Thanks to those of you who are in my life that help me stay accountable to things I commit to! I am not always a detail person (yes…I know…) and as you can see..I got so excited about the past few weeks that I forgot to blog post my updates. So, thank you for holding me accountable and I decided how fun it would be to offer a wrap up from the past 3 weeks. There are just too many great things to share!

First and foremost, I am just so grateful and inspired by Alicia Dunams, Karen Roy, Kim Hasselman, Krista Sloan, Linda Roy and Rima Maamari for supporting my journey to hitting the amazon best-seller list for 2 categories. What a wild and crazy ride and so much to share for those of you who want to self-publish a book:
1) Consider contacting Karen and Alicia to get you on the right path!!!
2) I just found out about Balboa Press (a division of Hay House) for self-publishing. Wow!
3) Get hyper and excited about your book!
4) Do a video to launch your book
5) Learn what a squeeze page is (Thanks Alicia!!!)
6) Rock it on twitter, facebook, linked-in and youtube. Check out Tracy Matthewman’s Site for Coaching Options.
7) Register for HootSuite and Nutshell to help organize your social media life during the launch
Have an amazing team to support you and hold you accountable
9) Celebrate your launch with a dinner party!
10) Have Alicia teach you about live video chatting on your 1-day Campaign
11) Absolutely do a fun 1-Day Campaign! You will learn so much!

So, yes…we did it! Thank you to all of you who supported my journey! Now back to my 365-Days of Health…

It’s actually sort of wild and crazy how self-aware I’ve become of my habits, mindset and ways. It actually becomes quite humourous when you are truly aware of your habits that you are frustrated but can smile about it. I will admit that over the past few weeks, I’ve jumped into my old ways of packing too many things into a day. My ability to produce has taken over my body…eek! I had a fabulous dinner with my friends Tracy and Stuart this week (and two of the most influential mentors I’ve had). Stuart shared a great story about being in Japan and walking down a set of stairs while drinking orange juice. He didn’t realize that he had broken a fundamental zen principle by drinking and walking. A simple reminder to practice daily zen principles. This story has helped me stay mindful over the past 24 hours to not walk and text, talk and text, email and talk, email and text….aaaah! Seriously…Who is controlling you? Is Technology your master?

My highlights from the past few weeks:
1) It’s fun to challenge yourself to be as healthy as possible over the holidays!
2) My many visits to www.elementaltherapies.ca to keep me healthy over the holidays
3) I just LOVE Avocado Oil!
4) The best Digestive Enzymes on the planet help keep your body smiling over the holidays!
5) Avoid Retail during the weekends and evenings if you can in December!
6) Take the next 3 Days to drink as much water as you can to get that skin beautiful and body glowing
7) Create your magical recipe for 2011. What will you be cooking up? 3 Key Goals is my philosophy!
What makes your heart sing? Yoga, Dance, Friends and Family, Pets, Music, Creativity? Do it daily!
9) Supplement with Vitamin D during the holidays to get some internal sunshine for the body, mind and soul
10) Check out Laura Hollick’s beautiful website and programs at Soul Art Studio
11) Check out Kate’s most amazing Blog Ever http://katemoller.com/glimpsetv/. Her road trip starts in 2011!

And leaving you with a great interview with Bindu Wiles on Glimpse TV with Kate Northrup-Moller. Just signed up for Bindu’s newsletter!

How many bras do we really need? and other thoughts on letting go: Glimpse TV with Bindu Wiles from Kate Moller on Vimeo.

This is a fun week! I’m writing today as my 24-Hour book launch campaign goes live. It’s so out of my comfort zone to be doing a ‘me’ campaign but I have been challenged today to put myself out there and talk about my book online everywhere all day today. Yikes! My book 30 Days to Wealth has been such a fun journey as I wrote my experiences and strategies over my first few years in business as a new entrepreneur. The book shares a 30 Day Program to improving cash flow, success and wellness. I stayed up last night until 1am with my amazing friend and online guru Alicia Dunams to do our video. Alicia is an amazon best-seller, mother, entrepreneur, social media guru, speaker and just so much more. She also taught me about squeeze pages and twitter handles?! The cool thing is that I found out about her years ago when she was doing an online twitter book launch party for a friend of hers. Here we are today doing one for 30 Days to Wealth. So cool how the universe works. Here’s a peak at the video we did last night. If you’re reading this post today (Dec 8), we’re having an online book party which you can join at: http://www.thirtydaystowealth.com/stocking/ 

Back to Week #4… I thought it would be a great fit this week to share some of my personal thoughts on the link between wellness and wealth. One of the most exciting things about being an entrepreneur and learning how to build financial independance is the concept of time freedom. What drives me more than money is freedom. Imagine if you could wake up and just choose to do nothing but watch movies, hang out with your family and play all day any day? I wouldn’t even consider the concept as it was so foreign to me 5 years ago. We are programed not to imagine and this is just not right. A beautiful read that helped me re-connect with the visionary process and creative thinking is Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain (www.shaktigawain.com). My personal message to myself this week is a quote I wrote down 3 years ago in the back of my book ‘Stop being driven and be carried’ -Vernon Howard. Mystic Path to Cosmic Power…hot book! This one challenges me daily but it is a beautiful reminder to live in the Tao. It is my personal belief that there is a direct correlation between sustained business growth, success and wellness. Self-Care is where it’s at ladies and if you’re in business for yourself it is absolutely essential! Plan a daily self-care ritual, put a great wellness team in place to support you and have a checklist for those days when you fall off the wellness wagon. Entrepreneurship is a wild and crazy ride but so so worth it! My beautiful friend and colleague Michelle Froats (www.michellefroats.com) is running a 4-Week Self Care Telecourse that I cannot wait for. It’s starts in January so it’s a perfect gift to yourself for Christmas.

Finally for this week, my two key words of the week are Deepak and Vitamix. The first book I read by Deepak and still my favorite is Book of Secrets.  I saw Deepak Chopra (www.chopra.com) speak this week in Toronto and he shared that 80% of people don’t like what they do for a living (how sad is this?). I do think people are waking up though and shutting off that autopilot button like I did 5 years ago. Deepak also linked consciousness, energy and spirituality with health. I recently asked my friend, nutritionist, and biz partner Katie Compton (www.kateandthekitchen.com) if she would suggest juicing or blending (using a vitamix). A great debate and question! Katie suggested blending to increase your fiber intake from the flesh of the fruits and veggies. Although juicing is amazing for digestion and for health, it does increase the sugar and glycemic index vs blending. I spent a few hours this week trying to find a vitamix (www.vitamix.com) at retail with no success. As much as I love online shopping, sometimes instant gratification is still more fun!

My sweet brother reads my blog and asked me why I don’t talk about my favorite twin brothers?…Well Rich, this one’s for you…

Yes, I have twin brothers who have the sweetest children on the planet. I’m so grateful to be living in the same city as them and it keeps me grounded to have some sweet children to play with.  I think my brothers would say I’m a little bit of a ‘funny bird’ with my hemp seeds, morning shakes, vitamins and greens but they secretly love it!

This week, alongside my health program, I also enjoyed another week of great music. Rich’s recommended tune is Pearl Jam’s ‘Off he Goes’ (Like it Rich!). I enjoyed Melody Gardot (www.melodygardot.com) and Damien Rice (www.damienrice.com) this week and spent some quality time with Jazz FM (one of my favorite Toronto Stations). I am also excited for my orchestra seat tickets to Sarah McLauchlan in March 2011!

Here are my highlights from Healthy Week #3:

1) Recognized how easy it is for Technology to run your life! Boundaries have been re-established and I remind myself that I am not a robot. I graciously remind myself several times per day that life without technology would be sweet for a day or two. I commit to 1 full day without technology this week. I also keep my cell phone on silent most of the time which gives me a sense of inner-peace. Yes, there are entrepreneurs out there who keep their cell pones on silent!~

2) Booked a private consult with Sonia Choquette (www.trustyourvibes.com). I’ve heard wonderful things about her and her courses and want to experience a private consult with her. Didn’t event realize you could do this on her website. So, it’s booked for next week! I’ve enjoyed 2 of Sonia’s books and have been drawn to learning more about creating a powerful connection with one’s intuitive nature which often gets blocked. This is a topic that I will continue to write and speak about moving forward.

3) Re-read a few chapter’s of one of my favorite books ‘The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power’ by Vernon Howard. This book was recommended to me by Bob Proctor. It is a book that few have heard about and it’s not even on amazon.com but can be ordered off of Vernon Howard’s website www.anewlife.org

4) Enjoyed reading a sweet and fun blog entry by my beautiful friend Michelle Froats about some of her favorite relationship books. She has a wonderful blog (www.michellefroats.com).

5) Made a yummy veggie stirfry a few times this week (see below for recipe).

6) Scheduled a great event for women entrepreneurs. I am a part of a very special seminar called ‘Wealthylicious’ which has been touring Canada and the US. Our mandate is to teach women about residual income, rental properties, direct selling and easy things they can do to jump in the drivers seat for their finances. Our Wealthylicious San Fransisco is booked for March 9, 2011. Details to follow. My beautiful biz partners Christa MacLellan, Alicia Dunams, and Britt Michaelian will be co-hosting with me. Check out their blogs! They are authors, moms, coaches and experts in their fields.

7) Walked every morning for 90 minutes on the waterfront. This is one of my favorite daily activites. Granted, I made the mistake of bringing my cell phone with me three times. Why am I such a slow learning? Bringing technology with you for gratitude and meditative walks in nature is just wrong. Note to self- you can do it!

Said NO 3 times this week. This is empowering from a recovering ‘YES’ addict. I know I’m not alone! Michelle challenged several of us this week to have a day where you give yourself permission to disappoint others. This was an exercise suggested to her by Cheryl Richardson and is a great challenge for us ‘YES’ gals. I do well for a few weeks and then fall back but I am being patient and kind to myself. I am improving every week and am learning to set boundaries and being comfortable saying NO. Cheryl (www.cherylrichardson.com) also recommends making a habit of saying ‘let me check with my schedule and I’ll get back to you tomorrow to confirm’. This has been a great suggestion for me.

What I realized this week was that when I am negotiating my personal boundaries and energy, I get frustrated, stressed and angry. The good news is that I pick up on this within a day or two and quickly recognize that I’m ‘pimping’ my energy. My recipe to focus on the solution to this has been the following:
1) Stop in your tracks and recognize what you’re doing
2) Have a friend or two (but not 5) that you chat about this with. Get it out of your body and move on
3) Don’t be a drama queen
4) Go to a yoga class, get a massage and/or meditate
5) Be kind to yourself and patient with yourself.
6) Reduce your addiction to technology. It can steal the life out of you and probably already has!

Week 3 Veggie Stirfry:
1) Mixed Veggies (colourful and just load them up!)
2) Some Bragg’s (just a few dashes)
When your veggies are cooked up, put them in the oven with goat cheese and hemp seeds for a few minutes! Yummy!

For those of you who I’ve spoken to over the past week, living and working Tao centered leadership is what I strive for. Day by day, I am reminded of 1 verse of the Tao Te Ching before I go to bed. A great resource to learn about the 81 verses of the Tao is Wayne Dyer’s ‘Change your Thoughts, Change your Mind- Living the wisdom of the Tao’.

I have to admit…I’m loving the album ‘Dreaming out Loud’ by OneRepublic (www.onerepublic.net)! A great find and keeping me inspired over the past week. My favorite tune is ‘Say’. Have you ever lost touch with one of your biggest passions? Music has always been a big part of my life since I started piano lessons at the age of 5. I am also instantly chilled out by KD Lang’s ‘HYMNS OF THE 49TH PARALLEL’ (www.kdlang.com). On another music note, I’m so excited to hear that Sarah Slean (www.sarahslean.com) has a holiday season VIP package to her Toronto concert. Just got my tickets!

On the wellbeing front last week, I did indeed take a few steps back but a big leap forward! I love my business so much that I often get so hyper and excited that managing my energy takes a back seat. Thank goodness for yoga, meditation and my morning walks on the waterfront! My nutrition slipped a little this week as the carbs sort of got the best of me but I am so happy that I’m not seeking perfection! I’m just happy that I work a little bit each day to be better than the day before. If I happen to go for the DQ Blizzard…oh well! Life wouldn’t be as fun without some yummy treats once and a while! So, in spite a few days without optimal clean eating, here are my beautiful highlights from Week 2:

1) Ordered tickets to see Deepak Chopra on Dec 3 in Toronto with my pal Anne (www.elementaltherapies.ca)
2) Got myself some sweet front row seats to Sarah Slean’s Christmas Concert (www.sarahslean.com)
3) Read ‘The Rose Cleans’ e-book by Natalia Rose (available to download on her site) (www.detoxtheworld.com)
4) Ate my favorite big green salads 3 times this week (I admit the greens were lacking a little this week!)
5) Made some yummy Grilled Veggie and Goat Cheese Wraps (see recipe below)
6) Enjoyed speaking and launching www.thirtydaystowealth.com (coaching program starts Jan 6!)
7) Got a new amazing energy female Doctor (has been on my goal list for 2 yrs now). Check!!!
Got a massage (I get them weekly). This is absolutely part of my maintenance program! Non-negotiable!
9) Signed up for Ballet Classes for January (also on my hit list for years!).
10) Reading ‘Quantum Wellness’ by Deepak Chopra (www.deepakchopra.com). Cool website by the way! Pg 150 rocks!
11) Eating some New Sun Sugar Reduced High Fiber Raisin Bran Cookies (www.newsuncookies.com)
12) Drank lots of water with highly concentrated chlorophyll (available at www.wholefoods.com)
13) Took my probiotics (same brand recommended by Dr Christiane Northrup www.drnorthrup.com)

My Grilled Veggie and Goat Cheese Wraps:
1-2 High Fiber or Ezekiel Wraps (warm up your wraps in the oven)
Big Bowl of Grilled Colourful Veggies (I add a little Brag’s)
Black Bean and Corn Organic Salsa
Organic Baby Spinach
Organic Hummus
Soft Goat Cheese (I didn’t buy raw goat cheese but you can!)

I made my wraps and then put them in the over for a few minutes so the goat cheese melts! So yummy!!

Last week, I decided to embark on a ’365 Days of Wellness Journey’. I recently turned 35 and I am even more conscious of the importance of taking good care of ourselves. After travelling for 3 weeks and being in 3 different time zones, I was so eager to feel grounded, healthy and organized. For me, feeling grounded is most important. I am easily inspired and excited and sometimes find it challenging to manage excess energy.

For any of you that get a little hyper from time to time, you can likely relate. The best advice I can give for those eager, driven and ambitious people out there would be to do your very best to stay grounded. This can include daily rituals, some daily routines that keep you feeling calm and collected. Often, too much travel can make you feel in outer space when it comes to your energy and mind.

Getting back to Week #1 (here are some highlights):
-90 min Hot Yoga 3 times last week
-Chakra Meditation for 10 minutes morning and night (2 days…I’m easing my way into this)
-Had colon hydrotherapy with my favorite healing arts specials (Anne from www.elementaltherapies.ca)
-Read ‘Trust your Vibes’ by Sonia Choquette (www.trustyourvibes.com)
-Took my morning multivitamins and omegas ( I also take a digestive enzyme and probiotic)
-Drank 3L of Water per day (often added liquid concentrated chlorophyl)
-Stayed away from refined sugar (I did eat some yummy kamut gingerbread loaf from www.vegehut.com)
-Walked for 90 minutes 4 days this week on the water (so great to get you grounded!)
-Had an energy and etheric healing phone consult with Kathy Roseborough (www.schoolofetherichealing.com)
-Scheduled an hour for personal time and relaxation when I woke up each morning
-Listened to Chakra Balancing Music (my favorite is the one by Stevin McNamara and Caroline Myss)
-Ate a huge Green Salad with kale, spinach, sprouts and more each day (see below)
-Had my morning smoothie each morning (see below)
-Had 8 hours of sleep per night (to catch up from all the time zones I was in)
-Had a bubble bath every day with candles, organic lavender oils and Sleep Soak (www.janeincproducts.com)
-launched my book ’30 Days to Wealth’ on amazon.com (www.thirtydaystowealth.com)

My morning smoothie-
2 scoops of Vanilla Nutrimeal or vanilla hemp/rice protein powder
1/2 of a small avocado
1 pack of stevia
5 organic strawberries
tbsp of spirulina powder
alkaline or reverse osmosis water
ice (if you wish)

 

 

I recently chatted with a few friends about how cool it would be to document an entire year of wellness! I didn’t really put much thought into, but funny enough, it’s exactly 1 year before WellSpot 2011 and since I just turned 35, why not share my successes, challenges, dips and peaks during an entire year of wellness. This will challenge me to commit to sharing my thoughts, practices and everything else that goes along with putting your world on the internet to read. So, today is Oct 21, 2010 and tonight marks the eve of ’365 Days of Wellness’. So, this entry is my commitment to sharing my journey, my progress and my mistakes for the next year….eeek! I commit to a weekly status update. Stay tuned for the adventures for week #1.

When I was a child, my twin brothers and I had a childhood friend who was raised by his grandmother and great-grandmother.  I actually never really knew the name of his great-grandmother as he had a very special name for her and it was ’mean mom’. He chose to call her by this name because she was always raising her voice to him or giving him heck for something.  Because ‘mean mom’ was heping to raise him, it seemed as though he was disciplined twice on what seemed to be a daily basis.

This is a cute and funny memory from my childhood street that stuck with me over the years. Now that I’m 34, I’m more aware as an adult, that anger tends to stick with us and becomes a part of our biology over the years. For those of you who don’t think you’re angry people…it’s in you somewhere! I don’t think people who know me would consider me an angry person but I’m sure there is some anger stored up somewhere in my subconscious and in my body.  I thought  it would be a healthy exercise to journal about experiences, people and situations in our past that may have imprinted some anger into our cells. Anger not only shows up in the face but in the body. Dis-ease can be routed in anger, guilt, envy and other emotions that have an impact not only on ourselves but on those around us.

I often speak about books by Michael Brown and in his most recent book ‘Alchemy of the Heart’, here is his philosophy on why we are so angry:

“As Children, we radiated innocently and unconditionally into our life experience, and often the beauty of our radiance was not reflected within our experiences.  We all entered this life as unconditional vibrational beings, and the process of entering a conditional emotional, mental and physical experience is heatbreaking for an unconditional being. We are now angry about our unseen shit from presence to pretence. We are angry about having to become “well-behaved,” standing statue-still with barely one toe moving when the circumstancs of life call for jubilant dancing and chanting. We are furious at addictively being incarcerated by consistently doing the ‘right’ thing and the ‘expected’ thing to make it in the calculated and prententious adult world. We are exhausted from “playing it safe” and having to come across as ‘”a nice person” so we do not “upset anyone” or “cause unnecessary conflict.” Within us thee is a child bound by order, control, sedation, expectation, judgment, and self-denial. Our anger is this child screaming for air and sunlight from within the dungeon of our forgotten heart. Whenever we self-medicate, we are practicing internalized child abuse.”
                                                                                              -Michael Brown, Alchemy of the Heart

How’s that for an honest response to why we are all angry? Anyone relate to this?

Have you ever watched a movie that effects you in a profound way for hours/days/weeks after you watch it? I have recently started to become much more aware of the impact of the movies I watch. I don’t have cable so when I do watch television, it tends to be to watch great DVDs available off itunes, spiritual cinema circle or hay house.  I am just so aware of how television and film effects the subconscious and of course sleep. I just love world cinema and tend to go through phases where I stick to a particular country of preference.

French Film is truly my passion (one of my favs is Camille Claudel) but this week Spanish Film has been my hobby.  I just love Javier Bardem and cannot get enough of Love in a Time of Cholera (what a beautiful novel and film). So, last night I sat down to watch The Sea Inside.  I just cannot shake this movie. The actors in this film could not more perfectly fit the roles they play and each character imprints on you emotionally.  I found that I became attached to each character including the ones who had smaller roles. I guess that’s the mark of a beautiful film. I truly loved this film although it left me feeling sad and empty. It was a beautiful look into the emotions, relationships, attachments and entanglements involved in life and death. I would not recommend watching this movie before bed! I couldn’t get the visual pictures from the film out of my mind (especially of his plunge into the sea) and ended up waking up throughout the night which rarely happens to me.  The poetic and symbolic aspects of the film are truly incredible and a usual, Javier Bardem plays the role with perfection in my book. I know I said this film left me empty and sad but again, I think that was the point. 

The film stirs up so many emotions (including humour) which leaves you somewhat angry at the cocktail of feelings you are left with afterwards. Beautiful, sad, funny, real, honest, tragic….I’m still digesting this one! I’d love to hear what you thought of this film.

I’m sure you know someone on the conscious or healing path that has told you we are in the energy era. I have many people in my life who have created wonderful careers for themselves in the healing arts and over the past 5 years or so have reminded me that your body speaks to you every day! It might seem like second nature to some of you but for someone like me who pretty much lived an unconscious life until about 29, listening to my body was something new. I think it was when I took my first pilates class in Guelph, Ontario during my twenties that I had a full 30 minutes of quiet time listening to my body. That was the day that my life turned conscious. I realized that I had never before taken quiet time with myself to truly listen to my body. After that day, I fell in love with pilates and ended up getting my teacher certification years later.  My beautiful friend Amy has an incredible pilates certification program in Toronto, Ontario at Pilates for Life.

So, why am I sharing all of this?

Because your body speaks to you every single day. Do you have a decision to make? Have you been filling your life with unhealthy food and drink? Should you be quiting that job or creating a new circle of friends? If you sit with yourself peacefully and consistently, your body will guide you. That inner voice that already has all the answers has just become so silenced by noise, chaos and clutter that you cannot hear it until your life gets so crazy that something dramatic happens. Check out ‘Intuitive Power’ by Caroline Myss for more on this.

After years of avoiding peace and quiet (literally), your body starts to loose its groove.  I truly believe that your bodycan reach a point where the stored energy is so stuck and stale that it becomes dense and truly makes you feel heavy. Have you ever spoken to someone who works daily, eats super well but cannot shed a pound? Yes, insulin resistance can be a factor but what about taking a  good solid look at where in their life they leaking power? Are they in an unhealthy relationship? Do they feel stale and uninspired? Should they be making a change in their life but are too afraid to step forward? Are they ignoring intuitive hits? If your body is telling you to act and you ignore it, I’m a big believer that over time, this can lead to emotional fat. Several times in my life, those few unwanted pounds have shed from my body almost effortlessly when I became more aligned with my true nature and made decisions that were in balance with my true path.

So, as I tune out tonight, is there something your body has been telling you to do (or not do) that you have been avoiding out of fear?

Off to bed! Night Night…
Lx

I recently came across a wonderful audio ‘Awakening the Goddess Within’ with Deepak Chopra and Agapi Strassinopoulas on itunes. I had never heard of Agapi before but was drawn to her beautiful energy, powerful voice and inspiring teaching. Things always fall on your lap with divine timing and it puts a smile on my face every time! What I love about Agapi’s message is that each of us has a kaleidoscope of energy within us reflecting the 7 greek goddesses. Agapi puts it very well that when we neglect or ignore one of these goddess archetypes, we get ourselves into trouble.  I personally believe that each of us has some of these goddess energies that more naturally come to the forefront. For me, I relate strongly to Athena, Hestia and Artemis. Thanks to my Athena energy, I can sometimes get caught up too strongly in strategy, planning and business. I must not neglect the Aphrodite (goddess of love, beauty and passion) inside of me and she really does inspire me to create that rasberry pink walk-in closet I’ve always wanted! On a more personal note, it is true that as creative and powerful women today, our society certainly hasn’t embraced the energy of Aphrodite and I believe that we’ve lost touch with energy inside of each and every one of us.  My wish for today is that you think of a beautiful and powerful female in your life who embraces her Aphrodite.  Applaud that beautiful woman in your life who owns her beauty, confidence, body and passion.  How many women do you know who embrace their hips, curves and just love themselves to pieces? Anyone know of a good Aphrodite course?? In closing, the most beautiful and nurturing Aphrodite energy should shine in our relationships with ourselves.