“A negative, pessimistic mindset has been shown to contribute to scores of health challenges including immune disorders, cancer, and heart problems. All other factors being equal, a happier life means a healthier life.”  Jonathan Wells

Describe the happiest weekend you ever had.

A glad heart makes a happy face.  (Prov. 15:13a; NLT)

I’ve written several DG articles in the past couple of years about happiness.  One reason is that happiness is such a universal heart’s cry.  Every body wants to be happy, but it seems that few are doing anything about..

The sad thing is that virtually everybody can be happy — if they would only choose to.  That’s right,  happiness is simply a choice,  It’s totally up to you whether or not you will be happy.

So many folks equate happiness with what’s going on around them, when it actuality happiness is all about what’s going on inside you — not outside of you.  That fact alone should make you incredibly happy!  Properly understood, that means that you can be happy when ever you want…and unhappy when ever you want.  You decide; you choose.  Think about it — no more being unhappy, unless you want to be.

OK, so how can you be happy when you’re not:  Well, I happened to run across this very helpful blog post from Jonathan Wells.  In it he gives 11 things that you can easily do to be more happy.  Many of them you’ve heard before, some even from me.  Even so, they are worth reinforcing once again.  It’s hard to pick, but my favorite has got to be his number 7 — “Be Positively Aware.”   It is such a powerful principle.

Using that principle, when you’re experiencing something distressful, simply stop for a moment or two and look for the blessing that lies hidden beneath the surface.  What good could possibly come from this situation?  You may have to stretch your imagination just a little bit, but it can be done.  And the exciting thing is that each time you rise to the challenge and do it, the next time is then just a bit easier.

So I encourage you to make your weekend coming up the happiest ever.  With these tips and just a little bit of effort, it can easily be accomplished.

Prayer Power
Father, we were designed to be happy.  I ask that you bring these principles to mind when things don’t go exactly according to plan or when life’s challenges occur.

Link of the Day
11 Steps to a More Positive You

Blessings on you as you purpose to walk these steps out and enjoy your happiest weekend ever.

“You’ve got bad eating habits if you use a grocery cart in 7-Eleven okay?”  Dennis Miller

What is your favorite thing about grocery shopping?

Asher will produce rich foods, food fit for kings.  (Gen. 49:20; NLT)

One of the benefits of working with me as a coach is that I can direct my attention to your specific needs. Another benefit, but only for those clients who are local to the Chesapeake, Virginia Beach area, is that we are able go grocery shopping together and I can show you how to go through a typical supermarket and come out with good, wholesome food.

We’ve had a Flip Video Camera for about a year now, and the idea came to us that I could take anyone shopping through a series of short video clips posted on our blog and elsewhere on the Internet. Here’s the next in the series. As you can see, it’s not professional quality and we’ve got a few bugs to work out yet, but we thought we’d go ahead and share the information with you, imperfect as it is. Plan on turning your speakers up significantly (as it was quite loud, especially in the produce section) as you watch “Supermarket Shopping with Coach Sharon.”

In this segment, Melisa and I continue our saunter down the produce aisle.  At this time of year we’re blessed to have locally grown produce available to us.  Locally grown produce is just that, produce grown by farmers who live in the same area that we live in.  I always like to buy from local farmers when I can.  The produce is freshly picked providing more flavorful food for the most part.  And if we don’t continue to support local farming, we may lose the privilege altogether.  They may not be able to continue to grow food if we’re not patronizing them. 

We looked at leeks which look like a large scallion or green onion with green tops and white flesh.  Wash leeks well before using them as they tend to collect dirt in their various layers.  We briefly looked at red and green cabbage which are part of the cruciferous family of vegetables.  Cabbage is great cooked as a vegetable, used in soups, casseroles or stir-fry.  It’s also popular as a cold salad called Cole Slaw.

We looked at some numbers that are found on actual produce.  Organically grown produce has a produce code consisting of five digits beginning with the number 9.  Commercially grown produce consists of four digits and begins with the number 4.  I made mention that genetically altered (or modified) produce begins with the number 8.  We don’t want any food beginning with that number.

Stay tuned for our next session as we look at organic mixed greens and tropical fruits.

Enjoy the series.

Prayer Power
Father, we thank You for the abundance of choices we have. Guide us to make wise choices.

Blessings on you as you shop this weekend for your family groceries.

Previous in Series-/ /-Next in Series

“Blogging is free; it doesn’t matter if anyone reads it.  What matters is the humility that comes from writing it.  What matters is the meta-cognition of thinking aobut what you’re going to say.”  Seth Godin

If you knew that there was something that you could do that would take roughly a half hour a day to do it, and that doing that something would change your life forever — would you commit to do it?  Explain your answer.

I will write down all these things as a testimony of what the LORD will do. I will entrust it to my disciples, who will pass it down to future generations.  (Isa. 8:16; NLT)

Most of you have heard of Tom Peters, best-selling author of In Search of Excellence as several other powerful books in the field of management and leadership.  What if you heard Peters say, “My first post was in August of 2004.  No single thing in the last 15 years professionally has been more important in my life than blogging.  It has changed my life.  It has changed my perspective.  It has changed my intellectual outlook.  It has changed my emotional outlook.”

In my book, that’s a pretty powerful endorsement of the practice of blogging.  Blogging is part of that social upheaval spawned by the Internet and more specifically Web 2.0, characterized by the fact that most of the content now comes from the user.  That’s you…and me.  We’re the users.  And we’ve all got something to say.  Others may or may not be interested in what we have to say, but as Seth Godin says in today’s quote, that’s not what really matters.  What matters is the change (aka growth) that is produced by merely writing what you have to say.

Yesterday, I received Godin’s daily blog and in it he had four very short videos (each under two minutes long) in which he and Tom Peters were talking about blogging and other social media modalities such as Facebook, Twitter, and the like.  I found their remarks fascinating and I believe you will as well.  Take a few minutes today to watch and listen to two of the greatest visionaries and thinkers of our day as they discuss the benefits of  social networking.

Prayer Power
Father, sometimes we are so hesitant to express ourselves.  Some of that hesitation is due to fear, some to inadequacy, some to esteem, and like.  We ask You to encourage and inspire us to open up and let it flow.

Link of the Day
Seth Godin: Four Videos

Blessings on you as you explore launching a blog.

/-Next in Series

“The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.”  Erma Bombeck

Do you try new things when you shop for groceries?  If not, why not?

You satisfy me more than the richest of foods. I will praise you with songs of joy.  (Psa. 63:5; NLT)

One of the benefits of working with me as a coach is that I can direct my attention to your specific needs. Another benefit, but only for those clients who are local to the Chesapeake, Virginia Beach area, is that we are able go grocery shopping together and I can show you how to go through a typical supermarket and come out with good, wholesome food.

We’ve had a Flip Video Camera for about a year now, and the idea came to us that I could take anyone shopping through a series of short video clips posted on our blog and elsewhere on the Internet. Here’s the first in the series. As you can see, it’s not professional quality and we’ve got a few bugs to work out yet, but we thought we’d go ahead and share the information with you, imperfect as it is. Plan on turning your speakers up significantly (as it was quite loud, especially in the produce section) as you watch “Supermarket Shopping with Coach Sharon.”

In this segment, my sweet, young client, Melissa and I are just entering the store and starting in the produce section.  We discuss shopping on the perimeter of the store.  In most supermarkets, the produce section is the first area one encounters as they enter the store.  I always tell my clients to “park” here and spend the most of their shopping time in this section.  We look at various greens and I highlight swiss chard which is dark green with a beautiful red stem.  It can be steamed and eaten with butter on it or it can be used in a quiche much like spinach.

Winter squashes have a hard shell or covering.  We highlight butternut squash here in the video.  Other winter squashes include acorn, delicata, buttercup, hubbard, and spaghetti squash.  Look for these in the fall of the year and throughout the winter.  Thin skinned squashes include zucchini, yellow summer squash (crookneck or straightneck), and patty pan.  These are great in casseroles or as I mention in the video, I saute them in a small amount of coconut oil and butter and then season them with Herbamare and cayenne pepper.

Fresh green beans are the last vegetable that we look at in today’s video clip.  If you’ve never bought fresh green beans, you’re in for a real treat!  Look for bright green beans that are crisp and not limp or wilted.  Snap off each end and then break the bean in half and steam in a vegetable steamer.  I add either melted butter to the beans or olive oil and ume plum vinegar with a touch of cayenne pepper.  Homegrown, freshly cut tomatoes are also a great addition to green beans.

In our next section, I’ll point out how to distinguish between organically grown produce and commercially grown produce.  Stay tuned!

Enjoy the series.

Prayer Power
Father, we thank You for the abundance of choices we have.  Guide us to make wise choices.

Blessings on you as you choose healthy food for your family.

/-Next in Series

“There’s so much that can be done with diet, with lifestyle, with naturopathic therapies, and alternative medicine modalities to not only manage and treat cardiovascular disease, but also prevent it.”  Natasha Kassam, ND

Have you ever noticed how your heart races when you’re feeling stressed?  What effect do you suppose that has on your body?

As pressure and stress bear down on me, I find joy in your commands.  (Psa. 119:143; NLT)

When you’ve got the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Stanford Medical School, Mayo Clinic, and several other equally prestigious organizations agreeing that in excess of 90% of all illness and disease is related to stress, it’s not at all hard to connect the dots and reason that cardiovascular disease would be be a likely candidate on that list.  As cardiovascular disease is considered by many to be the number 1 cause of death in the US, we all should “listen up” when someone offers some understanding and some suggestions on how to reduce our daily stress levels.

The link to today’s Link of the Day came to me last week on Twitter and I was particularly struck with Dr. Natasha Kassam’s simple and highly understandable explanation of how stress affects your heart so I wanted to share it with our DG readers.  It’s interesting how the phrase “I’m feeling stressed today” has almost become a badge of prestige these days akin to the oft-heard, “I am just sooooo busy!”  It seems that if we really understood the ramifications of such confessions, we would be loathe to even let the words pass our lips.

Now a quick overview of some of the other consequences of stress — stress is at the root of burnout, and causes our economy more than $300 billion in lost productivity, according to the American Institute of Stress.  Even more serious is the loss of talented, caring professionals who are more susceptible to burnout because of the emotional demands of their jobs.

Chronic stress stops the body’s natural DNA repairing system which can potentially lead to the development of cancers and other degenerative diseases. Stress negatively affects the immune system which is why the body becomes more susceptible to disease. The body cannot metabolize fat efficiently or lose weight when under extreme stress.  Stress even affects children while they’re still in the mother’s womb.

And to cap all that off, the Mayo Clinic says just 10 minutes of watching the nightly news will make your stress soar.  It seem obvious then that TV can raise your stress levels drastically, not just the news.  Stress affects your ability to heal from cuts and other wounds. And it’s becoming widely understood that the hostility toward another human being is absolutely the greatest stressor that we deal with.

So hat’s off to Dr. Kassam for her wonderfully simple explanation on how stress affects your heart.  In her video she gives a few “stress busters” that you can try to more effectively manage your daily stress load.

It seems an appropriate time to mention again that Sharon, Dr. Randy Peck, and I devote an entire chapter to stress in our recently released UNCOMMON Wellness Coaching ebook.  In that chapter we provide a list of at least a dozen stress busters.  We invite you to download the introductory chapter for no cost and decide for yourself whether or not the topics we cover are relevant to your situation.  To download that chapter, just click on UNCOMMON Wellness Coaching ebook.

Prayer Power
Father, help us to understand and be aware of how our lifestyle is impacting our health and overall well-being.  Bless messengers such as Dr. Kassam as they devote their lives to finding and leading us to solutions.

Link of the Day
The Stress Test

Blessings on you as you purpose to engage in any of a number of stress busters for even a few minutes this very day.

“Walnuts have often been thought of as a ‘brain food,’ not only because of the wrinkled brain-like appearance of their shells, but because of their high concentration of omega-3 fats.”  Walnutsweb.com

How many times a week are you incorporating walnuts into your eating plan?

I went down to the grove of nut trees to look at the new growth in the valley, to see if the vines had budded or the pomegranates were in bloom.  (Sol. 6:11; NIV)

Have you believed that walnuts are “fattening” and that you would do well to avoid eating them?  Or perhaps you’ve only eaten walnuts at Christmas time in cookies or fudge?  We didn’t eat many walnuts routinely when I was growing up.  And we never ate them raw.  We essentially used them in baking — brownies, cookies or cakes.  I’m happy to report that I’ve seen the light on eating walnuts.

Have you noticed how much a walnut resembles pictures of the human brain?  The outside shell looks like an entire brain.  But the walnut inside, with its two halves has amazing similarities to pictures of the human brain.  (I have seen a real, human brain when I worked as a nurse, but wasn’t tuned into walnuts to notice the comparison at the time.)  Do you suppose the Grand Designer developed a food that actually helps to nourish the brain and even made it look like the brain?  I personally feel there is no coincidence there.

Unless you’re living on another planet, you’ve heard of Omega 3 fatty acids.  Omega-3 fatty acid (Alpha-linolenic acid) is an essential fatty acid that plays an important role in brain function.  Walnuts are a rich source of the omega-3 fat, a special type of protective fat the body cannot manufacture. According to WHFoods.com, “walnuts’ concentration of omega-3s (a quarter-cup provides 90.8% of the daily value for these essential fats) has many potential health benefits ranging from cardiovascular protection, to the promotion of better cognitive function, to anti-inflammatory benefits helpful in asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammatory skin diseases such as eczema and psoriasis. In addition, walnuts contain an antioxidant compound called ellagic acid that supports the immune system and appears to have several anticancer properties.”

Sounds like a pretty good nut to crack to me!  Walnuts are a great way to add crunch, nutrition, and taste to a meal.  We also frequently eat them as a snack.  I buy walnuts in five pound bags from a food co-operative and store them in the freezer. Walnuts are perishable and will become rancid due to the oil content.  Therefore they should be kept in the refrigerator or freezer.  I use walnuts in fruit salads for added crunch.  We top our green salads with walnuts and dried cranberries (organic, fruit sweetened).  Walnuts are a great addition to bean salads as well as other sautéed vegetables.  I’ve made patties and loaves out of walnuts, lentils, and other vegetables.  Top some organic, whole milk yogurt with fruit and walnuts.  And of course walnuts are great in baked goods such as zucchini bread or carrot cake.

To learn the best way to prepare and eat walnuts, see the Daily Gram dated May 12, 2009.  Enjoy some walnuts this week.

Prayer Power
Father, we thank You for Your tremendous bounty.  We are so blessed by the wonderful tasty foods that You have given to us for our enjoyment.

Link of the Day
Walnuts

Blessings on you as you experiment with various ways of incorporating walnuts into your diet.

“Life’s not about waiting for the storm to pass…it’s about learning to dance in the rain!”  Vivian Green

How do you handle some of life’s storms?

I will thank you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done.  (Psa. 9:1; NLT)

Max Anderson over at Simple Truths has done it again.  This time with a little movie about gratitude — a topic very close to my heart.  Those of you who are somewhat new with our Daily Grams probably aren’t aware that over the almost two years we’ve been writing Daily Grams, I’ve posted more than a dozen DGs regarding gratitude.  (Look at the Category list in the left column and click on “Gratitude” for the complete list.)

Oprah Winfrey has been quoted as saying, “The single greatest thing you can do to change your life today would be to start being grateful for what you have right now.”  This is so totally true.  Frankly, I can look at that whole “attitude of gratitude” thing and say unequivocally that it is a major part of what is responsible for my transition from a “glass half empty” outlook to a far happier and more fulfilled “glass full and overflowing” view toward life.

And the thing that still amazes me is that I can choose to focus on the challenges in my life and I soon am drowning in them as they seem to multiply like rabbits.  How much more productive, and fun, it is to choose to focus on the blessings of life.  In the first place, there’s always a whole lot more blessings than there are challenges.  (Now I suppose if you’ve been focusing on your challenges, you might not agree with me on that, but trust me — it’s a truism.)

Then in the second place, if you make the choice to focus on the your blessings, then they seem to supernaturally begin to multiply like rabbits.  When that begins to happen, the challenges mysteriously fade into the background in favor of the stronger and more numerous blessings.  But then you’ve heard all this before…some of you old timers, more than a dozen times from me.  You know what?  I’m feeling the urge to write another DG or two about gratitude.  What do you think?

Give gratitude a try.   I’m convinced you’ll be glad you did.  BTW, if you have any gratitude stories, we would all love to hear them.  Just write them in the comment section below.

Prayer Power
Father…we can hardly pray to You without expressing our gratitude for all that You do for us.  Words simply fail us as we try to express how much we appreciate You.

Link of the Day
Dance in the Rain Movie

Blessings on you as you as you stop to make a list of at least six things you’re grateful for this very day.

Last week we were in Pennsylvania working to sort through the house Sharon grew up in as it is looking like it has sold and will be transferred in a couple of months.  As many of you know from experience, this can be a very difficult process.  Sharon’s Dad was killed in an accident last Thanksgiving, and her Mother is currently in a personal care home with no prospect of ever returning to her home.  Not fun, but God’s grace was sufficient, and we’re back home in Virginia once again.

I share all that with you because last Thursday was Sharon’s birthday.  Looking to do something new and different, we went dancing thinking nobody there would know who we were.  Well, it turns out that someone was there with a camera and we got caught in the act!

Some pretty good moves for a couple of folks in the early part of their mature years.  Eat your heart out!  See what working out in the gym on a daily basis will do for you?

Actually, this was a birthday card sent to Sharon by one of our special friends, Jana Harp (now Jana Harp Dean).  Some of our readers will remember Jana from when she lived here in Chesapeake.  The latest is that she and her husband are soon to leave the States and take up residence for their missions work in a foreign country.  (I’d probably have to leave the country too, if I sent cards like this to very many people.)

Actually, this is so incongruous that we felt we had to share it with you.  I’m actually considering making it a permanent page on our blog.  What do you think?

“After all, my health recommendations go against the conventional grain, and frequently contradict the long-term benefit and interest of many multi-national, multi-billion-dollar corporations that don’t want the truth to be told. So they frequently generate frivolous lawsuits to harass and intimidate me from sharing what I know.”  Dr. Joseph Mercola

What are your thoughts and feelings when you see someone selling products on their blog or website?  Why?

A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.  (Prov. 11:25; NIV)

I know that Dr. Joseph Mercola can sometimes be like anchovies…you either love ‘em or hate ‘em.  Many people find him extremely controversial and even abrasive.  However, he has done more to educate the general public on living a healthy lifestyle than perhaps anyone else on the Internet.  He recently wrote a post explaining why he sells products on his site.

I am one of the “few” that remembers when he first began his site and when he didn’t offer any products for sale.  His information was rich…and free.  I learned a great deal from him that I wasn’t learning in my nutrition textbooks.  After a while, I did begin to wonder how he was able to offer all of that information at no cost to the reader.  Then, when he began selling products, I was a bit taken aback.  At first I thought it seemed to cheapen the site.  Someone was doing some heavy duty marketing it seemed.

Those of you who read our blogs are well aware that I continue to read and use Dr. Mercola’s site to this day.  It was with great interest that I read his post on why he sells products.  Allow me to share some of the high points for those of you who aren’t able to read his article.  Dr. Mercola spent nearly twenty-five years seeing over 25,000 patients and using a variety of natural therapies and observing the effectiveness of those therapies.  He believed that many people would benefit from what he learned, so he began sharing it online.  (He also has a passion for technology as well.)

He says he put everything he had learned on the site.  “There weren’t any ’secrets’ that I would share with someone that would see me as a private patient that wouldn’t already be on the website.”  However, even though he was the only employee and he didn’t draw a salary, it cost him more than $500,000 to keep the site up and running for the first three years.

Dr. Mercola writes, “A couple of obvious options were to start using paid advertising, or get investors. But I didn’t want to be limited in sharing my view of health truths, and I didn’t want to be handcuffed to endorse anything I didn’t truly believe in.  So my last option was to sell products that I personally believe in and can comfortably endorse.”

This certainly sheds a different light on the subject of selling products on a site.  Even though I don’t have near the knowledge or influence as Dr. Mercola, there have been times when I’ve wondered how I too could earn income on what I do share.  I freely share information with many.  And just like I didn’t understand Dr. Mercola’s need to sell products on his site, I know there are people who don’t understand why I would need to earn income on what I share and recommend.  However, Jerry and I have begun offering a few items on our website that we highly recommend and totally believe in (and use ourselves).  We hope you will understand.

Prayer Power
Father, thank You for Your wisdom and knowledge that You give to us.  May we each be responsible to do with it what is best for the Kingdom of God.

Link of the Day
Why Do I Sell Products on the Site?

Blessings on you as you continue your quest for health and wellness.

“Unfortunately, I, like all doctors was never taught this at medical school. Instead, we were taught to name it, blame it and tame it. That is to look at the symptoms, signs and test results, make a diagnosis, name the disease and treat it.”  Frank Lipman, M.D.

How would you feel if you went to your doctor and instead of prescribing a pill, (s)he suggested a radical change in your lifestyle?  Would you be angry or grateful?  Why?

But if they refuse to listen to him, they will perish in battle and die from lack of understanding.  (Job 36:12; NLT)

Those of you who know Sharon, or have heard one of her many public presentations on wellness and nutrition, undoubtedly remember her saying words to the effect that you must cleanse your body of the things it doesn’t need and begin to take in those things your body is missing.  The Link of the Day today is an incredible article by a widely-respected MD who is saying much the same thing.

Dr. Frank Lipman, practices what many call integrative medicine, or as he writes, “I practice what I call Good Medicine, combining the best of modern contemporary medicine with the best of alternative and complementary medicines.”  I particularly love the word picture he paints as he talks of some of his alternative and complementary medical training:

“My Chinese Medicine teachers taught me to think of myself as a gardener when I see patients. When a plant or tree is not growing well, when the leaves are drooping and turning yellow, we do not call it yellow leaf syndrome and paint the leaves green or cut off the sick part. The gardener evaluates why the plant is not growing well. He determines whether the plant is getting enough or too much sunlight, enough or too much water, is the soil rich and balanced in order to nourish the plant? And he looks to see if the roots are being impinged upon, and if so, what needs to be removed.”

In today’s link, Lipman explains how the practice of medicine has erroneously extrapolated the once effective treatment of acute illnesses onto the current rash of chronic problems with the unfortunate result of causing more harm than good.  He discusses a systems-based biology called Functional Medicine and contrasts that to the conventional disease focus of modern health care.  As good as the article is, the comments it elicits are equally amazing as the defenders of conventional medicine clamor to perpetuate the incredible crisis our modern “sickness care” system has created.

In our view, Lipman is right on!  His two questions, “(1) What is harming you and needs to be removed to permit the body to heal? and (2) What is lacking or what does your body need to promote healing?” are the very heart of the e-book that Dr. Randy Peck, Sharon, and I wrote titled UNCOMMON Wellness Coaching.  I encourage you to click on the title and download the free first chapter of our book and judge for yourself.

Prayer Power
Thank you Father, for the ever growing number of credible voices like Dr. Lipman who are challenging our current approach to health care.  We pray that these voices will be heard above the din of the deep pocketed lobbyists engaged in a battle for their very survival in Washington.

Link of the Day
2 Questions To Ask That Are More Important Than A Diagnosis

Blessings on you as you come to grips with the fact that the large majority of our health challenges are the result of lifestyle choices that we make on a daily basis.