Love & Compassion

I started my day with a gift to me. I gave myself love by going to a morning yoga practice, led by Nicole Lytle at Beloved Yoga studio. The intention of the class was compassion and she ended the class with the following poem:

You are a mirror

 If you continue to starve yourself of love

you'll only meet people who'll starve you too

 If you soak yourself in love

the universe will hand you those

 who'll love you too. 

-a simple math 

Rupi Kaur 

Please take time to read that again as it is so powerful.

You've heard me say before that optimal health is not complicated. Do these three things: Maximize, Minimize and Prioritize what you're unique body needs.

Yet the most difficult for many is to prioritize self-love, self-care and compassion.  This for many, is a challenge and a practice.

I'd like to challenge you for today and for the next 7 days. Can you soak yourself in love? What small (or large) act can you give yourself every day? Maybe it's a 5 minute meditation. Maybe a foot massage with essential oil. An epsom salt bath, a yoga practice. A cup of herbal tea and time with self. A journal entry. A walk in the woods. A meaningful conversation. A nourishing meal. Snuggling with a pet or loved one.  Dancing to music. Playing with children and Grandbabies.

Will you help foster this sense of love, and please post on my Carpe Diem Facebook page an act of self love each day? Just maybe this will inspire us all to give each other permission to prioritize self. I need reminders like this, especially in the dreary rainy month of February. I need to remember that self love isn't selfish but it's the most loving thing we can do for family, friends and community.

Please Post Here, what loving thing will you do for yourself today?

Happy Valentines Day to all the very special women and men that I'm graced to know. I'm so grateful for all who I'm connected with, even those that challenge me. Sending you love.

Lisa

About Lisa Jackson, RN, CHC, RYT-500, AFMC

Lisa is an author, functional nutrition, and functional medicine trained health coach, yoga teacher, and retired Registered Nurse with the mission to "Inspire, Educate and Empower" individuals and corporations to achieve optimal health.

Lisa's book, Savvy Secrets: Eat, Think & Thrive is a self-health book offering her Seven Steps to Optimal Health.

When she is not coaching, or speaking, you can find Lisa joyfully sharing Carpe Diem Dance or playing with her two grandchildren. She is the mother of four adult children and believes, "Optimal health should not be a secret."

Celebrate Change

This morning I woke to my Granddaughter's cries. Every bone and muscle ached. I’ve spent the last four days helping my oldest daughter move from her home in Detroit to a small house on a lake in Northern Michigan. She's taken the plunge to follow her dream and heart; to move from the city to a slower pace life in the country. 

We pulled up old carpeting and scrubbed and polished decades of dirt from neglected flooring. We raked dead leaves and planted herbs around the deck. Moves, like Spring cleaning and cleanses are challenging but productive. We cleaned out a lot of garbage.

Change, like a crying baby can make us all feel vulnerable. Children are humbling at any age. They challenge us like no other. Yet, despite the cold barren winter, love springs eternal. A new generation is born with new possibilities. An aching heart, like a crying child just needs attention; healthy food, clean clothing, shelter and love. 

Our greatest challenges bring our greatest opportunities and rewards. There is no greater challenge or reward than mothering first yourself, then mentoring others. 

Here's to all women Aunts, Siblings, Mothers, and Grandmothers. You matter greatly. You are worthy of love, self care, and the manifestations of your wildest dreams.

Choose Love; Carpe Diem,

Lisa, aka Nana

About Lisa Jackson, RN, CHC, RYT-500, AFMC

Lisa is an author, functional nutrition and functional medicine trained health coach, yoga teacher, and retired Registered Nurse with the mission to "Inspire, Educate and Empower" individuals to heal from within.

Lisa's book, Savvy Secrets: Eat, Think & Thrive is a self-health book offering her Seven Steps to Optimal Health.

When she is not coaching, or speaking, you can find Lisa joyfully sharing Carpe Diem Dance or playing with her two grandchildren. She is the mother of four adult children and believes, "Optimal health should not be a secret."

Own Your Cancer or Own Your Life

You can own your cancer or you can own your life…your choice.

This sentence strikes hard for me. As I’ve been immersed in cancer the last several years, both personally and professionally, there is one thing I’ve noticed.  Those that refuse to own their diagnosis, heal.  

You are not your diagnosis. You are not whatever label family or society may give you. You are your own unique self and you are far more powerful than your family, society or doctor will let on.

You have the power to heal from within.

The power of your mind is profound. The power on your plate is profound.

According to Dr Kelly Turner, after radically changing your diet, the #2 most powerful common trait amongst those who’ve achieved Radical Remissions is taking control of your health.  She describes this in three parts: not being passive, willingness to change, and dealing with resistance.

All of this takes real courage…to go against the grain…to know and believe that you are not a statistic, not a number, but a unique individual.  Yes, it is easier to remain passive; to do what the doctor tells you to do; to be the good girl or boy. Sure, everyone resists change. Yes, it takes great courage to question your doctor or not worry what others think of your decisions. 

Those who achieve radical remissions refuse to believe in the statistics. The patient who takes healing into their own hands, often will find resistance from the medical community.

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is facing the fear and moving forward in spite of it.  We either react out of fear or we respond out of love. I'm talking about self love and self preservation. What is the most loving choice you can make for your unique body? 

Dr. Turner describes Shin, a Japanese gentlemen who was sent home to die after doing surgery, radiation and chemotherapy for his renal cell carcinoma. He then started to take control of his own healing. First, he followed his sense of smell and realized his tap water was making him ill. 

He did simple solutions. He consumed only clean water, he learned to breathe deeply, he fasted and employed high dose IV nutrition so his digestive organs could heal. He practiced and experienced gratitude. He faced his fear of dying and replaced it with immense gratitude for each day he was able to breathe. Shin discovered how to open up his chakras (energy centers) in his body.  He rediscovered his love for music. He practiced deep healing breathwork and immersed his body in oxygen and exhaled toxic waste.  

Shin did just the opposite of conventional medicine. Instead of declaring war on his body, he sent love to his tumors.  He realized that his lifestyle and toxicity played a role in his cancer development and he chose to treat his body like a wounded child. He felt that this was his baby that he created and needed to nurture and heal.  To his pain he said, 

“Thank you very much for saying you are hurting. I love you, my child.” I touched this (points to his kidney) and said to my cancer, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” And pain decreased! That’s why I sent love to my cancer always, from morning till night…Unconditional love, that’s unconditional love. I said (to it). “Thank you very much for existing.”

 Shin has been full of love and cancer free since 1988. 

Success trumps statistics…every time!

Carpe Diem. With Love & Gratitude,

Lisa

Savvy Secret for Peace and Joy on Mothers Day

We all know the saying, “A happy Mother makes a happy family” or “A happy wife makes a happy marriage.” 

It’s so true! It takes a happy, healthy person to have a happy healthy relationship.

Today I want to give thanks to Mothers.

How do we find more peace and joy amidst life's chaos?

Close your eyes and put you hand over your heart and remember the first time you fell in love, if you are a mother, with your child or your baby. For some it was instantaneous after birth, for others it may take a while, but the love a Mother feels for a child is simply indescribable.  I recently felt that same love when my grandson was born. It catches you off guard, this total infatuated love, which again, is indescribable. 

I never knew that my heart would swell with such pride!

I often share in my yoga classes that a heart in love is physiologically different than a heart that is fearful, angry or in pain.  It sends out different chemicals throughout the body.  The reality is, with free will, we have the choice at every moment to choose to love or to choose fear and worry. 

It is easy to forget this when you become a mother. It is easy to become overwhelmed with all the roles and responsibilities we take on, wife, mother, friend, employee or employer.  The more roles we take on, the more challenging it becomes to remember the choice we have to prioritize self-love and self-care. 

The most loving thing we can do for others is to love ourselves. For when we are balanced and full of love, that love spills over and there are no boundaries.

Someone recently asked me, “Who do you love more, your children or your grandson.” I laughed and said, “That’s like what my daughter used to always ask me if I loved her or her siblings more.”  Before my Grandson was born, my daughter shared her fear she would not love her child as much as she loves her puppy. The minute he was born, she laughed and said, “OK I get it!”

Today let’s celebrate this boundless, undeniably contagious, unconditional love, called Motherhood. Let’s remember not only the mother that brought us into this world but all of “the village” that is needed to raise us. Let’s celebrate all of the feminine creative energy that sustains us!

Click Here experience this peace and joy for yourself!

Thank you, Mom for giving me life, two beautiful sisters, and unconditional love until I was able to love myself.  Thank you for loving me even when I didn’t love myself. Thank you for always being there, if not physically in spirit. Thank you my dear sisters, aunts, my health coach and all of my female friends for your love, guidance and support to me and my family. Love is indeed, the most powerful tool we have to heal from within.

Carpe Diem with Love & Gratitude!

Lisa



ABOUT LISA JACKSON, RN, CHC, RYT

Lisa is an author, inspirational speaker, and coach with a mission to inspire and empower others to feel their best at any age. Her book, Savvy Secrets: Eat, Think & Thrive outlines seven steps that are fun and transforming. Lisa is part of the New Self Health Movement, the International Health Coach Association and the Wellness Inspired Network. When she is not coaching, speaking or writing, you can find her practicing yoga and joyfully sharing Carpe Diem Dance at every opportunity.