Closing my business

I have recently made a very tough decision.  I’m closing my business Calm Waters Hypnosis.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.

1.  I am sad.  I have put everything I am into this business, and I feel sad that it is now at an end.
2.  I feel like a failure.  I know this isn’t a very rational feeling, but I have it still.  Why didn’t my business succeed?  What did I do wrong?
3.  I feel relief.  Owning a business is sooooo much work.  More than I ever thought it would be.  I love working with clients, but that was such a small part of owning my business.  For every hour with a client, I spent 30 hours doing social media, networking and creating programs, etc.  It’s a relief to not have to think about the business all the time.
4.  I feel scared.  Now that I don’t have my business, who am I or what am I supposed to do now?  I have been thinking about going back to school.  I have an interest in environmental science, and am thinking about getting my bachelors degree in that.  It’s a 4 year commitment.  Am I ready for that?  How do I manage that with my family?

So as you can see, I’m a mess:-)  I’m going to take some time to grieve and figure out my next step.  So from here on out, I won’t be posting about weight loss or women empowerment.  I will be writing about my life and how I”m coping with this transition and maybe to vent my frustrations.

I would love to hear from other women who have gone through similar things.  What was your experience like and how did you handle it?  I’m going to be as brutally honest as I can be.  I believe that it’s healing to be honest about my feelings and what I’m going through.  Who knows, maybe my experience can help someone else.

Slow Weight Loss Results and Discouragement

For many people who start a healthy weight loss program (healthy eating, exercise and taking care of your emotional health),  they can get discouraged when they don’t see big numbers like on the very popular show “Biggest Loser.”  That show can be very misleading and often times you don’t hear about the very sad stories of many of them going home and gaining weight again.

Losing 10 pounds per week is neither realistic nor healthy, nor can it be maintained for any length of time.  The best way to address weight loss is to change your lifestyle and that takes time.  You’ve had an unhealthy relationship with food possibly your whole life and don’t know any different.  Being unhealthy wasn’t created in 1 month nor can it be completely changed in 1 month.  It’s an ongoing process and requires a lot of learning about yourself and where those unhealthy habits came from.  It requires you to change your negative and limiting beliefs about yourself.  It requires that you learn to love yourself and treat yourself with love and respect.  The good news is that even though it can be difficult it is worth working for and YOU CAN DO IT!  The only thing that is required up front is desire.  If you truly want it and are willing to do anything to get it, the rest can be learned.  And there is so much help out there.  Find a coach, trainer, dietitian or weight loss specialist to help you.  Don’t fall for those quick fixes who say you don’t have to be active and you can eat anything you want.  It’s a load of BS.  It is not realist nor is it healthy.  Don’t be discouraged by slow weight loss, it is the healthiest way to lose weight and you will maintain that weight loss the rest of your life because your  new lifestyle supports it.

Happiness…

Sarah Bran de Leon

www.calmwatershypnosis.com

Key 3 of Weight Loss

To have an all around healthy lifestyle and to lose weight and than maintain that weight loss, it is important to address 3 areas.  I call these the  ”Key 3 of weight loss”.  It includes a healthy diet, exercise and your emotional health.  Once those 3 components come together you have the most lethal weapon against fat there is.  Losing weight is not about going on a highly restrictive diet that makes you lose weight fast only to gain it all back again plus some.  Nor is it about working your butt off in a gym 7 days a week.  It’s about creating a lifestyle that you can maintiain for the rest of your life.  It may look like this:

Healthy eating:  Eat a clean, whole foods diet 90% of the time, Adopt healthy habits such as eating slower, eating only for physical need and not for emotional reasons, not eating in front of the T.V or while otherwise distracted and eating healthy portion sizes.

Exercise:  Workout 3-4 x’s a week, and/or design a more active lifestyle such as walking, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, gardening, mowing the yard and shoveling the driveway. having date night be going for a walk instead of going out to eat.

Emotional Health:  Figure out what are your emotional eating triggers and create different solutions to handling your emotions, work on your self esteem.  Make yourself and your health and happiness a priority and get rid of limiting beliefs that are holding you back.

Remember that you don’t have to do this alone.  Recruit friends and family members who would also like to create a healthier lifestyle to join you on this journey.  Or find a specialist such as a personal trainer, dietitian, wellness coach, and/or hypnotherapist to help you.  And remember that the best weight loss plan is one that you can maintain for the rest of your life.  Cause it’s not just about losing weight quickly, it’s about changing your lifestyle and being healthy and happy.

Happiness…

Sarah Bran de Leon

www.calmwatershypnosis.com

No More Excuses

Are you having a hard time making the changes in your life that you want to make?  Chances are very high that you are making excuses that allow you to not reach your goals.  Whether it’s to lose weight,  improve your career, relationships and family life, excuses can stop even the best of intentions.

“I’m not smart enough,” “I don’t have enough time,”  ”I don’t have enough money,”  ”I”m too depressed,”  ”My kids are too young.”  Sound familiar?  There will always be 101 excuses that can stop you from pursuing what you really want.  Are you going to let excuses stop you?

The trick is to find a strategy to help keep your goal in your focus, cause it’s so easy to let life get in the way and have all the focus go to your career or family or financial problems. Some possible ideas are:  create a vision board,  buy an outfit you want to fit into and hang it on your wall,  buy or find a little trinket that you can stick in your pocket or wear as jewlery that represents your goal so you are constantly reminded about what you are working for.

Don’t allow any excuses to stop you.  Anything worth having is worth fighting for.

Sarah Bran de leon

www.calmwatershypnosis.com

Juggling Work and Family

Like many of you women out there, I wear many hats.  I am a mom, business owner, wife and friend.  I have been struggling lately with finding time to fit it all in.  My child being sick was a big obstacle to my otherwise smooth running routine.  His being sick took the top priority (as it should and needed to be).  My work had to take a back seat,  but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t all running through my mind about all the stuff I needed to get done and the opportunities I was missing out on.  I’ve hardly left the house in 3 weeks and I’m starting to feel a little panic settling in.  I don’t know about any body else but I have a hard time finding balance.  I either have my mind completely on my business or my mind is completely with my family.  These last 3 weeks of stress and worry over my son, has left no room to think about my business (other than taking care of my current clients).  And I wonder how I will transition back to being a business woman.

I am curious about how many other women struggle with the same thing.  How do other business/working women juggle their work and family?  Do you struggle to maintain balance in your life?

Happiness…

Sarah Bran de Leon

www.calmwatershypnosis.com

Feeling Powerless

It has been a long time since my last post.  My family has been dealing with a sick child.  As a parent I don’t think there is anything worse than having a child be hurting and you being powerless to help them.

It all started a couple weeks ago when my son started complaining about his leg hurting, we thought he just sprained it so we just let it go (told him to walk it off).  The pain went away for a little while but then about a week and a half ago the pain came back with a vengeance.  By Monday Sept 12th he couldn’t walk or put any pressure on his leg so I decided to take him to the doctor.  They gave him an x-ray which came back normal.  But the doctor even touching it brought him to tears so they ordered labs and an MRI.  The MRI revealed that he had a bone infection!  I didn’t even know you could get that.  It’s a really serious issue which if left untreated could cause the bone to die and the infection to spread throughout his body.  He was sent to another hospital which was better equipped to handle that issue.  He was put on IV antibiotics.  The strongest antibiotics they make.  They inserted a PICC line which basically is a thin catheter which is feed into a vein in his arm so the antibiotics can be continued to be given to him without having to keep sticking a needle in him.  The procedure was first tried in his hospital bed but it was so painful and his vein kept contracting so they couldn’t complete.  They sent him down to radiology to have the PICC line put in by another team.  Seeing my son crying and so scared and in pain, nearly broke my heart.

One thing that I realized about myself is that I don’t like to feel helpless or powerless.  That feeling for me is so uncomfortable.  And my way of handling that feeling is to get mad.  It feels better for me to feel mad than to feel helpless.  So I got mad at the nurses and the doctor and wanted to hit or strangle someone (most likely the next person who touched my son).   But I calmed down and just laid in bed with my son and held him till we both felt better.

My son will have to be on IV antibiotics 3x’s a day for the next month.  The good news is that I was trained to do it so he can be home.  It has been about 10 days now since he was in the hospital.  His leg is feeling better and he can be back at school.  I have to come in the afternoon to do his IV but the school has been great with taking care of him.  I feel so blessed that his infection was caught early and that it’s something that can be treated and after the month he will be as good as new.  My heart aches for all those parents who have a child with a serious illness.  To see your child suffer and not be able to do anything to take it away is torture.  I know that for myself and all those parents out there we would take the pain in place of our children if we could.

Things can change so quickly.  So please parents, give your children a big hug today.  Take some time to enjoy them.

Sarah Bran de leon

www.calmwatershypnosis.com

With Kids Away, Mom Will Play!

My kids went back to school yesterday.  I love my kids with all my heart but am ready for some ME time.

When the kids were  younger and I would hear other moms talking about how they couldn’t wait for school to start, I didn’t understand what they were talking about.  I cried when my kids went to kindergarten and stood at the bus stop waiting for them to come home.  I love to be a mom.  Something happened this summer.  I think it’s because they got older and didn’t want to be with me as much as they used to.  My summer consisted of having all their friends over or running them to their friends or hearing how bored they are.  So when school started yesterday, I told a nice big, deep breath than commenced to dance around the house (and I can do that now cause the kids are gone and I won’t be embarrassed).  So, although I still have a lot of work to do and can’t play all day, I look forward to having some time to myself. Although you may still see me standing at the bus stop:-)

So, I hope all you moms have a great day and take some time to enjoy the peace and quiet!

Happiness…

Sarah Bran de Leon

www.calmwatershypnosis.com

Emotional Eating Triggers

If you deal with emotional eating, which most people do who struggle with their weight, than it’s valuable to recognize what is triggering the emotional eating events.  Based on a book by Roger Gould, Author of “Shrink Yourself” (See book review at bottom), There are 4 main types of feeling triggers:

Feelings Triggered by events - These would be events such as

Stress or dissatisfaction at work

Dealing with bills or finances

Being in a room full of people

Watching television

Dealing with a sick parent

Example – “When I get back from the hospital after dealing with a sick parent I can’t strop myself from eating.”

Feelings triggered by a person - Generally stems from a conflict or friction with someone.

Example – “I get set off and want to overeat when someone _______.”

Criticizes me

Judges me

Ignores me

Takes me for granted

Doesn’t trust me

Feelings triggered by unprovoked feelings - Arises generally after the actual event or conflict rather than at the time of event.  Could be recent or could be from when you were a child.  Often creeps in when there is down time and our mind is not otherwise engaged.

Example – “Sometimes late at night when no one is around I feel________ and have to eat something.”

Lonely

Angry

Sad

Bored

Guilty

Scared

Stressed

Inadequate

Feelings triggered by self-doubts -  Triggered by our worst thoughts about ourselves.  We are often our  own worst critics.

Example – “I find I need to eat when I believe I’m _________.”

Powerless

Unlovable

Hopeless

Inferior

Unworthy

Lacking talen or ability

Unable to live up to reasonable expectations.

When dealing with the issue of emotional eating, knowledge is power.  Once you are more aware of where your triggers are coming from, you can take steps to prepare and have a plan in place to better handle those triggers.

Make a list of what your triggers are.  Is one type of trigger stronger than the others? Is one emotion stronger than the others and the cause of most of your emotional eating? What are some other alternative to handling that situation other than eating?  Don’t skip this step. Learn about yourself and how to conquer the emotional eating that is affecting your health and happiness.

Happiness…

Sarah Bran de Leon

www.calmwatershypnosis.com

Replacing Extreme Thinking With a Balanced Perspective

I don’t know exactly where extreme thinking came from or the purpose of it, but I’ve become more aware of it in the last few years.  Especially in my work with weight loss clients, there is a pattern of extreme thinking.  Extreme Thinking is when your perception of things veers to one end of the spectrum or the other.  If you’re not thin than your fat.  If you’re not rich than you’re a failure.  If you make a mistake you’re an idiot.  If your house is not clean than you’re a slob. If you have a rough day and ate unhealthy foods or ate too much, than your diet is ruined and you might as well quit now.  Sound familiar?

Extreme thinking erodes at our heart and soul, at the essence of who we are.  Besides that, it just plain Bullshit!!!  As with most things in life, you are the happiest and healthiest when you have balance.  Really look at yourself and with an unbiased mind, really question if your perception is accurate.  Are you really “fat,” a “failure,” an “idiot,” a “slob,” and is one bad day really worth throwing aside all your hard work and accomplishments?  Don’t let extreme thinking erode your self-esteem.  You may not be thin, you may have made a mistake, your home may not be spotless, and you may have temporarily made some poor eating choices.  That doesn’t change the amazing person that you are and your abilities to learn from your mistakes and do better tomorrow.  Here’s to loving yourself and stepping out of the land of extremes.

Happiness…

Sarah Bran de Leon

www.calmwatershypnosis.com

What Do YOU Want?

I got together with a few friends yesterday and one of them mentioned how pretty much every decision they made in life was made with someone else in mind.  I thought that was so profound and it made me think.  So many of the decisions I have made also in my life were determined by who would be affected by this choice or that choice.  Would they approve or not approve?  Would I still be respected or not?  Would a certain person be happy with my decision or not?  Would someone be hurt?

I also realized how far I’ve come, and that I have learned over the years to live my life more authentically and with the realization that this is the only life I will have and I better live it so I’m happy.  It’s always nice to take others into account, but it’s not necessary for others to approve of me.

The best friends I have are those that accept me for who I am and accept all of me, even my flaws ( I have a few, surprising I know:-)).  The rest, are those that I can do without, because they hinder my life and my growth.  My wish for all you beautiful women out there is that you live a fulfilling and rewarding life of YOUR choice, and that you’re happy.

Happiness…

Sarah Bran de Leon

www.calmwatershypnosis.com