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Good Morning my friends! So it’s another Monday huh? I hope you all had a great weekend and are feeling relaxed and happy.

Today, is another beautiful day, sunny and bright – and the temperatures aren’t so bad, I think I will go out and try to spend a chunk of the day in the garden and maybe move a few shrubs around… we’ll see – maybe just a nice walk around the block with my daughter may seem like more fun. It all depends if I get my ‘gardening mood’ on ;)
I completely forgot to do any fall clean up in the yard, thankfully my ‘eclectic’ garden style will not show my black thumb – but I will still go and do a visual check up and whisper sweet words of encouragement to those entering their winter slumber, that they will be beautiful once again in a few long short months…

Since, my Show Courage poster on Friday (thank you for your kind compliments ;), I’ve been in an encouraging mood throughout the weekend over at Daily Strength. (this is a great on-line support group for just about any condition/ grieving/ illness support). I am part of the Myasthenia Gravis group and although I am feeling so great, I do still go back and involve myself in some of the discussions. I am impressively seeing a jump in my fellow MG’ers trying a natural support treatment for this condition. For my friends from DS who also visit me here, thank you and keep up the great work! (as a sidenote, I may encourage some of my friends – but let me tell you it’s not easy to persuade my husband  but that’s a whole other post ;)

I meet so many wonderful people and go into many word-battles with some who have a different approach – as an example, call Acupuncture, Reflexology, Holistic treatments – voodo.  Yes VOODO, isn’t it funny how some people are in a different place than others. Hey, if statistics do show that this helps – let it be – it’s not your thing, fine, but don’t go discouraging others…

Anyway, differences aside, people (with a medical condition or not) should always try to aim for a healthier diet and lifestyle. I hope you’re one of my friends who tries to live an active healthy lifestyle . So for today, as part of our Monday Motivation, I was thinking that maybe we could share ways how you encourage yourself or your loved ones to live more healthily. How do you motivate yourself to have a healthy attitude and instill a better wholesome diet? Does it start by looking at the mirror, looking in the fridge, while eating the 3rd Halloween candy bar this morning… ;) – - oh my, I totally see this is a bad timing for this post ;) lol

For me, I use a visualization technique, and picture myself healthy and fit, sexy, more toned. I lost a lot of muscle mass within the last 3 years, (as MG is a debilitating muscle disease that weakens the muscle and muscle control – - I had a long, long way to go. I dropped down to about 70lbs because I couldn’t eat – and a size 0 was falling off me.) I am still working on getting my butt back and I think you can almost see it peaking through some of my skinny pants ;P  This was my dilemma, I needed to gain weight, build muscle (with a muscle disease), and get myself healthy. With health comes happiness! That was another one of my visions. I pictured myself HAPPY and HEALTHY. My thoughts/ fantasies took a long time to happen but I stayed true to a strict diet and now continue with weight training/ walking (I can’t jog yet), (yoga should also be on this list – but I haven’t done it in a while – I should).

So this is what works for me , VISUALIZATION of a healthy happy person – and I tell myself that a quinoa spinach salad with flax oil as dressing, followed by a brisk walk will get me there!

I would love to hear from you… what works for YOU? Do you try to live a healthier life – do you encourage others? Please do share your story in the comments below.

HAVE A HAPPY & HEALTHY MONDAY!

PS. speaking of encouragement, have you heard this song already by Leanard Cohen called Anthem?
I fell in love with it at his concert a couple years ago and these words “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” still give me goosebumps… LOVE IT – I think you will too ;)

PSS. you’re probably wondering about the photos, my daughter LOVES snacking on spinach - she asks for it! – - what’s my trick? when she was learning the alphabet, she was the giraffe for Gabriella and we said giraffes eat leaves aka spinach ;) AWESOME RIGHT! ;D
xoxo