Why We’re So Fat

Fat. Now there’s an ugly word. The truth is one in three Americans is considered obese by the Centers for Disease Control. 17% of all U.S. children are too. It’s an astounding number. How has it come to this?

According to FastCompany, our brains aren’t prepared to handle the all-you-can-eat variety of food intake. Based on the primordial need to stuff our faces while we can, we often do. Our brains, apparently, are designed to prepare for rough winters and starvation. So we gorge ourselves, thinking it’s normal.

It’s not. We just don’t realize when to stop because our brains say it’s somehow okay.

Portion control is a term I learned while working on a campaign for Yum Yum Dishes, a fabulous company that creates ceramic dishes to provide acceptable food portions for weight control. We are not only what we eat; but how we eat it too.

So if you’re tempted to belly up to the next buffet and scarf a bit more than you should, think again. Eat a little less than you normally do and see how it feels. Eat slowly. Enjoy your food. If you do, you might notice that less is actually more. Let’s bring down that national statistic with a little more mindfulness.

Courtesy of FastCoExist.com

A life of thriving, not surviving

A thousand thanks to the Brazen Careerist Penelope Trunk for her blog love yesterday. And welcome to all you new visitors who might have found your way here through her. I’ve heard from a few of you already (thanks @btwendel, @bloomerbride and Tracey Linkous in particular).

Mindfulness rules.

So what is the power of slow? It really is about mindfulness. It is about moving beyond clock combat to embrace time as friend. Time is indeed all we have.

“I don’t want to survive. I want to live.” -The Captain in Wall-e

Kudos to Samantha Jones for this quote, which I totally lifted off her Facebook page and plopped here.

As Survivor enters its 20th season, I have to ponder the human desire to push the envelope, if you will. We are designed, on some level, to test our limits. Ask any three year-old. He’ll tell you. It’s funny watching Mommy get all purple in the face as I teeter on the edge of the sidewalk into oncoming traffic. Nice one.

If you are reading this, you are most likely in the privileged position of deciding now whether to live or just survive. We have enough food, clothing and shelter to make more than a difference in the world. We have access to the very technology that can change it for the better.

So what does living, and I’m saying rock-the-house-like-there’s-no-tomorrow kind of living, mean to you? Does it mean staying safe within the walls of your comfort zone, or does it mean doing that one thing each day that scares the crap out of you, then leaves you breathless as you realize it wasn’t all that bad?

You are more powerful than you can imagine. What will you do with your power today?

Hug Your Inner Buddha

One of the greatest sages of slow is Buddha.

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
– Buddha

Many thanks to the folks at BeliefNet for providing the inner sanctum for my thoughts on slow today. If you are looking for some free inspiration (even on the weekends!), consider subscribing. They rule!

Yesterday’s slide show on living in the present moment reminds me of something a crew member said on the TV set I was working on last week.

With one foot in the past and one foot in the future, guess where your present rests?

Square in the seat of your pants. Hmmm…Food for thought on this lovely Thursday!

How to Get More Free Time

Free time doesn’t have to be expensive because it is indeed ‘free’. The first step to having more free time is to decouple your understanding of time as money. When thinking that time equals money, they treat time as if it were very expensive. In fact, ‘free time’ is the most valuable time you can spend.

Why?

Because when you take time off, you are more productive on the days you are ‘on’.

I’ll give you an example.

Instead of going to the gym to ‘workout’, I shoveled snow with my family. I was outside, got light exposure, and had a great time while doing something productive and helpful (the neighbors were happy, too, as we shoveled part of their driveway free). In the afternoon, my husband and I went to the gym for a visit to the sauna only. What a thought! It was a great way to spend our free time. An hour there gave us an extra hour in the evening of wakefulness because we were so relaxed.

How will you spend your free time today?

Leisure Time in the U.S.

What is productivity anyway?

Productivity is a term with deep implications in Western society. If we obtain it, we are considered successful. If we don’t, we are not. While writing my book, The Power of Slow, I examined why we do the things we do such as obsessive email checking or excessive television consumption. It’s not particularly productive, nor does it add to our well-being. Why do we spend so much time with our gadgets in a virtual realm of connectivity? We ignore the people standing right beside us, interrupt them when our phones ring, and talk more animatedly into a headset than to our fellow peers in the next cubicle. In effect, we waste the units in our personal bank account of time, often engaging in useless activity.

Where are our manners? Where is our mindfulness for ourselves and others? We are in danger of becoming drones in a drama of our own making. We need to act fast in order to slow down.

The amazing thing about letting go of our perceived control over things is that miracles unfurl the moment you create the space for them to appear. We often hang on too tightly, pushing possibility to the farthest corner of the room. When we unplug, we allow an opening of light to seep through our homemade darkness.

During the early stages of writing the book, I unplugged for two weeks without Internet access. I gathered up my family, who had already begun showing signs of book fatigue by late August, and took them to the Adriatic coast in Italy for some fun in the sun. Saddled down with seven books, I had read and highlighted every single one by the last day of vacation. In fact, I was so relaxed, I began to have ideas I never would have had if I were sitting in front of my computer.

Living the slow, I strolled along the pool one day when it hit me. I could actually hear the sound of my own flip flops as they slapped my heels in rhythm to the burbling water before me. Inspired, I grabbed a notebook and jotted down a few ideas about walking speed and the pace of life. The flip-flop principle of checking how fast we walk by noting the speed of the slap was born. Many more ideas followed in rapid succession. In fact, the modernized fable of the unplugged tortoise and the online hare hat later became the prologue arrived right on time as I banged out chapter after chapter while sitting in a hotel room in Budapest.

The beauty of the Internet is a writer’s ability to work and live virtually anywhere. With this malleability comes the danger, not just for writers, but for any transient worker, of an unabashed, hyperconnectivity that zaps our life force for all its worth. Admittedly, I had one media interview (ironically about slow living) while in Italy, and a client call while in Budapest. These minor distractions reminded me that there is a world waiting for us all whenever we choose to visit, but that how we live now is all there truly is.

The Invisible Auxiliary Benefits of Slow

We all know the feeling of impatience when things take longer than they ‘should’. We tap our fingers, pace the floor, or shout unkind words in our heads or at the windshield, depending on the proximity of others or the level of their so-called offensive slowness.

But I ask you, what are we rushing toward? Why does the ‘is’ upset us so drastically? Because it often is not in alignment with our own personal ‘should’.

I was talking to a friend about some recent changes that were made after our server got updated. It took our six-person team about a week to adjust to the new system. Emails were ‘slower than usual’ and sometimes bounce-backs occurred (I remember when a bounce-back referred more to an immediate relationship after ending a long-term one. Being on the rebound meant you could bounce back to normal only after the fling had ended…)

“You know, Christine,” my friend sagely pondered outloud. “Maybe our Emails are supposed to take a little longer. I mean really ~ isn’t there power in slow?  I, for one, still own a rake. I’d rather plod along my yard to the scratching noise it makes than zip around, emitting sound and CO2 with a leaf blower.” Not to mention the fresh air and exercise. Moving at the speed of a rake sounds good to me.

Oftentimes we think there is no benefit to doing things slower. We tend to believe doing things faster is somehow better. But what about the auxiliary effects of going slowly?

• Walking to the store instead of driving (exercise, light exposure, green, meditative)
• Raking your yard instead of leaf-blowing it (exercise, light exposure, green, meditative)
• Taking time to provide a thoughtful answer to an Email (you may remember to include more things, thereby reducing Email traffic considerably)
• Managing expectations ahead of time (reduces upset, especially around the holidays)

If you doubt the power of this, try walking just one pace slower today. Notice how you feel as you bring yourself to move at a slower speed. Do you feel impatient and anxious? Or do you feel yourself opening up to new possibilities and ways of thinking? Along the path, toss a few ‘shoulds’ in the drink. Then tell me how it went!

Igniting the Fire Within

In lieu of racing to yet another appointment, my mother paused by the fire her husband was making and decided to cuddle her inner turtle instead. Drawn to the licking flames, she engaged in what best-selling author and lifestyle expert, Mary LoVerde, calls a pause ritual.

The Spanish have siestas. The British sip their tea. Heck, even the furiously industrious Germans have coffee and cake on Sundays.

What do we have? Well, it used to be called Sunday, but now it’s just like any other day. You shop, you eat out, you belch out activities day in, day out, without pause.

I have a power of slow opportunity you won’t want to miss. Fasten your seat belts. This one’s really good. It involves $5,000 and seven days of rest.

But first, have you ever noticed how we respond to the four elements?

Earth ~ a little digging in the dirt rests the soul.

Wind ~ sailing brightens the spirit.

Fire ~ sitting down to the warmth and comfort never felt so good.

Water ~ hearing the ocean slap the sand’s surface loosens our iron-clad grip as it lightens our load.

Mary LoVerde is partnering with Pine Mountain Firelogs to bring not only more light and warmth to people’s lives, but also more awareness for the basic human need for connection. They’re not talking about friending more people on Facebook. They are referring to the deeper stillness that comes from within when you take a moment to connect with what’s truly important to you. In this season of light, she’s concentrating on the element of fire.

In a phone interview, Mary stated that it is not our job to get it all done in an instant and yet that is exactly how we live. “We have filled just about every moment,” she says. “We have expectations we simply cannot meet.” Whether it is a pristine household while working a forty-hour job or maintaining the perfect figure while juggling five children’s schedules, we are straddling too many gaps in our own capacity to handle everything we’ve piled onto our plates.

“People do not give themselves permission to pause,” Mary claims. In her own work, she teaches people to design their own pause ritual to maintain their sanity. “In mathematics, if you keep adding and adding, you reach infinity. In life, if you do that, it’s called insanity!”

According to Mary, we spend a lot of time on what we will DO, but little or no time on the conversation of how we will take time to connect with what’s really important. So here’s your chance to lighten your load and lift your spirits.

In their Win the Ultimate Vacation at Home contest, Pine Mountain Firelogs is offering $5,000 worth of household services (chef, maid, landscaper, etc.) for seven full days while you rest by the fire, connect with those you love, and spend more time enjoying life while living the power of slow. Full rules and regulations are available here.  

In a survey conducted by Impulse Research with women ages 35-55 in April 2009, it was found that the top daily responsibilities women claim to cause the most stress include:

• cleaning the house (66 percent),
• working outside the home (45 percent); and
• making dinner (39 percent).

If women today had an extra hour in their day, they would put their feet up and relax, (40 percent), spend time with friends and family (37 percent) or shut the bedroom door and take a nap (36 percent).

But why wait to change the number of hours in a day? Most likely, that won’t happen. I hate to break it to you folks, but the twenty-four hour day is based on the Earth’s movements on its own axis, not to mention around the sun. So! Accept the twenty-four hours. Love them. Live them. Breathe them ~ slowly and lovingly. Toss another log on the fire, if you have one. If not, burn a candle and say a prayer as you dance to your own pause ritual!

 

What is time abundance?

Have you ever noticed how we talk about time? We often address it like a fierce competitor we have to beat to the finish line. We crunch it, beat it, and race against it. But I wonder what would happen if we were to treat time as a partner, as a friend, as the Siamese twin it was meant to be? In my book, time equals existence, not money as Benjamin Franklin was apt to say.

Let me back up. Time, in truth, is a construct. It is an organizing principle that helps us meet expectations, such as getting to the same restaurant at the same moment as your friend so you can have lunch. It is a useful tool in commerce, too. You wouldn’t want to miss that shipment coming in from abroad, now would you? In fact, global time wasn’t properly introduced until October 13, 1884 when a few folks from 26 nations gathered in Washington, DC to agree upon the prime meridian that sliced through the Greenwich Observatory’s telescope in England. In that agreement, the Earth was placed into a girdle with 24 strands. We call them time zones. For anyone who’s suffered jet lag, as I just have after a two-week trip to the US, you’ll know the effect time change can have on you.

So if time is something we’ve made up, why do we engage in clock combat, that insidious striving to beat that which we cannot control? We often attempt to cram so much into our day that we are left breathless even trying to ‘keep up.’ But, what exactly are we keeping up with? My guess it is an imaginary standard as made-up as time itself.

I would claim multitasking is symptomatic of a much broader issue. We attempt to do two or more comparably difficult things at once (texting while driving comes to mind) because we think we don’t have enough time. Truth be told, we are living longer than we ever have in human history. With an current average life expectancy of 78.11 years in the United States, we have a lot more time than we used to.

Time as friend? Now there’s a thought. What would your life look like if you embraced a time abundant mentality?

Here’s a fun task to try. The next time you are going somewhere and you think you might be late, turn off all distractions (radio, cell phone, iPod, etc) and simply concentrate on where you are going while observing the speed limit. Breathe deeply as you do and tell yourself “I will get there at the exact moment I need to.” Chances are you will arrive in a state of bliss. Even if you are a few moments late according to the clock, you will have lived one of the basic priniciples of the power of slow ~ mindful living while being fully engaged in the here and now.

So go for it. Then tell me how you did!

Original post from Psychology Today.

The Wisdom to Know the Difference

Eileen Flanagan met via this blog. She kindly sent me her new release (available for pre-order now, out Spetember 17th) , The Wisdom to Know the difference: When To Make a Change and When to Let Go. It is a moving book with great insights about discernment and self-reflection. After all, how much of our time is spent worrying about that which we cannot change?

The book offers real-life case studies of various people who have gone through life-altering experiences. While not all of us face the same challenges, we all face the same choice ~ to let go or hold on. Oftentimes it is not clear which path to take.

Eileen offers encouragement to seek out what is truly important to us. The second chapter, Knowing Yourself, resonated the most as it provides a framework for mindfulness. She quotes Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Nanh:

When you need to slow down and come back to yourself, you do not need to rush moe to your meditation cushion or to a meditation center in order to practice conscious breathing.

Or consciousness, for that matter. You can breathe consciously wherever you are.

Eileen goes on to say how parenting is an ‘extended course in mindfulness’ as young children constantly live in the ever present moment.

I highly recommend the book for its useful discourse about the choices we make and the challenges we seek. The wisdom in life is knowing the difference.