Have you ever gone to a circus and seen an elephant being held in place by a thin piece of rope around its ankle? Think about this for a second. An elephant is one of the strongest animals in the world and can move entire trees. Why then does it not simply break this thin rope and run away? This answer lies within its limiting beliefs. When circus trainers first get a baby elephant to train, they start by tying its leg up with a heavy chain. The baby elephant will pull and pull to try to get away because that’s its natural instinct. It will pull day after day until it exhausts itself, all the while, not being able to break free. One day, it will give up hope and think it’s impossible to get away. Eventually, trainers can tie a thin rope around its ankle and it will never try to escape, simply because it doesn’t think it can. This very thing happens to us all the time! When we were little kids, we thought we could be, do and have anything. Somewhere along the way, we started to believe what other people told us. We forgot about our dreams to become Prime Minister or an astronaut. We soon settled for less. Now, we don’t believe we are good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, etc. But, this does not have to be the way! We can challenge our limiting beliefs! Our first step is by being aware of them. Look at the following areas in your life. Write what you would like to achieve, no matter how crazy you think it is. Next, write down why you can’t achieve your goals...these are some limiting beliefs. Areas to examine:
What are some of your limiting beliefs? Let me know! Give our office a call. I am available for virtual consults and in-office consults. 613-446-6060. For more information about virtual treatments, Click HERE. Looking for more information about Neuro-Optimization? Click HERE.
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Summer has officially started with the summer solstice! Congrats! We made it to summer. The sun brings warmth, fire and growth energy to the earth. Within this energy, there’s an opportunity to transform your life….do you know what you want to create? Here are a few questions for you to ask yourself to take advantage of this sacred time.
Happy summer solstice! May you be blessed with abundance throughout the year! Need some help? Give our office a call. I am available for virtual consults and in-office consults. 613-446-6060. For more information about virtual treatments, Click HERE. Looking for more information about Neuro-Optimization? Click HERE. There are probably a lot of things that we are fearful of. One of my fears is snakes. I don’t even know why I’m afraid of them but I am. However, I don’t want my son to be. So, I need to be courageous for him so that he doesn’t grow up to be fearful of them.
One of the ways to turn your fear into courage is to do it for someone else. Have there been times where you have been fearful to speak up about something for yourself? Perhaps it was for a raise or to a bully. How about if you had to speak up to protect someone else? I’m sure you could find the courage to do that. If you can’t do it for you, find someone else that you can be courageous for. Your family, friends, animals who may not be able to speak for themselves. Another way to get through your fears is to break them down into smaller challenges. If your goal was to climb a high mountain then your task would seem daunting if you were at the bottom. If however, you just asked if you could take the next step or two, your challenge would then become easier. Over time, you will climb your mountain. One thing I like to do is to give myself challenges. For instance, if I wanted to try a new way of eating. I might commit to it for 30 days and give myself and 30 healthy eating challenge. 30 days is something that I can track and it’s a short enough time vs saying that I had to eat a certain way forever. If finances scare you, why not try a 30 day challenge where you track your spending. Commit to a 30 day challenge for something, and write below what you are going to do. Need some help? Give us a call 613-446-6060 In Turning Setbacks into Comebacks- Part 1, I told my story about how I turned what was supposed to be a major business setback into a comeback. I also talked about what I learned from the experiences. In Part 2 of this article, I’m going to go through the precise steps and questions that I asked myself to make my come back. Firstly, when we experience what we consider to be a setback, whether in business, health, relationships, finances, etc. we want to examine our expectations of the situation. Where our expectations realistic? I often have people coming into the office with health challenges and having unrealistic expectations of how long it will take to heal. If you come into the office with poor posture, it did not get there overnight. Poor posture is built over years and years of abusing your body and neglect. It will not take a couple of visits for your to straighten up. Look at the last time you had a setback in an aspect of your life. Did you have realistic expectations of the situation. Hint: probably not. If not, what was the reality of the situation? Next, we want to examine the setback further. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Whether you decide to call it quits or make a comeback, the experience will have taught lots of life lessons. Appreciate what you learned and take this new version of you into your next adventure. Need some help with this? 613-761-1600 Some people create goals or resolutions and then forget about them. How can they come true if they aren’t in your consciousness? Remember that success and failure are both choices. In fact, they are made up of many choices along our way. We don’t become overweight because of one bad food choice. We become overweight by many poor choices, repeated over again. You need to choose to take action on your goals. Over and over again until you achieve your desired results. Here are some ways to keep your goals at the top of your mind
The more you put your goals in the forefront of your mind, the easier it will be to manifest them. What are some things you do? Often times we set goals or resolutions at the beginning of the year. Most times, we forget about them after a few months. Here is a way that allows you to focus on your goals for the year. Set a monthly theme for you goal. That way, you only focus on a single goal or theme for 1 month at a time. 1 month is easier to maintain than 1 year. Also, you can keep something up for 30 days but it’s much harder to do it for 365 days. My theme for the next 5 months is to focus on connection. I’ve further broken my theme down into 5 areas to focus on for each of the next 5 months. Month 1- connection with myself- since the birth of my child, I’ve neglected certain areas of my life. In this month, I look to add back into my life regular exercise, journaling and meditation. I will also give myself grace by not mandating that I do something religiously or like I did before, recognising that I have new priorities in my life that require my time. Instead of working out 5-6 times a week like before, I will try for once every 2 weeks. During this month, my question that I ask myself will be: is this task (i.e. watching tv, going on social media, etc) bringing me closer to my goal this month? Month 2- connection with my significant other- it is very important for me to keep our relationship strong. It’s also been harder to find time for ourselves taking care of a baby. This is why I want to make special efforts in making my significant other a priority. We’ll try for date nights or to cook together and have quality family time. My question this month will be: is what I am currently doing, going to bring me more connection with my significant other or my family? Month 3- connection with my child- it is important to me to foster a great connection with my baby. When we’re together or as a family, I want to focus on being present when we play or learn. I will enjoy our moments together and get to know this amazing little human. My question will be: am I being fully present to connect with my child? Month 4- connection with family and friends- these relationships are very important to me and are part of my village. I want to foster these connections. Month 5- connection with my business- I love what I do and I am very fortunate to have amazing patients. I love connecting with them and watching their lives change for the better. What are other areas that you would like to focus on? Finances, health, etc? Pick the areas you want to focus on and get started!! Need some help? Come on by to one of our monthly workshops: 613-761-1600 That’s it! You’re frustrated with your body. It’s not healing at the rate you want it to. You’ve had a cough or cold for 3 weeks now….andyou're sick and tire of being sick. This had been my reality for the past couple week and I was fed up. I even started saying to myself “how come my body can’t heal? Why is this happening to me? And then I get upset at my body….after a few minutes, I discovered that this line of thinking wasn’t helping. So this is what I did…. I ask different questions to contradict what my mind was telling me. Instead, I asked “what are recent examples of my body healing?” Then I remembered that I pulled a muscle and it was much better, the bruise on my shin is nearly gone and the scrape on my elbow is healed. How can I say that my body is not healing when clearly, it is? This allowed me to see that my mind was playing tricks on me. My body is in fact healing! It simply needs more time or more sleep, or help in the form of supplements, herbal remedies etc, The trick is to find evidence that contradicts what your mind is telling you. If your mind is telling you, having a bigger house, nicer car, making more money, etc will make you happy. Ask yourself the reasons for why this may not be true. If I had a bigger house...what I be happier? Well, personally, it may mean more grass to cut, a bigger mortgage, more rooms to clean, etc. That would not make me happy at all. If my mind said that being in any relationship would make me happy. I would ask, how many people are unhappy in relationships. It's got to be a good relationship for me and sometimes, that takes patience and time. Before you want what someone else has because you think it will bring you happiness, ask yourself if it really will. Practice this technique of questioning your mind and let me know how it goes. Too often, we’re trying to “find time” to fit things in. How often have you said to yourself that you have to find time to take care of your health, kids, etc.? Instead of trying to find time, schedule the time into your schedule. What gets scheduled, gets done! If something such as your health is truly important to you, you will make the time for it. It becomes a must. Schedule your gym times like your do your other appointments (like your chiropractic appointments haha). Every Monday morning from 8-10am is my “getting stuff done for the office” time. It’s blocked off in my agenda and that is when I write my blogs, work on my files for the office, prep newsletters, etc. If I need more time, there is a block on Tues morning for spillover activities. Put your important tasks, events, etc into your schedule and then you don’t have to stress about making time for them. Now...if your schedule is overfull already, that’s a different challenge :) That is a sign of priorities. If you’ve got a to-do list a mile long, you will have to decide first, what are your priorities. From there, look at your task list and ask yourself “which task, if I accomplish today, will allow me to feel like I had a successful day? Then start with that task. Get it out of the way. Need help with priorities? Come to one of our complimentary monthly workshops! In what areas of your life do you have standards? Even if you aren’t aware, you have them in all areas: finances, health, relationships, work, etc. Sometimes, we are aware of our standards and other times, not. How do you know when you have dropped one of your standards? One clue is that you get upset with yourself. You may think “I should have known better, or I knew I shouldn’t have done that”. Let’s say you are at school and you enjoy math. Your standard is to get a B or higher on each test. For one test, you drop your standard, stay up late playing video games and don’t study for the test and end up with a D. What would you probably do next time? Raise your standard back up again. When you drop your standards, notice and be aware of it, learn from it and raise them back up again. Observe, what areas in your life have the highest standards? Are you always on top of your finances? Do you exercise regularly, eat well and take preventative measure for your health? Is it your kids and family that you invest your time in most? The areas where you have the highest standards are also areas that you deem priorities in your life. The quality of your life is determined by the stands you set for yourself. What are you willing or not willing to accept or tolerate? You also teach other people how to treat you by what you allow, don’t stop from happening and what you stand for. What are your standards for how others treat you? Do you speak up when something nice is not said or do you let it go? What are your own standards for treating yourself? Are you kind to yourself? Do you make time to take care or are you the last on your list? Examine the standards in your life and if you don’t like the levels, raise them!
Is it more important to be consistent over time or to do things with great intensity? Similar to the old fable of the tortoise and the hare, consistency wins out over the long term. Let’s take working out for example. If you go consistently 3x/wk for a year you could develop more skills and take your time learning proper exercises versus if you went to the gym 1/month and worked out 5 hours each time you went. The body, as with life, enjoys routine and being consistent. If you were to transfer consistency to business or work, showing up every day over long periods of time, would get you further than showing up once in awhile and working like crazy. It is often seen in the newer stages of a business that founders will work crazy hours at first until it’s not sustainable anymore and either crash, give up or close their business. It’s not to say that at times, we won't need bursts of intensity where we may have more activities that need our attention. It’s simply not sustainable over a long period of time. Sustainability is key! Even in change, when you want to change a habit or routine or another pathway from your nervous system to your body, you can’t simply do things once or twice. You been to be consistent and do things multiple times until they become a part of your physiology and then the habit becomes a sustainable habit. Think learning to ride a bike. If you find yourself going crazy with your to-do lists and doing a million things at a time, ask yourself, is this sustainable? Then re-think your priorities and think long term. |
AuthorDr. Amanda is a non-traditional chiropractor who focuses on Neuro-Optimization Chiropractic in Ottawa, Canada.
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