One of the questions I’ve received from participants in my Courage Building Boot Camp is: “How can I be courageous if I always doubt myself? How do I learn to trust myself?”

There are probably 100 different answers to that question, but I want to suggest one simple thing – start trusting in yourself. 

How do you do that? Start by making small commitments to yourself. And then start keeping them.

Need a suggestion for where to start? How about with the daily practice of meditation?

How do you do that? Make a commitment to yourself that the first thing you do when you wake up tomorrow is set your timer for 10 minutes (you could set your wake-up alarm for 10 minutes earlier if you’ve been saying you don’t have the time).

Then sit and pay attention to your breath. Then, each time your attention wanders, nudge it gently back to your breath. 

That’s it. 

Faith, trust and confidence in ourselves are essential if we want to live courageously. So when we doubt ourselves, it is really important to invest a little bit of time in learning to trust ourselves. 

Making and keeping small commitments to ourselves is one powerful way to do that.

We are learning to trust ourselves again, and at the same time we are flexing our commitment muscle. It actually also takes a certain amount of courage just to sit still and notice the fluctuations of our own minds for ten minutes. So as well as building trust in yourself, every morning (or evening) as you sit, you are toning your courage muscles too.

This may seem a small thing in the face of the despair we can feel when we have no confidence in ourselves. But in my experience the road back is via one small step after the other.

I know you can do it, and I’m right there, walking right beside you!

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The other day I was in conversation with one of my clients.

“I’m frustrated,” she said. “I thought I would be further along by now. Everyone else is out there doing important things. What’s wrong with me?”

Have you ever felt this way?

Like you “should” know your purpose by now…

Or you “should” be writing (or painting or meditating) more…

Or you “should” be making more money…

Or you “should” be a better parent or spouse or friend…

That’s a lot of “should”-ing!

A good friend of mine calls this “should-ing on yourself,” which always makes me laugh.

Thing is, “should-ing” is no laughing matter. For women, “should-ing” is one of the BIGGEST happiness, peacefulness and manifestation killers out there.

It feels really awful, and every moment spent in the energy of “should” drains you of precious creative resources.

Now, here’s the silver lining in the “shoulds”…

The “shoulds” can actually help you discover what’s TRULY important to you – what I call your Deep Desires.

They also help you take the actions in alignment with your Deep Desires (what I call “aligned action”) that are TRULY required to manifest what you want. (As opposed to, you know, what you “should” do.)

So how do you turn those “shoulds” around?

To get you started, here’s a tip…

The next time you find yourself comparing yourself to others, and going into the “shoulds,” just notice, and stop for a second. Breathe.

Then, get curious about the “should.” One possible question is this: “In this moment, is that REALLY what I want to do or have?”

This is so powerful because we rarely ever challenge the “shoulds” and just take them at face value. But when you get curious, you might even discover that you don’t even WANT what that other person has! Or maybe you do, but it looks a little different.

Or maybe you discover that you DO want what that other person has, and their success is bringing up “shoulds” for you because it’s actually a Deep Desire of your own.

This is an awesome discovery to make, because you can make a NEW choice! Instead of “should”ing, you can say…

… “Yes!! I WANT that!”

Claiming what you want is the first step to CREATING what you want. And you’re going to feel ON FIRE when you do, instead of feeling bad over a “should” that was never yours to begin with.

When you make a decision to be, do or have something in your life, the way for it to be done is ALWAYS there. Always. (The Universal Law of Polarity says that it must be so.)

Once the decision is made, you’re on the path. Moving forward requires choosing to look for and take the next step in alignment with your Deep Desires.

Are you ready to claim what you truly desire? What is it? What’s one step you can take today to put you closer to it? 

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So many of my clients and readers have resonated with the Easy World concepts I’ve shared in the last couple of weeks, from the fabulous book, Choosing Easy World: A Guide to Opting Out of Struggle and Strife and Living in the Amazing Realm Where Everything Is Easy by Julia Rogers Hamrick.

This week I’m going to share my last postcard from Easy World. You know how people write vacation postcards that say, “Wish you were here!” – well, take this as an invitation to join me here for good, okay?

You see, I’ve noticed that even those folks who love the concept of Easy World have expressed some skepticism. One of the most frequent questions comes from those who feel that they would seem selfish and insensitive if they lived in Easy World, because they would be more focused on meeting their own needs at the exclusion of all others.

This concern, of course, comes from a belief that we help others from a sense of duty and resignation, not from inspiration or from feeling energized by the prospect of helping. And while there may be evidence for this way of thinking, I want to change it.

I can tell you my own story of this: Last fall a friend of mine was separating from her husband, which meant moving out of the house she had shared with him and their son for almost 10 years. Definitely not the stuff of Easy World, right? (I actually believed that an “Easy World Divorce” wasn’t even possible until a former client, Emelie Archer, shared her wonderful story – “Divorce with a side of eggs.” I tried to find it to link to it, but with no luck.)

I tried to help my friend in every way I could – first, emotionally, with long talks encouraging her not to let her circumstances define how she feels about herself. (Which had the nice Easy World effect of reminding me that I can always choose to respond powerfully to my circumstances, no matter what.)

And secondly, with physical assistance – helping her with the Herculean task of packing up a life from one house and moving it to another. I was glad to help, but I was also aware at the time that it took an emotional toll to maintain a high “Easy World vibration” over those many weeks.

Well, last month, she went through another very challenging time involving custody hearings and a realization that she would need to move again, and she asked if I could help.

After a lot of thought and checking in with my feelings, I told her no, I wouldn’t help. I said it as kindly as I could, but I also didn’t try to make any big excuses for why I couldn’t. I simply said, “I’m so glad I could help you last fall with your move, but I won’t be able to now. I have other plans for the weekend.”

Initially even thinking about saying no, let alone saying no, felt very difficult to do. I worried that if I didn’t help her, she wouldn’t get the help she needed. I worried that she would think I was selfish and uncaring. I worried that our mutual friends would hear that I wasn’t helping and they would think I was selfish and uncaring.

But here’s the thing: I got over those “Difficult World” feelings pretty quickly. As Hamrick would say, anytime fear or doubts like mine are involved, you know the Difficult World Dictator (DWD) is behind it.

But here’s what I want you to know: When you honor your own feelings and say no to doing things that someone else asks you to do but that you’re truly not inspired and energized to, you are doing both of you a favor.

You may not appreciate it in the moment – and they may not either – but from my own experience I can promise you that you will – and they will – later. (My friend has since told me that she understood and appreciated my response at the time. Our friendship is still very much intact.)

The bottom line is: You can trust that if doing something doesn’t feel right for you, it won’t be right for anyone else either. The only Easy World reason for action is inspiration. If you do anything for any other reason, you are not in Easy World, and nobody wins.

Yes, living in Easy World takes effort, because our culture and some very well-meaning people have taught us that we can’t trust our feelings to guide us to take actions that will lead to the best possible outcomes for all people – like we would get all Lord of the Flies if we didn’t subjugate our needs for others on a regular basis.

It takes effort, but most of all it takes faith. Faith that Easy World exists, faith that it is always supporting the ultimate well-being of all.

And how do you have faith? You simply decide to have it. So let’s not wish you could be here – just come join me, okay?

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Last week Griffin used sandpaper to remove his graffitied insult to one of his classmates from a wooden box on his school playground. After he was done he said, “I’m glad I get to erase my mistake. I just want to put this behind me.”

1. It isn’t time yet to do it (and the inspiration and energy will show up when it is time.)
2. It’s someone else’s task to accomplish, and you need to relax and allow whoever is inspired and energized to handle what needs to be done.
3. Despite how important it may seem, it actually doesn’t need doing at all. (You’ll often be shown why later.)

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My worst-ever moment as a mom happened last week. I learned that my son, Griffin, was involved in 2 incidents of bullying other students at his school.

In one incident, Griffin (a 2^nd grader) had written a note and asked a 1^st grader if he could read it. When he couldn’t, Griffin and his best friend laughed at the little boy, called him stupid, and said he would have to repeat 1^st grade.

I felt physical and emotional pain when I contemplated how the taunts from my son must have hurt that little boy. Words really can’t express how horrible I felt. Imagine every negative emotion – shock, betrayal, humiliation, despair, helplessness, anger, anxiety – they were all warring inside me.

In the other incident he had written, “(The name of a girl from his school, who is also his best friend’s sister) is stupid.” on a box that was in the school playground.

As a little backstory, Griffin’s best friend repeated 1^st grade this year, and his parents think he put Griffin up to both of the acts because he is struggling to make sense of his place at school. (Griffin’s friend also admitted this to be true.)

Of course, this backstory doesn’t make Griffin any less culpable, and it certainly doesn’t make it any less hurtful to the kids who experienced the behavior.

Griffin wrote notes of apology to both of the children, gave them each gifts he thought they might appreciate, and invited them to play with him (which they both accepted).

The parents and teachers of both children have told me that the children seem to be “over it.” Griffin promises that he has learned his lesson.

So, let’s hope Griffin didn’t create lasting emotional pain for the children he bullied. Let’s hope that from now on he always acts with kindness and compassion. I will certainly focus my energy there.

I share the story of last week’s drama because I want you to understand that I felt devastated by it. I have never felt more consumed by anger, hurt and sadness.

I truly believe that everyone, including children, do the best they can with the tools they have. Children, especially, want to be happy and please the most important people in their lives.

Knowing this, I could see how Griffin’s behavior was focused on pleasing his best friend and not on the feelings of his peers. I knew that he could do better when he “knew” better, but believing that didn’t help me feel any better about the crisis at the time, nor how to deal with the fallout.

I used “all of the tools in my toolkit” to find solutions that would help everyone feel better – and there were so many feelings to consider, the kids’, the parents, the teachers, not to mention my husband’s and my own.

I knew I needed to reach for connection with what I call “Source” (what others call Divine Wisdom or Intuition), but it felt completely unattainable.

Then I leaned into a little book titled Choosing Easy World: A Guide to Opting Out of Struggle and Strife and Living in the Amazing Realm Where Everything Is Easy by Julia Rogers Hamrick.

Hamrick articulates beautifully what I knew, but didn’t have words for – that there are two worlds: Easy World and Difficult World.

Source/Divine Wisdom/Intuition guides you to stay in Easy World, no matter what the circumstance.

The Difficult World Dictator (DWD) tries to convince you that life is full of pain and suffering, and your only option is to live in Difficult World.

So you may wonder, as I did, how you can tell the difference between guidance from your Spirit and the DWD when you’re dealing with a crisis.

Well, you learn that guidance from Source is always accompanied by an increase of love and a feeling of expansiveness, especially in your heart. When you’re in alignment with Source that love and that feeling will encourage you to embrace, accept, and allow.

And this is where my breakthrough happened. You see, when I’m going through a difficult time, one of my favorite affirmations is “I know I can figure this out.” But that, of course, implies a way of thinking over being or feeling.

So I kept thinking “I know I can figure this out,” and getting nowhere – I was just getting trapped in a maze of problems and bad feelings.

The crisis came to a head when I got an email at 7:30 in the morning from Griffin’s teacher.

It was written in “bold” about how unacceptable Griffin’s behavior was. It really was all in bold type except for one line.

I felt like she was shouting at me. I felt horrible.

At that point, I tried Hamrick’s “Easy World affirmation” which is “I choose to live in Easy World, where everything is easy,” which she describes as a quick ticket to Easy World, but it didn’t help.

I didn’t know how to respond to the teacher without feeling more upset.

I thought about having to see this teacher in an hour when I took Griffin to school. I thought about telling Griffin what the teacher felt were “natural” consequences of his behavior and again I felt despair and helplessness and it seemed like I would never be able to break out of it.

And then I repeated the Easy World affirmation again. This time, though, I completed it with, “I don’t have to figure this out.”

It came to me then that the only course that was left to me was to surrender my thinking and doing ways, and in that moment there was that increase of love, that feeling of expansiveness, that Hamrick had talked about.

I was finally embracing, accepting, and allowing what was happening in the present moment, and I finally felt completely aligned with Source.

The release had come at last, and along with it the relief I had been hoping for. Soon afterwards, I received a strong feeling that I would find the solutions I was looking for. And I knew I would find them NOT by thinking about them, but by feeling my way into them. And I did.

I have so many more lessons I can share from the book, and I will in future articles, but for now I hope the story I shared, along with the simple affirmation, will help you when you’re in a crisis.

You really can choose to live in Easy World, where everything is easy. You’ll just have to feel your way there. 

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The photo to the right is from Griffin’s 8th Birthday Party at his school. Each one of his classmates shared their “appreciations” for him, like “I appreciate that you have a kind heart.” And “I appreciate that you always make me laugh.”

Over the weekend he had a few of his best friends over for what was billed as a sleepover party, but was really an all-day-and-night-and-next-morning extravaganza.

Words can’t convey how much I love this boy, and to see him enjoy wonderful, deep friendships with other amazing kids just sends me over the moon.

One of the things I hope most is that, by forming strong friendships at a young age, he’ll learn to value friendship throughout his life, which is something we all need to do — not just because friendships make life better and make us more complete, but because a strong network of friends has been proven to help us stay healthy and live longer.

Last week I shared an interview (that included scientific evidence that supports the value of friendship to our health) with one of my friends, Dr. Lissa Rankin. This week’s feature article is also by Lissa, and – guess what? – she starts, once again, with the importance of friendship.

Lissa’s new book, Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof You Can Heal Yourself, is available in stores TODAY and I’m thrilled to share her work again this week in support of her book launch.

She’s offering a VERY special gift if you buy her book this week, so be sure to get yours!

Here are The 10 Health Habits They Don’t Teach In Medical School by Lissa Rankin, MD:

As a health-conscious person, you’re already in the loop about the importance of eating your veggies, skipping the booze, cigarettes, and fake foods, daily exercise, plenty of zzzzz’s, and regular check-ups.

But as a physician fascinated by why some health nuts still suffer from chronic illness, I dug deep into the medical literature to study what else really makes us healthy – and what predisposes us to illness.

What I found shocked me. What I discovered was certainly never introduced to me in medical school. As I wrote in my book Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself, the scientific data proves that there are ten key habits that lead to optimal health. (I’ll bet your doctor never wrote these on a prescription pad!)

1. Alleviate loneliness. The Italian immigrants of Roseto, Pennsylvania ate meatballs fried in lard, gorged on pasta, and smoked, but they had half the risk of heart disease as the rest of the country. Why? Researchers concluded that it was because they lived communally, celebrated regularly, and had a huge network of friends. Dinner party, anyone?
2. Couple up. A UCLA study reviewed census data and found that those who never marry are 58% more likely to die at a young age than those who exchange vows. But only healthy marriages count if you’re seeking optimal health. Studies show that, when it comes to health, you’re better off alone than stuck in a toxic relationship.
3. Get it on. Those with healthy, happy sex lives live longer, have a lower risk of heart disease and stroke, get less breast cancer, bolster their immune systems, sleep better, appear more youthful, enjoy improved fitness, have enhanced fertility, get relief from chronic pain, experience fewer migraines, suffer from less depression, and enjoy an improved quality of life.
4. Engage in work you love. Those stuck in soul-sucking jobs are at greater risk for sudden death. In Japan, they call it “karoshi” – death by overwork. But it’s not just the Japanese who are at risk. Studies suggest Americans are at even greater risk of sudden death from heart disease and stroke due to overwork. If work is stressing you out, you may be shortening your life. However, when you’ve found your calling and are doing what you love, your nervous system relaxes, and this flips on your body’s natural self-healing mechanisms.
5. Take vacations. Not only are vacations fun – they’re good for your health! Failure to use accrued vacation time has been associated with early death. One study looked at 12,000 men over nine years and found that those who failed to take annual vacations had a 21% higher risk of death from all causes, and they were 32% more likely to die of a heart attack. Another study found that women who vacationed once every six years or less were almost eight times more likely to develop coronary heart disease or have a heart attack than women who vacationed twice a year. So take time off – doctor’s orders.
6. Express your creativity. We tend to dismiss the importance of creative expression in a society that devalues the arts as mere “hobbies” you can fit in after you’ve earned a living and spent quality time with your family. But expressing yourself creatively is a key tool for preventative health – or treatment of existing disease. Health benefits of creative expression include improved sleep, better overall health, fewer doctor visits, diminished use of medication, and fewer vision problems. Creative expression also decreases symptoms of distress and improves quality of life for women with cancer, strengthens positive feelings, reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, reduces anxiety, and improves social functioning and self-esteem.
7. Attend religious services. Individuals who attend religious services regularly live 7 ½ years longer (almost 14 years longer for African-Americans) than those who never or rarely attend religious gatherings. One study found that high levels of religious involvement were associated with lower rates of circulatory diseases, digestive diseases, respiratory diseases, and just about every other disease studied. But this is only the case if your religion is in alignment with your authentic self. If going to church or temple or the mosque relaxes your nervous system, it’s good for your health. But if it stresses you out, you’re better off staying home.
8. Be optimistic. Seeing the glass half full instead of half empty doesn’t just make you more pleasant to hang around. Optimistic people are also healthier. Optimists fare better when suffering from cancer, recover better from coronary bypass surgery, enjoy healthier immune systems, and live longer than pessimists. People with a positive outlook are 45% less likely to die from any cause than negative thinkers (and 77% less likely to die from heart disease). If you’re ready to convert from pessimism to optimism, read Martin Seligman’s book Learned Optimism.
9. Get happy. Happy people live up to ten years longer than those who are unhappy, depressed, or anxious. Depression increases your cancer risk, is a major risk factor for heart disease, and is linked to a variety of pain disorders, while chronic anxiety has been shown to increase cancer risk and carotid artery atherosclerosis, which predisposes to stroke. In a study of nuns, researchers found that 90% of the most cheerful nuns were still alive at age 84, compared to only 34% of the least cheerful.
10. Meditate. Toxic relationships, work stress, pessimism, loneliness, and depression all trigger “fight-or-flight” stress responses in the body, and when the stress response is activated, the body’s natural self-healing mechanisms are flipped off. The average person experiences 50-100 stress responses per day, which, over time, poisons the body. But meditation can reverse this process. Harvard physician Herbert Benson studied “the relaxation response” that meditation induces and found it instrumental in treatment of conditions as wide ranging as cardiac arrhythmias, asthma, allergies, herpes, diabetes, ulcers, hypertension, infertility, PMS, AIDS, and chronic pain.

Learn More In Mind Over Medicine –

If you order one copy of Mind Over Medicine TODAY you’ll get access to a FREE 2 hour Live Online Event Lissa is hosting with O Magazine columnist and self-healing super goddess Martha Beck. Click here for more details.

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The photo to the right is me with two of my favorite people, Desiree Adaway and Ericka Hines, taken after a fabulous night of dinner and conversation in my home.

One of my favorite quotes is from MFK Fisher and goes something like, “There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine is drunk.”

I’m also delighted to say that another one of my friends and integrative medicine physician, Lissa Rankin, is showing that there’s scientific evidence that supports the value of friendship to our health.

Data actually shows that community is more important for preventive health than daily exercise or quitting smoking!

Yes, it takes effort to pull off a dinner party for friends, and I’ve found it easier (especially since my son was born) to make excuses for not doing it, but studies like this remind me that I will always get more out of it than I put in, so I plan to make it more of a priority from now on. I hope you will, too.

I’m thrilled to offer an interview with Lissa this week. It gives you even more proof that you have more power than you think you do when it comes to taking charge of your health and happiness – and to change the world as well!

You’ve become quite the advocate for mind-body medicine. Was there a major turning point that left you questioning the conventional approach to medicine?

When I was working with sick patients from the inner city of Chicago, it made sense that they weren’t healthy. They ate poorly, smoked, drank, and never exercised. But then I took a job at an integrative medicine practice in posh Marin County, where my patients religiously followed organic, vegan diets, worked out with personal trainers, got 8 hours of sleep every night, took their vitamins, and spent a fortune on the best health care money can buy – and they were still sick. It got me wondering, what if there’s more to health than what they taught me in medical school?

Around that time, I became fascinated with case studies in the medical literature of spontaneous remissions from seemingly “incurable” illnesses – stage 4 cancers that disappeared, an HIV positive patient who became HIV negative, people whose heart disease vanished.

I got curious whether there was any scientific validity to what some New Age gurus teach – that you can heal yourself. I wondered whether we might have control over whether we’re blessed with spontaneous remission from illness – or whether we stay sick. (Spoiler alert – you can influence the outcome!)

Mind Over Medicine is a compilation of the mind-blowing data I compiled from the scientific literature regarding these inquiries.

What do you mean when you say “you can heal yourself?”

The medical establishment has been proving that the body can heal itself for over 50 years. We call it “the placebo effect,” and we’ve been trying to outsmart it for decades. We know that in clinical trials, patients being treated with sugar pills, saline injections, and even fake surgeries get better anywhere from 18-80% of the time!

The placebo effect is a thorn in the side of modern medicine. It’s an inconvenient truth that gets in the way of proving that new treatments are more effective than letting nature take its course.

But the placebo effect is nothing to be avoided. It’s something to embrace, because it provides concrete evidence that the body is equipped with innate self-repair mechanisms that have the power to cure. When you cut yourself, your body knows how to mend the cut. When your bone breaks, the bone knows how to stitch itself back together again. We all make cancer cells every day – and the body disposes of them. Infectious invaders, foreign bodies, broken proteins – the body can handle it, assuming those self-repair mechanisms are functioning properly.

So that’s what I mean when I say “you can heal yourself,” that the body has natural self-repair mechanisms that can be flipped on or off based on thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that originate in the mind.

What do you mean when you say you can flip your self-repair mechanisms on or off? If the body knows how to repair itself, why would we ever want to turn them off?

This was one of the most shocking things I discovered. The nervous system has two modes of operation – the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is dominant during what Walter Cannon at Harvard termed “the stress response,” also known as “fight-or-flight.” The parasympathetic nervous system is in charge during what Herbert Benson at Harvard called “the relaxation response,” which is the opposite of the stress response.

Only when the relaxation response is in effect do the body’s natural self-repair mechanisms function properly! It makes sense. When your body is preparing to fight or flee, it needn’t worry about preventive maintenance. Why bother eating up cancer cells or repairing broken proteins when you’re about to get eaten by a cave bear?

The stress response exists to protect you. It’s meant to get you out of harm’s way when your life is in danger. But these days, the average person has 50 stress responses per day. It’s no wonder chronic illnesses are at epidemic levels. Every time you have a stressful thought, belief, or feeling, your brain spits out harmful, disease-inducing stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine that shut off your body’s self-repair mechanisms. On the other hand, every time you have positive thoughts, beliefs, or feelings, you release healing hormones like oxytocin, nitric oxide, dopamine, and endorphins that shift you to the relaxation response, where your body can get to work repairing what’s broken.

How healthy are your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings?

So should we just ditch modern medicine? If the body knows how to repair itself, why bother going to the doctor?

To say that you can heal yourself is sort of a misnomer because the scientific evidence concludes that the role of the healer is essential. When a doctor, nurse, or alternative health care provider tends and nurtures you, believes in your capacity to heal yourself, and promises you that you won’t have to navigate your healing journey alone, your relaxation responses are activated, and self-repair becomes more likely.

But even so, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take advantage of the miracles of modern medicine. Yes – there are documented cases of people who have experienced spontaneous remissions from cancer, coronary artery disease, stroke, even a gunshot wound to the head left untreated. But I don’t recommend tempting fate. By all means, get treatment for your cancer. Go to the ER when you’re having a heart attack or stroke. Call 911 if you’re injured in a car accident.

My husband cut two fingers off his hand with a table saw. No amount of mind-body medicine would have reattached those fingers, so God bless Dr. Jones, the microsurgeon who reattached all those bones, nerves, arteries and muscles! Medical care, especially emergency medical care, saves lives, and we should take advantage of it.

What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t depend on it exclusively. It’s important to get to the root cause of why you might be sick or injured in the first place. What predisposed that cancer to grow? Why were you susceptible to that infection, when there were probably many others who were exposed to it but didn’t contract an illness? What in your life might be causing that chronic pain?

When you can identify – and rectify – issues in your life that make you susceptible to illness, you’re more likely to experience full, lasting cure.

So are you suggesting that if someone is still sick, in spite of medical treatment, it’s his or her fault?

There’s no place for blame, shame, or guilt on anyone’s healing journey. Those kinds of pointless emotions only trigger stress responses that make it harder to heal.

No, I’m not suggesting that illness is anyone’s fault. What I am saying is that your body is your business, and you can take active measures to influence whether you get – and stay – optimally well. Too many patients just hand their bodies over to doctors the way they hand their cars over to mechanics. But unlike cars, our bodies do know how to heal themselves, at least a percentage of the time, and we can make changes in our lives to reduce stress responses and increase relaxation responses, thereby making our bodies ripe for miracles.

That’s the real ticket. It’s all about changing the ratio of stress responses and relaxation responses in the body. You can do this by either reducing stress responses or increasing relaxation responses – or ideally both!

So how do you reduce stress responses? How do you increase relaxation responses?

In Mind Over Medicine, I teach the 6 Steps To Healing Yourself, which teaches you exactly how to diagnose the root causes of your illness and write The Prescription for yourself. But in short, you have to tap into the part of you I call your “Inner Pilot Light“, the part that knows what’s true for you and can act as your inner doctor. (To get more in touch with your Inner Pilot Light, sign up for the Daily Flame here. Your Inner Pilot Light will help you assess what in your life is triggering your stress responses. Is it your toxic marriage? Your soul-sucking job? Your two hour commute? Your nagging mother-in-law? Your chaotic living environment? Your anxiety or depression? Your pessimistic way of viewing the world?

Once you’ve identified what is triggering your stress responses, it’s time to think about how you might increase relaxation responses in your body. Which scientifically proven techniques for activating relaxation responses will work for you? Meditation? Creative expression? Playing with animals? Laughter? Yoga? Massage? Engaging in work you love? Getting a hug? Being with friends? Sex? Seeing an alternative medicine practitioner? Exercise?

Once you’re clear on how you can reduce stress responses and increase relaxation responses, it’s time for the fun part – writing The Prescription for yourself. But this isn’t like any prescription you’ve likely ever gotten from a doctor. Perhaps part of your overall Prescription will include drugs or surgery, but The Prescription you’ll write for yourself is a series of action steps you’ll be taking to reduce stress responses and increase relaxation responses.

Then comes the brave part – putting your personal treatment plan into action! When you do, you make your body ripe for miracles. Anything – including spontaneous remission – is possible.

You can help! Buy Mind Over Medicine here, not just for yourself, but for your family, your doctor, and anyone else who might help heal care. Be the love you wish to see in health care, and miracles really are possible.

Lissa Rankin, M.D. is an integrative medicine physician, author, speaker, artist, and founder of the popular online health and wellness communities LissaRankin.com and OwningPink.com.

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Have you ever been surprised when a couple you knew got divorced? More than a decade ago I was separated for a short time from my husband, Doug, and all of my friends were surprised.

It’s extremely hard to predict which relationships will end in divorce, but bad marriages almost always exhibit what psychologist Dr. John Gottman calls, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Specifically, these are:

Criticism: stating one’s complaints as a defect in one’s partner’s personality, i.e., giving the partner negative traits. Example: “You never listen to me.”

Contempt: statements that come from a relative position of superiority. Contempt is the greatest predictor of divorce and must be eliminated. Example: “You’re such a jerk.” Now, I very rarely said anything downright contemptuous to Doug, but I used to give a lot of nonverbal cues, like rolling my eyes, which had the same effect.

Defensiveness: self-protection in the form of righteous indignation or innocent victim-hood. Defensiveness wards off a perceived attack. Example: “It’s not my fault that we’re always broke; it’s your fault.”

Stonewalling: emotional withdrawal from interaction. Example: The listener does not give the speaker the usual nonverbal signals that the listener is truly listening to the speaker.

So if you want to assess the health of your relationship, consider if you engage in any of those behaviors. If you do and you want to save your marriage, you need to stop them and choose other behaviors.

Here are the behaviors I suggest (and the ones that saved my marriage):

Ask yourself: Do I want to be right, or do I want to be kind?

In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott talks about an argument she had with her then-teenaged son. His behavior infuriated her and she wanted to punish him.

But she managed to take a few deep breaths and then shared the above thought and it has helped me so much in my marriage.

I always feel like I’m right in an argument. Always. (Um, who doesn’t?) If I share my woes with my friends and other family members, they always agree with me too.

But you know what? It doesn’t matter, because I don’t live with them. I live with my husband, and I’ve learned that I’d rather be kind than right. It just feels better.

Again, it always takes me implementing my #1 ground rule in an argument (leave it) before I can access any kindness, but I have so much practice at it now that it’s gotten a lot easier to do (not easy, mind you, but easier).

So I’m going to lay out the five big things that I do when conflict comes up in my relationship. And I invite you to ask yourself if you do them, too.

Ask your partner, “What Can I Do to Help?”

I give really good advice. People even pay me to give it to them! But you know who doesn’t think I give good advice? My husband. He hates it. He also doesn’t even like it when I “share a story of what I did in a similar situation that worked for me.”

Of course, I’ve never met anyone who likes receiving unsolicited advice.

Solicited advice is different, of course. But my husband never solicits it.

You know what my husband does like? If he is having a hard time, all I have to do is ask, “What can I do to help?” in a thoughtful, nonjudgmental way, and he acts like I’m the most wonderful, helpful person on the planet.

Make a positive request

I know this is a shocker, but complaining, whining, making threats and demands doesn’t go over very well with my husband. I used to say things like, “You never…and I always…and just this once would you…just do it!” with shocking regularity.

The threats and demands may have gotten him to do the thing I wanted him to do, but not once did it feel good. I’ve learned to ask, “Would you be willing to…?” and I believe that simple question has magical powers.

There is a caveat: You ask the question with a positive tone, like “Hey, I got two tickets to the ball game, would you be willing to go?” If I ask with even a hint of a stern or complaining tone, my husband gives me a look that means that I might as well have just made a threat or a demand.

Of course, it’s taken me a lot practice to get to a place where I can achieve the tone and mean it.

I still even make threats and demands. This is an area where I will always be making progress and never reach perfection.

But I’m glad that I found something that works and allows us both to feel good, and that’s enough for me to keep trying.

Ask yourself what you think is being withheld – and then give that thing to your partner

Another guideline that I feel is indispensable in any relationship, I learned from one of my favorite authors, Eckhart Tolle. In his fabulous and (for me) life-changing book, A New Earth, he writes, “Whatever you think people are withholding from you – praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, and so on – give it to them.”

This guideline really goes for everything with everyone at every time. It’s also one that requires a lot of practice on my part to achieve anything approximating proficiency.

Conflict with my husband often revolves around the feeling that we don’t appreciate each other enough. As parents of a young, highly spirited child, it usually takes the form of arguing for more “me” time because “if you appreciated my contribution, you’d understand my need for more time alone and find a way to meet it.”

I argued for it because I cared for needy patients all day. He argued for it because he cared for a needy toddler all day. We used to act resentful of the time the other got “off.”

Finally we stopped looking at what was being “withheld” and simply focused on finding creative solutions to “give that thing” that would meet our needs – first, appreciation for the valuable contribution each of us was making, and second, for time alone.

Finding creative solutions to meet everyone’s needs is one of the most powerful tools you can bring to any relationship, and, again, it takes practice to master it.

Make time for sex

Don’t stop reading if you’re not in a relationship: In my opinion (note: this isn’t my husband’s opinion), one of the greatest benefits from sex comes from the release of oxytocin and you don’t need a partner to get that (ahem) release.

And as I mentioned in a previous article, oxytocin is a wonder drug available to everybody. It’s a chemical dispensed from your own brain when you do stuff that involves caring touch – like holding hands, getting a massage, or petting an animal.

It’s called the bonding hormone because it increases our feelings of happy connection with others. So it doesn’t just make us feel good (which my husband thinks is the greatest benefit), it truly makes us better in a relationship.

As a woman who has a very full life with a very full to-do list every day, I know I wouldn’t have sex if I didn’t schedule it.

The days of making love all night are o-v-e-r. My son is a night owl and it’s rare that I have enough energy after he goes to sleep to get it on spontaneously.

But I believe in the many benefits of sex and I commit to it just like anything else that’s important to me, like eating well and getting cardio.

Have fun

You know what? I just realized that all of these habits could be distilled into one sentence that not only works well for all relationships, but in all of life too: Have fun, be kind and just be light about all of it! Is that your goal, too?

What do you think? Will you implement these suggestions? What are your relationship-saving habits? Please share in the comments.

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Last week I hosted a VERY special call for my Inner Circle. Women’s health and vitality expert Evelyn Resh and I shared specific strategies for how to incorporate more pleasure into our daily lives – and how pleasure is actually a super power that will fuel success in all areas of your life! We also dove deep into the amazing content from Evelyn’s new book, Women, Sex, Power and Pleasure: Getting the Life (and Sex) You Want. The basic, and extremely powerful, premise of her fabulous book is:

Emotional Wellness = Powerful Living = Increased Interest and Access to All Pleasures

If you are committed to getting the life and sex you want (and I hope you are!), start by asking, “How sturdy am I feeling?” If the answer is “not very,” then find out why by asking these questions:

• How is your emotional health?
• How empowered do you feel to get what you really want?
• How much pleasure are you able to surround yourself with and what might be interfering with that? The key question really is: How willing are you to prioritize your emotional health? 

Resh shows that the answers to all of the above questions are inextricably linked to what she calls the “six markers of emotional well-being.” They are:

1. Self-confidence and self-esteem
2. Health-seeking behaviors
3. Spiritual Satisfaction
4. Creativity
5. Resilience
6. Compassion

So the way forward is to make sure that all of the above markers are optimally expressed in your life. If you’re struggling in any of these areas, you can look at following statements to see which one you most associate with, and then apply Evelyn’s strategies and suggestions.

I’m Just Too Busy.

The issue is choice, and therefore having the right to choose what you want to do and are really able to do and when. If you’re always so tired that you can’t bring any pleasure into your life, then it’s time to rethink what you’ve chosen to do. Take charge of what’s happening – delegate tasks to responsible people, learn to work smart instead of hard, and keep things in perspective.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. What is my self-esteem dependent on?
2. Could I imagine life without a to-do list? If not, why?
3. On a scale of one to ten, with one being the least and ten being the most, how much do I need to be in control of tasks, to have them done my way because it’s the only right way?
4. Do my work responsibilities take over my life on a frequent basis and interfere with my time with and energy for my partner?
5. What would really happen if I set more limits on my availability to my children and my job? What would the fallout be? What benefits might there be?

I’m Too Fat to Have Sex.

Women need to think of themselves as whole packages. Our souls, personalities, and complex identities are woven into our physical beings. The wholeness is what others are attracted to and choose to be near.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. What physical features do I have that I find attractive or appealing? What have others commented on as being attractive?
2. Why does my partner tell me he or she wants to have sex with me? Do I like the reason, and do I believe it?
3. What do I consider to be the attributes of the ideal woman’s body – figure and face – and why?
4. Who do I know that I and others find attractive and alluring who doesn’t fit the stereotype of the sexy woman? Why do we find her attractive?
5. How much of a role do I feel that physical and mental health play in whether or not I see myself as attractive?
6. What stops me from moving in the ways I want to and that I know would be better for my health? How can I change this?

I Just Can’t Right Now.

With their seemingly constant demands, new motherhood, illness, and grief (just to name a few) rob us of experiencing pleasure in our bodies. They make it difficult to connect with our capacity to feel joy by eclipsing it with their magnitude and breadth. They catapult us into an emergency-coping mode that dictates that we attend only to the most necessary things in order to simply stay upright, and by doing so, they can slowly erode confidence. Slowly, as you’re compelled to adapt to life’s unpredictable and inevitable stressors, you can regain your ability to enjoy the pleasures that life offers. How long this takes and the precise course you’ll take to get there will unfold as you live in and with your circumstances.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. Is there a challenge or circumstance in my life that I have allowed to become my constant companion at the expense of my loving relationship with myself or someone else?
2. How do I perceive myself as a mother, and what is its impact on my relationship with myself or my relationship with others?
3. Other than my partner, who else can I look to for help in managing life’s challenges?
4. What pleasures can I always count on to comfort me when sadness and/or grief feel dominant?
5. Am I aware of the impact that deeply upsetting events have on my sense of power and my ability to experience life’s pleasures, including sexual intimacy?
6. Am I willing to ask for professional help when I face changes that I find hard to manage? If not, why?

Menopause Is Killing Me.

The most important aspect of pleasure and the sense of power it gives midlife women is that we have to work smarter and more creatively to keep our markers of emotional well-being intact. In order to enjoy life at all in midlife or beyond, you’ll need to harness three critical concepts: 1) Pleasure has an inherent power that will make you feel your best. 2) Creativity is crucial to being sexually satisfied at midlife and beyond. 3) Humor is the best lubricant for both 1 and 2.

Questions to Ask Yourself:

1. What are my honest feelings about myself as a middle-aged woman and about middle age in general?
2. Have I “let myself go” in midlife? If so, how has this affected my sense of being powerful in the world and accessing pleasure?
3. Am I willing to shore up my markers of emotional well-being so I’ll then be able to access pleasure and feel better about life and sex in general? If not, why?
4. Do my partner and I have a reference point in our history as a couple for having experienced great sex? If not, why have I stayed in a relationship that has never been sexually satisfying for me? How important is sex to me?
5. What are my ideals of how midlife women are supposed to behave sexually, and where did these ideas come from? 
6. Do I know any midlife women who embody and demonstrate the kind of living and sexuality that I find appealing and desirable? What is it specifically about them that makes me see them in this way? 

Becoming Your Own Activist.

Even Evelyn admits that making time for pleasure can feel like just one more thing to add to an already too-full to-do list! This, however, is all the more reason to take frequent advantage of life’s pleasures: so they can remind us of how powerful we can feel when we’re sensually engaged — and because sensuality is just a few steps away from one of the best things life has to offer: sex on your own terms.

 Questions to Ask Yourself:

1. Do I do something new that is sensually pleasing every day, and if not, can I make a commitment to do so? 
2. What body-based sensual experiences do I find soothing? Activating? Arousing?
3. What sensually activating things have I considered buying, doing, seeing, but continue to postpone, and why?
4. What sensually pleasing things could I incorporate into everyday life?
5. Do my partner and I openly talk or write about sex with each other with frequency? If not, why? How could we change this? 
6. Am I willing to make the commitment to lead a more sensual life with the intention of being more sexually satisfied? If not, why?

From reading Eveyln’s book I’ve learned to look at pleasure as a “super power” and believe, like she does, that focusing on pleasure will positively impact all areas of a woman’s life. 

I really want to bring home how it’s not selfish to make this a priority, and how, in fact, everything (like our kids, our marriages, our work in the world) will benefit when you do.

I was inspired to create my own “Pleasure Play List” ¨– a list of the daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly activities I’m committing to in order to make sure that pleasure is a priority in my life. I’d love for you to create your own – and I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Just leave a comment and let’s start a Pleasure Revolution together!

Do you ever think eating real foods in the right amounts and at the right times can be a lot of work?

Well, yes, it is work.

Making healthy choices takes energy – but as I’ve said before (and I’ll probably say again), whether you take steps to address them or not, problems generally require you to expend mental energy no matter what (in this case, by making you stress about your weight and body image), so you might as well apply that energy to a solution.

So if you’re worried about your diet, why not expend that energy in an area that’ll lead to more benefit for you and your health? It does mean doing some work, but it doesn’t mean you’ll have to struggle. And it DEFINITELY doesn’t have to be confusing.

Why won’t it be confusing? Because eating – the most natural thing in the world – only becomes confusing and difficult when we have external rules to follow and we aren’t following the wisdom of our own bodies.

So my suggestion for you is for you to forget every food “rule” you’ve ever heard and just remember this truth: You can trust your inner wisdom when it comes to fueling your body with the right food, at the right time and in the right amount.

So why does it seem so hard? One of the main reasons is that we get DISCONNECTED from our bodies’ natural wisdom. We go on complex diets, we agonize over calories, we even subject ourselves to a lot of sophisticated medical tests to see if we’re allergic or sensitive to the foods we eat. But none of that is necessary if we reconnect with our bodies. Make that connection, and all you have to do is pay attention after you eat.

Of course, the industrial food industry has made paying attention very difficult. They do better when you eat more of stuff that’s cheap to produce. And so they’ve tinkered with some very unhealthy foods to make them taste absolutely delicious and practically addictive.

So the first step to getting connected with your body is cutting out all processed food. Once you’ve done that, you can become a research scientist investigating food. Pay attention to what happens to you after you eat – how you feel, how you act – and you’ll soon reach some conclusions about the best foods for fueling your body. Trust me – if you don’t know now, the knowledge will come as you put your food to this simple test.

As you make your discoveries, don’t be blinded by preconceptions about “good” or “healthy” food. Not any one diet is ideal for everyone. I have friends and clients who eat widely varied diets – from vegan, to mostly raw (but including wild-caught fish and beef from pasture-fed cows), to Paleo (meaning mostly meat, nuts and veggies, and practically no grains), to Mediterranean (my choice). All of these diets involve eating vastly different “fuel foods,” and all are perfectly healthy.

 They do have a common thread, though. Look these diets over, and you’ll see that a good fuel food is whole (meaning unprocessed, meaning probably NOT out of a package), is fresh, and tastes great.

That said, there are some foods that tend to be very problematic, so I want you to pay special attention if you eat them.

There are not many times when I say NEVER do something, but this is one. I would like you to NEVER consume these two things: Diet Soda/Artificial Sweeteners and Specially Prepared “Fat Free” or “Diet Foods.”

Why not? First the skinny on diet sodas and artificial sweeteners:

There is TONS of research that PROVES that sodas make people fat and sick.

And that diet drinks may be even worse than regular sugar sweetened sodas!!

How does that happen? Well the upshot is that artificial sweeteners are hundreds to thousands of times sweeter than regular sugar. That’s a good thing, right? No. These sweeteners activate our genetically programmed preference for sweet tastes more than any other substance. Then they trick your metabolism into thinking sugar is on its way. In response, your body pumps out insulin, the fat storage hormone, which lays down more fat. Yikes!

This sweetener-fueled insulin boost also confuses and slows your metabolism down, so that you burn fewer calories every day. It makes you hungrier. It makes you crave even more sugar and starchy carbs like bread and pasta.

Bottom line: Diet drinks are not good substitutes for sugar-sweetened drinks. Artificial sweeteners increase cravings, weight gain, and Type 2 diabetes. And they are addictive.

Okay. Now for the “Low/No Fat” or “Diet Food” Industry. This is what you need to know: Eating Fat Does NOT Make You Fat. The diet and food industry has brainwashed us to think fat-free foods help keep us from getting fat, which seems like common sense. Eating fats makes you fat. Right? But the science tells us otherwise, i.e. not ALL calories are created equal.

And even though fat has more calories per gram (9 calories versus 4 calories or carbs and protein), eating good quality fat can help you lose weight. This low-fat idea was based on bad science. But the food industry was happy to respond by creating a flood of fat-free foods.

The big problem is that the fat is replaced with flour and sugar, and eating large amounts of flour and sugar wreaks havoc on our hormones, like insulin, and correlates with diabesity – that’s obesity coupled with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes, a combination that – according to integrative physician Mark Hyman – now affects one in two adults and one in four teenagers.

Bottom Line: The key point here is that all calories are NOT the same. Swap out sugar and starch for good fats such as nuts, avocados, olive oil, and grass-fed animal products or wild fish. Focus on quality real food and the rest takes care of itself.

NOW: Having talked about the foods that I believe you should absolutely eliminate from your diet, I want to talk about the 7 Foods that you may want to eliminate or greatly reduce from your diet because many, many people tend to be “Highly Sensitive” to them. They are:

1. Wheat
2. Dairy
3. Eggs
4. Soy
5. Corn
6. Peanuts
7. Sugar

If you eat any of them frequently, I would recommend that you eliminate them from your diet for two to three weeks (if this seems impossible, then eliminate one at a time), and document closely how you feel.

If you notice an improvement in your digestion or your metabolism, or overall feeling of well-being within a week, I would ask you to eliminate them from your diet from now on, or add them back in small amounts as a “test.”

If you notice a return of unpleasant symptoms, and you want to feel completely well, you know what to do, right? Will replacing them require some work? Will it require some energy? Yes. Could replacing them give you more energy than you’ve ever had? Yes, absolutely.

One last thing: I have eliminated most of the foods I mentioned above, with a notable exception being sugar.

So why haven’t I eliminated sugar, given all the evidence against it?

Well, because I enjoy it too much, and I think “joy eating” is a happy and healthy part of my diet. I’d say it makes up about 10% of my food intake on a daily basis.

And until I have more problems – or really, ANY problems – with my health, I’m not going to eliminate it.

But BELIEVE ME when I tell you that if I had even so much as the sniffles, or I felt it brought me down into a consistent brain fog, or it led to perpetual mindless eating, I would.

And that’s my last word on this subject. If you feel you that more than 10% of your daily intake of food falls into the “joy eating” category, then the simple fact is you need to look to other areas of your life for joy.

I promise, as soon as you add more joy to your life away from the table, you will no longer look to food for joy.

If you need help finding other activities that bring you joy, just let me know and I can help you discover them very quickly. Just take me up on my offer for a completely FREE Discover Your Purpose Strategy Session. Find out more and sign up here: http://www.staceycurnow.com/discoveryourpurpose/.

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