Gooooood morning! Yippee!!...it's morning and I'm up.... Yippee!!... it's morning and I'm up!!!

      ( Yes, I'm singing that and doing a happy-morning, booty shake!! :))

   I haven't blogged in a while, because I was busy in NYC training for my Nia belt which will now allow me to teach Nia, a martial arts, dance and healing arts combination workout, and essentially a way of life. Yay!!!!!!!  I'm so excited! I've been practicing Nia for 3 and a half years now, and it's changed my life, immensely, for the better. When I started, I had no idea what it was. I just waltzed into a class after peering into a dance studio and seeing barefoot, closed-eyed people gyrating their bodies in a circle while making strange noises with their mouths. It looked like a mass exorcism or Wiccan ritual of some sort. I was awe struck, something that doesn't happen to me too often, joined the class and have been hooked ever since. ( By the way, Nia has nothing to do with exorcisms or Wiccan rituals. lol :) )  

     I'll write more about Nia at a later date, but I'll sum it up by saying it's , by far, the best mind, body and spirit workout I've ever done. EVER!  And I do a lot: Bootcamp, running, soccer, weight lifting, swimming, Zumba, yoga, cycling..., and the Nia workout wins by a long shot!  It's not only a great workout, but it teaches you philosophical wisdom that you can take outside the classroom and apply to your life.  For me, it's both a workout and therapy, and nothing keeps my depression in check, my stress level low, my posture straight, my body fluid and mobile and my relationships healthy like Nia does.  And now that I can teach it, if you want to find out firsthand what it's all about, please email me! I'm more than happy ( Okay, like borderline ecstatic..........I just did a cartwheel !!!!!!)  to share something that has provided me with such amazing, incomparable mental and physical benefits.  But more about Nia later! :)

      Today someone told me that "all the health advice in the world is out there already, so I already know how to be well without a wellness coach."  Truth is, that's true! All the advice in the world IS definitely out there.  In fact, the circulating and recirculating of all that advice is what keeps a lot of magazines, websites, TV shows and more in business. The "pop-wellness" culture and magazines: the ones that print little wellness tidbits in bright, colorful bubbles, like, "Drink THIS much water, and lose 10 lbs in 7 days,"  or "Eat THIS many calories, and Lose THIS much weight in THIS many days," or "Do THIS detox diet and lose all that stomach fat!"  And then people drink a lot of water or eat that many calories and do that detox plan..., and then another month goes by and another pretty, "pop-wellness" blurb is printed and people do whatever that blurb says to do and so on.  Sound familiar?   ;)

       I'm not knocking those magazines, websites or TV shows. They actually do give some really great, health tips, and the incredibly self-reliant person can take that advice and successfully apply it to his or her life and see positive results.  And that's SO AWESOME when that happens!  But what usually happens is people get "advice overload" or conflicting advice, OR ( and drum roll, because this is a big one...) they suddenly try to revolve their lifestyle around the advice rather than seeing where and how the advice can fit into their lifestyle. Huh? Wha? Did Erin just say the same thing a different way? ;) 

      No, actually, I didn't. The first part of that sentence implies making huge changes, whereas the second part involves making small changes. The first part is getting a whole new lifestyle that revolves around healthy advice, whereas the second part is about tweaking YOUR lifestyle so it's healthier and finding YOUR own way for wellness to bloom in your life.  And that's an extremely, personal process, which bulk advice can't address. It just can't!  Bulk advice can't possibly understand all the complexities of even ONE, unique human existence, let alone millions, which is why I became a huge advocate of individual wellness coaching.  Because that way, a wellness coach can just focus on YOU and your life, your personality, your level of motivation, your time crunches, your job commitments, your many idiosyncrasies, your food preferences, etc.., so that he or she can help you come up with a plan that works for YOU and not Everybody else! It doesn't matter if advice that works for everybody else doesn't work for you, now does it?  And when the wellness process is individualized and a person has his or her own, unique, creatively designed plan that fits into his or her particular lifestyle,  people see healthier, better, longer-lasting results. And if something isn't working for him or her, a person can just call up their wellness coach and say, "Hey, I can't do this! I hate this! I won't eat that. I don't have time for this. This tastes like crap. I'm getting wasted tonight, so forget it! No, I won't!  I can't sleep that much! I'm not going to the gym, what can I do at home? I'm hungover, forget it!  What else do you got for me..and so on!"  But you can't do that with bulk advice, can you?  If you could, everyone in this world would be happy, no one in this world would be fat, no one in this world would smoke and no one in this world would eat fast food. :)

      My client, Dave, perfectly represents individualized advice triumphing over bulk advice. He is blogging about his journey toward health on Blooming Wellness, so if you haven't read his story yet, check in the blog archives and do so. He also happens to be entertaining, which is always a bonus, and he's starting his own blog soon!! Awwww, I'm so proud!  :)  

     When I started working with Dave, he was over 500 pounds, down in the dumps, buffet hopping every two seconds, barely mobile, using a scooter to shop for groceries, because he could barely walk without getting winded, and seriously contemplating getting gastric bypass surgery.  To get gastric bypass surgery, you need to be within a certain BMI and usually the insurance company or doctor has you work with a dietician, because after the surgery, you need to be fairly restrictive with what you eat. Otherwise complications can occur. Dave told me his dietician said he needed to start eating 1200 calories a day ASAP. And that was that and there was no changing it! Dave looked at her with a classic "WTF" face and when he told me I blurted out laughing.  I mean, c'mon. Does Dave's dietician even KNOW Dave?? Has she talked to him and asked him about his lifestyle and what he's willing to do and what he's just not willing to do? Does she know what stresses him out? Does she know what he does for fun? What time he goes to bed at night? Does she know how much he's on Facebook?  Does she know he won't give up the Indian buffet or the imported cheeses even if you paid him a million dollars?  Yes, yes, sure, the books say cut calories and the research says that and the experts say that, but dietician lady, DAVE is NOT a book! He's not a controlled design, so research won't help. He's Dave!  And you gotta work with Dave...and Dave's level of motivation, and Dave's quirks, and Dave's jobs, and Dave's food choices that he won't budge on, and Dave's bad habits that he's just not gonna shake, and Dave's good habits, too! I mean, picture telling a hefty elephant that all of a sudden, right now, he has to start eating like a bird. Does anyone think that would go over well?  No. You gotta work the advice in to the person not the person into the advice.   That's what I'm doing with Dave, and I'm happy and proud to say it's working. Slowly, because Dave is a tough customer, but it's working, and keep reading HIS blogs, so he can describe how we creatively weaved wellness into his current lifestyle. 

      So today's blog is all about making wellness work for YOU.  Good, bulk advice is just that: Good, bulk advice. But it may not work for you and your life, because you might need something different or something a little more creative or something else entirely or, essentially, something that simply works for YOU.  Maybe you're an alien and need something REALLY different!  I don't know. :)  I'm not saying chuck all your "pop wellness" magazines in the trash.  They're fun to read and usually pretty to look at.  But what I know is that for anyone to become healthier and happier on this planet for the long term, it needs to come from a very individualized, personal process that births a unique plan just for you. And it helps to have a copilot along the way who really gets you.  That works. :)


PS:  Here are some photos of our Nia graduation this past Friday.  Everyone pictured can teach now and share Nia's joy with the world! And to everyone in the picture, I'm truly blessed to have met you. Thank you so much for adding love, light and happiness to my life. :)