The Secret Ingredient (Ask Laurie)

Chronic Wellness Coach, Laurie Erdman, writes a monthly column for FemCentral. If you have a question for Laurie, simply leave it as a comment to this post, or email jennifer@jenniferlshelton.com, with the subject, “Ask Laurie.”

What are you grateful for?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could eat one thing (kale maybe) and transform your life with energy, emotional freedom and sparkle?  Many people I talk to believe if they change their diet they will miraculously enjoy their life and all their problems will disappear.

Guess what?  It’s not that easy.

Sure, diet was a critical part of my healing journey with multiple sclerosis.  But there is so much more to the equation.

Creating a life you enjoy – free of dis-ease – requires changing what you eat AND what you think, how you relate to others, and what you believe about yourself and what you deserve.   This sounds like a lot and can seem impossible when you’re stuck in a rut with a body that is failing you and a life you don’t know how to change.  I mean really, can’t you just eat your broccoli to remove the gloom? Change seems so overwhelming.

The Secret Ingredient is Gratitude

Gratitude is where transformation starts. Not with kale – although that is super important. Not with green juice – although it helps a lot. Nourishing the body without nourishing the soul will not create the supercharged, bursting with energy results so many of us desire.

I know this sounds simple.  But as I was experimenting with my anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle approach, I was also spending 5 minutes every morning writing down 3 things I was grateful for that day. It wasn’t always easy.  But I did it every day.

This simple practice helped me bridge the gap between my old, hard driving, overworked, stressed-out, anxious way of living to an empowered, energetic, pleasurable life, clear of brain fog and unrestrained by fatigue.

Gratitude interrupts your overwhelm and resets your compass to keep you on the path toward your goals.

Yes, gratitude actually helps transform your diet and your health. It helps reduce inflammation.  It alleviates depression. It helps you supercharge your life.

Gratitude is powerful and easy to use.  You don’t need anything fancy to do it.  Any piece of paper will do to record your gratitude.

Leverage Your Gratitude for Some Supercharged Healing

As much as I love sharing the secret of gratitude, I want to go a step further today.  It only seems appropriate after the last few days of giving thanks that we ask what more we can do to cultivate health and happiness as we approach the new year.  So I want to share with you a little trick I learned to leverage my gratitude practice for healing the illness and stress in my life.

I start with Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life.  I look up the condition that is bothering me the most that day.  It might be anxiety. It might be the multiple sclerosis I was diagnosed with.  Louise provides the probable emotional/belief pattern cause of that condition. For example, the probable cause of anxiety is “Not trusting the flow and the process of life.”  I then focus on what about that may be true for me.

Next, I look at the new thought pattern. In the case of anxiety it is “I love and approve of myself and I trust the process of life.  I am safe.”  I focus on that belief, saying it to myself over and over for a few minutes.  Then as I proceed through my day, I look for things that support this new belief and I write down how grateful I am for them.  When one engagement gets cancelled, allowing me to attend another event where I end up meeting a great new friend, I take a deep breath and utter my gratitude for the process of life and how it is guiding me to safety.

Linking these two healing tools together – shifting beliefs and gratitude – is powerful.  So next time you are feeling out of sorts – physically or emotionally – reach for You Can Heal Your Life and integrate the teachings with gratitude and watch what happens.

Now share with us what you are grateful for.

Laurie Erdman helps busy individuals living with chronic illness or stress to double their energy so they get moving again.  Check out her upcoming F-REE video training series Get Up & Go where she will reveal her secrets for overcoming fatigue, chronic stress and dis-ease.  Sign up at www.chronicwellnesscoaching.com/getupgo