Life Changing Journey

B: Oatmeal/Banana/Strawberry smoothie
L: Grilled cheese Sandwich
D: Fish salad
S: Frozen grapes

Workout: 55 minute Hard Core Fusion

I started following Paul McKenna’s plan for awhile…and although I kinda stopped for awhile for I-don’t-know-why, it’s always been back of my mind. Although I can’t afford his DVD and I was not able to watch all of his show on TLC, I found all the information on his website, www.mckenna.com. I posted the information on here, as I am going to read them again and follow them and hopefully it will help some of the visitors on here too.

Excerpt from www.mckenna.com

1. If it’s appropriate, close your eyes and think of someone who loves or deeply appreciates you. Remember how they look, and imagine they are standing in front of you now.

2. Gently step out of your body and into the body of the person who loves you. See through their eyes, hear through their ears, and feel the love and good feelings they have as you look at yourself. Really notice in detail what it is that they love and appreciate about you. Recognize and acknowledge those amazing qualities that perhaps you hadn’t appreciated about yourself until now.

3. Step back into your own body and take a few moments to enjoy those good feelings of knowing that you are loved and appreciated exactly as you are.

You can keep that inner feeling with you for hours and hours and re-run this exercise whenever you want to boost it. The more you do it, the easier it becomes, and eventually it becomes almost automatic to love and feel loved.

THE FRIENDLY MIRROR - INTRODUCTION

Everyone receives compliments and praise from time to time. Sometimes they may seem trivial, like ‘Hey, you’re looking great’ or ‘You look sharp today’. At other times they may seem quite significant, like ‘You are so sexy’, or ‘Do you know how much people respect you?’

Sincere, positive perceptions from others, which you might not have been able to see or fully appreciate from the point of view you had at the time, can be valuable in learning to appreciate your own qualities more fully and enhance your self-esteem now.

The next three techniques will help you to eliminate emotional hunger by enabling you to feel better and better about yourself every time you look in the mirror. Read through each technique several times until you know the steps and then go and do it. The entire process will take no more than ten minutes, and can be repeated as often as you choose.

Here are several techniques that will help you increase your self esteem and confidence right now. I have written out each step so you can read through them before you do them if you like.:

1. Think of somebody who you think likes what they see when they look at themselves. You don’t have to know this for a fact, but you suspect that when they look in the mirror they say nice things about themselves.
2. Imagine your model of beauty is standing in front of you. Imagine how they look, their posture, and as much as you can about them.
3. Next, close your eyes and imagine stepping in to them - right in to their body. Copy their body posture exactly and see through their eyes, hear through their ears and feel the confident happy feelings of self appreciation they have.
4. Take those good feelings and move them up to the top of your head and down to the tip of your toes, until you are totally covered in that good feeling.
5. Now, staying in touch with that good feeling, open your eyes and stare in to your eyes. DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR BODY - just keep staring in to your eyes for at least 2 minutes. This exercise re-calibrates the perceptual filter of your consciousness and allows your mind to see more clearly in the future.

When you get comfortable with part one, you can move on to part two:

1. Standing in front of a mirror with your eyes closed, recall a specific time when you were paid a compliment by someone you respect or trust. You don’t necessarily need to have believed the compliment at the time but you do need to trust the sincerity of the person who said it. Run through the experience all over again.
2. As you recall the compliment, and the sincerity of the person who said it, pay particular attention to your feelings of trust and regard for the other person.
3. When you feel that as strongly as possible, open your eyes, look in the mirror and really see what they saw. Allow yourself to see what someone else has seen and notice how that feels.
4. Finally, imagine taking a picture of yourself just like that. Imagine taking that picture right into your heart. Keep it there so that you can look at it whenever you want to remind yourself how good you can feel.

When you get comfortable with part two, you can move on to part three:

1. Each day, spend at least one minute looking at your body in the mirror. In an ideal world, you will do this without clothes, but if that doesn’t feel right at first, you may wear anything that reveals your basic shape.
2. Notice what thoughts come up, from ‘this is stupid’ to ‘God, I hate my thighs’ to ‘hmmm … not bad – not bad at all!’
3. Send love, approval and positive energy to the person in the mirror. Let them know that you’re on their side, and that your love for them is not dependent on the size of their thighs.

Remember to use these techniques every day and don’t be too surprised at how quickly you begin to notice the changes. For many people just moving from self-hate to a state of neutral self-acceptance is life-changing. Eventually, you will get all the way to love, and then the changes become even more dramatic.

As you begin actively to meet your own emotional needs, you will find your emotional hunger begins to diminish. As it does, eating only when you are truly hungry for food will become easier and more natural. You will become noticeably more confident and charismatic. Day by day, you’ll find yourself naturally doing things that you used to only dream of.