In one of my favorite My Weight Loss for Life Wake UP Call® messages from best-selling author, Oprah Show guest and coach, Victoria Moran, she shares her favorite acronym: M.E. She asks, “Who are you going to take care first thing every day? – ME! And how will you do that? – M-E: “m” for meditation, “e” for exercise…”
Victoria goes on to discuss her own experience with meditation. (She shares her tips on exercising in another My Weight Loss for Life Wake UP Call® message.) When Victoria was in her 20s and struggling terribly with food and weight, and looking everywhere for help, she wandered into a Christian Science Reading Room. The man there suggested meditation. She remembered thinking, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about: that doesn’t burn any calories.” She says that she was voraciously consuming food she didn’t need in a vain attempt to calm herself down and block out feelings she didn’t want to feel. Victoria realized, “That wise man was trying to give me a way to get calmness, and peace, and the courage to be with those uncomfortable feelings and not have to eat to stuff them down.
Meditation can do that. It also boosts your immunity, improves your relationships, and makes you younger. No kidding! A research study found that people who meditated regularly for 5 years or longer were, on average, 12 years younger physiologically that the control group that didn’t meditate. This is pretty amazing stuff & it works when you work it.
So here’s what you do. Commit that this morning, and every morning for the next thirty days, you’re going to take some quiet time. Serious meditators go 20 minutes, but starting with ten or even five minutes is okay.
You can certainly use your quiet time the way you want: for prayer, or writing in a journal, or for the formal meditation that all those studies show is beneficial on so many levels. You simply pick a focal point and bring your awareness back to that word or phrase as you sit quietly and breathe slowly.
You can try “I’m okay as I am.” (inhale “I’m okay,” exhale “as I am.”) Or a phrase I use a lot is: “All is well.” I inhale, “All is…” and exhale, “well.” Try that a few times. Breathe in, “All is,” and breathe out “well.” …Once you get into the habit, you can get to this beautiful place in your own psyche with just a few slow, deep breaths in the midst a busy or stressful day.
You can do this at that time of day when you often reach for something to eat that you wish you hadn’t… or at stoplights… or when your boss or your teenager is pushing all your buttons. And it’s okay if your mind wanders. Just bring it back. Keep breathing. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Because, like you and me and the rest of us, it’s already perfect, just the way it is.”
About My Weight Loss For Life Wake Up Call Motivational Alarm Clock Messages:
Weigh less for life with My Weight Loss For Life Wake Up Call messages with best-selling author, Oprah Show guest and coach, Victoria Moran. Having maintained a 60-pound weight loss for over 20 years, Victoria also shares her personal success tips for weighing less for life
