Blog Archives

Obstacles

9/26/2016

The obstacles that appear in our lives are part of the journey. No one escapes conflict, struggles, challenges, and stress. The courage it takes just to enter this life, surviving our birth is the apparent first step! Wow, what an entrance, every single time. If the challenges and road blocks are not present, we do not ignite persistence, imagination, and creativity.

Be diligent. Be disciplined. Let nothing get in your way of you and your happiness, your end goal, whatever it may be. Mediocrity has no place here. When I began modeling I used to send photos taped to cardboard and mail them to all of the top magazines, even before I had an agency! I wrote on each 8x10 cardboard: Hands: long and lovely. Legs: long and lean. I went above and beyond the normal realm of trying. I sent out hundreds of photos and paid for everything myself, and saved money to do this by serving in restaurants in the evenings.
We must never give in. We must never give up. It takes commitment, mistakes, and lessons learned from those mistakes. It takes disappointment. I am a sum total of all of my experiences, and the reactions and feelings surrounding them, not just those easy and successful experiences. That added to the tapestry of who I am now.

But, we humans are always changing. That much is true. So my goals, dreams, and desires will change as I grow and reach some new understandings. When I meet a goal, I dream up a new one, or one falls into my lap unexpectedly. And so the cycle continues. It is that way for all of us! As Dorrie says in Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming." Those words have popped into my life so many times over the years. When I feel like I'm not on my game, things are sucky, I'm feeling not quite myself, I am suffering from low self esteem. The head games we play surrounding aging and the normal decline of body parts can cause us anxiety or depression symptoms. That is why self care is so important in my coaching practice, and in my own life. Self care can be whatever gives us a break, or a challenge. It is essential to our growth and change as humans. Restorative practices allow things to simmer, like yoga, a long walk outside, or a massage giving us the marination of the mind, body, and spirit. So as we change and grow, growing older and suffering do not always have to be synonymous.

How about you? What have you practiced when you face obstacles in your life? What are you dipping your toe into that is a restorative practice that promotes change? I want to hear from you! Fill out the contact form on the home page.
Blessings,
KJ Landis

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Fit vs Healthy

9/19/2016

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Today I want to discuss the concepts of being fit, and then of being healthy. What are the similarities and differences between the two? Can we be both or just one and still live a well balanced long life?

Being fit involves having a performance based goal. "I want to look or move in a certain way because I have an event or a sporting event coming up in so many months." Maybe it is a life milestone like a wedding or a high school reunion. Maybe it is a personal look that one wants to achieve. These are all good reasons to get fit, move your body, and choose nutritious foods that help you reach the goal. But what then? What about after you have met the goal? Do you have a new goal or a plan B afterwards?

Living our lives so that we perform well and can run away from the tiger in an emergency is wonderful. Long term fitness goals can lead to a healthy existence. We can, however, be fit and not healthy overall. Many bodybuilders eat a very low fat diet or a very low carb diet to the point where they are exhausted and cannot wait until the performance and competition is over so that they can binge. Fit does not necessarily mean healthy overall.

I have worked out with folks that finish the work out and look amazing with their abs and their biceps, but yet step outside to have a cigarette after every workout. Now how healthy is that? In my 31 years of professional modeling, I have worked with models who do not eat barely anything, looked amazing, yet lived on diet cola, cigarettes, and alcohol.

So fit means to me, eating and exercising for great performance.

Healthy means being well balanced in all of the body's systems overall. Blood tests and health markers can prove they are healthy. There are many folks who are generally healthy and don't have time or the will to exercise. There are folks in the construction field or the postal service who exercise for a living. There are servers in restaurants worldwide who walk hours and hours a day carrying heavy trays. Many of the blue collar careers are full of healthy people who aren't fit and they don't perform a sport outside of their daily activities. Entertainers are usually very active.

So healthy and fit don't necessarily mean the same thing. Ideally one is healthy and fit. After a certain age, lots of people get tired of chasing the six pack abs and the competition at the gym. They would rather be healthy than performance oriented. And that is perfectly okay. Ideally, I want to be both. I like pushing the envelope at my age, over 50. I like being pushed at the gym to new personal bests in weight training by my 15 year old. I like inspiring him with my tenacity and endurance, and he likes being inspired by his old mama working out alongside of him. I even teach him new exercises his PE teacher didn't know. My kids motivate me to keep on going because I have to be around for their milestones. I want to keep up with them.

One can be healthy without being fit. And one can be fit without being healthy. What do you think about these terms? I want to hear from you! Please fill out the contact and comment form on my home page.

Blessings,
KJ Landis

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What is Herbal Medicine?

9/12/2016

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Herbal Medicine is basically medicine from plants. This is the nature of medicine. All medicine in ancient times were from plants! In fact, modern medicine is copying the herbal medicines of yesteryear, but we couldn't get the medicines in the right quantity or fast enough to meet demand. We used extracts, essential oils, teas, and smoked the ancient plants. Nowadays, pharmaceutical companies are creating the same chemicals and mixtures of chemicals like our ancestors did, but in labs. It is cheaper and more convenient. Some plants are extinct, so the man made medicines are all we have left.

I believe prevention is key in medicine. The intestines are our entry to immunity building and vital health. So, what we eat truly affects our entire body systems. And yet, despite all of the good things we eat, sometimes we cannot escape disease or chronic conditions. Our environment has over 85,000 man made chemicals floating around every day. Our body understands nature. It doesn't know what to do with all of the "strangers" floating around and treats them like toxins. It also creates us to be estrogen dominant. The body wants to be in balance at all times. This is called homeostasis. A lot of foreign substances we put in, on, and around our bodies are kicking us out of balance. That creates stress and inflammation at every level, whether we acknowledge it or not.

What can we do? We can educate ourselves by reading labels, drinking lots of clean water, and practice restorative movements. We can also take food based supplements and adaptogenic herbs which adapt to our bodies' needs. Some of the basics in herbal medicine include teas, essential oils, extracts, and mixtures of all of those. Some more advanced herbs are in powdered or capsule forms.

Considering the costs of mainstream medicine, perhaps prevention is worth every penny. If I eat nutrient dense foods, drink lots of clean water, and take plant based pure supplements, I can hopefully not suffer from chronic conditions. Plant based medicines cannot be patented in and of themselves, and are not regulated in the way pharmaceutical drugs are. It costs approximately $730 million dollars to have the FDA approve a medical drug. This may explain why nobody had spent the money to do the rigorous testing on chamomile or echinacea. Eighty percent of the world's population uses plant based medicine. Most of these folks are at poverty level. It requires self learning and a partnership with one's health practitioners. It requires a getting to know oneself at an intimate level.

Do do you want to know yourself more? Do you want to practice self care rather than sick care?

I want to hear from you! Please fill out the contact form on my home
page!

Blessings,
KJLandis

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Each Life Affects EVERYTHING

9/5/2016

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We don't always realize it, but our thoughts and actions don't live in a bubble entirely. We all affect each other in many ways. I remember the film SLIDING DOORS, where the simple choices the main character made changed the entire course and outcome of her life. We, the audience got to see the different choices, the what ifs, every time the subway train sliding door opened. The scene repeated itself over and over with different outcomes based upon the choices made. I loved this film and I see myself referring to it over and over again when I coach my wellness clients. Our lives affect one another and everything else too.

We cannot live in the past, but our past choices brought us to where we are now. Our choices have a ripple effect on everything. Even our thoughts and mental decisions, our emotional responses, and our physical activities have energy, electrical energy that can be measured and documented as real. So the effect on others is also real. This is a pretty big responsibility, don't you think?

You and I are molded by those people and experiences which touch our lives. This works for the positive and for the negative aspects. A challenge is neither good or bad. A challenge is just a challenge. So, with the molding of ourselves at stake, what choices will you make?

I want to hear from you!

Blessings,
KJ Landis

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Obstacles

Fit vs Healthy

What is Herbal Medicine?

Each Life Affects EVERYTHING

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