Annette Colby

As a nutrition therapist, counselor, and healer, I understand that the path to creating a life of greater joy is a mysterious event. Each individual person has the power and control over his or her own healing. No matter how many times you fall, get back up, and then fall again, the most important aspect of yourself to recognize is your determination to have what you want. Healing is really just courage, having courage to continue onward, having the courage not to lose sight of what you’re looking for, having the courage never to give up. We are capable of releasing previous life scripts and limiting beliefs, and putting into practice new ways living. Here are some “hints” which might help you realize your own power and ability to help you reach the inner peace you are looking for:

1. Practice Acceptance.
Self-acceptance is a desire to see what is going on, a willingness to know, a curiosity to know what is. Self-acceptance is about facing reality head-on without judgement. It’s the ability to see things as they are right now, right this moment. Acceptance is simply recognition. When you begin the process of acceptance, it usually means that something secret and hidden can be revealed to you. If you are willing to look and explore, you may, for example, find that food or your weight has served you in some beneficial way. Once that is revealed, then you can open to having compassion for self. And through compassion, you welcome opportunities of learning new survival skills. n

2. Recognize Self-Empowerment.
View your situation as an opportunity to create what you most want. We all have the capacity to recognize our thoughts and change our beliefs about who we are. We do not need to continually define ourselves by our past experiences and outcomes. We can grow new ideas, new beliefs, new ways of viewing ourselves and the world. n

3. Cultivate Self-Leadership.
Do you believe you can achieve success? I mean really, really, completely, with every fiber of your being, believe that you can accomplish your dream? Do you hold the vision that you can permanently achieve and maintain a desired body shape or freedom with eating? Your thoughts and beliefs are more powerful than you can even imagine. What would you need to do to allow yourself to move your belief up to 100%? Maybe you have tried in the past and failed. Perhaps you have given up. Or maybe you “want” to achieve success, but in your subconscious you know that it will be impossible. Or too difficult. Or too time consuming. As protection we come up with all sorts of reasons not to allow ourselves to fully believe. It is your job to believe in yourself, especially when things seem at their darkest. n

4. Opportunity in DisguisenRecognize your situation, addiction, or eating patterns as your attempt to redirect your life in a positive direction. Challenges invite us to advance beyond what we believe ourselves to be. By capturing our attention, they speak of old energies, antiquated beliefs, and outgrown realities. They show us falsely held assumptions about our abilities, worth, and things we believe to be true about the world. At our deepest core level, we want the ability to make new decisions, have freedom of response, and create a new reality that is not based on past assumptions. Facing challenges, although difficult, allows us to confront self-limiting truths. Moving through difficult challenges is how we release and clear out old issues. n

5. Evaluate.
We all want to become more than we are. Our inbo
desire is to evolve into open, self-assured, and joyful human beings. Life is a continuing process of expanding wisdom, love, and spiritual aspects of ourselves through self-awareness. We evaluate our actions, emotions, and thoughts to become aware of our current limitations and to adventure into entertaining possibilities that we might be capable of having higher thoughts, feelings, and life experiences. We evaluate actions so we can be free to choose differently in the future. Without looking at our actions and thoughts, we just keep repeating ourselves. It serves no purpose to look at life choices if we are only going to condemn ourselves with the information. In order to evolve to a place where we joyfully serve ourselves and serve humanity, evaluation must be infused with self-love.

6. Allow failure.
There really is no such thing as failure, just as there is no such thing as being lost when driving. Sure, we may not know what street we are on; we may temporarily not know in which direction we are going, but we are not lost. Even if we end up in another state, we can still find the way back. If we drive around long enough, we’ll figure it out or stop to ask. There is a resource available somewhere that can tell us where we are and how to get to where we want to be. The only things we have to do are to remember where it was we were heading, maybe get a little support, and then realign ourselves with the destination. We can drive happy again. Failure is like being lost. Currently, in this moment, we have not yet achieved what we wanted. We get worried about the little picture, the temporary frustration, and forget to stop, get a little support, and realign with outcomes. A temporary failure doesn’t mean anything other than the meaning we assign to it. In truth it means only that we ran head on into some beliefs we hold about why we can’t have what we want. Failures aren’t really failures after all; they are much-needed encounters with old beliefs that we might need to clear from our paths to accommodate new beliefs and new options. When we understand that failure is made-up and self-imposed, we can relax as we set out once more to achieve our dreams.

Don’t ever give up on what you want.
Have the courage to open your heart and let the love prevail.