Whew, what a great day!  I got a lot accomplished, some of which I wasn’t expecting to have time to do. It helped balance out the unexpected changes in the day’s schedule.

Although I don’t consider myself a teacher, in many ways it seems to come naturally to me. I am used to the role of therapist/teacher/counselor/coach on a small scale, usually 1 to 1. I haven’t been working with groups often since I stopped working in intensive outpatient programs, which I miss very much.  (grist for later posts on the groups and seminars coming in January 2010 at my office and via teleseminar). Anyhow, I taught a technique to the members of one of my weaving guilds, and we all had a grand time. After I got over my dry mouth and forgetting my great ice-breaker jokes and fabulous self-introduction, I found my rhythm and totally forgot that I was nervous.  Should have done my self-hypnosis before rather than after the anxiety bit, but it worked itself out.

I have to do that again sometimes, the teaching. Yes, and the self-hypnosis. It is nice to have the hypnotherapist guild you through a healing trance, but it is also very empowering to elicit change in yourself.  The self-hypnosis in between the sessions with the hypnotherapist really support the continued change and growth, especially with issues like anxiety, weight management and smoking cessation.

So riding on the high from the workshop (yes, for you addicts reading this, there are things you can do to have a good time without drinking and drugging!), I came home and set a few goals to make the best use of that cheerful, positive energy. My poor old Yorkie isn’t so happy with that; the old guy is almost 16, suffering from chronic kidney disease and is mostly blind. He may be going deaf also, but it is hard to know if it selective or real….he’s always been pretty independent and commands like “come” and “stop” have never meant much to him. I’ve been promising him a bath for a few weeks, and finally got him in the tub today. I feel wonderful that I accomplished that; he’s still wrapped in a towel and blanket, shivering and looking at me with a glare somewhere between pity and loathing. But he smells good and he’s nice and clean, and he’s really going to be in an uproar when I get the nail clippers out in a few minutes. Good, check another thing off the list!

Some cooking is on the agenda for tonight also. One of the biggest helps in creating a healthy body and weight is avoiding processed foods with additives, lots of salt and sugar in their many disguised forms, and “bad” fats. Just by cooking my whole grains and veggies myself, I can avoid those additives. I can add in good fats, like avocados and olive oil. I can also cook ahead for a few days, and prepare a few meals myself to keep in the fridge. We all like convenience, and the time I spend cooking and making more than one meal at a time gives me the convenience of reaching into the fridge without the consequence of processed foods.

I must also mention that I cook for the Yorkie. I read the label on the prescription dog food that is recommended, and shivered. Yuk! So I did some research, and came up with natural diet recommendations for canine kidney disease. So I cook for all of us at once. I can cook 2 batches of yummy beef /rice and sweet potato/egg/veggies for him and it lasts a week.  And except for the beef  or chicken and raw eggs, we pretty much eat the same thing. I won’t digress today on why our pets seem to be developing illnesses like obesity, kidney disease and cancer. Yes, environment and genetics are  factors for animals as well as people, but we can certainly impact our health and the health of our pets by what we feed all of us.

To end the day, a little zen knitting. Ahhhhhhhh!