Monday, January 31, 2011

Mindful Mondays : Choices and Decisions

Our days are filled with tiny choices. We make hundreds of decisions all day long. Many of these decisions go unnoticed.

Eat this. Don't eat that. Eat colors. Exercise. Don't exercise. Check Facebook.


Many of my resolutions for 2011 are aimed at making changes in my choices and decisions. Through these micro actions I hope to lower my cholesterol, to foster a lifelong exercise habit and develop a widely read and amazing blog,


Tip of the Day: What choices are filling your life?

Friday, January 28, 2011

Food Friday

Here is a sneak peek at what I've been eating over the last week:
-broccoli
-kale coalition salad
-spicy kale
-mango
-WholeSoy yogurt
-granola
-banana
-apples
-black bean and potato burritos
-vegan chocolate chip cookies and vegan cake for my
birthday!

Over the last week I have made a conscious effort to
eat the following foods each day for my health:

-two fruits - usually a banana and an apple
-something green - a serving of kale or spinach
-something yellow - usually carrots or peppers
-something red/ purple - usually beets or red peppers

I have also found myself eating a carton of soy yogurt
and coconut water due to it's high potassium
and magnesium content.

Why do I share this with you? To inspire you to eat
consciously!

Tip of the day: Eat more colors !

Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Voice Within: Part II

The mind cannot go deep within the heart, nor can it access the voice within.

For many years I have let my mind go and let it dictate my spirit.This is what I know how to do. This is how I survive.

Today I attempted to practice changing my thought patterns. Each time I found myself thinking an unhealthy thought, I made myself breathe and say a healthy thought.

What is, is. Mind gives everything meaning.

Thought of the Day: What has your mind given meaning to in your life without your permission?

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Gratitude and the Voice Within

Today on the 26th day of January, 2011 I am 29 years of age, and beyond all else I am grateful.

I am extremely grateful to be blessed with an amazing boyfriend, who makes every day of my life just a little bit more beautiful. I am also grateful to have such amazing friends and family.

Ok, so on to strategies for listening to the heart deep within:

I recently stumbled upon this poem by Richard Brautigan through an acquaintance that I think beautifuly sums up how to listen to the voice within.......

Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4

1.
Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2.
Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
3.
Reduce intellectual and emotional noise
until you arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
4.


I think one of the most important skills to be able to release the voice within is to relax the mind. This is a very difficult task and I know it sounds silly, but the ability to relax the body and then the mind is such a skill and foreign ability for most of us, that once we learn how to do it... we open ourselves to so much....
Tip of the day: Relax your mind and see what your heart reveals

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Wholehearted

"To thine ownself be true." -William Shakespeare
"Know thyself" -Ancient Greek Aphorism

All good in theory, but what if you don't know yourself?

What if you are stuck in the inbetween of the living. For years I have tried to figure out what I want to do with my life professionally. Throughout our schooling and career counseling we are given career interest inventories and the Myers Briggs Personality Test, all in the name of helping guide us on our career paths.

Yet why are so mnay people unhappy with their jobs? And for those that say they are happy, why are so many professionals addicted, obese, heavily medicated and/ or overly stressesd?

For many years I have floundered about from city to city, job to job, searching for work that brings out my authentic self and provides a sense of purpose.

And the more I struggle outwardly to find a purpose, the more I realize that my truth lies inward, somewhere inbetween my breath and and heartbeat, quietly waiting in the interior of my soul for mind and body to start living whole-heartedly.

And while I am far from living a wholehearted life, I know that it exists. Tomorrow I will share some of my tips and strategies for listening to the heart deep within.

Thought of the day: Are you living a wholehearted or a broken hearted
life?

Monday, January 24, 2011

Mindful Monday

Why is it so hard to live the life we want?

My ultimate goal is to live a simple life. Truly. I aim to fill my days with my favorite people, good food, reading, writing, travel, long walks and learning new things. 

These are the things that are most important to me, yet how many hours of my day to I actually spend on these goals? If I am lucky maybe one? I have spent the better part of the last two years of my life doing the following: working full time in a cubicle, commuting by bus two hours a day, and coming home to make dinner, do some chores (laundry, washing the dishes), maybe watch some tube and then do it again. After two years of this, my life is starting to feel like the movie Groundhog Day... on fast forward.

While I am all about making drastic changes in life, sometimes that is not an option. And so this year, I have created a list of resolutions to take small steps on a daily basis to start to change my life. These resolutions are inspired by the book, The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin . I am reading this book with my art group and last Saturday we all shared our resolutions. See mine below!



Thought of the day: What small steps can I take today to start living the life I aspire to?



Friday, January 21, 2011

Food Friday and Eating Green

Who doesn't love food? Or at least obsess over it!
One of my resolutions this year (the full list to come next week) is to eat something green everyday. Specifically, my focus will be on kale and spinach, as in a salad or kale wrap of some sort. 

One of the reasons I am interested in eating healthier is because my cholesterol is higher than what is considered average. The last time I visited my doctor, she expressed her concern and spoke to me about the possibility of a cholesterol lowering drug. That is really not an option for me right now, especially at age 29! I am not interested in starting a drug regime that could potentially last for the rest of my life. I have done a lot of reading on the subject and am determined to lower my cholesterol safely through adjustments to my eating habits.

Since eating healthy is a difficult habit to develop, I am determined to eat more and not worry so much about substracting foods from my life. The goal is to introuduce a few culinary items, sourced directly from nature, into my tummy each month for the rest of the year.

Thought of the day: Maybe eating healthy wouldn't be so difficult if we focused on eating more, instead of eating less.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Keep Going

Perserverence is not a long race; it is many short races one after another
-Walter Elliott, The Spiritual Life

The quote above is to remind myself that I must keep going with this blog. It is easy to feel a sense of finality after an accomplishment, or completion of a task, and so hard to maintain a pattern of continuous growth. For example, I was very excited about my first post on Monday. On Tuesday, after messing around on the internet, I managed to write something that I was pleased with. However, yesterday's post seemed like such a chore! And today, despite a notebook full of blog sketches, I arrived home from work after a long day and a long bus ride, to a cold, empty, messy house, hungry and in full dill pickle mode.

So with this post, I am once again re-affirming my committment to write every week day and continue to find my online voice. Perhaps this blog is a lesson in character building. I am disciplining myself to write and publish on a daily basis, in spite of myself!

I will train myself to develop the habits I so desire to embody. Today I choose grace.


Tip of the day: Don't stop. Keep going!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Sleep

This morning when I woke up, I rolled over and told Matt:
I love sleep. Last night I crawled into bed at 8:00 p.m.
for some luscious, childlike sleep and it was so yummy.

I am attributing my awesome sleep to the lack of caffeine I've
been imbibing. I am taking a few days to avoid caffeine, which is
difficult for me, but oh so good for me. I am substituting green tea for
coffee. To give up something for a period of time, even if it is only five days
feels really good.

Thought of the day: What have you taken the time to give up lately?

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

practicing the act of writing

As I sat down to write today, I began to feel the painful edge of frustration creep in. This happens to me often. I love immediate gratification and despise delaying it, so when something doesn’t come easily to me, my inner dill pickle takes over and my usual positive demeanor diminishes, as does my productivity.
While I am usually able to snap out of it pretty easy, my life would be so much more enjoyable and productive if I could transform my inner dill pickle into something positive, so that my precious time and energy is not wasted (and I am more enjoyable to be around).
When I find myself in dill pickle mode, I find that the following tricks help me reset and get back to writing:
1)   Be still. This means I immediately stop what I am doing (usually this means to stop researching). When writing, it is easy for me to get side tracked, i.e., start looking at other blogs, rethink my design ideas, rethink what platform I am using, etc. etc. By taking a moment to be still, I am able to approach the task at hand with more clarity.  
2)   Take a break. While it is easy to resist breaks in the name of productivity. Nothing is more productive than standing up and taking a moment to get a drink of water, chat with someone, walk around the house/ office so that I am refreshed when I sit back down to write.
3)   Re-evaluate. Usually when I am being a dill pickle, it is because I am stuck and/or can’t make a decision about something. By re-evaluating the direction I am headed, and allowing myself to change directions if I think it will be better/ easier in the long run, I am able to move forward a lot faster than if I keep on banging my head against a wall that I know will just lead me to give up. (For example, I originally decided to launch this blog using tumblr, however after reviewing how others were using it, and knowing that I would have to maintain two blogs at the same time using separate platforms, I knew it would be much easier to stick with Blogger since I am more familiar with it and more likely to follow through with maintaining both blogs).
4)   Focus. After re-evaluating, focus all your energy on the task at hand in order to get the job done.
5)   Get the job done. In this case, getting the job done meant finishing my Monday post and figuring out how to share my blog. While I couldn’t quite figure out how to add share buttons to my tumblr blog, I did figure out how to add them to Blogger. So in the spirit of actually doing something…. I moved “Musing the Day Away” on tumblr to blogger and renamed it: “The Shedding of a Former Self: The Kat Hyatt Story.”
Tip of the Day: Get over it, and do what works for you.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Do something, even if it's wrong

When I was a kid my dad had a Budweiser sign hanging in our garage next to the door that read: do something, even if it's wrong. As a 7-year-old, I didn't know what to make of this; why would I want to do something wrong? Finally, one day I asked my Dad and he explained it to me.
I have since forgotten his explanation to my 7-year-old self, so I called him up this evening and asked him.

-------------------------------------

Me: Hey Dad, you know that Budweiser sign you have hanging in the garage that says, do something even if it's wrong? (By the way, that sign is still hanging in my Dad's garage).

Dad: Yea.

Me:Well, what does that mean exactly?

Dad:It means, don't sit on your ass doing nothing. Or, if you have 4 or 5 things to do, don't sit there and waste your time trying to figure out what to do first.

Me: Ah yes, you know, as a seven-year-old, reading that sign always perplexed me. I could never figure out why anyone should do something even if it's wrong.

Dad: oh, well, it doesn't mean you should stick up a 7-11 or anything (me: thinking in my head... yes dad, I know this..I am 28..).

Dad: Hmph... maybe it should say..start soon and work fast.

-------------------------------------

Today is the first post of many I hope to write. My goal with this blog is to DO SOMETHING, i.e., stick to a solid posting/ writing schedule. May I remember my Dad's advice as my days go by.

Tip of the Day: Start soon and work fast!