Coping With Life's Constant Changes

Greetings Dear Reader! 😃

Thanks for dropping by. We all know change is constant in life. While change can be extremely uncomfortable; especially, when it is unexpected or not orchestrated by us; we also know that stagnation is much worse. At least with change we have the opportunity to grow, learn, and evolve in some way. 

I highly believe that life is for living (participating), loving (connecting), learning (growing and evolving), and sharing (getting and giving feedback, and taking in and imparting what we've learned). And change is constantly occurring as we do these things. 

Constant change is inevitable as evidenced by improvements in technology (although I still have a Samsung III); marriages and divorces; births and deaths; graduations; companies downsizing or growing;  businesses opening or closing; natural disasters or land development; and...well, you get the idea. 

Fortunately, change provides opportunities to get better at living, loving, learning, sharing.

Already your life has changed in many ways, and it will continue to change until you take your last breath. Therefore, it is wise to be patient with yourself as you find ways to cope while attending this humongous and dynamic school called life.

Below Are Ways To Cope With Change (be sure to click on the links for more information):

1) Be appreciative.  If the change is something you wanted, give thanks, express gratitude, and enjoy it. If the change is uncomfortable, be appreciative about the fact that change is temporary.

https://www.amazon.com/Perspectives-Peaceful-Living-Serene-Content/dp/1519331347

2) Practice patience. As stated above, change is temporary. Still, it is easy to feel frantic and uncomfortable about it. When you choose, or have been forced, to make a change, be patient with getting through the newness of the situation. Think about a time in your life when you got a new job, or moved to another state or a different neighborhood. Eventually you went from making a change to having changed. Each change comes with a before, during, and after. But in each phase all you have is the present moment so make an effort to be patient with the process. https://www.amazon.com/Patience-Acquire-This-Powerful-Virtue-ebook/dp/B01EMOALK8/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

3) Choose faith over fear. Have faith in your ability to find solutions to changes that are challenging. Look for ways to change a bad situation, relationship, job situation, or relationship into a more positive one. Fear paralyzes us from finding solutions or being able to calm our nerves. I don't know anyone who doesn't feel fear from time to time, but we must make the effort to replace thoughts of fear, which paralyzes us from finding solutions, with thoughts of faith that we can cope and will get through whatever challenging change we are faced with.

https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Breaking-Through-Faced-Challenges-ebook/dp/B01D3I7Z9O/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Share this post with a friend and feel free to leave a comment.

Best wishes for your optimal health and wellness!
Kaja Green-Tovar

Making Life Changes After Forty

Greetings Dear Reader!

During April 2017, I will be writing here about making life changes in your life after forty. Next month I'm turning forty-two, and you know what? I don't mind so it really doesn't matter!At one point I dreaded telling my age, but these days instead of caring about how many years old I am, I care about the life in my years.

 

Whether you are twenty-two, forty-two, or sixty-two, or beyond, as an adult you get to CHOOSE, DECIDE what you focus on and DETERMINE what actions you take.Unless you are behind bars, you are free to spend your minutes, hours, days the way you want.

 

Recently, a life change I made is returning to university for my master's degree.  I started towards a master's degree in my late thirties, but had to put it off for personal reasons. Fortunately, I felt compelled to restart my journey to earning a master's degree and I got accepted into the University of Wisconsin where I am already signed up for classes for the Fall 2017 semester.

 

If you are thinking about returning to school or starting some endeavor (fitness competitions, a business, a family, a new relationship, joining a community sports team, taking martial arts classes, learning a new language, how to play an instrument, or whatever else) after age forty, please do yourself a huge favor and go for it!

 

Remove mental limits from yourself. You may feel nervous, apprehensive, or little anxious when you make a change in your life, but be brave and do it anyway. As soon as you take that first step, that initial action, applaud yourself, pat yourself on the back, for having courage to improve your quality of life or take on a new endeavor.

 

As I return to university, I will be sure to get involved in some worthwhile university function. While I was getting my undergraduate degree, I was involved in the Health Promotion Club on campus and Toastmasters International in the community. Currently, I am involved in a wonderful Toastmasters club again and I will look for an opportunity to be involved with campus life as well even though I also work outside the home and write. I share this to encourage you to get out there and make the changes you fantasize about. Dreams can only become a reality through persistent action while being patient with your progress. 

 

Your life is just that--YOURS. Unless you are expected to die tomorrow, you might as well pursue your goals as if you will live to one-hundred, while incorporating love in your life as if you just might die at any moment.

 

I hope this post encourages you to make some positive life changes regardless of being forty-plus-years-old.

 

Here's a book about a group of women of different ages and races who made life changes when facing relationship woes: https://www.amazon.com/Hooray-He-Cheated-K-G-T-ebook/dp/B01B1PDVJY/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

 

Best wishes for your optimal health and wellness!

Kaja Green-Tovar :-)

 

Motivating Others Is Beneficial!

Greetings Dear Reader!

 

While keeping with the theme of blogging about motivation for March 2017, I want to share that sometimes you will not feel motivated to get to the gym, or exercise at home or park, or wherever you perform your workout.

 

Yes, there will be a day or two, or six out of the year when you think: "I don't want to workout even though this is a scheduled workout day."

 

While it's okay to ONCE IN A WHILE, break from your fitness routine, you want to adhere to your schedule as much as possible. Recently, when I felt this way, I thought of all the people I say motivational words to regarding making health and wellness part of their lifestyle. Fortunately, remembering my own words of motivation helped me get to get a workout in anyway. This is because...motivating others is motivation for the motivator! Read the highlighted text again...slowly.

 

Aside from fitness motivation, think of an adult imploring a teenager to not text and drive. When that same adult is at a red light and hears an alert for an incoming text message, he or she, remembering what they told the teen, will be more likely to not attempting reading the text or replying. Instead, they will follow the motivational advice/encouragement they gave the teen driver. 

 

The reason motivating others is motivation for the motivator is because the motivational thoughts, words, writing shared has to come from within. Thankfully, having motivational inner thoughts and inner dialogue provides a well for us to draw from. 

 

The main take away from this post is that by motivating others, you, too, are motivated as you believe in the advice and encouraging words you share with others. Now do yourself a huge favor and find someone who needs motivation and is open to receiving it. 

Best wishes for your --and the person you find to motivate--optimal health and wellness!
Kaja Green-Tovar 😊

Thanks to Exercise, You Can Handle A Full Schedule!

Greetings Dear Reader!

I worked out for 3 hours at the gym on Wednesday, March 15th. The following day, I only worked out for an hour because it was all my schedule allowed for. On Thursday, I had a very active schedule. After the gym, I got dressed and went to a Toastmasters meeting where I gratefully won the Best Evaluator ribbon. I did my best at Toastmasters without thinking of winning. However, it was fun as always and I'm grateful whenever I'm awarded a ribbon for performing well during my speeches. I know for sure that exercise helps with my ability to be front and center in front of an audience. 

During this week, thanks to exercise, I was able to cope with everything I had going on. Without the flow of endorphins, which results from exercising, I might have felt drained, annoyed, frazzled with all that I had going on. Thankfully, instead of 'woe-is-me' thoughts, I was able to maintain positive and peaceful perspectives. I was able to be RESILIENT!

Thanks to exercise, I was able to be fully present at Toastmasters, get some necessary shopping done afterwards, have coffee with an acquaintance in one city, and then drive to another nearby city--without feeling tired--and have dinner with a close friend from my Air Force days.

Exercise requires ENERGY; and energy in motion, stays in motion! This is why when we exercise we can handle a lot more activity, a fuller schedule, than we can handle without it.

Therefore, dear reader, do yourself the favor of incorporating routine exercising into your schedule. By doing so, you, too, may handle whatever comes your way.

Best wishes for your optimal health and wellness!

Kaja Green-Tovar

Boost Your Confidence

Greetings Dear Reader!

 

Confidence is a feeling that you can do or accomplish something. When you feel confident, you improve your appearance (posture and facial expression) as we often look the way we feel. This is why someone will look at you and ask, "Wow! What are you feeling so great about?" Or, "Whoa! What's going on? What's bothering you today?" depending on how you are feeling.

 

A simple way to feel and look more confident is to take action, to get up and move. You can't slump and feel intimidated when you are busy doing something. This is why exercising on a routine basis is beneficial. The opposite of being active is being sedentary which is a form of being stagnant. When we are stagnant, we feel less hopeful, less trusting of a better outcome, less confident that we will eventually accomplish our goal.

 

Luckily, at any time and pretty much any place, you can do some form of exercise (walking, stretching, calisthenics...something) to help you feel more upbeat, more capable. More confident!

 

Once in a while I have a morning when I don't feel like getting up to workout at home or at the gym. Unless, I planned to give my body a rest day from physical activity, I feel uneasy, a little off-centered. Feelings of being uneasy or off-centered are the opposite of feeling confident.

 

What about you? How do you feel when you do those ten push-ups or stretch your muscles? What about when you take a bike ride or go for a swim? Don't you feel more upbeat, more aware of being able to do things; hence, more confident?

 

Think about the last time you went for a hike, or canoeing, or river-rafting. You probably felt a sense of achievement for having done something. Well, this is the reason to implement routine physical activity (a.k.a. exercise) into your lifestyle.

Start your exercise regimen and boost your confidence.

Best wishes for your optimal health and wellness!
Kaja Green-Tovar

Better Body Image Regardless of Your Age of Size!

Greetings Dear Reader!

Do you want to feel better about your body? We ALL have days (be it rarely or frequently) when we complain about how our body looks, how our clothes fit, or how we want to be thinner or more voluptuous.

 

Fortunately, you can have a better body image regardless of your age or clothing size! Body image is the way you see yourself and how you think and imagine you look. Luckily, you can boost your body image. You will have a better body image if you do the following:

 

1) Be grateful for even having a body! Yes, you read that right. Be grateful for having a body because someone somewhere is or has become a quadriplegic and can't do the things you can with your body. Be grateful if you can walk, hold yourself up on crutches, or roll yourself in wheelchair. Basically, be grateful for what your body can do!

 

2) Talk nicely to your body parts! No, I'm not crazy. At least not certifiably. When I was in my twenties and gained a lot of weight, I used to complained about my body when I looked in the mirror. But once I decided to be grateful for even having a body, I intentionally stood in front of the mirror and said nice things to my body parts.

I would look at my now slender, toned thighs--which were not slender at that time--and say, "I like that my thighs are strong."; "I like how my thighs play a part in me walking and jogging." I would say to my stomach, "I like that you can digest food without a feeding tube." I would look at my stretch marks and say, "Wow! You carried a beautiful baby in there!" I could cover this whole page with all the nice things I said--and still say--to myself but for the sake of efficiency, I won't.

 

3) Exercise and eat well. When you take time to exercise your body and strive to eat well (at least most of the time), you feel better about your body--how it looks and feel. This is because you are doing something to take care of it, to improve it. Taking action feels good and is good, which is why exercising and making healthy food choices boosts your body image. 

So, go ahead do all three of the above to get a better body image regardless of your age or current clothing size!

Have a great rest of your day or evening, and best wishes for your optimal health and wellness!
~Kaja Green-Tovar~

For Motivation to Exercise, Find Your 'WHY'

Greetings Dear Reader!

My blog posts for the month of March 2017 will be on health and fitness motivation. Getting and staying motivated to exercise will be easier once you determine WHY it is important to you.

As each person is a wonderfully unique individual, it is natural to be motivated for different reasons. Your ‘WHY’ for implementing routine exercising into your lifestyle could be about having a more positive attitude, feeling better, and or not being chronically stressed. Fortunately, exercise can improve each of these!

Exercise releases endorphins—the feel-good hormones. Endorphins have a positive, uplifting impact on your attitude, the way you think and feel. A positive attitude helps you to have a more nurturing inner dialogue. Having a kind, nurturing inner dialogue is emotionally soothing, which will help you to feel less stressed about the challenging situations or people you have to deal with.

Exercise, which is often defined as sustained physical activity--be it a short or long timeframe, is like taking a happy pill, but without the exorbitant cost and potentially harmful side-effects! Exercise can entail strength training, running, biking, hiking, swimming, and the like. Exercise also includes less structured physical activities such as dancing, playing Ultimate Frisbee, golfing (especially, if you walk rather than drive the course), or going ice-skating or rollerblading. Oh yes, bowling counts, too!

So, go ahead and do something physical. Make time for exercising (even ten minutes, two or three different times throughout the day is beneficial). Do this for yourself and you will have an improved attitude, more inner peace, and better physical health.

For more motivation, check out this little gem of fitness motivation at: https://www.amazon.com/B-C-Book-Health-Fitness-Motivation/dp/1481091409

 

As always, best wishes for your optimal health and wellness!

Kaja Green-Tovar