Category: Integrative Nutrition Coaching

What is Your Why? – Let’s Explore

What is your why? Why do you want to be a better version of yourself? Has something happened in your life that made you stop, look, and question? Is an event coming up and you want to be your best for that day?

What is Your Why?

My Why is Clear

Yes, I arrived at my over-reaching why last fall… Raise the World’s Vibration to the Tipping Point. That is, I want to increase the positive energy in the world until it becomes contagious, a force impossible to ignore. There, I shared it!

The How is Fuzzy

I’ve been questioning my how. My short answer? I started a business. Won’t a business mean I’m invested in my why? At least I feel I went about creating a business with forethought and intention. Still, there was something missing. My how wasn’t clear enough.

Can I use the knowledge I’ve gained these sixty-seven years to help you find your way to a happier life? Perhaps regrouping my decisions and the consequences will help me understand your challenges. My answer is a resounding, “Yes!”

A Short List of My Recent How

Over the last five years, I invested in a lot of ways to create a better understanding of myself.

    • Therapists who helped me understand why I felt ‘less-than’
    • Shamanic healings that removed contracts from past lives
    • Japanese Reiki certification to heal myself and others
    • Masterminds with online communities
    • Personal workout trainer, 3 days/week for over two years
    • MANY online classes opening the doors to my spiritual guidance
    • Integrative Nutrition Health Coach Certification

There’s No Time Like the Present

Here’s the Challenge Behind My How

My integrative nutrition health coach education from IIN strongly suggests it takes six months to make a difference in the life of a client. I’ve chosen my first client…. drum roll… It’s ME!

Most noteworthy, I’m inviting you to join me here… for free. However, the best way to keep up on my bi-weekly check-ins is signing up for my newsletter. In addition to the blogs, I’ll include personal updates on my progress and discounts if you decide you need personal coaching.

What is Your Why?

I challenge you to find your why this week. Why do you want a happier life? Why do you want to feel better? Perhaps you want to prove something to yourself… like I did when I finished my first race.

Are you having difficulty grasping your why? Read my blog on Morning Pages to stir up your subconscious.

Some Reasons for My Why

Since I’m leading this challenge, I’ll lead the way with my why for being healthier.

  • I love being active, but my arthritic knees hurt.. a lot
  • The fat folds on my body are uncomfortable
  • I want to feel better rather than worse with every birthday
  • If I can’t improve my own health, how can I help you with yours?

So, again…what is your why? Leave a comment as a self motivation to commit to a healthier life.

Loving life,
Dawn

Finding Joy When Life is Stressful

Finding joy when life is stressful seems impossible. Yet these are the times joy is most needed.

How I Found My Joy

Inspiration for joy came to me in many different ways. All these ideas have one thing in common – taking action.

  • Connection with positive friends
  • Looking for beauty in nature
  • Noticing synchronicity in everyday occasions
  • Asking for help

Connection with Positive Friends

Although I’m a caregiver to my husband and elderly mother, I also choose to surround myself with positive friends. This is the primary way I find joy when life is stressful.

One example is a nearby cousin, Tom, whom I’d only seen at sad occasions during the last year. His brother and parents passed just before and during the pandemic.

Look for L. Anderson, my grandfather

Tom called me to ask a favor of helping him deliver his car to a mechanic shop located between our respective homes. He enjoys eating out and offered to take me to lunch in gratitude. Our conversations centered around sharing past adventures and our mutual interest in the family genealogy. We made a pact to discover the location of our great-grandfather’s home in the late 1800’s.  We spent a Saturday afternoon at the local county historical library, pouring over platte maps.

Looking for Beauty in Nature

During 2020’s restrictions, I discovered nature in my yard. It was wonderful to visit the many plants, some that I had installed specifically to attract butterflies and birds. In contrast, the declining health of my husband and mother pulled me farther out into the world of nature.

Although I walk every Saturday morning with a gardening friend in the gardens of Bok Tower, this week I twice answered the call of a wilder place. Last Sunday I went to a local state park and took my dog, Sugar. The pain in my arthritic knees reminded me that I have walking poles hidden under my husband’s hunting camo in the garage.

When I decided to head to Bok Tower’s wilder side, Pine Ridge Preserve, I dug out the poles, cleaned off the cobwebs and brought them with me. As I used the poles to steady my stance and distribute the force away from my knees, I thought, “Why have I ignored these tools hanging in the garage four years!”

Noticing Synchronicity

There have been so many instances of synchronicity, it’s hard to know which to share. Mostly, I’ve been drawn to reach out to like-minded people through my online groups.

One such person is Miggy Rodriguez, of Infinite FlowInfinite Flow. I’ve known her over a year, liked her Facebook comments both on our private groups and in our personal pages. Finally, I reached out and we had long telephone conversation. She asked me where I lived in Florida. Although she lives in North Carolina, her father lives right here, in the same small town I live in. And her sister literally lives off the same street as me. That’s extreme synchronicity.

You might wonder why that brings me joy. It’s rather simple really. For me, synchronicity is proof of a higher power guiding and helping me.. helping you.

Asking For Help

This has shown up in myriad ways. Not only have I asked friends for help navigating the complex medical world of my husband’s cancer, I’ve learned how to ask for help in small ways too.

Now is the time of oak leaf drop in Florida. I asked my landscaping person to help me by blowing the leaves on our circular drive into piles. When I checked on his regular lawn care tasks, I found him raking the leaves into piles. We worked together to get them into a garbage can.

When you ask for help, joy is doubled. Both people benefit in this giving and receiving exchange.

Final Thoughts

This coming week, consider finding joy when life is stressful. It’s a combination of a choice in your thoughts and taking positive action.

Smiling,
Dawn

Three Ways Values Affect Your Life

I have found three ways values affect your life; relationships, career, home environment. When these areas are in alignment with your personal values, happiness comes naturally.

Since we are each unique, you may find different areas of your life play a more prominent role in your happiness. These areas may change naturally over time.

Relationships

Personal relationships run the gamut of family, friends, lovers, spouses, like-minded people (your tribe), and co-workers. Have you found yourself observing personalities? Maybe you like those that exhibit your value system more than those that don’t. Actually, this seems intuitively obvious.

Do you get along with one parent more than the other? Perhaps it is because you share values with one parent and not the other.

Then why do we end up with partners that don’t last? There are undoubtedly many reasons. For me, however, my values played a key role.

Career

A long time ago, fifty years to be exact, I took the Air Force Career Test in high school. The results suggested your best careers. It was an extensive personality test. I remember my results clearly; attorney or psychologist were high on the list.

Psychologist was understandable to me as people tended to naturally open up to me. I listened, cared, and promptly forgot whatever they said.

Conversely, attorney, didn’t appeal to me at all. I understood the research might appeal, but even at age 16, I suspected dishonesty was part of their job.

What about your current career? Are you happy, discontent, or desperately looking for a change?

Home Environment

Although I’m using home environment, any environment can be substituted here; work, transportation, workout area, even the great outdoors.

Where do you feel most comfortable? Does dust drive you crazy? Is there comfort in having many cherished items on display? Rather, do you find simplicity more pleasing? These are some of the ways your values are reflected in your environment. If you have control in your home environment, you will choose what makes you happy, that is, comfortable.

Examples

My personal values are honesty, tranquility, and purpose. If you search online for personal values, these don’t usually come up. Rather a list of 10-25 values that are sometimes hard to even understand emerge.

Here is an interesting article that lists 25 values. One of my three is on it. While the questions they ask are good, don’t get distracted quite yet.

Back to my example. Here are three ways my values show up in everyday life:

  1. In fifty years of driving, I have never received a speeding ticket, because my value of Honesty helps me know what the speed limit is so I don’t exceed it.
  2. Tranquility surrounded me in a home as I prepared to move, with essential furniture, bare walls, and bare floors.
  3. Life gets pretty busy for me, yet I am committed to writing this blog weekly as it partially fulfills my value of Purpose by helping you take small steps toward a life of fulfillment.

Finding Your Personal Values

While researching this blog, the destiny of my purpose brought me an incredible, free resource to help you determine your own personal values. I took the evaluation and found it to be spot on. Furthermore, you can take it many times as your life evolves.

Life Values Inventory

I would love to hear your three ways values affect your life and how it evolves. Please comment below, send me an email or signup for my newsletter for a weekly opportunity to connect.

With honesty, tranquility, and purpose,
Dawn