The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

​
This week I pray that your storms will help you to grow tall and straight, strong and sure. If your troubles feel like strong wind, drenching rain, bitter snow or blistering sun, you are in the company of great men and women from all generations of time, who allowed the challenges of life to transform them into the great patriarchs and matriarchs that now offer strength to us. 

​Imagine a scenario where you have walked into your local high school and as you are headed in to do whatever you came for, you hear a commotion behind you and realize that a man with a ski mask and a gun has come into the school.
 
At that moment, how would you feel? Afraid? Protective? Why would you feel that way? No doubt, our imaginations would have been running rampant as we imagined what might happen next. Would we be another horror story on the news? Would we die? Are we helpless? These are all normal ways for the mind to think. But our imaginations dictate our feelings as a result.
 
Now return to the imagined scenario and pretend that the school policeman just happens to be right behind the man when he enters, and quickly throws his arms around the perpetrator, throwing him to the ground. In the process, you hear one explosive, ear-splitting shot as the gun goes off. You feel a searing pain and realize you have been shot......................in the foot.
 
When we add the three words, "in the foot", everyone begins to laugh. Why? Because when you imagine getting shot, you picture the worst: the head, the heart, a vital organ. But getting shot in the foot is not the worst thing in the world. Some surgery, weeks of rest and you'll likely be good as new.
 
Dr. Jenkins goes on to explain that whenever we are dealing with "what is", we have a tendency to focus on what could have been, or what could be next. And the way we approach those questions will determine whether we suffer from anxiety and depression or gratitude and peace. For example, some people would go around complaining to the world about how awful it is to be shot in the foot and all of the things they can't do for several weeks. They will feel frustrated and perhaps angry, robbing themselves of happiness and peace.
 
Others would look at the situation and realize that it could have ended far worse. They could be dead. The shooter could have killed many people. The stray bullet could have lodged in some vital organ causing massive damage that would affect the rest of their lives. To these people, getting shot in the foot is a blessing. Even the fact that they were shot and not others can be a great source of comfort to those who are searching for the angle of gratitude in the situation.
 
Attitude is everything. And realizing that any situation in our lives could always be worse and focusing on the positive aspects of our situations produces actual hormones in the brain that cause peace and contentment with life the way it is. The foot will still hurt. We may still find ourselves with difficulties we didn't choose and don't want, but our general outlook of positivity will help us to move forward in a productive way, learning from the situation and becoming better by it.
 
On this Thanksgiving week, I share with you what Dr. Jenkins calls the Gratitude Triple Play. If you want to develop your gratitude, list three things you are grateful for in your life, however two of those things have to come from situations that are a real challenge for you.  The idea is that anyone can be grateful when everything is going the way they want them to, but to look for the things we are grateful for in the midst of trial and adversity is a powerful way to choose happiness and peace in our daily lives.
 
Let us choose not only a “Happy Thanksgiving”, but a happier life as well, by practicing our Gratitude Triple Play this holiday season, and every season thereafter. 

​Meet Rugby!
 
Rugby is a mixed breed known as a Bernedoodle. His mother was a Bernese Mountain Dog and his father, a Miniature Poodle.
 
Rugby is the most adorable ball of fluff you've ever seen. People stop us all the time to tell us, "He looks just like a stuffed animal!" And he does. He loves to play, adores contact with people, thrives on playtime at the dog park.
 
When you mix two breeds, you take your chances on which traits the pup will inherit. One of the physical traits Rugby inherited from his mother is the Bernese Mountain Dog fur which is silky soft and water resistant. From his father, he inherited the curl of a poodle and the blessing that he also doesn't shed -- a must for someone allergy-ridden like me.

​The similarities to his parents don’t stop at his appearance. One of the behavioral traits he inherited from his mother is the tendency to chew on wood. (Who knew that was an inherited trait, right?) This can be very annoying when you have lined your yard in trees or filled your flower beds with wood bark. As a puppy, he loved to get a good hunk of wood and shred it all over the grass (if we were lucky) or the carpet (if we weren’t). From his father, he inherited a tendency to bark at people when they come to the door.
 
All of us have traits we have inherited from those who came before us, whether by DNA or the conditioning that we learned in our youth. Sometimes those traits are like soft fur that we cherish and enjoy. Other times, they resemble tendencies that call our name like a juicy piece of wood in the backyard...pieces of ourselves that we try to ignore or wish would go away.
 
For example, did you learn from your parents to love and forgive others? To embrace people and build them up? Or did you perhaps inherit an attitude of picking and choosing who deserves love or mercy? Did you inherit a positive self-esteem that made you feel you could conquer anything? Or did you absorb traits of fear and timidity? Did you inherit an attitude of faith and possibility? Or one of skepticism and doubt? Did you learn to face your challenges with faith and optimism? Or with a handful of Oreos and a box of tissues?
 
The truth is, regardless of the situation in which you were raised, you likely learned some things that you will want to hang onto and pass onto your own children, as well as things that you struggle to overcome. How do I know this? Because you are human. You families were human. The good news is that choosing the life you want to lead…in spite of your conditioning…is the birthright of all of God’s children.
 
It's true that we are heavily affected by both the literal and environmental genes we grow up with, and though we can't change the height of our stature (see Luke 12:25) or the texture of our hair, we can change our attitudes, our beliefs, our actions. And the reason we can do this is because God made us each agents unto ourselves. That means that, as adults, we cannot blame anyone or anything for our own thoughts, words and actions.
 
On the door leading to our garage, I have two magnets. One reads:
"Whether your life is happy or not, is your own choice" - Nick Vuyicic
The other:
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." – Thoreau
 
These two magnets represent one of the greatest lesson I have learned on my path of intuitive eating, and that is that I have complete control over my own life.
 
We loved and adored Rugby when he was a rambunctious puppy, but that didn't mean we were content to let him chew up our trees or bark at guests just because his genetic conditioning told him to. With time, patience, and practice, he was able to learn that wood was not one of the basic 4 food groups, and that guests enjoy him much more when they are not afraid of him. We taught him these things because we want him to be happy, and he will be happiest when he is healthy and has a positive relationship with those he comes in contact with each and every day.
 
I'm grateful for all of the positive things that have been passed down to me in my own genetics and conditioning, and I am deeply grateful that I can choose to overcome any conditioning of my past that does not serve me. I am striving to improve upon the life I was given, just as I hope my children are working to improve what was handed down to them. (Good luck, Kids!)
 
The truth is, none of us will be able to overcome the conditioning of our past if we leave it up to chance. Those decisions will have to be made through conscious choice. Each and every day you have the choice to leave your future up to the conditioning and external circumstances you find yourself in, or to choose your own pathway to happiness.
 
So…what will it be? Chance…or choice?

​Little Carson quickly piped up, “Not to talk!”
 
Sometimes, we can be surrounded by truth and still miss the message. I'm afraid that when it came to developing a healthy relationship with food, I spent years in the movie, but mistakenly thought the point was to learn to keep my mouth shut.
 
I had been on one diet or another for nearly 30 years, dieting my way UP 127 pounds, but still believed that happiness was just around the corner if I could just shut my mouth and stop using food like a drug. What I didn't realize is that I was missing the entire point of the movie.
 
Once I got a good coach, I began to understand that the point of this "movie" is not just to stop overeating or reach a certain size, but it is to recognize and change our weaknesses and false beliefs that caused the pain we have been numbing with food all of these years.
 
 
That was when I truly started to make progress. I began working to overcome my fears, my false beliefs, and replace them with truth. I began to recognize my worth, challenge my insecurities, and before long I was experiencing moments of peace that I had only dreamed about before.
 
Over time I developed greater consistency, and thus, greater results. I continue to work this day to overcome fears that arise, and I still have to challenge old beliefs when they pop up, but today, I look forward to it because I have developed greater faith in the process, faith in the Lord, and faith in myself.
 
The great thing is, once you learn to pay attention to the movie, you don't have to struggle not to talk through it anymore. You don't want to talk...you're too busy experiencing it...learning from it...being changed by it. Once you have been changed by it, you will want to invite others to the movie and help them be profoundly changed by it as well. After all, this one's a blockbuster!