North Star Mental Fitness

Choose Thin

Taming urges for eating forbidden foods is a struggle. Remember when you committed to becoming thin and you lost weight. Recall how good you felt with your new body image and outlook on life.

 

Although you enjoyed your thinness, eating right was still a struggle. You liked your weight loss, but the gorgeous sights and enticing aromas of your favorite foods, the forbidden foods, were

beginning to fill your mind. Besides, eating the right foods was becoming a chore.

 

The more you denied yourself of the stuff you really wanted, the more you seemed to want it.

What did you do? Did you eat the forbidden foods or did you eat the right food?

 

Denise Wakeman has a wonderfully human, website, Slim People in Progress, for people who want to be healthy and slim

 

In one of her postings, Denise asked for strategies to reduce this struggle. I gave her this suggestion.

 

Imagine, your desired, forbidden foods with their tantalizing aromas and delicious appearances in front of you. Now visualize yourself taking two steps towards the tempting foods. Stop and turn around. Now you are no longer looking at the desired foods and the attractive foods are no longer in your sight.

 

Now visualize yourself walking towards the thin you. You want the benefits from being thin. Fill yourself with the benefits from being thin. Immerse yourself in your thinness. Notice your energy, the lightness in your step, and the ease of your movements. Enjoy what you see in the mirror. Realize your improved health. Feel your emotional well-being. Claim your happiness and peace of mind. You are free.

 

Take the time and make a compelling and satisfying list of benefits for being thin. You can only have these benefits if you are thin.

 

Now, the struggle is no longer between eating and not eating forbidden foods. You will never make the choice to not eat forbidden foods.

 

Now, you will choose to eat the forbidden foods or you will choose to enjoy and keep your thinness and the benefits from being thin.

 

I have written about this strategy, The Turn Around Choice, and why it works in my two e-books I live Within the Environment Created by My Choices and The North Star Mental Fitness Program. Please visit, Nirth Star Institute, Inc., my website for your mental fitness needs.

Remember, You Live in the Environment Created by Your Choices!

 

Dr. Hal

Live and Mental Fitness Coach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Did I Gain Weight?

Weight loss deleted:

She has been very successful in losing weight.  She was going to the gym and eating right.

Then she started to gain weight.

What went wrong?

60,000 Thoughts a Day

How many thoughts to you have on a daily basis?  According to Possibility Coaches, we have approximately 60,000 thoughts a day.

That is a lot of thoughts.  Out of your 60,000 thoughts yesterday, how many of them were determined by your conscious mind?  Did you purposely choose to change a thought or make a new thought?  Did you question any of your thoughts?  Did you decide that any of your thoughts were wrong or lies? 

Did you consciously began to think differently than in the past, because you want to change your life?  Did you consciously decide to frequently repeat thoughts in order to change the quality of your life including how you feel?

These questions are extremely important for you to consider and answer.  Most of our thoughts are automatic and not consciously created by us.  Unfortunately many of our thoughts are determined by past disappointments, fears, anxieties, painful issues and unsolved problems.  As a result, we frequently have automatic negative thoughts that control our mind and destroy our well-being.  Because we are so gullible to our own thinking, we accept our thinking as true even when it is not.

I urge you to interrupt the repetitive pattern of absorbing the same worn-out thoughts as true.  You do not have to be a prisoner to your own thinking.

If you want freedom, happiness, peace of mind and control of your life, then it is mandatory that you consciously take control of your thinking!

How you think will determine how you feel, act, and relate.  How you think will determine the quality and destiny of your life.  True mental fitness is determined by consciously interrupting the pattern of automatic thinking and consciously thinking thoughts that will provide you with a window of opportunity to be the person you really want to be.

Remember, We Live within the Lives Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

Gratitude Replaces Anger

I talked to a man who is a recovering alcoholic. He has been a very angry man. Anger from childhood spilled over into his adult relationships. He was angry over being raised by an alcoholic father. He has spent his whole life being angry over what is not there.

He has been angry over what is not there with his father, wife, family and friends. It became very clear to him as well as to me that he needed recovery from his anger as well as from his alcoholism. He has become painfully aware that his anger has alienated him from everyone. He and his wife are separated, but reconciling.

I asked him to write a letter to his deceased father. He was surprised by what he wrote in the letter. He admitted that he has walked a similar path; the path of alcoholism. He admitted that both of them hurt the ones they love, because of their alcoholism.

In his letter to his father, he did not focus on his anger over what was not there. Instead he surprised himself by writing how much he loved his father and how much he wished that his father would've had a happier life without alcohol.

Then he wrote how grateful he was for his father's sacrifices in supporting the family. He had not been aware of the positives provided by his father. He was able to verbalize how grateful he was for his father in spite of his father's alcoholism. He was able to verbalize that he was "proud" of his father.

I have shared this life experiences with you for the following reason. I wanted to ask the question.

Are you angry over what is not there rather than being grateful for what is there in your relationships and life!

Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Choice!

Dr. Hal

Life and Life and Mental Fitness Coach

The Freedom Choice

THE FREEDOM CHOICE

I WANT FREEDOM FROM “THE WAY THINGS ARE”,

SO I WILL MAKE A NEW OR DIFFERENT CHOICE!

 

In situations that enslave and limit you, you can say to yourself,

“I WANT FREEDOM FROM MY PAST”.

“I WANT FREEDOM FROM THIS”.

“I WANT FREEDOM TO BE”.

“I WANT FREEDOM TO HAVE”.

“I WANT FREEDOM FROM THE WAY THINGS ARE”.

After making one of those powerful declarations make a new choice. Your new
or different choice may be a thought, feeling, behavior or activity.

As often as possible during a day refresh and energize your mind by finishing the
thought: “I WANT FREEDOM FROM” or “I WANT FREEDOM TO.”

As THE FREEDOM CHOICE becomes more meaningful to you, you will become aware that you create your environment with your choices. Once THE FREEDOM CHOICE becomes a regular part of your experience, there will be new meaning to the statement:

I LIVE WITHIN THE ENVIRONMENT CREATED BY MY CHOICES.

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

The Freedom Choice is one of the tools for recreating your life from my companion books, The North Star Mental Fitness Program and I Live within the Environment Created by My Choices.

How to Tame Your Anxiety

Anxiety can be managed effectively by learning to think about it differently than most people do. Most people think of anxiety and panic as a psychiatric symptom that can greatly limit one's life and evedn destroy the quality of one's life.

It is very possible to take the fear and panic of anxiety by changing how you think.

If you understand the basic information about a car, you have the ability to overcome anxiety.

Both cars and people can be anywhere from empty to full. We all know that when a car gauge goes over to empty, it is time to refuel. We know that it is normal for a car to be anywhere from empty to full. A car is not broken, when it goes towards empty.

We also know that the car gauge has a signal, so we know when the car needs gas. We trust the signal. We recognize the signal. We don't analyze the signal or think the car is broken. We automatically "read" the signal and put in some gas.

People can be anywhere from empty to full. We are empty, when we don't have what we want or need or we need to take some constructive action in our lives. We are full, when we are satisfied and have made good decisions to take care of ourselves.

Anxiety and panic can be our signals, when we are empty. If you look at anxiety and panic as signals, then you can choose to accept the signal and figure out what you want, need or need to do for yourself.

Once you have satisfied you wants, needs or taken constructive actions to take care of yourself, you will be satisfied and the anxiety signal will go away.

We can learn to recognize and accept signals of anxiety as normal. It is important to think of anxiety as a signal rather than a problem or an illness.

You can take control of your anxiety and welcome your anxiety by learning to think about it as a signal .

Remember, You Live within the Body and Environment Created by Your Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

It Doesn't Matter

"It Doesn't Matter" she said to herself.   She was a married woman who loved her husband and cared deeply for him.  She was distraught and sorry for hurting her husband again.  Once again, she had been unfaithful to him.

There was no doubt that it did matter to her.  It mattered that she remain married.  She really wanted to have a good relationship with her husband.  She was empathetic regarding her husband's pain.  She wanted to stop her new husband.  So why, did she continue to devastate her husband?

I believe that it was the result of an ANT.  Dr. Daniel Amen defined an ANT as an Automatic Negative Thought.

IT DOESN'T MATTER WAS HER ANT! 

Are You a Man Blinded by Your Logic

It is well-known that men have difficulty in relationships with women, because they interact in such a logical and unemotional manner.  For a man thinking logically feels right and natural.  It is very difficult to conceive that our logic may be wrong.

When Won'tpower Is Stronger Than Willpower

Cranky Fitness wrote about Willpower and Won'tpower.  Crabby McSlacker focused most on the failure to reach goals on the basis of willpower.  He insinuated that there is won'tpower. 

I sure like the idea that people have both willpower and won'tpower.  I know there is won'tpower.  Haven't you had run-ins with won'tpower!

Time and time again, we try to accomplish goals on the basis of willpower only to be thwarted by an insidious, constantly changing, unrecognized force called won'tpower by Crabby.

Crabby shared his own experience: "I actually do wonder if we have natural limits on our willpower, and can only tackle so many challenges at once. At least I observe this phenomenon in myself all the time. 
Anyone else find that if they're putting a lot of mental effort into one goal, the other stuff starts to slip?"

Can we all identify with Crabby's hypothesis "It's like there's a concrete amount of willpower in my psychological bank account. And if I try to write too many self-improvement checks? The damn things start bouncing."

Because of the difficulty with trying to solve life's problems on the basis of willpower, I created The North Star Mental Fitness Program.  I knew willpower was insufficient for completing self improvement projects.  I thought the willpower has to be made stronger.  I thought the solution must be multifaceted, more complicated, but still possible to obtain.

I liked the concept of mental fitness as it parallels physical fitness.  We all know that physical exercises can make people stronger.  So can mental exercises make people mentally strong enough to solve their problems or reach their goals. In the North Star Mental Fitness Program, there are 15 strategies or exercises for increasing the power in willpower or for giving us the tools for solving our problems and reaching our goals.

There are strategies for building one's focus, putting focus into action and keeping momentum soaring.  There are strategies for coping with frustration and turning won'tpower into willpower.

It does not work to try to beat won'tpower into submission by using willpower.  The harder you try to destroy won'tpower, the stronger it becomes.  Sometimes our unconscious mind specializes in won'tpower and fights against our conscious efforts to achieve self-fulfillment.  When won'tpower appears, it is much like an acting out, screaming child. It must be dealt with immediately. You cannot ignore a screaming child nor won'tpower. 

If you are not reaching their goals and solving your problems, get help for your won'tpower.

Remember, We Live within the Environment Created by Our Choices!

Dr. Hal

Life and Mental Fitness Coach

 

Use CPR To Kill Your Ant's (Automatic Negative Thoughts)

Dr. Daniel Amen believes you could have an ant infestation in your brain!  It sure sounds gross, doesn't it?  Before you call an ant exterminator, let me explain what Dr. Amen means.