It’s not a physical thing as I have been trying to tell you over the last two years. It’s mind-body connection—being aware of and very in touch with your mind. You think and then you do. It is a matter of training your mind to control your thoughts and emotions and yourbody, rather than just a random sequence of events determining what you do each day. Most people are reactive, not proactive.

See if this hits home—you have a bunch of errands to do, have to work in a few hours, bills to pay, a meeting, etc. What do you almost always blow off and tell yourself, I’ll do it tomorrow? Ahhhhhhhhhh..………the gym! You just gave your health a low priority in your life. Most of us put making money at the top of our list. I’ll suggest that you could have put off something other than the gym that you could have done tomorrow without any major disruption or catastrophe in your life. Why did you choose to pick the gym to abandon? Because you pick the easy, non painless way out—not that the gym is painful. Until you condition your mind that going to the gym is your sanctuary where you can get away from the troubles of your day and get into your zone and get some great feeling endorphins flowing, you’ll always prioritize all other trivial things in your life above it. If you never change anything in your life, you will always be the same.

 “Unless you try something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”

                        …    Ralph Waldo Emerson

When you stop growing you become old. You can be 30 and be old. If you don’t seek knowledge and have a passion for life you are missing out on living an extraordinary life.

So what is the thing you need to do?

MAKE YOUR HEALTH A PRIORITY!!!

Realize that you have nothing without your health. A sick millionaire is just as unhealthy as a sick low income person. What good are your millions if you have a chronic disease fueled by a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits? You are not bulletproof. Don’t wait until your health goes bad before you prioritize it. Take action today. Don’t procrastinate for even a day or you are reinforcing your negative habits and kidding yourself. Live in the now—the past is over and the future you don’t know. Be healthy now and be happy now!

_______________________________________________________

This is part of a message a friend of mine sent me: Just for Today

Just for today I will take care of my body. I will exercise it, care for it, nourish it, not abuse or neglect it, so that it will be a perfect machine for my bidding.

Just for today I will be happy. This assumes that what Abraham Lincoln said is true…… that most folks are as happy as they make their minds up to be. Happiness comes from within—it is not a matter of externals.

Just for today I will be unafraid, especially I will not be afraid to be happy, to enjoy what is beautiful, to love, and to believe that those I love, love me.

You must be able to manage your emotional state. You’re in control and you must use that ability. What controls your emotional state is what and how you focus on it.  YOU make the decisions on what your mind focuses on. How do you control the focus? You do it by listening to your inner thoughts and self-talk and asking the right questions. Instead of asking, “Why am I so fat?” and getting depressed, ask, “What could I do to become healthy?”  Turn the question into a positive, motivating one. You need to condition yourself to feel differently about the concepts of pain and pleasure, and what you associate them with.

You must change the way you think—your feelings, associations, and beliefs. You need to recondition them. All are conditioned—you developed these ways of thinking over the course of time. They have been formed as a result of experience and environment. These feelings, associations, and beliefs are what limit you.

A perfect example of how our mind’s can limit us happened to me in the gym.  There are two incline chest machines that look exactly the same and are right next to each other. On the one I used the week before, I could lift the whole stack of weights. It was my “chest day” again, so I jumped on the other machine because someone was using the one I used the previous week. I thought it was the exact same machine, so I stuck the pin on the bottom of the weight stack. What I didn’t know was the machine I was on went up to a heavier weight than the machine next to it, even though it looked exactly the same. As I proceeded to push the bar up, I started to struggle. My mind told me, “Go ahead, you did this easily last week.” Well, I squeezed out three repetitions and couldn’t do more. Puzzled, I went behind the machine and looked at the weight stack. To my amazement, I saw it was 125 pounds more than the machine next to it. If anyone had asked me if I could lift that amount of weight, I would’ve said, “Never in a million years.” If that’s not an incentive to get rid of your limiting thoughts and expectations, I don’t know what is. Your mind can work both ways. I unknowingly tricked myself into lifting that weight. If I had seen the actual weight, my mind would have said, “You can’t lift that much.” Your mind is the biggest muscle you have. Make it work for you rather than against you. You can change your limiting thoughts.

Let me give another example. I used to be a junk food junkie. I loved sweets, cakes, chocolate, cookies, pies, candy, and every other sugary substance. It didn’t matter that those were the most non-nutritious foods I could have eaten. When I made the commitment to get healthy, I formed a different association with those foods. Instead of asking myself, “Why can’t I have them anymore?” I thought, “What will I look like if I keep on eating this way and how will continuing to eat them affect my attempts at becoming healthy?”

I began to look at food in a much different way. I started seeing it as my ally. With my knowledge of what a balanced diet consisted of, I made food work for me, not against me. Sweets were now seen as the saboteur—the empty calories that brought me up, then sent me crashing down. I learned that by combining a fitness routine with a good diet, my body drastically changed for the better.

Now that I have changed my feelings about food, you would have to tie me up and stick a crowbar between my teeth to get me to eat a piece of cheesecake, which contains over thirty grams of fat! Instead of fearing the pain of going to the gym—it’s all in your head—I reconditioned myself to fear the pain of not being in shape. My feelings and associations about the gym have gone from the fear of the pain of not being in shape to the pleasure of getting a good “pump” and having my endorphins kick in as I go through my workout. My philosophy is, “I’m the king and the gym is my castle!”

Excerpts from my paperback: TOTAL HEALTH FOR LIFE: Mind & Body, The Baby Boomer’s Bible of Health

http://www.amazon.com/Total-Health-Life-Boomers-Bible/dp/1434807223/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321568624&sr=1-1-spell

I think it’s safe to assume most of you want to be happy and healthy, feel good about yourselves, and have passion in your lives, but it doesn’t happen by chance. You have to make it happen. How do you do that and turn your life around? You must be able to manage your emotional state. You’re in control and you must use that ability.

What controls your emotional state is what and how you focus on it.  YOU make the decisions on what your mind focuses on. How do you control the focus? You do it by listening to your inner thoughts and self-talk and asking the right questions. Instead of asking, “Why am I so fat?” and getting depressed, ask, “What could I do to become healthy?”  Turn the question into a positive, motivating one. You need to condition yourself to feel differently about the concepts of pain and pleasure, and what you associate them with.

You must change the way you think—your feelings, associations, and beliefs. You need to recondition them. All are conditioned—you developed these ways of thinking over the course of time. They have been formed as a result of experience and environment. These feelings, associations, and beliefs are what limit you.

A perfect example of how our mind’s can limit us happened to me in the gym.  There are two incline chest machines that look exactly the same and are right next to each other. On the one I used the week before, I could lift the whole stack of weights. It was my “chest day” again, so I jumped on the other machine because someone was using the one I used the previous week. I thought it was the exact same machine, so I stuck the pin on the bottom of the weight stack. What I didn’t know was the machine I was on went up to a heavier weight than the machine next to it, even though it looked exactly the same. As I proceeded to push the bar up, I started to struggle. My mind told me, “Go ahead, you did this easily last week.” Well, I squeezed out three repetitions and couldn’t do more. Puzzled, I went behind the machine and looked at the weight stack. To my amazement, I saw it was 125 pounds more than the machine next to it. If anyone had asked me if I could lift that amount of weight, I would’ve said, “Never in a million years.” If that’s not an incentive to get rid of your limiting thoughts and expectations, I don’t know what is. Your mind can work both ways. I unknowingly tricked myself into lifting that weight. If I had seen the actual weight, my mind would have said, “You can’t lift that much.” Your mind is the biggest muscle you have. Make it work for you rather than against you. You can change your limiting thoughts.

From Total Health For Life, Mind & Body….. Amazon.com………..Rico Connor

The 4 quadrants of your life:
1-Health (exercise & diet)
2-Business (going after your dreams & working toward them)
3-Family/Friends (spending time w/them & enjoying them)
4-Spiritual (giving to charity & being grateful)
The secret to balancing a scale is putting equal amount of weight on both sides.  Obviously no one is perfect, but if you always mean to balance the 4 quadrants in your life, things kinda fall into place.

RICO’S COMMENTS:

I was given this by one of my FB friends or web site subscribers. It hits living a fulfilled life right on the head! So simple but so hard to balance these four for most of us. Those of us who can manage to do so live happier, more fulfilled lives.

from www.alsearsmd.com

The ancients knew this: Almost every ancient system of health has something to say about breathing. The Vedic and Chinese systems both focus on exhaling. Even the Japanese martial art Karate uses breathing techniques in their forms of movement called “Kata.”

One of the most effective ways to touch your autonomic system in order to restore your balance and relax is cadence breathing. What you do is breathe in to a count of four, hold your breath to a count of seven, and exhale to a count of eight. This was developed through trial and error over millennia, but it makes you exhale for twice as long as you inhale, and that’s the key.

Here’s how you do it:

The first step is to clear your mind. The goal is to get rid of all the excitatory energy that your environment is pummeling you with all the time.

The second step is to focus your conscious attention on your breathing. Think about the cadence of your breath, and exclude other thoughts. Constantly re-focus your attention on the breath.

This is the way you train your mind – by constantly clearing your thoughts and re-focusing on your breath. Distractions are going to happen. But you don’t waste any energy over them. You don’t form an opinion on whether it’s good, bad or indifferent. Each time it happens, you gently redirect your focus back to your breath.

And each time that happens, you can take a little credit, because you’re gaining more and more control over the process.

Step three is to observe your breathing. Observe how long it takes you to inhale and exhale. You’re not trying to influence it yet; you’re just trying to observe the cadence. Where does inhaling stop? Where does exhaling begin? Focus on the change and how it feels to go from inhaling to exhaling.

The fourth step is to elongate the exhalation. This is where you start to exert control over this autonomic function, and influence the para-sympathetic system to help you relax. Make sure you’ve inhaled fully, using your abdomen and lungs. Then, push out all of your breath slowly and fully.

The more you do this, the more proper breathing will become habit. This will help your body recover from the stress of the modern world and get back the balance nature intended for your autonomic system.

Everyday I do this same breathing technique and combine it with my “protection prayer”. On the first breath in I imagine a beam of white light entering my body from above through my head and lighting up my heart. As I exhale I let all of my negative energy out of my body. On the second breath out, I imagine expanding my body in space. On the third breath, as I exhale I imagine a big cocoon surrounding my body protecting it from any physical or emotional harm. This is part of my regimen which has eating, training, sleeping, and many other habits to keep me in optimal health, MENTALLY and PHYSICALLY!

RICO CONNOR

TOTAL HEALTH FOR LIFE, LLC

When laughter is shared, it binds people together and increases happiness and intimacy. In addition to the domino effect of joy and amusement, laughter also triggers healthy physical changes in the body.  Best of all, this priceless medicine is fun, free, and easy to use.

Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hopes, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert.

Laughter is good for your health

• Laughter relaxes the whole body. A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.
• Laughter boosts the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.
• Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.
• Laughter protects the heart. Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

www.helpguide.org

RICO’S COMMENTS:

No matter how many times I watch this video I laugh my ass off! I have known about these positive effects of laughter for years. The point is there is only ONE common denominator in every human being in the world. Do you know what that is?  …… the desire to be HAPPY! I can’t imagine going through one’s life being miserable. When you consciously make the decision to be happy, you are half way there. Figure out the many things that always make you happy and start doing them! It’s not that hard but you must make a conscious effort to do these things. Allow yourselve more quality time in order to do the things in life that make us happy?

Some quotes on HAPPINESS:

Remember, nothing outside of you can upset your inner happiness.

Happiness is a great healer – sorrow is a terminal disease.

Happiness comes through positive action, through setting and achieving your own goals. It needs no teaching.

We have been massively lied to and controlled in nearly every aspect of health.  The system is designed to perpetuate disease and the drug mafia, at your expense.  Your diseases are worth millions to the drug companies.  Why would they want you to find real food and actually become healthy?

The true nature of being healthy, happy, and vibrant comes from your food.  Every time you place dead food in your mouth it lowers your potential and lowers your energy.  The choice is yours.  Follow the herd off the cliff or make up your own mind. Think outside the box and take responsibility for your future and your health.  The choice is simple.

On one hand you can eat the foods that made your ancestors healthy and vibrant.  You are the end result of over 5 million years of evolution.  Your body is your temple for your experience on this earth.  You can have tons of energy and grab a hold of the god given right you have to an amazingly complex beautiful body unlike any other in the universe.

On the other hand you can slowly become diseased as your body rots from the inside out while you desperately spend your wealth paying into the corporate machine as it sells you chemicals that barely keep you going as your body continues to deteriorate.  You can fall right into the trap set for you like a spider waiting for a fly in its web.

“I’m going to die anyways.  Might as well have fun while I’m doing it.”

This statement is the height of ignorance and small mindedness.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not perfect nor do I expect anyone else to be.  I still have fun with my friends and cheat with a meal out every once in a while.  But its what you do the majority of the time.  I live by the 80/20 rule.  80% of the time I eat perfectly for my body and my needs (and I love it and the taste is amazing!) 20% of the time I’m not so perfect.  The 80% comes first.

Daniel Roid performancetraining@yahoo.com

RICO’S COMMENTS:

Go to a doctor and first thing he/she does is write you a prescription or ask you to get a CT Scan, MRI or Xray. Why? It’s big money! Do they tell you that one CT Scan is the equivalent of getting about 1,000 chest X-rays? Doctor’s usually only treat the symptoms of a sickness and don’t attempt to get to the root of the sickness and CURE YOU. If you are healthy you don’t need to go see them!

Hippocrates, way back when said, “Let  food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food.” Nourish your body with organic fruits and vegetables from farmer’s markets near you and change your health in radical ways. Wake up and take control of your health and the health of  your family. Prevent chronic disease and live a long and happy life. Daniel is exactly right……..straight out of my paperback:

The main focus is on your mind. We can do almost anything we set our minds to, but often choose not to. Life is all about choices. You’re the person you choose to be. Your choice can be a Big Mac or a grilled chicken breast and broccoli. You can choose to go to bed a little early and get up and hit the gym before work, or you can stay up late, watch TV, and sleep in.

You CAN have the life you want…….get the knowledge from here or the many excellent health web sites out there so that you can make educated healthy choices that aren’t manipulated by the drug and food companies to make a profit.

Perhaps our fear of failure starts in grade school, with the fear of receiving the dreaded big fat “F” on your 3rd grade report card, and then seeing the dismayed looks on your parents’ faces (and perhaps facing an ensuing punishment to boot). Even if an “F” doesn’t apply, chances are that you learned early on — through being on that winning soccer team, passing your driver’s test on the first try, or getting picked first in gym class — that succeeding is fun. Failing is not.

If you’re not moving ahead with your goals, a fear of failure may be holding you back.

As we make our way into adulthood, it is not hard to understand why a fear of failure plagues many of us. Fear of failing at your marriage, fear of being a bad parent, fear of losing your job or not getting promoted. Indeed, fear of failing can be applied to every meaningful milestone in life. And what greater fear could there be than failing at your own life?

In America, and too in much of the world, failure is akin to being powerless, unpopular, a loser. No one wants to set themselves up for that, and so develops a fear, in some cases a debilitating one.

How a Fear of Failure Can Put Your Life on Hold

In extreme cases, a fear of failing will cause a person to avoid anything that isn’t safe or a guaranteed success. Many entrepreneurs never set out on their own for this very reason. When confronted with a questionable task (i.e. asking someone out on a date, giving a presentation at work), anxiety develops and, like any fear, the person backs away from the scary item.

However, taking risks is one of the only ways to get ahead in life, and with risk comes a chance of failure. Those who are not able to overcome this fear don’t take the risks needed to excel at work, relationships and more. Their life may therefore become stagnant, yet it is safe.

“What I encourage people to do is picture themselves 20 years from now in the same job at the same desk and with the same people, simply to show them what will happen if they don’t take any risks. The color just drains out of their faces. But if you don’t make an effort to change and get what you want, then life probably won’t turn out how you want it to,” says psychologist Gary Leboff.

Overcoming Fear of Failure

Only by overcoming a fear of failure will you be able to succeed. Use these tips to focus on success and leave your fear of failure behind.

• Expect that you will sometimes fail.
• When you do fail, embrace it. Turn the failure into a positive by figuring out where you went wrong, then applying what you learned to your next endeavor.
• Don’t take failure personally. According to University of Washington psychologist Jonathon Brown, if you lack self-esteem you may over-generalize your failures and conclude that you are less competent than others. However, the best way to build your self-esteem is to pick yourself up after you have fallen down.
• Realize that successful people fail, and have likely failed many times to get where they are.
• Picture yourself failing and imagine the consequences that could follow. You will likely find that they’re not as bad as they seem. Then, go back to picturing yourself succeeding.
• If you fail, make it a point to keep going and try again. Don’t let failure stop you.
• Talk about how you’re feeling. Expressing your fear to a trusted friend or family member may help you gain the confidence you’re looking for.

SOURCE: www.sixwise.com

OUR COMMENTS:

It’s all in your mind. You are what you think your are. It depends on what kind of a life you want to live … an ordinary or an extraordinary one? You can program your mind to be successful and to be happy. It takes work. Your mind is a very powerful thing…. we know that we are using a small percentage of our minds and it’s actual ability is far more than we have learned as of yet.

Success at anything requires goal-setting and action. You need to focus on goals and take action on a daily basis to achieve them. You need to build one day at a time until your actions become habits. All successful people have great discipline and take consistent action. Good health also requires self-discipline. Guys, staying up all night with your buddies, pounding down shots, and stopping at an all-night fast food place at 2 AM to gobble down salty, fatty junk food isn’t going to put you on the fast track to optimum health. Ladies, skipping the gym to go shopping at the mall and eating Baskin-Robbins ice cream won’t do wonders for you either. You need self-discipline to know what actions you must take to attain the results you are trying to achieve—it’s the difference between mediocrity and excellence. Visualize the new you to help you to become self-disciplined.

Some common examples of repetition are baseball players taking batting practice every day and golfers hitting bucket after bucket of balls at a driving range. They find the best swing to hit the ball the straightest or the farthest, and they repeat it until they “get in the groove”—swing the same way every time. They are attempting to make that swing a habit. In regards to a health and fitness program, you want to start slow and build. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Know that it takes time and be patient. You will get better at progressing toward your goal as time goes by and you learn more about your mind and body.

Every one of us must deal with stress throughout our lives. Stress is the way you react physically, mentally, and emotionally to various conditions, changes, and demands in your life. It comes with all of life’s daily hassles, crises, and life-changing events. Unless you can release the tension that comes with stress regularly, it will greatly increase your risk of physical and mental illness. It is a well-known fact that stress creates and multiplies physical health problems.

To manage stress, you have to know when you are stressed. Your heart rate increases to move blood to your muscles and brain, your blood pressure goes up, you start to breathe more rapidly, your digestion slows down, you perspire more heavily, your pupils dilate, and you feel a rush of strength. Your body stays on alert until you feel that the real or perceived threat has passed. Then your brain gives an all-clear signal. If you stay on alert too long, you begin to suffer from consequences of constant stress. There isn’t a disease or illness in the modern world that isn’t, in one way or another, affected, intensified, or triggered by physical and emotional stress.

Some people are more resistant to stress than others. It’s from how their lives, personalities, and beliefs have been shaped by their environments. Others learn to handle and manage stress. People who are more resistant to stress or those who handle stress better than the average person have some basic things in common. They have a strong commitment to self, work, and family, and a sense of control over their lives. They see change in their lives as a challenge rather than a threat, and establish a strong network of support and close relationships.

Once again, you can program your mind to deal better with stress. The first step is realizing when you are stressed, and then dealing with it. You must learn not to let stress control you. Dealing with it by smoking, drinking, overeating, using drugs, or simply shutting down, is harmful to your health. These are not ways of dealing with stress—they merely postpone the issues. First of all, identify the things you can control and those you cannot. Don’t stress about things that are out of your control, meaning that you cannot change them so why worry about it? Avoid taking life too seriously. Lighten up a little. Everything is not a crisis. Try to always keep things in perspective, to the best of your ability.

Talking about problems with a loved one or a good friend is also a valuable way to reduce tension and stress. You usually feel better about a problem after you’ve talked about it with somebody. If you practice this on a regular basis you will feel better every time. It’s a big mistake to keep things bottled up inside and to let them fester.

Regular physical activity may be the single best approach to managing stress. It is cathartic and releases pent-up energy. People who enjoy a nutritious diet, get enough sleep and exercise, and take the time to do things they enjoy usually have an overall feeling of balance in their lives, which helps to reduce stress.