The Unwinding Path

Photo by fionaandneil

I had a date. Yep and yes, my partner knew all about it. He even drove me to it.

I had a date with a personal trainer. Why not. I am in the business of helping people lose weight and I have never been to a trainer myself. Seems like the thing to do. And do I did.

My trainer and I first sat down to talk about my goals (to continue to lose my now 15 pounds, maintain the weight I want to be, and be overall more in shape). Then he weighed me and did a bit of math. Basically, what he discovered is that I have a good metabolism and am a healthy eater (I wish my partner would stop telling people that I am more of a junk food alcoholic than he is – I love junk food, but I try to keep it out of the house). My body fat is high, though, somewhere around 37 percent. I need to get this number down at least ten points to be in a healthy range.

Then we set up a fitness plan that would fit my schedule. Two days a week (or three) I am to do circuit training and two or three times a week I am to work on cardio. He said this could include my power walks, biking (I have not been on a bike in 20 years), or the use of the cardio machines at the gym.

We then walked through my routine (15 reps at each station – 16 of them), tweaked weights and all that good stuff. I felt pretty darn good upon leaving.

Then it came time to actually do the routine. My partner, who has a similar routine, helped me along and was even a cheerleader. But OMG! I thought I was going to die. My shoulder hurt. My hip hurt. I was sick to my stomach and I could have slept the rest of the day.

Going back the next day to just do cardio work was a bit better, but I was still pretty exhausted when I was finally done (stationary bike, 30 minutes, 10 miles and at a low level). Pathetic, eh?

We took Saturday off and went back today. I now understand why people come to me for motivation for exercise. During the time off, I admit, I did self-hypnosis to help me continue.

Today I tested it out. I did not fight going to the gym and while there, I paid more attention to what my body was actually experiencing. Was it muscle fatigue or was it just my silly-self whining about doing some hard work (you guessed it, it was mostly the latter)? I ended up doing the whole circuit, pushing myself more than the first day, but I felt a while lot better afterwards. I was still tired, but not done for the day. And yes, I am a little sore, but not feeling particularly injured.

Plus, the scale read 142.5 this morning. That is the lowest yet.

photo by Leo Reynolds

In trying to be more positive and see that which I normally think of as negative is really a learning experience, I am going to attempt to get my big blue G page rank up on www.transparenthypnotist.com from the loser-like zero that it has currently been given. You see, I have apparently upset the big blue G by “selling links,” otherwise known as engaging in paid postings. It does not matter that I have tried to do so in a responsible manner (not writing about things I would not use or believe in). They still see it as an attempt to sell links. I find it all very discouraging if I think about it to long.

So, I will take my punishment, try to acquiesce and maybe they will reconsider me and take me back into the fold. I will still do paid post, but I will make sure the links are all “no follow.” It will take awhile to go through the blog and fix this, but today I added an XML sitemap, which Google recommends.

Photograph by just.K

There are small pieces of paper strewn about everywhere. Well, maybe not quite everywhere. They are on the floor beside my desk and are actually in a specific order. I have just completed the affirmation process as specified by David Mason with his hypknowsis.com Affirmation Method.

It turns out that this was a timely exercise to engage in since I had some personal issues that have caused me to be a little out of sync with my normal “go get ‘em” attitude. Since being off kilter, I have been struggling with time, organization, and general grumpiness. However, one of the things I was working on that caused be to feel rushed has ended, so now I am just regrouping and this is the perfect time to give this affirmation thing a go. As I am letting the process sink in, I will tell you a little bit about it (yes, I took notes as I did it).

I took some quite time and went over things that I need to work on and want to change. Setting my timer for ten minutes, I jotted “I” statements down on two pieces of paper (I came up with 73 statements). When the timer went off, I finished my statement and glanced over my words. There were a couple of times I found redundancies. Then I cut each statement out in strips (I only needed to throw one away – “I need to work on a professional web site”).

I then divided up my strips into eight piles based on commonalities. These commonalties included life in general, business, self, appearance, writing, relationships, travel, and family. Then I looked at my strips in each grouping and tried to separate them into negative and positive statements. On my first go round, this was actually difficult. I had trouble discerning what was negative because a lot of my strips were ideas like “I need to find a balance between selfishness and giving” or “I need to be more positive about my career.” Are these negatives or positives?

As the process continued, I opted to answer my own question and created positive statements as I would for self-hypnosis. In the above examples I wrote “I find a natural balance in taking care of myself and in giving of myself.” “I make positive choices to help me in my career.”

Then I wrote down my bigger goals under the headings that David presented – Self-improvement, Health, Relationships, Community and Financial. I created three to five goals (some year long, some five years or longer) for each, reflecting on the things I needed to work on based on information from my strips.

It was now time to group the piles of strips around these larger goals. What I discovered is that they are all related. One group works for one set of goals, but it also works for another and so on. In this way they seem to play off one another and act holistically.

Then I threw out the negatives and have my affirmations. I am just about to go and put them in various places around my space, so I can be reminded of them.

What I have learned from this part of the process, is that I was a bit out of focus, not quite knowing what to really concentrate on – there are so many things. Now I feel I have more of a grasp of what I need to do and what direction to go in. The affirmations will remind me of this. Some I can also use during self-hypnosis, so I think this process is a nice companion to self-hypnosis.

I plan to check in weekly for the rest of the month about any thoughts that comes to mind as I continue the process.

Photograph by Photograph by maryn0503

Tightness – a pain best described as the pungent bitter taste of my past. These are the things I have been feeling in my heart. Ever since I became aware of doing heart-centered meditation/self-hypnosis, I have been aware of my heart. It feels painful when I short-change myself or do things that go against my nature. It feels lighter when I laugh.

So today, as I was doing the yoga bridge pose (I needed to stretch), I noticed the feeling of physical opening as I met the pose in its fullness. All those muscles in my chests, back, and shoulders were so tight that I could feel the release as I found relaxation in the pose (it has been awhile).

I meditated in this pose. I did not time it; I just let go and did it until the my thighs nagged me to end the position. My heart, which felt tight and restrained, felt opened and pampered. I had forgotten the physical sensations involved with yoga until today. And it hit home, how much everything is tied into everything else. What we think affects us in the physical world.

I needed this lesson today.

Photograph by nflorence2012 (such time en-route)

There are very few absolute rituals that I enjoy. It used to be coffee in the morning, but even that has fluctuation within it. Sometimes I drink flavored coffee, sometimes it is black, sometimes I add cream, and sometimes I drink tea.

And so it seems this applies to my meditation practices. There is no absolute one practice that I can repeat and repeat and repeat. I like variety. So today in honor of Valentine’s Day I found a wonderful heart centered meditation. Thought I would share it with you. Click here to go to it.

Photograph by filipe ferreira

There was a time when I drank lots of water. Somehow I went away from this practice, but now it is time to pick it back up. I am in the process of loosing some excess weight, so I believe drinking more will help this. Also, it is incredibly dry in my house. This is reflected in my skin and hair, so maybe hydrating from the inside out will help give me an outer appearance of health.

From yesterday to today I lost three pounds. Two days before, I had gained a pound and then the next day I added one more. Yesterday, I was bit a depressed by this, but then the echo of an acquaintance bounced around the inside of my mind. He said that the scale can be a tough companion and though it may be accurate, it does not allow for the fluctuation of life. In my case, with monthly cycles, it is inevitable that there will be times my body just weighs more. Now that I am tracking my weight, maybe I will learn when those cycles happen.

Things I did do differently yesterday included drinking more water. I took a long wall and kept up my food journal.

Photograph by Iwan Gabovitch

With the onset of being a pound heavier, it occurred to me to join our local community gym – it is free after all. My partner has already been a member for a few weeks. So today, I rode over with him, presented identification, had my picture taken, and filled out the application. But alas, I cannot play until everything is processed. I sat on a bench and waited for my partner to finish his workout.

But I decided to make that time useful. I picked an unobtrusive spot to gaze at (not at the weight lifters, not at the information desk and not at the door). Then I made myself comfortable, yet also as unnoticeable as I could. I worked on an awareness meditation for ten minutes. I let the sounds of bouncing basketballs, the enthusiastic yells of children playing, and the huff and puffs of the weight lifters relax me. Eventually the sounds all melded together. People passed by me. The light through the door shifted, but all in all a productive and peaceful meditation.

(Tres) “descamarado”

147.5. I have been that weight all week. No change. Since losing two and half pounds the week before it was a little discouraging, but the truth is, I have done very little to change the weight. This past week was the first real week I had been able to get back into a somewhat normal routine – in other words, I was home for the whole time as opposed to popping off here or there. I think the first two and a half pounds were due to not eating on the run.

On the positive side, I sort of feel like I have a base line in which to work. I did do the self-hypnosis and that has helped. Now it is time to really get to work.

Photograph by net_efekt

Getting out the cyber feather duster, I decided to get rid of some of the winter blahs, take advantage of the energy from a 50+ degree day, and finally get the cobwebs out of the blogs. Ha. Are you looking around trying to see the changes? Well, in my aesthetics of maintaining a slightly professional edge on things, you would have never really seen the cobwebs. I am good at surface cleaning. No, these were the cobwebs that lingered in the basement level of the blogs, you know the type, hard to reach so it involved getting a step ladder out.

What are these changes? I finally upgraded The Transparent Hypnotist and The Unwinding Path to WordPress 2.7. Call me slow if you must, but I am always cautious when tweaking things. This time though, it went very smoothly. The redesign of the interface works well and functionality seems intact. I still cannot spell check on either blog, though. I cannot quite figure out why. But I tend to write in a word processing program and paste in the text, so the spell check is no big loss.

The question is, how will the poll widget work out tomorrow on The Transparent Hypnotist?

Photograph by cursedthing

Warm cat on my lap, purring herself to sleep. Thoughts of words to be written float in and out. Time is lost and I just recline in this semi-state of repose. I am aware of the traffic outside. I am aware of the furnace blowing warm air. I am aware of the weight of the cat. I am a battery that has been recharged, inspired, relaxed, hopeful…