Category: Relationships
Breathing Matters
In 2013 I first addressed how important breathing is to your fitness goals, with specific focus on breathing correctly when exercising. Lately with all the political unrest in our country, I feel everyone is holding their breath in general and that will only serve to increase our internal stress levels. So for that reason, I have updated an earlier post to remind us all to BREATHE!
Women in labor know full well the importance of breathing. Deliberate breath control is a natural tool (vs. medicinal) to managing pain. Those studying Martial Arts know it too, same for distance runners. Actors, singers, dancers must all incorporate breathing into their art. But the importance of breathing for successfully improving your fitness stamina and goals is often overlooked.
Let’s start with the clinical basics. When you breathe in, you deliver oxygen to your muscles; when you breathe out you remove carbon dioxide from your system. (Carbon dioxide is the waste gas that is produced when carbon is combined with oxygen as part of the body’s energy-making processes.)
Most runners or cardio-enthusiasts understand the importance of proper breathing to achieve endurance for the length of their run/cardio. It’s kind of automatic. But proper breathing for those performing resistance training (weight lifting) does not happen automatically within the body, and many times the breath is even held during exercise.
The fact is that successful resistance training must include the proper oxygen delivery and removal of carbon dioxide to the muscles. Not only is this crucial to allow energy to continue throughout your entire workout, but the specific focus of your breathing will allow you to lift more weight, more often, and therefore, burn more calories and exhaust the muscle. Exhausting the muscle is the first step to rebuilding it (through proper nutrition and rest), thereby creating more lean muscle tissue which eats fat.
When you hold your breath you increase tension throughout your entire body. For proper muscle training, you need to isolate the tension to only the muscle(s) you are seeking to work. In other words, if your back and arms are tightened (tense) while performing a chest press, your chest is sharing the weight load and therefore not benefiting from the targeted exercise.
So here’s a quick guideline I instruct all my new clients to memorize: when lifting, pushing or pulling (the exertion) breathe OUT. So if you are performing a biceps curl, take a breath in before you start, then exhale on the exertion (the lifting of the weight) and breath IN again as you lower the weight to starting position. If you are performing a leg press, take a breath in before you start, then exhale on the exertion (the pushing of the weight) and breath IN again as you lower the weight to starting position.
Another aspect of breathing I wish to address is for children. Between the higher demands on their brains in school, the jam-packed schedule of school, homework, sports, etc. that many kids experience, and any tensions at home or in the world at large — breathing is key to keeping their volatile emotions stable. Spend some time with your children each day teaching/reminding them to breathe slowly and to consciously relax any tension in their bodies. (This is especially helpful at night before bed.) Perhaps the whole family can share in a 1-minute meditation where everyone can shed some of their internal stresses. There are smart-phone apps or YouTube videos that can guide you through these easy (and relaxing) short meditations where breathing is emphasized.
It’s a simple thing but it can make a huge difference in achieving your fitness goals, and as stated at my introduction, breathing through emotional stress is also paramount to keeping our bodies happy and healthy. So breathe on … especially when watching the news!
You Really Need To Sleep!
Three years ago I presented the following post and as school has started back up (or is about to) for a large majority of us here in the U.S., I thought it would be beneficial to remind everyone just how important sleep really is.
What I didn’t address before was how important sleep is for children/teenagers. If your school-aged child has to start school at 7:30 or earlier, it is imperative that you guide them to getting to sleep as early as possible. Current studies show the detrimental ramifications of too little sleep for children ages 5-17, with issues ranging from lack of concentration, depression, increase in body fat, and mood swings.
It is up to us parents to enforce earlier bed times especially when transitioning from summer break back to school hours. If your child has trouble winding down, take away their electronics as they have been proven to be stimulants instead of relaxers, and encourage reading quietly in bed until they fall asleep, etc. It only takes a firm commitment for a week or two until the new routine is firmly in place.
Now for the rest of you, read (or re-read) this former post and then get some sleep!
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It’s a well-known fact to those of us in the fitness profession that sleep is a key element in achievement of one’s fitness goals to lose fat (lose weight as most of you refer to it). Unfortunately, this fact is little acknowledged, not to mention followed, by most people. Sleep is a commodity in our fast-paced, over-worked, over-committed society. While many of is can function quite well with little sleep (especially you Moms), the detrimental effects are huge, yet hugely ignored.
With too little sleep comes a myriad of issues ranging from depression, elevated stress levels on organs, higher blood pressure, higher risk of type 2 diabetes, reduced sex drive, inability to concentrate, deteriorated memory, etc. But the biggie is obesity. According to studies by medical professionals, people who sleep less than six hours a day were almost 30% more likely to become obese than those who slept seven to nine hours. Research has shown a direct link between sleep and the peptides that our brain stimulates to regulate appetite. Not only does sleep loss appear to stimulate appetite, it also stimulates cravings for high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods, especially at night when the body is less likely to burn those calories.
There is also a vicious cycle that occurs in the many obese people who suffer from sleep apnea. Even if they allow enough time to sleep, their sleep is disrupted multiple times each night which results in less quality sleep time. Thus their bodies retain more fat, increasing the sleep apnea, and the cycle continues until they are on assisted breathing devices. I have a hard time convincing clients that if they follow my recommended course of exercise, healthy consistent nutrition, and proper sleep habits, they could find themselves off the breathing mask within months (and in many cases off their high blood pressure meds too)!
So here are a few tips that can help improve the increase amount of time you sleep:
Prioritize: Make sleep as important as all the other responsibilities you have in your life. Schedule at least 8 hours of sleep just like you schedule everything else from getting to work on time to getting to the gym (you do schedule your gym time too, right?). For children you really need to do the math and get them tucked in early enough to balance out when they have to get up (see chart below).
Decompress: Many of us need a little while to decompress before we can fall asleep. Schedule about 30-minutes prior to when you want to fall asleep and do some yoga-like stretches, read a book, watch TV (as long as the show is not too dramatic or stimulating), or journaling (as noted below).
Journaling: If you’re like me, sometimes the issue with falling asleep (or staying asleep) is an over-active brain, sorting and re-sorting tasks needing to be dealt with. If you spend a few minutes prior to sleep writing down the issues weighting on you, or Journaling about your day and feelings, the brain will relax and sleep will be easier.
Time your Nutrition: You mustn’t got to bed hungry, but conversely, you need to not have just eaten a meal. Make sure your last meal/snack is at least one hour prior, but not more than two hours before bedtime.
Womens’ Image — Gone Too Far?
In the 1960’s the women’s right movement coincided with the sexual revolution, leaving my generation and the subsequent generations to enjoy more freedom to dress as we choose, dance with abandon, and in general no longer be held to constraints that we must be covered head to toe and speak only when spoken to.
Pioneering women broke further taboos: Barbra Streisand wearing a see-through pantsuit to the Oscars, Madonna dancing on stage in a bra and garter belt, and play-boy bunnies becoming mainstream icons. Since then there has also been a steady loosening of what’s considered sexual vs. sensual and where the line is between being an empowered woman that chooses to be scantily clad (Cher, Madonna) and an unclassy tramp who shows off her body for National attention (Anna Nicole Smith, Kim Kardashian).
That classy vs. slutty line is so blurred now, it’s hard to teach our girls the difference between being comfortable with their bodies and in their desire to be attractive, with knowing what is too much and what sends the wrong signal. My gym has several TV screens always mounted on the wall and yesterday I watched the current music videos channel as I was on a treadmill. I saw back-to-back videos (at yeast 5) where the singer was a young women (in both pop and country music genres) who paraded around in lingerie, employing stripper moves as they danced and writhed around in very sexually suggestive positions, all the while singing about love and/or betrayal.
As these are all current and popular performers, I realized these videos are telling young girls that is what is sexy, this is what boys want. Of course, ask any real man (even a high school boy if his head’s on straight) and they’ll say that type of girl is not at all who they want as a girlfriend, but they sure do like lusting over them just them same. So sadly, mixed signals abound, and what we’re left with is a large populous of girls and women displaying their bodies as nothing but devices for sex, not even realizing that many of our pop-culture icons have a brain in their head and are using their musical talents to build business empires (Rhianna, Beyonce, and even Miley Cirus).
If you feel my blog today is a bit “soap-boxy” well I’m preparing my daughter to enter sixth grade. I’ve heard my share of horror stories about girls being coerced to perform oral sex on boys as early as 5th grade, and my stomach spins, and even the age-old spin the bottle has evolved to be heading into a dark closet for an imposed 5 minutes of making-out. I feel it is imperative that I prepare her to understand the confusing hormonal impulses that are going to rear their ugly head for the next several years of her schooling, and paramount to that preparation is that I help her to understand the deference between been attractive vs. sexual. That’s very difficult with all the images around her saying this is what is normal and right.
Essentially today’s post is food for thought for all of you and hopefully we can open a mass dialogue as to how to not go backwards in women’s rights and sexual liberation, but not to keep going so far that we can have a president who says it’s okay to “grab women by the pussy.” Oops, guess we’re already that far gone!
More Than Enough
For a long time now I’ve been pondering why so many women have low self-esteem and why even those who seem confident and strong still often feel they’re just not enough. Society as a whole still seems to regard our gender as slightly less valuable than men – look at our pay ratio’s, and the corporate ceilings we’ve yet to break, popularity of movie stars and their box office worth, and even at the idea of having a woman lead our country.
I believe the primary reason women judge each other with such envy and jealousy stems from the feeling (or worse, their belief), that they’re not enough – not pretty enough, thin enough, young enough, smart enough. It doesn’t help that if you’re not young and/or pretty, society still values you less than even an old, ugly, racist man
I am desperate to see this change, both for my peers, and my daughter’s generation. We are enough and we need to stop the division. There are valid and specific differences between men and women, but there is no difference in our capabilities as a species to succeed and deserve equal respect. However, until we stop competing on such trivial levels (like weight and breast size) the rest of society will not see us as equal (and enough) – primarily because we’re not demanding it.
Having a father who abandoned me at age 6, I had long struggled with feelings of not being enough, especially where men were concerned. It’s no wonder … when a parent seemingly rejects a child, the child will always assume that gender doesn’t value them. So in my 20’s and 30’s I made it my mission to be physically strong, emotionally stoic, sexy in that tough, tom-boy with a knife kind of way, and very accomplished in all things “dude.” I rebuilt my car engine, I helped a boyfriend build a house from the ground up, and I was always the best wing-man for my male friends when out at bars.
Now I look back at that time and laugh – I was trying so hard to be strong and independent so that men would love to have me around, not realizing how intimidating that was to most men. They liked having me as a friend, but not dating me. Once again I was still not “enough.”
Now that I’m in my 50’s I have found comfort in knowing that I am most certainly enough, but more importantly, that it doesn’t matter to me if anyone else thinks so. Besides, my loving husband, family, and plethora of close quality friends all think I’m awesome and better than enough, and who else matters?
So how do I impart this wisdom that took me decades to learn to those women and young girls who still suffer from daily bouts of doubt and fear that they are not as special and beautiful as that Barbie at the gym? I guess the first step is today’s post, and the subsequent steps are to keep shouting from my soapbox (aka social media) that WE ARE ENOUGH!
Stop comparing yourself to anyone else. Love yourself, love your body, do what you can to be healthy inside and out, and remember that there is no one else like you who has lived the life you’ve had, and that makes you unique, special and more than ENOUGH.
10 Minutes To Smile
The other day I was in a real funk of a mood, dramas with my kid, changes of plans, unexpected bills – you know the drill. In the midst of my moodiness I decided to take a few minutes and hop on the treadmill. I pulled up an uplifting play list of songs from my phone, stuck my earbuds in, and did 30-second sprints with 30-second rests for 10 minutes. The result, I got rid of my blue mood, refocused my perspective towards the positive, and the rest of the day was great.
After my ten-minute shake-up, I realized how easy that had been and how rewarding on so many levels, and I knew I had to share this reminder with my readers: No matter what’s going on, with as little as five minutes of aggressive movement (that doesn’t mean it has to be high impact mind you), you can lift your mood and re-energize your spirits. Plus you’ll get the added bonus of burning some extra calories or adding to the building of your muscle tone.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t have gym equipment at home, or even if you’re not at home (i.e., traveling). If the weather is fine, take a fast-paced walk, climb a tree or some rocks. If you’ve got access to a pool, try some impromptu water aerobics (blast fun music and pretend to jazzersize in the pool).
If you’re stuck inside: trot up and down your stairs (if you’ve got them), or perform a circuit of burpees, push ups, and crunches, or even hula hooping. There’s always some way to MOVE for 5-10 minutes that can stimulate endorphins wake up your brain, body, and mood.
For those of you who watch Grey’s Anatomy, you’ve no doubt seen that when things get really heavy on their heads and hearts, Meredith and her friends dance their blues away in the living room with mindless music blasting. You can do this too. Your form and style is irrelevant, all that matters is that you move your body and distract your mind.
This works great for kids too. If they’re sulky and/or tired from a summer’s day of doing nothing but watching videos, get them up and moving in a drastic but fun way for at least 10 minutes. Make it fun and youthful and they’ll play along — like jumping on the bed or having a pillow fight! You’ll all benefit in the long run.
So the next time you find yourself weighted down by circumstances – turn that frown upside-down by moving and literally shaking things up for at least 5 minutes. Your body, heart, and mind will thank you.
Being Blunt Again
In 2013 I wrote the post Can I be blunt. In light of the current erosion in our Nation’s capital (I mean YOU #45), I felt it was a good time to update and re-post it, and remind everyone that while it is paramount that we be truthful with each other, tact is even more important!
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What’s the difference between tact and blunt? When you are being honest are you tactful in your delivery, or are you being blunt? Do you make a conscious decision when to invoke either approach or is your personality simply always tactful or always blunt? Well, let me be blunt … I recommend using both at the same time.
The dictionary defines tactful as: “a sense of what is fitting and considerate in dealing with others, so as to avoid giving offence; having skill or judgment in handling difficult or delicate situations.”
Blunt has a much more, well…blunt, definition: “lacking subtlety; straightforward and uncomplicated, quick and to the point.” Also many people who wrongly pride themselves on being blunt, are really being rude. There’s a very short and fine line between bluntness and rudeness. Clearly our current President has ample rude-bluntness (one of the selling points for those who voted for him), and none of the tact (again, sadly, one of his selling points to his fans).
While I am a huge proponent of being blunt (I do think there’s too much candy-coating these days), I only advocate bluntness when it is colored with tact. Tact is the tempering that keeps bluntness from being rude.
I bring this up today because I find that often my clients aren’t honest with themselves or those around them, and a little “cutting to the chase” (i.e., being blunt) could really help them move forward in their lives. If this resonates with you, read on…
For me, being blunt means speaking straight to the point in a quick and honest way. I don’t like to tiptoe around an issue, hoping that the recipient gets the gist of what I’m trying to say, and with the sentiment that I intended. But unlike some people who get labeled as brutally honest (i.e., their truth tends to hurt), I feel that if you deliver your blunt honesty with compassion and respect (i.e., tact) you will not be brutal and ideally you may be helpful.
Being too tactful (without bluntness) has it’s own set of problems. This approach often results in a wishy-washy delivery of what you think the person wants to hear. Inside you’re thinking I wish I could just tell them the truth, but what comes out is a round-about soft-ball that doesn’t really get things resolved. How much time is wasted in your life having misdirected communication because you’re trying to be tactful. If someone asks for your opinion, or you are in a position to offer helpful wisdom or advice – do it quickly, compassionately, and be succinct!
That leads me to my other favorite word when it comes to communication between people – succinct. Succinct means: “marked by brevity and clarity; concise.” Succinct goes beautifully hand-in-hand with bluntness, as both imply quick or brief, and being succinct when you’re being tactfully blunt is helpful as you won’t overkill your message. Get to the point, deliver your message with kindness (even when it’s constructive criticism) and then stop talking and let your words sink in. (Again, if our current leader could only follow this advice.)
So the next time you need to be honest about something of importance to you or another person, be tactfully-blunt, and succinct, and you will enjoy a quicker resolution and likely receive more appreciation and respect from those around you.
Motivation vs. Procrastination
Many years ago I addressed a common culprit that keeps people from achieving their fitness and/or life goals – procrastination (see Finding Motivation)! I felt it timely to remind everyone once again that while motivation is what’s needed to propel you into effective action for changing your body or life, procrastination, if you’re prone to it, can be the cog in the wheel every time.
Motivation: something that provides a reason for a person to act a certain way.
Procrastination: the act or habit of putting off or delaying.
Depending upon your personality, you might not need profound motivation to achieve your goals and aspirations. Simply the desire to be or have what you seek is enough to drive you from step A to Z. Whether it’s weight loss, a change of career or home, or the ending of a dysfunctional relationship, some of us can stand up, make plans, take action, and manifest a change.
However, if you are a procrastinator, making changes to your body or life can be difficult, if not painful. Planning may not be the problem, you may easily cogitate on ideas and pros and cons lists all day long, but if you maintain a state of reluctance to actually take action (i.e., procrastination), then changes never occur.
Even if it there’s urgent motivation (your health, your finances, the needs of your family), to a procrastinator, obvious needs are often not strong enough to overcome a lifetime of chronic deferment. So how do find the right motivation to get off your butt and take serious action?
Start by facing your fears. More often than not it’s fear that keeps you from action, rather than laziness. Cut to the core of the problem, and you can see the path to resolution. Fears generally boil down to one of these four types:
- Fear of rejection
- Fear of failure
- Fear of pain
- Fear of the unknown
Once you name the fear that’s holding you back, then acknowledge what limits that fear truly contains (i.e., will it kill you or will it simply be difficult). Next, pick the hardest step first. We all tend to number our steps starting with easy (baby steps), progressing to the big and more scary steps. Reverse this. Tackle that which seems like it will take the most of your energy right off the bat. It’s all down hill from there (in a good way).
Now keep your steps simple and brief. The longer things take the more likely you’ll loose motivation. Keep intermediary goals to something achievable in a short period of time (a few days or a week). Once you have several successes under your belt, you’re more likely to continue plodding towards your main goal.
Lastly, seek support. Find family, friends, or co-workers who understand the cycle of procrastination. You may think having a go-getter in your corner will keep you accountable and focused, but for a habitual procrastinator a “cheerleader” is often a deterrent. But if you can find an ally who, like you, moves slowly and over-analyzes everything, you might find that while they’re stuck in their situation, they are great and helping you get unstuck. Then you can repay the favor when they see your achievements and get re-motivated to shake up their lives.
In the end, remember that procrastination is a choice. If something in your life isn’t changing and you’re unhappy about that – make a new choice!
Through The Looking Glass
The skill that I have paid the most attention to in my role as a trainer, life coach, and self-aware adult is that of perspective. I understand that there are always two sides (or sometimes more) to a story and usually the reality is somewhere in the middle. Conversely I also know that the grass is really never as green as it seems from the “other side.” Changing your perspective is the single best way to successfully change that which you are unhappy with, whether it be your body, a relationship, a job, or just how your emotions respond to stressful situations.
In the sequel to Alice in Wonderland (Through The Looking Glass) everything she knew about life, and even about Wonderland, was upside-down or backwards. But by embracing that different perspective (instead of fighting it), Alice was able to overcome obstacles and get back home with a new and better understanding (i.e., perspective) of her life.
Have you ever noticed that something that causes you great emotional stress doesn’t affect others the same way? Is that because they’re better than you? No, it’s because they simply have a different perspective. Same goes if you handle some stresses easily while your friends rage about. You’re not better, you just have a perspective in this area that differs than theirs and causes less strife.
If you are unhappy with the condition of your body (or any of the other life-issues I mentioned above) and no matter what you’ve tried (working out or dieting), nothing has successfully budged that excess fat, then perhaps it is time you changed your perspective. As an example, in some other countries, women with higher body fat are deemed beautiful and/or a symbol of a successful or wealthy family. These women have a different perspective about their bodies than we do in the U.S., that’s all there is to it.
So how do you change your perspective? One of the best ways is to de-personalize your view of the situation. In other words, take yourself out of the equation and look at it as if you were counseling a friend who was in your place. This allows you to see all aspects of the situation, not just what your emotional state focuses on.
An easy way to do this is to write yourself a letter, assuming the role of a friend. Pretend that the YOU are writing to is a friend who is in need of support and encouragement, but most importantly – CLARITY. Diagnose the situation via the facts, and look at how other situations in this “friend’s” life could contribute to how they’re handling the current situation. You’ll be surprised at how much clarity you find when looking at a problem that isn’t YOUR problem. After all, most of us (especially women) love to offer advice to our friends to solve their issues, yet fail to follow that same advice when it comes to ourselves.
Try this trick the next time you are frustrated or angry that something in your life just isn’t working to your liking. Take a deep breath and help your “friend” feel better and clearer about the situation. In the end, by seeing through the looking glass, I suspect you’ll find that your life is not as bad, or as stuck, as you thought.
Women vs. Woman
Over two years ago I posted Stop Competing, Start Caring which focused on the rampant issue of women putting each other down through mean-spirited acts of unspoken competition. From the gym to work environments I see women continuing to combat jealousy via negativity and attempts to feel superior. Sadly, I suspect if my gender was more supportive of each other on the whole, if we’d have a woman as president today instead of the misogynist we’re stuck with. But I digress…
I recently joined a new gym, the kind of gym where everyone is very fit and focused on hard core workouts. This is no meat-market pick up joint, or Planet Fitness where you cannot grunt or show too much skin. Despite being a fitness professional I found clientele on the workout floor a bit intimidating, so I decided the best counter-action was to smile sincerely at everyone, especially the women. Not surprisingly, but too my renewed dismay, only one out of every ten women smiled back. Even with deliberate eye contact and my broad and welcoming smile, they looked away with down-turned mouths. I even attempted to strike up a conversation with one woman in-between sets and she answered me quite curtly and sauntered off.
So here is the post again, with slight updates, in my hopes to remind all women that we do not need to compete or be jealous of each other. The grass is NEVER greener on the other side, and only if we work together can we continue the improvements to our role in society that the Suffragettes’s started and the 60’s feminist movement continued.
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Since I was a young girl I’ve been aware of the serious nature of girls competing against each other for just about everything from friends to grades to boys. It gets worse and uglier as we grow into women. I see it at the gym, the mall, restaurants – women sizing up the competition. You can see it in their expressions, a defensive once-over seeking some flaw or registering uncalled-for disapproval.
I’ve mentioned this before, living in Las Vegas I regularly see parades of girls, each more scantily clad than the next, perched in ridiculously high heels, all glaring at the gaggle next to theirs to see if there is anyone they can put down to make themselves feel better. Belittle the competition and they’re no longer a threat, right? Yet despite girls’ intentions, the message men take away from this contest of looks is that we’re offering your bodies and not our brains, and thus they don’t really care which girl they get.
The question is why are we so quick to condemn or ridicule? The answer is competition. We compete to be prettier, smarter, slimmer, or funnier. But the true concern really comes down our fear that someone is “better than me.” Girls are constantly worried that another girl will get more attention, steal a mate, or even get a better mate. We regularly match our own worth against the next girl – which only serves to chronically undermine one’s self-esteem – and we usually know nothing about this other girl’s character and/or life other than her “cover” which we judge.
It’s sad that we are driven to such levels of insecurity that we view our fellow “sisters” as potential threats to our happiness. I suspect this is also a part of the reason that women are still undervalued and underpaid in the workforce. It’s bad enough that we have to compete with men for jobs, but when women consistently treat each other with distrust and resentment in a work environment, it’s easy for employers to offer us less money knowing that we’ll accept it just to get ahead of the next woman.
I know in my youth I did my share of mocking another or feeling envious of another girl’s achievements or looks, but I’ve worked hard in this second half of my adult life to remind myself that the grass is rarely greener on the other side, and that we all have strengths and weaknesses, gifts and limitations, and the only person I should compete with is myself – to constantly grow and improve.
So I suggest that all women take stock of their attributes and stop beating yourselves up about your detriments. If there’s a negative aspect of yourself that you can actually change, DO IT and move on. Otherwise, be proud of who you are what you’ve achieved and never stop trying to be more. Consider the woman next to you your equal and always be there for each other.
If we can teach our daughters through this example, we just might have a generation of women that work together to boost each other up, improve the world at large, and show men that we are not only equal, but in some areas might even be superior? Just food for thought.
Dig Deeper
In light of receiving many encouraging responses to last week’s post (No More Labels), I contemplated further why we feel the strong need to label everyone with an adjective indicating physical approval or rejection based upon our exteriors. It hit me that this is because a huge portion of our society is shallow – shallow in their views of bodies, shallow in their treatment of women, shallow in our obsessions with ourselves and our need to conform. Keep in mind, I’m not calling people shallow per se (a disparaging usage), I’m saying our choices and/or view points can be shallow as the dictionary defines the word: of little depth.
Now I’m not pointing an accusatory finger around blindly without looking within – I spent the week analyzing how and when I make choices based upon my insecurities or “shallowness.” I concluded that society (myself included) is often so busy and focused on the trivialities of day-to-day life that we are living only on the surface, which in itself equates to a shallow life (for the surface has little depth). It doesn’t help that somehow we just elected the shallowest of shallow men as President (I’m allowed my opinion) which seems to further prove my point that a vast amount of society doesn’t care to look below the surface.
So what do we do about it? Well just the suggestion that we look deeper at how we view and treat each other, as well as how we view ourselves, will cause us to make less shallow choices. Once you become aware that you’re prone to judging a book by its cover, it’s harder to maintain that habit.
I put myself to the test this past week and did my best to view others with less pre-conceived notions about who they are based upon their outsides or a limited glimpse of behavior. I especially applied this new perspective to myself. Anytime I hesitated to do something or try something because I worried about how that would seem to others (those who might judge me only by my surface), I forged forward with the encouraging reminder that if if you dive deeper (or live life less shallow), you find unexpected treasures.
My conclusion is that I will ever-more look below the surface so I can better understand and appreciate the diversity of those around me, have a fuller life, and encourage everyone else to do the same. That way we can hopefully rid society of the labels and judgments that bind (or rather blind) us.
A Kick In The Butt 