The power of appreciation! The better it gets, the better it gets!

One of the best ways to end one year and call in a powerful new one is through the power of appreciation. Appreciation is different from gratitude. Appreciation is the same vibration as love, says Abraham Hicks. When we are grateful we are usually grateful for having overcome something, therefore, we are including, in our thoughts, the vision of what we have overcome.

The more you practice appreciation the less resistance you have. The less resistance you have, the better your life will be. When there is no resistance, the things you desire will HAVE to flow into your life. The only thing between you and what you want is your resistance, your doubt, worry, fear, complaints or pessimism.

Be in a deliberate state of appreciation today. Go out of your way to appreciate others. See how deeply you can activate the vibration of appreciation in your body. When you feel tears of deep appreciation welling up you have reached it.

The holiday season is a perfect way to align yourself with the vibration of appreciation. Give holiday cards to as many people as you can and pour your appreciation on to them. What you give is what you get. I'll send you more tips on appreciation tomorrow.

I appreciate you and all of your loving support.
Go out there and appreciate life, others and your self.
Love,
Patricia


JANUARY 1, NEW YEARS DAY BOOK SIGNING WORKOUT EVENT
Non members are welcome! Equinox 19th and broadway 12-2. Members free, non-members 25$ so bring your friends. They will appreciate it! You can buy a book at the event or online at Satilife.com. Please rsvp@satilife.com. For non members to register go to satilfe.com I hope to see you there!

7 Secret Principles to Thinner Peace The warrior declaration.

When I was in my 20's I was willing to do anything to lose weight.  I did diets, diet pills, drugs and exercised, at one point, up to 8 hours a day and somehow it was never enough.  Even though I was thin, I was depressed and constantly in fear of getting fat. Finally I had had enough. This book is written for anyone who wants thinner peace and  is no longer willing to simply go for thinner at any cost. It is also for those who want to embrace who they are physically and spiritual and live the life of a warrior not a worrier.

(In the last blog I talked about the difference between living as a warrior and not a whiner.  If you didn't read that post, scroll down and check it out. )

So how do you get serious about making that change from simply complaining or worrying to intending and  believing? Sati, mindfulness and intention.  The way we make a change is by bringing awareness into our life.  The fist step is noticing, without judgement,  how you feel and what you are doing? Are you happy, depressed, feeling good, alive?  Then take full responsibility for how you feel.

Once you take full responsibility for how you feel then take full responsibility for changing it. Own it, take your power and embrace it.  Remind yourself of it everyday

Then intend your future to be better, healthier and brighter.

One simple thing you can do is to read the warrior declaration everyday for 30 days.  And if you really want to get it into the fabric of your being, read it aloud and in the mirror first thing in the morning and last thing at night. This one very simple exercise is subtly powerful but only if you commit. Try it and see for yourself.  You will begin to notice the words popping up in your mind all day long and they will help guide you in making new choices which lead to a new you.

SATI WARRIOR DECLARATION

Today I stand as a warrior and I choose to be all I can be.

I stand for excellence in all areas of my life.  

I look for confidence and approval in my own heart and mind, and what you think of me makes no difference.

I know that it is ultimately how I feel about myself that gives me the experience of my life, and shame, guilt, regret, resentment are the most deadly of all opponents.  The only way they can be defeated is by absolute integrity, or the absence of contradiction between what I know, what I profess, and what I do. I know that when I lie to myself I am severed from my truth, which is my power, and an inharmonious relationship to my truth is deadly.

No one is born a warrior, just like no one is born an average man.  We make our selves that way by the accumulation of steps we take towards one or the other.  I know the power of my mind and I begin every journey confident of victory.  I am only defeated when I have accepted defeat, and the moment I turn my back on my self and my vision may be the moment I halt just short of my goal, and I will make useless all my previous efforts.  My work is to discover my work and with all my heart give myself to it, and by honoring this path I will achieve the greatest victory of all, a life of love, a life I love, and a life well lived. 

Today I choose the path of the warrior.

UPDATES

Join me and my sati team for a 30 day Sati challenge. If you live in NYC and have never participated before go to satilife.com for details.  It is free and when you commit you will get a free 30 day all access pass to Equinox. You commit to taking 3 sati classes a week as well as the kick off and the round up classes.  The intention is to help people kick start a new habit and let go of an old one the sati way.  Go to  Satilife.com to fill out an application.

Book signing and workout New Years Day!

Kick of 2010 with a 2 hour workout/workshop January 1, 2010 in NYC.  Equinox 19th street 12pm-2pm

Members are free and non-members $25.00. You can also purchase my book at the event.

Follow me on twitter. For class updates join satilifeupdate

Join me on Facebook.

Change your mind, change your body, Change your life

There are two ways to look at things as a warrior or a worrier. Do you live with your attention on what you don't want or you are trying to avoid, or what you do want or are willing to welcome into your life.  Are you a worrier or a warrior?

Worrier or whiner
Complains about her weight more often than not
Talks about how he knows he is never going to lose weight
Thinks about going on a diet often but rarely follows through
Starts a diet but then gets off it and gains more weight than before
Prefers not to look in the mirror
When looking in the mirror looks at what he doesn't like
Talks about how hard it is to change
Worries about getting fat
Believes thin will bring happiness and thinner peace


Warrior
Accepts where she is and takes responsibility to make a change
instead of talking about what he hates about himself focuses on the changes he wants to make
Looks for ways to stay inspired and motivated
Does not look for trendy new diets but ways to make healthy living a lifestyle
Values feeling good
Loves and values her body as her gift and is not only focused on thin at any cost
Knows that happiness is the way to thinner peace

Most often what I see is that those that are successful in creating a healthy lifestyle have more characteristics of the warrior then the worrier.  If you keep your attention on what you are trying to avoid instead of inspiring yourself by focusing on who you want to become, it will be very difficult to find thinner peace.

How will you know if you are being a warrior or a whiner? Notice how you feel.  If you make feeling good a daily intention and you notice when you are not feeling good you can be sure that it is what you are giving your attention to that is making the difference.  If you are complaining, criticizing or judging yourself, your situation or your body you will not feel good.  Be willing to let it go and choose something to appreciate or simply ask yourself, "is this thought supporting or interfering with my goal?"  If the answer is that it is interfering, do what you can to change it.  Give your attention to something else until you feel better, inspired, motivated or simply relief.

Change your mind, change your body, change your life!
Enjoy it,
Patricia

UPDATES
If you are interested in joining the next warrior challenge which begins January 10 in NYC go to satilife.com for details.

New Years Day Kick off event, 2010 if not now, when?
Are you in NYC for new years day? You are invited to join me for a book signing event and Sati life new years workout from 12pm-2pm. Equinox members are free and non members are welcome for $25.
Go to Satilife.com to register or email rsvp@satilife.com for more info.

You can now pre order my book The intenSati method, 7 secret principles to thinner peace.

My top 10 favorite ways to enhance my day

Feeling good every day is my number 1 priority. These are my top 10 ways to improve my mood and attitude!

1. meditate

2. Set my intentions for the day

3. Hot water with lemon or ginger tea

4. workout

5. listen to Abraham Hicks audio or dvd

6.Drink a vegetable juice

7. sit in the sun for a few minutes

8.Journal about my dreams and desires

9 play some great music and sing along

10. Reach out to a family member or friend to catch up and say hi!

What are your favorites?

Love,

Patricia

Did you have a Sati meal today? Have one today!

Here are some great habits to practice to improve your relationship to your body and your food. Try making two meals a week "Sati" meals. Bringing more intention and awareness to your eating habits will help you bring more love and balance into your life! What is a Sati meal? Sati means mindfulness and a Sati meal is a meal where your intention is to bring more mindfulness to the art of eating with intention and awareness. Making a few mealtimes a week your time to connect your heart, body and mind will help you become more aware of the sacredness of nourishing your body as a gift.

Twice a week have a Sati meal! Sit, smell, taste, chew, enjoy and respect the moment. Sit. No matter how big your small your meal is, take time to sit down and pay attention to what you are eating. Smell. Use all of your senses to bring in the beauty of whatever you are eating. Before you take your first bite pause and take in the beautiful smell. When you invite all your senses to participate you will enjoy it more. Taste. Don't talk while you have food in your mouth, taste it! Feel and taste each bite. Feel the textures, the spices, the temperature, the whole experience. Chew. Watch how people eat around you. Notice how many people gobble or literally inhale food. During your sati meal make it a point to chew your food. Some experts recommend 20 times. Try it. Enjoy. Don't eat things that don't agree with you because you think you "should" eat it. Every body is different and everything doesn't work for every body. Choose foods you enjoy and enjoy the foods you choose. Absolutely refuse to allow guilt to ruin your enjoyment of the meal. Feeling guilty is worse than the calories. Take the time to enjoy your meal. Respect the moment. Beginning or ending a meal with a prayer of gratitude is a powerful practice. It doesn't have to be long, out loud or even noticeable to anyone at the table. Simply take a moment to look at the meal with eyes of appreciation before your first bite and repeating mentally to yourself, "Thank You" will help you remember to honor and respect your food and your body. You don't have to eat this way every meal but setting aside a few meals a week to practice a sati meal will help you create a healthier and a more loving relationship to food. Eat food, mostly plants, not so much, 90% of the time. Patricia

Take action today! If not now, when?

Today is another day to appreciate that you always have the chance to improve your life, your health, your state of mind or any other area you want to upgrade.

It is important as we face our life, our dreams and our desires to make sure that when we start looking at the things we feel need a little fixing that we don't just sit around condemning what we have, where we are or what we are going through. This is the mistake so many people make. Complaining and condemning cements the problem exactly where it is.

Whether you want to lose weight, improve your health, upgrade your nutritional habits or organize your home, train yourself to focus more attention on what you want and why you want it instead of just letting yourself hang out in disappointment or frustration.

Write down what you want and why you want it. Inspire yourself, give the vision you want for yourself life. Most people never even take this first action step, instead they just moan and groan about what is not good. Write it down! Know what you want! Be clear.

Next, take an action TODAY! If you feel frustrated about where you are there is only one way out and that is to get yourself to take some kind of positive action. If you feel like success is impossible you will not take any action, but if you think success is possible you will open your mind to divine guidance, that is guidance from you heart. Divine guidance will lead you to taking right action!

So ask yourself now "If I didn't think this was impossible what action would I take today?" "Can I take it?" "Will I take it?" "When?". Hopefully the answer is YES and NOW!

There are no wasted steps or actions and no dream is ever realized without action! ACT NOW! You cannot become who you want to be by remaining who you are! It is so empowering to finally take a step in the direction of your dreams! Do it today!

Feel free to post what action steps you decided to take today!

Love

Patricia

YOU ARE INVITED! Have you never tried intenSati before? Do you live in NYC or nearby? On September 22, Tuesday night at 6:30pm you can come by Equinox for a free intenSati workout!

If you are interested rsvp@intenSati.com and we will add your name to the guest list! Check it out!

Pay attention. Your body knows best!

If you want to change your habits for the long run it is important that you pay attention to the amount of food you are eating. Your body is always giving you feedback and learning to pay attention to the signals your body is giving you will help you determine what you need.

Your body has a natural intelligence that is built in to guide you in your life. It is always guiding you towards your perfect weight and health by giving you signs of comfort and discomfort. According to Deepak Chopra, if you are feeling comfort emotionally, physically and spiritually you are headed in the right direction. Learn to pay attention to the signals you are getting.

Many of us reach for food to ease stress, because of our social situation or out of habit. Deepak Chopra gives us a very important and easy assignment, "eat only when you are hungry"

By practicing paying attention to the signals of hunger and satisfaction and training ourselves to follow the cues our body is giving, us we can develop new lifestyle habits that will lead us to achieve our long term goals.

This scale is from Deepak Chopra's book Perfect weight.

Level 0-1 Your stomach feels completely empty. You are not starving but there is a genuine need that requires satisfaction. You should eat at this level.

Level 2,3 or 4 describes how you feel when you are eating or after you have eaten and you sense the presence of food in your stomach. There is no sensation of hunger present.

Level 5 you start to feel satisfied

Level 6 is the point of maximum comfort. This is where you should stop eating.

Level 7 or 8 is when you feel uncomfortably full

Level F is when you are so full that when you think of food it makes you sick. This is where you cannot eat another bite. This level should be completely avoided.

Level E is when the stomach is completely empty and the feeling of starvation is present. You should eat before you get to this level

Deepak Chopra suggests that you eat to about 3/4 of your stomachs capacity. You should practice stopping at level 6

Try taking on this practice and eating only when you are hungry! Pay attention. Your body is your best friend and your best guide. Let is help you learn to feed it well.

Love

Patricia

Check out Deepak Chopra's book "Perfect Weight"

It's time to go shopping!

I have been feeling good these past few days. I think that promising not to eat bread no matter what made a big difference. Today my negotiator came up for a minute when I tried to tell myself that a wrap was not the same as having bread but luckily that conversation didn't last too long and I left with a salad and a side of vegetables. Phew! Victory!

This week I went to the grocery story and filled up the refrigerator with lots of vegetables, fruits and my salad favorites! Luckily for me Kellen likes to eat healthfully and we don't have anything in our home that is tempting. That makes a huge difference.

What's in your refrigerator? If you want to succeed in eating more healthfully make sure you have what you need in your home. If you have things you love to eat that are healthy it is going to be easier for you. Do whatever you need to do to support your goals. Take out the tempting options. If you are craving sugar and you don't have it in the house, how likely is it that you will jump in a taxi, or the car and go and get it? Get rid of anything that is tempting. I know some of you have husbands, children that you think won't live without the junk but give it a try! Get then some healthier versions of the treats like frozen fruit instead of ice cream, fruit and yogurt instead of cookies, popcorn instead of potato chips. Yeah, they might whine a complain a little but encourage them to try new things! Just try it! Don't assume they will not want to feel good all the time too!

My food journal today

cup of oatmeal with a teaspoon of coconut oil, agave and sliced almonds

a large salad with 1/4 avocado, zucchini, walnuts, olive oil and vinegar

A cup and 1/2 of nonfat yogurt with mixed berries, agave and a sprinkle of cacao nibs

Chicken soup

Workout Journal

30 minutes of weight training

I am keeping my personal promise to skip the bread no matter what!

What is your personal no matter what promise? What did you choose to eat today? Did you workout? Come on let's hear it! No secrets.

Love

Patricia

Eating with intention and awareness Having it all call notes

I just finished the eating with intention and awareness call and posting the assignment and follow up info. If you were not on the call and you want to get the recording of it you can order it online at satilife.com by the end of the week or send an email to rsvp@intensati.com and request it.

The topic of the call was "Having it all" I talked about creating your intention for yourself. Mine is to feel good all the time, to feel energized, lean, healthy and better with age. What's yours?

I talked about what it means to have it all for me. Basically I like a version of Michael Pollacks mantra, Eat food, mostly plants, not so much, except I added 90% of the time. To me having it all means there is nothing on my "never eat" list. I believe if I follow this mantra I will be able to 'have it all" and fulfill my intention. How you do you want to eat? Write it out.

The main point of the call was to remember that the way to having it all is by practicing self discipline. You must train yourself to keep your word and silence the negotiator, the voice inside you head that keeps telling you it's ok to break your promise and you can start tomorrow.

The assignment.

Look for people that inspire you and are living in a way you want to live in relationship to food.

It may be more than one. Model them, ask them how they do it. Interview them

Write your intention and memorize it.

Add more vegetables to your diet, if you already eat many vegetables try new ones, get creative.

Watch your portion size especially of the part of your meal that is lower quality and higher calorie food. Keep protein like meat, fish and chicken to the size of a deck of cards or the palm of your hand.

Eat more slowly so you can tell when you are satisfied before you are stuffed. Use a smaller plate and take time before you take the second helping. Check in with yourself and see if you are satisfied enough to walk away.

When you are satisfied or if someone offers you more food when you have decided you are done say "no thank you I am completely satisfied"

Post your daily or weekly commitments here and check in with us daily or every few days and let us know how it is going. Choose things that you can keep your word on no matter what. As you get better at it you can promise bigger things.

Remember these words "No matter what" when you make your promise keep these words tattooed on my mind and the negotiator will not show up as often, if you mean it.

If you are interested in coaching in this area email coach@handelgroup.com. There is a new group starting soon called Dream Body. You will be trained in this area. It is extremely beneficial. Email them for details

Want a great book for food ideas buy "Ultra metabolism by Dr. Mark Hyman or In the defense of food my Michael Pollack.

Give me your feed back, and let me know if you have suggestions for the next call!

LOVE,

Patricia

www.satilife.com

Are you a good negotiator?

This past weekend was a great relaxing and enjoyable weekend with friends in East Hampton. Kellen and I officially got married on Friday and spent the weekend celebrating! It was lovely.

On Saturday we went to our friends beautiful home, Michelle and Beth. They invited us over for lunch and since they knew I declared to lose 10lbs they cooked a beautiful lunch to support me. It was so sweet!

One of my commitments to myself was not eat processed or refined carbs. I think the hardest thing for me to pass on is bread. I ate bread twice this past weekend. I had it today when we picked up a lobster roll before our drive home and before dinner on Saturday night i had a 1/2 of a piece of focaccia that was on the dinner table.

So the question is, what is the conversation you have with yourself right before you choose to give up on your promise to yourself?

This is the magic moment. Once you ate it or drank it or skipped a workout it's too late. The precious moment is the conversation you have where you are either talking yourself into or out of keeping your word.

This is a very different approach then simply counting calories. Often what we do is we say, ok I'll just have it this time and I will skip____ later. Or we negotiate with ourselves that we will workout extra tomorrow. There is usually one way you negotiate with yourself and talk yourself out of keeping your word to yourself. Usually mine is that I will workout more later!

The important thing here is to remember the way to succeed is to be able to trust yourself to keep your word. Once you are able to make a promise and keep it, you will not have those negotiating conversations with yourself anymore.

Take notice this week when you are negotiating with yourself about whether to keep your promise to yourself or not. What kind of excuses or new promises do you make to yourself to get you off the hook of having to keep your original promise?

If you can catch your negotiator before you give in and say "no negotiating here" you will find that soon that negotiator learns to keep quiet. When you know yourself to be good on your word no matter how much you whine and complain, beg and negotiate you will be able to get yourself to do anything you want to do and that negotiator disappears.

This takes some real sati, mindfulness, and a real desire to succeed. My suggestion, don't over promise. Make one promise a day that you are using as your personal trainer. Pick something that is fairly easy but takes some effort to attain.

Use the mantra "no matter what" and think of your little negotiator as someone who is out to trip you up, get you to fail, is not on your side, is an imposter!!

I myself have not been taking my own advice very well but this week I plan to take my advice!

This week I will not have any bread whatsoever! No matter what! Even if I have nothing else to eat, even if it is my favorite kind, even if it means I have to skip a meal. I will not have bread no matter what!

Keep this in mind, whenever you make a promise not to have something you WILL be tempted. Just be ready to say, "no matter what!" You will feel amazing when you stop the negotiator dead in her tracks and you come out victorious!

One day at a time!

Love

Patricia

Don't forget to rsvp for the Eating with intention and awareness call this Wednesday at 8:30pm. Email rsvp@intensati.com for the dial in number. It's free! The topic is "Having it all"