Love and a good backup plan keeps you on track even in tough times

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Love and Good Backup Plan will keep you on track!

I love blogging but it’s been a while since my last post…sometimes you’re just cruising along and you hit a bump. In June we moved out of our home to begin a renovation project and I quite literally hit a bump – a speed bump – while walking my dog in the condominium community in which we are STILL living 9 months into this reno! The speed bump fared well but I wound up with two tears in my rotator cuff. Ouch!

Occasionally, when we hit a bump we have to pull back a bit. We can’t do everything we usually do. And that’s OK. In more challenging times I use a system I call “ECM^©”. It stands for “Expectations, Core, Mantra” and I included it in, Balanced and Whole, 21 Day Jumpstart Program for Weight Loss and Wellness. It’s a check list to help you draw your line in the “track” (to continue the monorail analogy). We all need a simple fallback plan for those times (be they days, weeks, months or years) when we have to tap the brakes.

Have you ever tried to identify the bare minimum you need to do to keep your life feeling balanced? Particularly as it pertains to food, exercise and stress management? If you’re wondering, “Has my life ever felt balanced?” then you definitely need a PLAN! Seriously though, it’s a bio individual thing – it depends on your usual baseline and the amount of time and energy you can muster in your current circumstances – in other words, how big a bump did you hit?

Defining Expectations is planning your weekly food – how many times you’re eating out and where the rest of your food is coming from. Building your Core refers to all body movement and exercise from yoga or a gentle walk to running 15 miles. And having a Mantra is about self-talk that keeps you on track. In a broader sense it includes mindfulness, breathing, meditation, prayer and everything you incorporate to stay balanced.

By defining your weekly minimum and sticking to it you’re creating an “autopilot” mode for yourself in the areas of food, exercise and stress management and this can make the difference between “spiraling down”, as a friend and former group client described her past year to me recently, and holding your own until you’re back on your feet (or back on your shoulders: )

When we hit a bump it’s tempting to just drop the backpack but doing so makes it much harder to get back on track.

Where does the love come in? Everywhere and all the time. Our connection to spirit, spouse, partner, kids, pets, plants, music, art, family, friends, community, colleagues and beloved clients, gives our days meaning and compels us to keep on chugging, especially in tough times. As Dr. Seuss wisely said, “Unslumping yourself is not easily done,” but love is always up for the task!

It’s the LOVE people!!!

So, drop off some love at every stop! Sprinkle love generously “Just because” & “As needed”…no healthy diet, supplement, exercise, yoga or meditation practice can compete. Those things just keep us healthier so we can LOVE BETTER – Bam!

Special thanks to the city of Miami for the inspiration, especially: