great.

But is great something out there?

I admit I am a “things” person. I love design and clothing, it is part of my “earlier” life, as in career, and it is still part of what is nourishing me. I love good food and I prefer it is plated on a plate that is made by someone who cared about it or in a crafted bowl that I want to touch because it feels like it connects the food and me to nature. But nourishment is not just our surroundings and the things around us that make us feel better. Even though I grew up with #hygge, the Danish word for cozy, we don’t need the perfect setup to do what we should always do anyway… take good care of ourselves. Yes, I used should, which is usually not a word in my vocabulary, but here it fits.

When we should..

I hear should from my clients as a way to tell themselves that they are not doing what “someone” is telling them to do. But we also “should ourselves” when we know better. When we have a desire to do one thing, but then choose to do something else. That should, I think we need to listen to because it is something inside of us that says… this is what I need and want but I am not giving up room for it. And when that is the case I ask you to start saying… I want… It is so much more powerful and this time of year we “should” ourselves to pieces, but it has no power behind it in the long run because we have not added the LOVE. Yes, the love.

Health and “Great” is an inside job.

This time of year there are so many options to make this your best year ever. There is this option and that option, and this gym or that program. And yes I have a program too that I offer. Yet what I have always done is avoid the trap of yelling louder and more often and instead stuck to my belief that when we are ready to do the work, the path will appear.

Now the trend for 2017 is to focus on health instead of dieting. I have been saying that for years, not because it is a trend, but because that is the only thing that works.

Diets fail us all the time.

We try and try and try again. And we keep trying because we think we fail and it is the only way to go. Life is not a diet. How you eat does not have to have a name. It has to work for you; your life, your desires, your body and your activities. Really, the word diet means “how we eat”, but we have made it into something that means restriction and rules.

Reality is that your diet might be candy bars and burgers and it is still your diet. But “diets” as in a program that tells you exactly what to eat when… does not work. I had a client who one time called me and said; “my trainer thinks we should put together a diet for the whole year so I can stick to it”. I said; “Sure, give me your schedule for the entire year. Everything you are doing, everywhere you are going to be, who you are going to spend time with and how the weather is going to be…” Silence on the other end. “I get it he said…” Of course, it is not possible. But that is how we think we are supposed to get healthy?

Life happens…

Food is an emotional, social, even ecological relationship. It is not just the physical relationship of feeding your body right, it is feeding the whole you right. All of you; what feeds your life, your joy, your love. It is also how we support our daily wellbeing, our performance at work, our ability to be present, focus, create, engage and contribute. Food supports all of that. It is part of all of that, not separate from. That is why diets fail us. They are not built to fit the micro and macro-cosmos of our life.

We create our diet.

We create how to eat, why, when and what. As we learn how we can keep shifting, changing, growing and get better and better at this thing called life… and food is part of that. Food supports US in growing, changing, shifting, performing, doing, being, thinking, laughing, loving, playing, creating, sharing, sleeping, waking, caring, giving, receiving… I can go on but I think you get it.

Food is our primary source of life, it is our tool for our daily wellbeing and it is our medicine for taking charge of our future health. 

Change the way you change

This year, reconsider how you change the way you eat, the way you live, the way you think and the way you cope and deal with stress. Path for Life has always been built on core, inner change. When I first designed the program I used what I had learned over the past 10 year of working with my clients; about the hurdles to break through what keeps us stuck in bad habits and choices. I used what I had learned myself over the past 25 years of pursuing a journey of learning how to find my way, to fight against my “you will get cancer verdict” to fight for something… me thriving. I integrated my studies of Buddhism, Mind/Body Medicine, Focusing Therapy, Hypno-therapy and the psychology of change.  I used my lessons from life and my own body. Like my constant struggle with pain after eating, never feeling full and satisfied, feeling tired after eating and constantly craving “something”. I struggled, yet also thought it was normal to feel that way, because I was eating healthy. Healthy by diet, but not by my body. It wasn’t until I figured out that I was dealing with food-intolerances, that I found my way of eating in peace. Eating in a way that supported my daily need for physical energy, my daily need for being able to be mindful, fully present, focused, and perform at my best. To be balanced in my mood and deal with stress through learning how to take pauses, check in with myself and listen to my body, my self, my inner wisdom, -which by the way was there all the time.

If you have not seen my TEDx talk about Why Mindfulness Matters, how using our inner wisdom and the importance of slowing down so we can listen, is essential to thriving in our life…. Check it out here. 

Path for Life Method

– is about learning all of that. It is not like the other programs that tell you how to eat. It teaches you how to find your way. How to find your way of eating; for you.

  1. Food-knowledge; what to eat and why
  2. Mindfulness; understanding why you eat so you can make educated choices
  3. Habit-shifting; so you can actually implement change and see the results you have been longing for

We change in steps

The Path for Life Course is in steps. It is built on the foundation of Chinese medicine and how we heal both the body and the mind/body connection. It starts with the basic foundation and then evolves into deeper and deeper healing of the body, more and more mindfulness and awareness, and continuously works on changing habits little at a time. Each new step is available every 2 weeks, for 9 steps. You can go slower and many prefer to do so to really learn and integrate the change. You will already start seeing and feeling change after step 1 (if you do the work that is). But it is fun, beautiful, intense and… change making.

This is the only way we create sustainable change and even though it is a lot of work (yes, it is work to change) once we learn we don’t go back, we keep moving forward.

I hope you will join me to finally stop the diet madness and start making some real change for good in 2017. And yes, to make it your best most healthy year yet… it is not a promise. It is an intention that I have for every single one of you.

If you sign up…

And I hope you will, I will be doing monthly webinar meetings.

For 2017 I have a lot of changes planned for the program and if you sign up now you will get all those upgrades for free. Once they are in, the price for the program will go up. Right now it is $180 for the whole program, and if you join me now I will also give you a gift and send you my book for free AND you will be invited to all the webinars this year for free too!

$180 is not a lot to pay for changing not only your health, but also your life. The course will change more than just how you eat!

If you are not ready to take the leap yet, perhaps start with my book. If you purchase in before January 15th you will be invited to a private webinar (also for free) to get a nourishing start on this new year.

I hope you will join me. Thank you for reading. And just one more thing… well 2.

1. I will be starting a detox group program soon, stay tuned and to get more info be sure to sign up for emails.

2. Help me, help you. Participate in this survey to help you become more aware of where you are at in your health journey and see how perhaps Path for Life and I can help you move forward to reach your goals in 2017.

Access the survey here.

All the best of nourishment and as always, thank you for being on your Path for Life with me.

-Jeanette