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Health & Fitness

Mirror, Mirror on the wall....

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?” –Evil Queen from the Disney movie Snow White.

What happens when you look into the mirror? Do you like what you see? Do you like who you see? Are you seeing your make believe self or are you seeing the truth?

Not long ago I shared with you a whisper from my wallpaper from the late Henry Ford, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t you are right.”  I also add a twist to this and say, “ whether you think you are or you think you are not you are right.”

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Is it possible that the script or the image you are creating about yourself and about your life is just make believe? If you repeat your beliefs long enough those beliefs become real and they become true. Those beliefs become the real you. Are you the fairest of them all? What does fair mean to you? Does fair mean the way you look? Does fair mean the way you conduct yourself in business? Does fair mean the way you negotiate? Does fair mean the way you parent? Does fair mean the way you apply yourself in all aspects of your life?

How much does inner critic play a part in your make believe? For me, my inner critic, which I think of as my dragon, tries hard to put doubt into my head around anything I try to create such as baking a loaf of bread or coaching, or writing or losing weight or parenting. My dragon is a constant battle of good versus evil. My dragon shows up in the mirror sometimes and tries to tell me that I am not going to be the success I want to be and sometimes it shows me that even though I have lost weight I am not looking the way I want to look. Damn dragon. It is up to me to believe or not believe what my dragon is hoping to convince me of. Honestly, there are days when I absolutely slay the dragon and then there are those days when I feel vulnerable to the dragon. Those vulnerable times are made less powerful when I at the very least recognize that my dragon is trying to breathe fire on me.

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What do you believe right here, right now, this minute? Take a few minutes and answer these sentence starters. Get a piece of paper and a pen/pencil and give this gift to yourself. Be honest, be impulsive if necessary, be thoughtful or be heartfelt:

1)      I am…

2)      People are…

3)      Life is….

4)      Money is….

5)      Time is….

Now, back up what you have written in these sentence starters with proof from your life’s current experiences. What has happened to make you believe what you just wrote down? When you have finished with your current examples, write what your 12 year old self would have answered and write what experiences your 12 year old self would have given.

Taking both of these lists and looking at them, which list feels the most real, the most relatable, and the most honest? The point I am hoping to make here is that life is what you believe it to be. Each of us live in our own separate reality and we each interpret situations in our own unique way. If you were standing in front of that mirror with another person you would each see something different. You would see you from your emotional perspective and the other person would see you from a detached world view perspective. You would both be right because it is what you both believe to be true about what you are seeing. You will always tend to see whatever it is you are looking for*. Your thoughts create your reality. Why did the evil queen want conformation of her fairness? It is because she didn’t believe in her own fairness. She saw someone as being more than she was and that was the story she believed. She kept telling that story to herself over and over again and even though the mirror kept reassuring her of her fairness with the words she wanted to hear it wasn’t enough and it could never be true. The evil queen needed to believe it first and most of all.

Here is another short experiment. Take a piece of paper and a pen/pencil. Look around your environment and in 30 seconds make a list of everything you see that is green. When you are finished with your list, close your eyes. Clear your mind. Open your eyes and make a list of everything you see that is red*. The point of this experiment is that you are affecting your life experience, whether it is a small moment in time like finding green and red objects in your current space or something larger like a work day experience or a school day experience. Remember, you will always see whatever it is you are looking for*. If you are looking for money problems you will find it. If you are looking for a world filled with hate and despair you will find it. If you are looking for trouble itself you will find it. If you are looking for happy people you will find it. If you are looking for smiling faces you will find it. If you are looking for strength you will find it. If you are looking for kindness you will find it in yourself or the world as a whole. It depends on what you are looking for.

“Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it. If we are frantic, life will be frantic. If we are peaceful, life will be peaceful.” –Marianne Williamson

E=mc2

In 1905, Albert Einstein developed this formula that describes energy, mass and the speed of light squared. Basically this formula says that a small amount of matter/mass can release a huge amount of energy. In the grand scheme of life itself, in our universe, we as individuals are small amounts of mass with great amounts of energy. Collectively we are great amounts of mass with even greater amounts of energy. Our energy, whether individual or collective, can be transferred as a whole toward a FLOW state. Think of a large group of people praying in unison for a collective, unified outcome. The power of the energy created in most cases positively affects the outcome desired. When we are so absorbed in our thoughts toward a specific end we are in a state of flow. We are the deepest part of ourselves when we are deeply engaged in our beliefs, our actions, and our purposes.

An example of this flow state is the energy we put toward losing weight, toward open-mindedness, toward love, toward parenting, toward studying for a test, etc. If we are going to do something we believe in then we need to devote all of our energy toward that belief. How are you devoting your energies? Are you subconsciously and/or consciously devoting your energies toward believing the negative or the positive? Here are some questions to help you get your thinking going:

1)      How is your life like a fogged up mirror?

2)      What one thing can you do or would you like to do to clear the fog away even just a little bit?

3)      Finish this sentence: If I could just_______ I would start to breathe so much easier and a weight would be lifted from my shoulders. I would then have more energy to put toward_______.

If you answered honestly and wholeheartedly then you are starting to see that there really are only 2 types of people. There are those that are victims and those that are creators. As a life victim you see your experiences as if the world around you were attacking you from the outside in to your core. A life victim takes external experiences and internalizes them negatively. Those experiences then become their reality. As a life creator you take life experiences and develop yourself from the inside out*. A life creator takes from their experiences all the energy and awareness and ideas and realizes that thoughts alone have no power. Their experience energy adds to who they are and who they want to be.

“We are the creators of our own experience. Remembering this, and living our lives from this perspective, empowers us.” --- Mike Robbins

*Respectfully quoted from Supercoach, Michael Neill from his book, Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life.

Lisa Zaccagnini is a personal success strategist, a personal growth professional and a life archaeologist. She has helped many people discover and uncover their personal strengths and use those strengths to write and/or re-write their life’s scripts and map out life’s routes and roadways. If you would like to learn how her coaching can help you please call or write to Lisa at 203-560-3061 or lisa@journeyoncoaching.com

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