My 18 Year Pilgrimage Back To The Weight Room

Wait, I think...

For 12 years, from age 23 to 35, I lifted weights daily. Gym rat I was: bench pressing, dead lifting, squatting... yes, all of it. Eventually I purchased home equipment consisting of a bench, barbell, weight plates, and dumbbells. 

At 35, I was bored and looking for change. I decided to start a Yoga asana practice. I had been doing Yoga Conscious Connection work (Mindfulness) for 9 years. It was time to add in the poses. Then, after a year of every other day weight lifting & every other day Yoga asana practice, I completely bagged the weight training. The bench and paraphernalia was hauled to the top of my street and left on State Rt. #56. Before I could return with trunk load 2, the bench and barbell were gone. The decision was final, no going back. 

Here I am at 53 and contemplating doing the gym rat thing again. How I wish I still had that equipment. Home fitness routines are my best bet. The hassle of running to a gym doesn't excite me. 

So why do I contemplate going back? Well, I am not getting younger and I can see the impacts of age creeping towards me: muscle strength and size diminishing, tone is sliding earth side... damn aging and gravity!

Heading back to the gym and doing some weight lifting / strength training will provide these benefits:

• Body composition that retain muscle mass and keeps fat stores in check

• Keep up muscle strength

• Prevention of estrogen dominance (see the body comp info above). When we age and go through the menopausal years, our bodies produce less & less progesterone because we no longer ovulate. Body fat tissue produces estrogen. Excess body fat contributes to estrogen dominance. Yeah, I don't want that.

• Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue. So I can eat more (100% body nourishing whole foods, of course!) without gaining weight as I age. Yeah, ok, I'll take that side benefit.

• My mentor, as I went through my Holistic Health Coaching Certification, was Michelle Smith of Forever Fit With Michelle. This gal is 10 years older than me and rocks the world of fitness, weight training, & body building competitions. Yup, she's a champion! Her anti-aging services include whole food education (sound familiar?) and weight training. If she can do what she does at 63, I can reach my lesser goals at 53. Nope, not looking to be a body building champ but I am wicked proud of my mentor Michelle!

• Bone strength is important to me. Weight training keeps bone mass building, maintains a healthier osteoclast vs. osteoblast functioning. Look that stuff up if you want to learn some fun bone biology / physiology.

I have been doing pull ups / pushups / reverse pushups (think back bend pushups / chin ups / Yoga squats & lunges. But I think I need more and I keep injuring my left shoulder, trapezius muscle, doing pull ups. 

I will continue to do yoga, 5 days a week. My 2 days in the gym, pumping iron, will be simple and concise workouts. As a former fitness trainer, I have my plans already created. My weight training moves will be Yoga poetry in motion in the weight room:

• slow movements with conscious intention

• breath work

• inner steadiness & peace

I made it back to the weight room, June 27th, 2019

Nick, Me, & Eli (My Son)… committed to growing our muscles!

UPDATE 6-27-2019 Things I’ve noticed about how Yoga has improved my weightlifting:

• I am conscious of my breathe moving through my body as I lift and no holding my breath when I am in exertion mode.

• I take a 5 slow deep abdominal breath “savasana” in between each set.

• I have better consciousness around the alignment of my joints to prevent injury.

• I’m working from a heart space physically, energetically, emotionally, & spiritually. My Sacred Circle Mentorship Students will understand this. ; )

Please make comments below on your favorite local gym & why:

• SUNY Potsdam,

• SUNY Canton,

• SLU,

• Clarkson, or

• one of the privately owned gyms in the Potsdam - Canton area.

I am not looking for fancy aerobic equipment, in fact I won't use any, as I prefer to be outside wandering the woods with my dog. I am a simplicity seeker: I am looking for the nuts and bolts for weight lifting to build strength. No frills.

More Anti-Aging tips for you: 

• 40+ FaceFix Skin Therapy for Mature & Sun Damaged faces & necks.

• Voluptuous V for vaginal care as we age to keep vaginal tissue plump and healthy. Perfect for sensuous glide at any age.

My Books:

• Hands On Health is your lifestyle primer. You have to take care of your body, from the inside out, for true anti-aging benefits.

• Weaving Healing Wisdom (co-written with Jenny Kenny Morrill) supports your healing of body, mind, & spirit - this IS powerful anti-aging magic!

My Yoga Mat IS My Magic Carpet

OR... Why I Love Yoga, Take 3!

5 years ago I wrote an article titled Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing that has been published on several Yoga, Mindfulness, Health, & Healing websites (In a professional holistic Nursing journal as well). This writing was/is my attempt to lure you into a personal practice that will transform the manner in which you exist in this world and support you making the best health and healing choices with each and every choice you need to make.

Did I lure you? Are you immersing into yoga to change your inner landscape so your outer world blossoms?

Yoga plants seeds. Seeds that are possibilities for life long change. 

Yoga lifts you up (body, mind, and spirit) so you can soar and sway with the breezes of life, being calmly flexible.  Yoga also roots you down and grounds you into your life so you can be stable and steady no matter what comes your way.

Yoga has taught me, reminded me, that my human body is a sacred vessel for spirit. My body is the home of the divine essence that is me.

I am a soul in a human existence not a human walking around with a soul (Wayne Dyer, one of many, kindly reminded us of this).  Once we embrace our divine essence and purpose, in our human form, it becomes easier to make those healing lifestyle changes and stick to them.

Your lifestyle choices can and will build your soul a home that is a castle that can weather life with grace.  Your lifestyle choices can also cobble together a shack that feels unwell, daily, and falls apart easily.

When we come home to this, truly embody the fact that we are divine beings within a human body, it makes the task of choosing healthy lifestyle habits the path of least resistance. 

Our inner conversation goes from impulsively eating, without conscious thought, those two pieces of cake sitting there just because they ARE sitting there to being about making choices that are best for body-mind-spirit.

Building Castles not Shacks.

A regular Yoga practice creates new neural pathways of thinking in body, mind, heart, and spirit. These pathways create inner calm, peace, and presence in the hear & now. I have always called this Inner Conscious Connection. Mindfulness is the word we all here now.

Stepping off of my Yoga Mat Magic Carpet, navigating the world in a magical way, transforms the whole world into my Yoga Mat Magic Carpet. 

Sending Love from My Castle to Yours. Namaste. 

Join Shelby Connelly & I at Five Elements Living Retreat Center for a 3 hour Yoga - Acupuncture Mini-Retreat: April 8th (evening retreat) or April 11th (morning retreat), 2018

                                                       Beginner's Yoga : Letting Go Of Awkward                                                         Yoga-Acupuncture-Self Care Evening Or Morning Retreat

More articles to inspire you to jump on a Magic Carpet of your own:

• Why I love Yoga... Take 2

• More Yoga inspiring posts from Paula

Green is the Heart Chakra... Love Your Yoga!

Why I love Yoga... Take 2

When the weather drops below 45, I move to the porch: bright, cheery, & open window for fresh air. Below zero, bright sunny days, are still Yoga pleasant on the porch.

4+ years ago I wrote an article titled  Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing. I have shared, many times, the ways in which Yoga benefits healing body, mind, and spirit. Type "Yoga" into the search bar, over there to the right, and you will find Yoga posts on weight loss, healing, body benefits, stress... you name it. I recommend it. Yoga that is.

Yoga is a self healing retreat every time you step onto the mat and every time you step out into your world living life from a space of deep interconnectedness that Yoga spins and weaves for you; that you spin and weave for yourself.  

If 45 degrees F... yoga on the deck is my preferred place to practice. Yes, cats are a reoccurring theme in this mindfulness; sensing & appreciating the peaceful energy.

So often people tell me: "Oh, I do stretching exercises, I don't need yoga."  Most people equate yoga with doing poses. Yoga is not just about the poses on the mat. That is part of it. Yoga is a way to bring presence of mind to your daily awareness. The poses are a way to embody mindfulness. Poses help to move life force energy, embody breath with movement, and guide our actions into a conscious connection with our true self.

Poses support you synchronizing breath with body, mind, and spirit. Breath is spirit. Yoga poses teach you how to be strong, flexible, and balanced in body, mind, and spirit so you can step off the mat and be strong, balanced, and flexible in all areas of your life activities, in all of your interactions, in your essence of being in this world.

Yoga is a way of being in the world that supports our moving with the flow of the universe, making conscious decisions based upon thoughtful wisdom and mindfulness around choice and consequence, and walking through daily happenings with a presence of peace and contentment (even when life seems to hand us chaos).

Magic happens when a person practices Yoga. Yoga is a tool to connect self with life force energy: inner life force energy and the life force energy of the universe (which are one & the same).  The universe pulses on and with life force energy. Practicing yoga is a way of tapping into this universal energy, wisdom, consciousness. Yoga has been practiced for thousands of years. All indigenous cultures have healing systems for tapping into the infinite. 

Deepening Practice for you... Yes, this is your Self Healing homework.    ; )   

I will happily send you the word document or PDF files of these below Yoga pose practices. You can print and laminate them if you choose. Email me with your request.   pyoumell@gmail.com

Yoga Stick Figures by Charlotte Bradley of Yoga Flavored Life.

Grounding Yourself for Emotional Healing

1.    Remind yourself that you are in complete control of you.

2.   Start your day with an AM grounding experience. I do a blended visualization / meditation that takes 5-7 minutes and grounds me for the day.  I sit on the stone steps in my back yard with my feet in contact with the ground. (Urban dwellers, sit and visualize your feet in the grass, connected to Mother Earth!) I close my eyes and visualize white light coming from the ground, up through my Chakras and Nadis, then turns around at the crown Chakra and goes back into the earth taking all negative (dark light) energy back into the earth to be absorbed. I visualize white light coming from above, through my crown Chakra, and circling back up at my root Chakra taking negative energy back into the atmosphere. I do both of these twice.  Next I visualize white light coming from the earth again, up through my root Chakra.  When It turns the corner at my crown, this time it goes back into the earth and creates a root system from my tailbone down into the earth. Now visualize white light from the crown Chakra, turns at the root Chakra and turns again at the crown Chakra to go back into the earth.  Again, visualize the roots coming from your tailbone deep into the earth to ground you for the day’s challenges. Finally, I swirl white light energy around my body, from feet to head, like a twister moving up my body. This is to protect me from negative energy and other’s stress.

3.   Create peace in your life with a regular yoga practice. The benefits of Yoga are profound.  You will intuitively move towards healthier choices in your life. Your mind will become calm. Your body will respond physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually to the beauty of yoga.  Your body will be in the flow of life. This is true mind -body -spirit healing.

4.   Nourish your body with 100% whole foods. To get started on whole food eating, pick up a copy of my book, Hands On Health: Take Your Vibrant, Whole Health Back Into Your Healing Hands. Read the Free info on my website: Principles of Whole Food Eating,  Whole Health Lifestyle Choices, & more Free Health Info

5.   Get to bed and be asleep before 10 PM.  When your body is asleep before 10 PM, the level of stress hormones in your body drops. When you stay up late, burning the midnight oil, your body pays through higher levels of cortisol hormones. This is stress.  Sleep, sweet dream sleep, before 10 PM and your body’s glandular system works for you in a balanced manner, making happy feel-good hormones!

6.   Get outside every day, preferably moving your body. Yes, I mean exercise. Call it movement magic that heals the divine you!  Something as simple as a brisk paced walk in the fresh air and natural light can do much to reduce stress, create feel good hormones, help you sleep better at night, and ease the challenges of daily life so you can think clearly and make healing choices around food and your health habits. Get outside in sun/wind/rain/snow/fog, walk barefoot, sit on ground, hug a tree, rest your spine against an old growth tree… just breathe in the world around you. Your body, mind, and soul will thank you for this grounding, earthy experience.

Positive, holistically-minded, lifestyle choices make for healthier, happier living.  For a full list of lifestyle choices I recommend to my holistic health coaching clients, click here.     More Free Health & Self Healing Info, click here.

7.    Create a grounding habit you can return to, in a moment's notice, for immediate calming energy. Here is how...

• Find a body motion (hands in Namaste or prayer position or a Yoga Mudra that calls to you),
• a "saying" or mantra* (Amen, Namaste, Blessed Be, Mitakuye Oyasin, Om mani padme hum), and
• a visualization of a space in nature that is sacred to you.

When you close your eyes and do all three you will bring yourself to a place of inner calm. Proceed forth from a space of thoughtful action as opposed to emotional reacting.  The ideas in parenthesis are just that, ideas. Create a 5 second ritual that is your special way of coming into your calm. Use it daily. Use it in any moment that you need to stop and think rationally before you proceed forward in your next step or choice. This is a quick grounding experience.

Be Well; Very, Very Well, Paula   ; )

Extra posts on creating calm, grounding, and healing eating/health habits: 

• Create Constant Calm
• Why I Love Yoga and Other Thoughts on Whole Food, Whole Health Healing

To find more related posts do a search on my blog for: yoga, weight loss, &/or mindfulness.

*Saying or Mantra meanings, they are all Blessings

• Amen: So be it, the well wishing of your prayers & meditation being sealed for integration and to come to fruition in the world
• Namaste: Sanskrit, the Divine in me honors the Divine in you
• Blessed Be: Wish good and positive things upon self & others
• Mitakuye Oyasin: Lakota, we are all related, interconnectedness of everything, we are all brothers & sisters (all beings on Earth, not just humans)
• Om mani padme hum: Buddhist, No literal English translations, jewel in the lotus, invokes compassion

10 Body Healing Benefits of Yoga

1. Blood pressure: a regular yoga practice reduces blood pressure.

2. Mindful body and breath work cultivates peace that lingers and weaves its way through your day.

3. Aligning your breath with your body's movement aligns body, mind, and spirit. See peace info above.

4. Got gut health issues? Try some yoga poses that are guaranteed to bring digestive tract relief.    

Pose images from an online article at Yoga Journal, I urge you to check out this Yoga Journal gut healthy, better digestion article, click here. While you are at it, just check out the whole Yoga Journal!

5. Body Weight Balance that is healthy for you & your body: When your spirit can move through the world with grace, because your physical body is a comfortable place to be (physically, emotionally, AND spiritually) your life and life force energy just flows better.

6. Asthma Relief: Yoga breath & body work creates healthier lungs, better lung capacity, less asthma symptoms, and lowered stress. 

7. Stronger Bones, stronger muscles, stronger body-mind-spirit.  You gain better flexibility & balance in body-mind-spirit as well. Bonus!

8. Yoga is healing to all body systems. Yes, I said healing! Your cellular metabolism will balance out, because your mitochondria will be happy, making you feel light and energetic.

9. Yoga is your daily happy drug lifting mild depression and making neurotransmitters flow. Yoga literally lifts the corner of clouds so you can always see the sun.  As my youngest son said, 6 years ago, "when you lift the corner of the clouds, the sun is always shining!"

10. Yoga helps you relax and sleep better as it engages your para-sympathetic nervous system, the rest & digest system, taking you out of the constant stressed out, fight or flight mode (your sympathetic nervous system on over drive). This reduces inflammation in your whole body.

I could come up with another 90 healing benefits of Yoga in about 10 minutes time. I love to chat about Yoga, if you are interested.

I love to share Yoga...  http://www.paulayoumellrn.com/yoga/

                               Namaste

Translated roughly, it means

"The Spirit within me salutes the Spirit in you"

knowing that we are all made from the same                     One Divine Consciousness.

The Sun Radiates Life Into Everything!

Some Of The Sun's Awesome Gifts:

• warms us every day even when we can't see the glorious sun (When you lift the corner of the cloud, the sun is ALWAYS shining." Eli, my 14 year old at 8 had figured this one out!), this solar warmth drives weather patterns
• stimulates photosynthesis
• stimulates Vitamin D production in your skin and many other living being's skin as well.  Vitamin D is needed for bone health, skin health, mood health, immune health (think cancer, MS, metabolic disease-diabetes, & auto-immune disease prevention)
• promotes the production of melatonin so you can sleep well every night and the production of serotonin so you fell happy & energetic during the day

The list of the sun's contributions to human and planetary health is a very long one. Without the sun... we would not be here; everything would not be here!  It is time for some Common Sun Sense.

                   Yoga Sun Salutations to the Rising Sun

Getting out in the morning sun helps you move through the day with flow, ease, and grace and supports sleeping better every night. All living things are meant to be exposed to the sun's light all day; from sun rise to sun set. (obviously being wise to not burning our skin... but more on that in a minute). Think of the cultures who begin their days with some form of AM exercise (movement magic eCourse), prayer, or meditation that is outside and facing east to the rising sun. Wisdom from the ages kept people healthy, wealthy (before wealth was measured in dollars and cents), and wise. 

Being Sun Wise:

• Get out every day and get sunlight on your eyes and your bare skin
• Avoid sun screens that are chemical based. The chemicals that prevent sunscreen are toxic, period. Most sun screen bases (the actual lotion the sun screening chemicals are in) are loaded with many other toxic chemicals. Check out Environmental Working Groups information on toxins in your cosmetics and body care products...http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/
• If you must use a sunscreen find one that is in an all natural lotion base and uses zinc and/or titanium dioxide for the sunscreen function. Avoid nano-particle sunscreens.
• When you have spent your time in the sun to promote health but avoid over exposure, sun burn, and sun damage... find shade and cover with clothing and a hat. 
• The high hot times of the day are approximately 10 AM to 2 PM depending where you are in the world (proximity to the equator) and the time of year. Be smart, use common sense, and get healthy sun exposure. Your vibrant health depends on it. Think of a plant and its need for sun. Put that plant in the closet and shut the door. How many days until that plant is dead? Bottom line: we need the sun... the sun makes us happy!

Sun Related Blog Posts:

Naked Sun Time!

Creating Inner SunShine!

Natural Skin Care For Prevention And Healing Sun Damage

Join My Movement Magic eCourse to

• increase your inner movement wisdom, 
• inspire yourself to make movement a daily priority,
• learn the many benefits of movement to each and every body part and system (all of your amazing body cells),
• and support your body in its need to move.

As Dr. Mark Hyman states: Exercise (Movement Magic!) is the biggest drug to reverse or prevent heart disease.  Here is the link to his video explaining this: click here.  If you want to hear just the part of exercise (it is a 10 minute video on food, supplements, & lifestyle) scroll to 6:30 and you will be at the start of his exercise chat.

The benefits of daily movement, moving all day long, are profound and beckoning you much like the sun is beckoning you outside! Moving, outside in the sun, is a double body healing bonus.

Click here to check it out and join this body, mind, and spirit moving eClass: Movement Magic eCourse   Class tuition this week is $30, (5 bucks off for Sun Celebrating) and if you have taken any other eCourse with me, I offer this course at $25 for you. 

Need more motivation to move? Check out this 96 year old man and what moving his body has done for him: Click here