Loving Relationships Promote Longevity

I can personally attest to the power of a loving relationship through the marriage of my parents who recently celebrated their 74th wedding anniversary.  Their love and respect for each other is steadfast, tender and inspiring.  

I can recall how every Valentine’s Day my father would make dozens of hearts and little notes and post them all around the house.  Even now, every year he makes my Mom a birthday card celebrating a new year with his bride.

They have been together since the age of 15, which makes 80 years, as my Mother turns 95 in September.  That’s correct, 95, and my Father is only months behind her.  Happily, they are both still physically strong and mentally sharp.

My parent’s have shared many adventures in their lives, including living in an Artist’s Colony in Mexico City before starting a family, world traveling, raising 3 kids, my Mom receiving her PhD in Art Education, my Dad and brother building a 32 ft. sailboat and then my parents sailing and living on it for 10 years throughout their 60’s, not to mention that both of them have written novels that are currently for sale on Amazon.  

But above all, they have shared a partnership that has spanned 80 years and is rooted in Love, Trust and Respect.  Having love and companionship in our life as we age has been shown to promote longevity and good health.  

This is in part because loving relationships foster feelings of love, trust, respect, gratitude and positivity. These emotions elicit the release of “feel good” hormones and neurotransmitters like endorphins, serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin.  These chemicals boot our mood, help us focus, ward off the negative effects of stress, anxiety and depression, and improve sleep.

Furthermore, these de-stressing biochemicals and emotions put us in the parasympathetic (rest and recovery) branch of the nervous system, which strengthens the immune system, and slows the aging process.

Loving relationships have also been shown to improve heart health both physically and energetically.  Even some nursing homes bring in pets to help improve the mood and health of their residents.  Bonding between humans and animals alike feeds our heart energy center and helps balance the energy flow throughout the body.

Not only is a positive attitude healthy for a loving couple, but it also benefits those around them.  Family and friends are influenced by, and learn loving behaviors by being around loving relationships.  

I know that the love my sons shower on their daughters is a direct reflection of the flow of love that still comes from my parents to me, on to them, and through them to their children.  

Loving relationships, whether it be with a romantic partner, a dear friend, or a pet, will keep us young and healthy as we age.  

Conversely, unhappy relationships foster feelings of depression and loneliness.  The damage those feelings cause, affect us physically, mentally and spiritually.

It may be true that misery loves company, but happiness also loves company, and it is much better company.  

For guidance and support on your journey to well being, contact me for a free 15 minute consultation at nina.lynn@me.com.

Don’t Believe Everything You Tell Yourself

When was the last time you were told that you were loved…by you?

Unfortunately, self talk is not usually that sweet.  

It’s probably more like this…”I am so fat”, “I look terrible in this outfit”, “I am not as smart as my coworkers”, “I am the ONLY woman my age without a husband”.  Or the biggest lies that we may have been telling ourselves since childhood… “I’m not worthy”, “I’m not good enough”, “I don’t deserve…” (fill in the blank).  

Those are all lies, don’t believe any of them.

For most of us our negative self talk begins in childhood.  It could stem from an incident on the playground where we weren’t chosen for some game, or a kid might have called us a name.  Worse yet, parents may be the ones who plant the seeds of self doubt that blossom into negative beliefs about ourselves.

It really doesn’t take much for our feelings to get hurt, and it’s that emotional hit that embeds the negative thought or belief deeply into our subconscious where it gets reinforced with negative self talk.

We have bought in to what others have said about us, or even what we perceive others think about us.

The danger of negative self talk is that when we hear words spoken in our own voice, our subconscious accepts them as absolute truth.  That’s why it’s important to say affirmations out loud, to hear them in our own voice.

Even when spoken in our minds, we will take on the energy of those words and their subsequent thoughts, and we will behave accordingly.  Self defeating self image leads to self defeating behavior, which leads to self defeating results.  

Self sabotage comes from negative self talk, and is a common energetic block to success that I often see in my clients.

Here are some ways to shift the pattern of self doubt and negative self talk, into self care and self love.

1. Put your thumb and finger pads together on both hands and tap them in a circle around your ears, coming up the front of your ears, over the top and down the back side.  While taping, repeat an affirmation of your choice, or simply say—“I am worthy, deserving and loved”.  While tapping and affirming, look up, down, right and left, with your eyes only, don’t move your head.  Repeat the eye movements with your eyes shut.  This helps lock the affirmation into all areas of the brain.

2. Put your right hand on your heart, (heart chakra—self love) and your left hand at the base of your ribcage at the site of your third chakra (solar plexus chakra—personal power and self esteem).  This will help connect the two. Close your eyes, breathe deeply and send unconditional love to yourself.  

3. Think of a time when you were proud of yourself, and give yourself kudos.

4. Think of all the people who love you.  Allow their love to fill every cell of your body.

5. Do a service for someone else.  Shift your thoughts and concerns away from yourself.

Let me help you clear self sabotage and limiting beliefs.  Set up a free 15 minute consultation at nina.lynn@me.com.

I Have Bad Genes

Have you ever felt like you simply have bad genes?  Do certain disorders run in your family?  Well, the good news is that we are not slaves to our genetics.  The science of epigenetics shows us that we can control our gene expression.  Meaning which genes get turned on and which remain dormant.  Thereby bypassing the blueprint of our genetic code, and consciously designing the the environmental “home” our cells live in.

How do we do this, turn our genes on or off?  Simply speaking, by the choices we make every day about how we eat, exercise, sleep, and think.  (The toxic level of our physical environment also plays a role, but we have less influence over that).

Perhaps the most important piece to the puzzle of gene expression is how we think…our belief system.  This is because our thoughts and feelings affect our emotions, which in turn affect our cells, which in turn affect our genes.

The biochemistry of this phenomena is fairly straight forward.  Emotions elicit neurotransmitter and hormonal responses in the body that send chemical signals to the cells directing their behavior, which includes how cells are replicated. These chemical messengers have a direct effect on the gene sequencing of the DNA, and therefore the health of our cells, which make up our tissues, which make up our organs, which make up our body.  Positive emotions lead to healthy new cells, negative emotions can lead to unhealthy new cells.

Feelings like gratitude, compassion, love, joy, contentment, peace, and happiness can help us all enjoy healthier longer lives.  We all have something, or hopefully many things that bring us joy everyday.  Whether that is the love of our partner, children or pet, a great bike ride, a walk in the woods, or just peaceful time to ourselves.  Like the popular saying goes, “whatever makes you happy, do that!”       

If you are at a place in your life where these feelings are not a part of your everyday existence, then take 5 minutes to close your eyes, pull up memories of loving, happy times, put a hand on your heart and breathe deeply.  This simple exercise will flood your body with the chemical messengers of rest, recovery, health and longevity…plus it feels great.  Oh ya, that’s the point.

When we feel better we tend to make healthier choices in general.  We are in control.  So, rather than throwing up our hands and saying, “I have bad genes”, perhaps we could take more responsibility for the choices we make on a daily basis, and actually direct our genes to work FOR us.

As a wellness and lifestyle coach I can guide you to better choices that are in your highest best interest.  Contact me for a free 15 minute consultation at nina.lynn@me.com.

The Expansion of Self Love

Love in all its forms is an experience and feeling of expansion. 

We all know what it feels like to be in love.  It's wonderful, heady, boundless.  It's a feeling we'd like to hold on to. 

This feeling of expansion around the heart keeps us open to giving and receiving love.  Without this flow of energy we are not fully alive, and if we close it off we may even experience physical symptoms of cardiovascular disease.

Most of us find it easy to love.  Who doesn't love cute furry little critters like kittens, puppies or bunnies?  And of course as humans we're hard wired to love babies, especially our own. 

Romantic love isn't a problem either.  We fall in and out of love on a regular basis.  What seems to be the most challenging however, is self-love. 

Somewhere along the line we bought into the idea that loving ourselves was selfish.  This is untrue, unfortunate and unproductive. 

In order to hold on to the feeling of expansion that love affords, we need to be "in love" 24/7/365.  Sure, we love our partners, our kids, our pets, our friends and some of us even love our families.  But the only constant is you.  Since you're with you all the time it's helpful to love yourself. 

Feeling love, compassion and empathy for yourself should come before you give those feelings to anyone or anything else. 

Think of it as practice.  The better you love yourself the better you know how to love others.  The better you care for yourself, the better you are able to care for others.

So, leave self-judgment, self-doubt and self-hate at the door and fall in love with YOU.  The good news is, when you love yourself, others will love you too.

For guidance and support on your journey to self-love and expansion, contact me for a free 15 minute consultation at nina.lynn@me.com.