What is your BEST?

What is your BEST?

It's that core piece of you that we call heart, soul, wisdom, truth, love, caring, giving, determination, etc .... its all the parts of you that you desire others to bestow upon YOU.

 Believe me - when you give your BEST the BEST returns to YOU.

It's that BOOMERANG effect all over again. =)

Can you be thankful, regardless?

Can you be thankful, regardless? We need to stop being a complaining people. If you will pause for a moment to look beyond your present circumstances, you will see just how MUCH there is to be thankful for. Try it... no matter what you are dealing with right now. No matter what you are facing. Pause. Look around. Ask God to open your eyes. You will find the good in the midst of the storm if you will simply pausing long enough to look.

WHAT'S MAKING YOU FAT.....

Air Conditioner

Apparently, the fact that your body doesn’t have to work to cool down during the hot summer months, since the AC is doing the work for you, is making you gain weight. Hmm, so if we just sweated everything out during the hot summer months then we’d be losing water weight and our body would be working harder, too? Not sure how well this AC theory holds up when dehydration is thrown in the mix.

After reading out loud the provocative headline, "Are Your Shoes Making You Fat?" on a magazine that shall remain nameless, immediately the office was filled with other ridiculous weight-gain claims. One favorite was the news clip titled, "Is Your AC Making You Fat?" (Not a joke.) A deeper look revealed even more egregious and hilarious "revelations."

If some of the claims listed below were true, then this scenario would be plausible: A doctor explains that the cause of a patient’s recent weight gain was due to wearing leggings. Yes, leggings. The patient’s response? "Totally! It’s not the doughnuts I’ve been eating, but the fact that I was wearing leggings while eating them. Phew." Let out a sigh of relief with that one.

As most people probably know by now, for most people, the key to maintaining a healthy body weight comes down to a well-balanced and low-fat diet paired with exercise and an overall healthful lifestyle. Of course, genetics as well as everyday life and work come into play and can affect our ability to plan out and prepare our own meals or have time for the gym. It’s generally easier to put the blame on someone or something else rather than ourselves, especially when it comes to self-control, but there are just some things that cannot be blamed.

While there is probably some way to stretch these claims into minutely representing a possible truth, the reality is that most of them are written for pure shock factor. Instilling fear that an everyday object (or person) in your life is making you fat is a great way to sell magazines or earn page views. It begs the question, if we stopped reading the crazy claims out there, would we be healthier and less paranoid?

This is our tribute to some of the more ridiculous weight-gain claims. Please do share any others that you’ve see out there — it will only help us all. 

BEST SOLUTIONS?  Go to www.advocare.com/120128253 and look around.  THEN, Give me a shout at llbennett123@yahoo.com

Haters Gonna Hate

Haters Gonna Hate – Everyone at one time or another will be the victim of a hater. It happens when you least expect it. You are going along your day, feeling great, feeling proud, feeling happy about something you worked hard to accomplish. And then there is that one. A negative person that feels the need to say something mean. A personal attack on you.  That person is a hater.

No one is excluded from this experience. In fact, the harder you work to achieve something, the more haters you will encounter. Even the most positive, well intending individuals will deal with this.  It is IMPOSSIBLE for everyone to be liked and it is extremely tiring trying to please everyone. So, instead of giving haters the satisfaction of knocking you off your rocker, read this and feel sorry for them…

To all those who have experienced a HATER:

Here is what I know about haters: It is NEVER about you. It is about THEM. Haters like to hate because it makes THEM feel better to put YOU down. It makes them feel powerful, it gives them attention and they can hide behind their writing or words.

They typically don’t feel good about themselves. They are feeling down, feeling discouraged and have experienced failure themselves. Instead of asking for help they feel they need to put others down to make themselves feel better.

They gave up and instead of asking for help, they comfort themselves wanting to “believe” everyone else was “handed” their success or that others are “fraud”. It is always amazing the things they say… In the fitness world we get this a lot. In fact, the trainers and fitness personalities who try the hardest to share info with the masses are the ones most under attack! -  “She is airbrushed” “He is on steroids”, “She cheated” really? If it was THAT easy we would all sit around eating bon-bons , skip the gym, take a drug, and purchase photo shop!

Haters typically don’t have many friends in a different ‘place’ than they are. Misery loves company, and company provides ‘security’, so ‘hating’ never gets old. Feel sorry for haters instead of hating back.

 AND, my advise to all of the haters out there:

What? You don’t like how I categorized you above? Really? Shocking! Now you know how those who work HARD and earn our successes feel when you accuse us of cheating or taking short cuts!  Seriously, what gives you the right to put down others? Who made you the authority on others successes? Instead of hating, try complimenting and asking for help. It is amazing how good it actually feels to give someone a compliment. Not only does it make them feel great about something they work hard for, it makes them want to help YOU if you will let them.

My message to you is you can hate, accuse, blame, and gossip. It won’t change the fact that your hating will drive others further to prove themselves and accomplish their goals even more. While you wasting time “hating” the ones you are “hating on” are working even harder.

NOW that we have that out of the way, which do you want to be in life?  If you're ready to be successful .......  Email me! @ llbennett123@yahoo.com or go to my website www.advocare.com/120128253     LET'S START TODAY!!!

Stronger than You Know

Getting Ourselves Worked Up

Often we get anxiety for no reason as we are almost always stronger and more capable than we believe ourselves to be.

Our capacity to cope successfully with life's challenges far outstrips our capacity to feel nervousness. Yet in the weeks, days, and hours leading up to an event that we believe will test our limits, we can become nervous. While we may have previously regarded ourselves as equal to the trials that lie ahead, we reach a point at which they near and our anxiety begins to mount. We then become increasingly worked up, until the moment of truth arrives and we discover that our worry was all for nothing. We are almost always stronger and more capable than we believe ourselves to be. But anxiety is not rational in nature, which means that in most cases we cannot work through it using logic as our only tool. Reason can help us recognize the relative futility of unwarranted worry but, more often than not, we will find more comfort in patterns of thought and activity that redirect our attention to practical or engaging matters.

Most of us find it remarkably difficult to focus on two distinct thoughts or emotions at once, and we can use this natural human limitation to our advantage when trying to stay centered in the period leading up to a potentially tricky experience. When we concentrate on something unrelated to our worry—such as deep breathing, visualizations of success, pleasurable pursuits, or exercise—anxiety dissipates naturally. Meditation is also a useful coping mechanism as it provides us with a means to ground ourselves in the moment. Our guides can aid us by providing us with a focal point wholly outside of our own sphere.

The intense emotional flare-up you experience just before you are set to challenge yourself is often a mixture of both excitement and fear. When you take steps to eliminate the fear, you can more fully enjoy the excitement. Though you may find it difficult to avoid getting worked up, your awareness of the forces acting on your feelings will help you return to your center and accept that few hurdles you will face will be as high as they at first appear. 

Do NOT judge me by my past...I don't live there anymore :)

Borrowed from a Friend, but DEFINITELY can relate:

There are a lot of things in my life that put my head into a tailspin. Wondering if there was something I was supposed to learn from it or if it really had too much significance. They always say hindsight is 20/20. That perfect clarity of “I should have done this or if I would have done that.”

This also leads me to ponder how much power I should give to something that may or may not have happened had I done something differently. These are the things that plague my mind today. One such instance that seems to have a stranglehold on my life still and for some reason is holding on with a tenacity that it puts everything that should take precedence into a holding pattern.

Yes I have a past. Everyone has one. That pesky little thing that likes to say, “Hey! Guess what I am still here!” 

I hear a lot of stuff that should make sense but absolutely does not. No matter how much I try to wrap my head around it, it still stymies me. So now I will take a different approach to finding the answer to clarity.

My past is just that! MY PAST!!! Meaning it is not my present, it is not my future, it does not necessarily define WHO I AM. Yes it has helped shape me from the lessons I took away from it. What defines me is my heart and my brain who at times do not always see eye to eye. What defines me is that I can look that adversity in the eye and take another step forward to my future! So this is what I have to say to that PAST! I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO HINDER MY ACTIONS OF THE PRESENT! I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO DICTATE MY FUTURE! I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO ALTER MY PATH! I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO TAKE FOCUS AWAY FROM WHAT MATTERS TO ME! AT ONE TIME YOU HAD THAT POWER BUT THAT IS NO LONGER! 

It is a new day, and yesterday is no longer. Tomorrow is still to come and as my dear departed Momma used to tell me “This too shall pass..” It is now time for me to shake off the shackles and don a new attitude of perseverance and a tenacity of my own. I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO BREAK ME!

Just so you know......

Okay, "Blogging" seems to have been the thing to do for quite some time now.  I guess me finally caving is better late than never.

Just so you know, this blog will consist of hopefully what turns out to be a collection of inspiration, motivation, and God-knows-what-else about almost anything and probably everything.  Of course, Sir Rhino (the Chihuaha) will probably maneuver his way to the keyboard now-and-again, so don't be surprised if there are paw prints on your screen with his rants.

Put your seat belts on, Kiddies - this is gonna be an interesting ride!!!