Dr. Oz had an interesting piece on food:It’s one of the most passionate debates in the medical community: can you be addicted to food or is your overeating the result of failed will-power?

What is addiction? An addiction is a dependence on something that gives you short term pleasure and often create havoc in the long term. From my experience there are three main causes of cravings: one is the need to reward ourselves, the other one to numb ourselves with food we associate with pleasure and the third one can be a chemical imbalance causing cravings.

The first two sound similar but they have a bit of a twist. For example if when you were a child you were rewarded for good behaviour with food, you may feel the need to reward yourself with food every time you feel you have done something good.

For example I had a client come to see me because she wanted to change her lifestyle. She did an outstanding job until a couple of weeks later when after she had been ‘really good’ and started craving potato chips; this was really disconcerting her as she was wanted to be healthy. When I worked with her to find the subconscious cause for her cravings she remembered that as a child, when her and her brothers had been ‘good’ during the day, her mother would line them up in the kitchen and give them potato chips as a reward. If she did not get the potato chips she felt like she had not been good enough. Once we found and dissolved this pavlovian, she had no more cravings for the potato chips.

Sometimes parents associate food and love, and that creates challenges for the children later on. For example if when you are upset or sick mom cooks you your ‘favorite meal’, you will most likely associate comfort and that kind of food. The challenge comes when you are feeling down, lonely or sick as you may well now crave the same kind of food your mom used to give you to ‘nurture’ you. One of my friends after her mom passed away started to crave waffle even though she did not really like them  because her mom used to make them for her.

So is your food craving due to an addiction? A pavlovian? Or lack of will?

I believe that most people fall under the first two categories, they have associated the kind of food they crave either as a reward for good behaviour or as a comfort food, a kind of numbing of pain. The uncontrollable need to numb pain with a substance is often called an addiction.

Food craving is a complex entity that deserves personalized attention to discover the root cause. Most people have associated some type of pleasure or pain with different food and this will dictate what they eat. This is not a problem unless you are eating food that decreases your health. If you find yourself repeating patterns or eating that are causing you to feel sick, gain weight and decrease your self image, it is worth taking the time to discover the real cause for it.

Would would love your feedback on this story, please leave a comment below.

Love & Light,

Dr Lise

Last week I had a great session with a client which was a perfect metaphor for what happens so often to us as human beings: we create stories according to our beliefs of how things ‘should’ be, which often have nothing to do with the truth. As a result we decrease our worth and our ability to have what we would love in life.

While working and exploring the statement “I am worthy of love” it brought us back to a series of experiences that occurred when she was five years old: My client would hide under the balcony believing that her mother would panic at the thought that she had run away/disappeared. She wanted to see her mom panic, run around looking for her in a great display of despair at the idea of having lost her. This in her mind would confirm that indeed her mom loved her. But mom to her dismay, never did run around in panic. My client repeatedly hid under the balcony in order to get the response that would finally prove that she was loved, but to no end, and she started to go about her life believing that mom did not love her.

My client once she got older told her mom about hiding under the balcony and asked her why she had never gone looking for her. Her mom answered very matter of fact, that she could see her hiding under the balcony and figured that she would come out when she felt like it!

We so often, especially as children, create beliefs or laws about our life, our worth and our destiny because of our interpretation of what is happening around us. Yesterday again I was reminded of the common belief of older siblings that they were not enough or not worthy of love anymore because mommy needed to have another baby and/or the new baby was more important because mom was paying a lot more attention to the baby.

Love & Light,

Dr Lise

Here I am 2 weeks back from my trip to Ecuador and I am just starting to feel like I am integrating back into city life. I had been feeling out of sort like after I come back from a trip to Europe; jet lag kind of feeling like there was a part of me that was out of sync. Except that I could not blame it on jet lag because there was only 1-hour difference with Toronto. My theory is that it had to do with the transformations I experienced in the jungle that I needed to integrate.

I had signed up for the trip this last January because it felt like I was supposed to go.  A few weeks before leaving I was really looking forward to it; that’s unusual for me I think because I travel so much, I often don’t really feel much anticipation. So I was thinking that it would be an amazing trip…and guess what?

Within my first hour into Bogota I manage to get my almost brand new apple computer stolen;  with all the running around trying to do something about it, I slept about 3 hours that night before having to catch another plane to Quito and had to wake up at 5am.

That night in Quito the pachamama group went out for dinner… everybody got served their meal… except me! Hum, Ok I am trying to remain zen about the whole thing since I KNOW there must be something good that will come out of this, except it was definitely evading my wisdom at the time. Then that same night after I finally fell asleep late because I was too tired to fall asleep, I feel the floor shake beside my bed and feel a presence in the room. My subconscious mind perceives that someone is trying to ‘sneak’ into my bedroom and I bolt up to see a man and a woman quietly walking around my bed: I scream! Apparently people on the first floor of the 3-floor hotel heard me!

All of these things together participated in creating a sense of dread in me, like something must be ‘really wrong’ for this to happen as it was supposed to be this ‘amazing’ trip that was going to give me more wisdom. Instead I was having to constantly push aside the feeling that something was wrong. This was destabilizing me because I just could not find the perfection or gratitude for the situation. I knew there was perfection but that my wisdom was not enough to see it… which made me judge myself even more…  Pushing feelings aside is not something I enjoy doing because I like to face what’s there to grow from it and I just could not find the perfection/gratitude and that was making me doubt myself even more.

The only thing I could do was wait for what I knew for sure was going to unfold.

And did it ever! From doing the work that I have been doing since 1989, I know that there is always equal and opposite support that comes with challenge. I just could not see it before we got into the middle of Amazon Forest.

We spent four amazing days where very few human beings ever venture. We explored the pristine forests and went up the rivers in motorized wooden canoes. We spent time with the Achuar people who have been living in harmony with nature for thousands of years and got to experience their ways. But the highlight of the time there was certainly the shamanic ceremonies in the ‘middle of everywhere’. 

I ended up having one of the most profound transformations of the group and I know that it was because I felt more ‘raw’ and open. It was such an intense and beautiful experience that I carry still in me.

I am sharing this story because so often we don’t understand right away how we are benefitting from challenging circumstances. Every time we are ungrateful we automatically decrease our sense of self worth, and every time we are grateful we automatically increase it. When we feel worthy, we have more inner peace, more joy and a sense of fulfillment. It costs us dearly each time we are upset with our life. Helping my clients see the perfection and feel grateful for who they are, the people and events of their life is the focus of my coaching work. And I just had to get another dose of it to come back with more certainty to be of more service to my clients.

Remember...Let Life In

Dr Lise

On August 19^th I will be in Quito Ecuador getting ready for a ‘pilgrimage into the heart of everywhere’ as Lynn Twist the leader of the expedition calls it.

 I feel some trepidation as I am going to be the furthest away from ‘civilization’ I can be, in the middle of 2 million acres of rainforest. It has no road access; it’s only reachable via an airplane ride and canoe trip down the Amazon river.

On a conference call last week Lynn Twist (www.pachamama.org, www.fouryearsgo.com) was asking us why we wanted to go on this trip.

I had to think about it because I have felt I was supposed to go on this journey since I first heard about it a few years ago. http://www.pachamama.org/rainforest-journeys 

Beside the thrill of the gift of connecting with native people and learn from their intimate knowledge of mother earth (pachamama), I realize I also have a desire to deepen my connection to my heart.

The idea of being reminded how simple and fulfilling life really is at the core without all the modern amenities calls me. I was fortunate enough to have grown in a lower socio economic class and been a student for long enough to know that one does not need much to feel fulfilled.  But being so far away from cities, cars, internet and in the middle of pristine nature at this stage of my life will add to the intensity of the inner integration of what really matters to me I am certain.  

My hope is to deepen the connection to my heart and enable me to come back to Toronto wiser and with more energy to give and help more people live connected to their heart. The more I do my work, the more I see the importance of finding and dissolving the illusion of being unworthy of love that stand in the way of our heart. I am so inspired and in awe of the healing that happens so quickly once the stories get dissolved. The relief, the joy that I see in the sparkles in people’s eyes after a session with me, I want to find ways of giving that gift to more people. I hope to find ways to do that while on my ‘pilgrimage in the heart of everywhere’.

Just a little note to let you know about an article I wrote for Canadian Living Magazine. It’s about vacations… not a bad subject to write on, is it?!

Full Article: Vacation Riches

When I work with my coaching clients, my goal is to help them experience real success. And success is not only career related, success is what happens when we feel fulfilled, when we feel grateful for our life.

When we take the time to just be, to enjoy what is around us and in us, we recharge ourselves. As you get older you realize that life is not a sprint but more like a marathon. And if you want to really ‘win the game of life’, you need to pace yourself and give yourself sustenance. Ideally we should not wait for only vacations to do that, we should make it part of our daily routine, but vacation bring different experiences that impact us. One thing I have observed over the years was that all the very successful people keep on learning and growing. And taking time to re-center ourselves, create clarity and help us refocus on what is really important for us, is a key ingredient to living a successful life. 

With that in mind, I will have the chance to go and spend 5 days in Arizona at Miraval spa with the people from the Transformational Leadership Council, I will therefore be away from the 27^th of July to the 1^st of August. I will come back to you charged up with more inspiration and energy.

I also have the opportunity to go spend time in the rainforest in Ecuador with the tribes of the Achua people on a experience organized by the Panchamama Alliance (http://www.pachamama.org/rainforest-journeys).

As Lynn Twist describes it, we are not going to the middle of nowhere, we are going to “The heart of everywhere”. As you can imagine by the name of our business, I could not resist such a description! I so look forward to this experience and hopefully I can bring back some of the wisdom that I will have the chance to encounter. I will be gone from the 19^th of August until the 5^th of September, it will be a special way for me to celebrate my birthday.

The more I study and work with the subconscious mind, the more in awe I am of it.   The following is an excerpt from a fascinating book titled The Social Animal by David Brooks.:

"The human mind can take in 11 million pieces of information at any moment. The most generous estimate is that people can be consciously aware of 40 of these. Some experts go as far as saying that “the unconscious mind does virtually all the work and that conscious will may be an illusion”.

After having worked with thousands of patients using N.E.T. while I was a chiropractor and for the last seven years in my coaching practice, I don’t need any outside studies to prove to me the power of the subconscious mind.  From all my experience I am convinced that “You don’t manifest what you want in life, you manifest what you believe”.    And so many things that we believe subconsciously are not true.

Yesterday for example I was working with one of my clients. She’s a beautiful powerful and very capable woman. We were checking her subconscious beliefs around her worth to make sure that she was congruent with the fee she’s charging for her services. It is very important that you know if you are congruent with the fee that you charge because otherwise you will sabotage yourself: Either you will not be able to attract clients to pay you what you’re consciously feel you are worth or you will not be able to get paid. This is especially true if you’re self-employed but it can also apply to you if you are on the salary, as you will find it very difficult to get paid what you think you are worth.

When we did our little investigative work we discovered that she was not congruent with the amount of money she was charging: deep down she did not feel worthy of it.   And it all came from the erroneous reasoning of a three-year-old child. At that time my client had a babysitter that she loved. This sitter had a daughter who is still to this day my client’s best girlfriend. Naturally her sitter preferred her daughter to my client; as an adult it’s easy to see that it’s a normal thing to do. But my client as a child felt that she did not have as much worth because of it and this subconscious belief had been hanging on since childhood.
 

It is challenging enough to be self-employed and have the nerves to charge what we are worth. If at the same time we have subconscious beliefs that hinder us, it just makes it that much more challenging to have the self-confidence to get paid. This is just one example of how old stories that we carry in our subconscious mind can be holding us back. For me it’s really worth it to take the time to examine my beliefs since I want to live an extraordinary life… and these beliefs can be the only thing standing between me and an extraordinary life.

This blog is being inspired by the fact that I’m flying to Chicago tomorrow for the weekend. Every time you go through custom you can face big surprises. But as for everything else in life, out of these challenges great lessons can be learned.

This past summer I was going to New Mexico for a TLC  [transformational leadership Council] meeting. I had to fly from Toronto to Denver, and then Denver to Albuquerque. I happen to have a Nexus card  which is supposed to allow me to get through custom easily. But once in a while they randomly pull you out for inspection.

That day and was a bit stressed out, I was supposed to have a limo pick me up at 5:45 in the morning, but they forgot to pick me up. By the time I called them and they got to my place, it was 6:15. I managed to get to the airport before the one hour caught off. I was all happy and then, drama happened, I was pulled aside for inspection. So being kind of nervous about missing my flight and the connection I had to make in Denver, I innocently asked “am I going to miss my flight?” This was a big mistake. I realized afterwards  that the custom agents took this as me trying to push them along, as trying to control them. I guess a part of me was, but I was also just asking a regular question because I was not trusting that what was going to happen was going to be to my highest good.

There were three people in front of me and then when came my turn I realize I was going to be able to make it through my flight because I had nothing to hide. When came my turn instead, this woman came  and took me by the arm and said that they were going to make sure that this never happened again. I was going for a special interview with another agent in another part of the airport. By then I’m starting to really worry that I will be missing my flight. I get into a small room and there are two people in front of me. It seems to take on average 20 min. per person. And the agent is really taking it’s time, you know the type of person that rejoices in feeling the power they have over you. We likes to make you squirm because it makes them feel powerful. Well he was one of them. He finishes with the first person and  I peek into his room to ask him a question and he becomes aggressive right away. I then proceed to tell him I just need to know when the bathroom is. He apologizes and shows me the way by guiding me there. Which in the back of my mind is slowing him down again. I come back and wait another 20 min. before he’s done with the next person.

Now I’m in the room with him, and he starts by asking me  where I’m going. I tell him that I’m going to meet some friends in New Mexico. He asks me if I have any proof of this. I tell him I don’t because I’m getting together with friends. He proceeds to tell me that he has the power to prevent me from entering their United States. That since I have no proof  of what I’m telling him he may well just do that. Then he goes through my suitcase, my wallet, my briefcase and he opens everything. I’m starting to feel very violated and at the mercy of some psycho, plus the fact that I’m tired because I did not sleep enough the night before and that my hormones are raging, I start to cry.

It was a fascinating experience to see how this enraged him even more. He started to threaten me that he was going to get guards to take me out of there because I was being difficult. I just kept on talking with him calmly even though I had tears streaking down my cheeks and he finally told me that I could go. As he let me out he tells me that the next time I am so difficult I may well not get entry into the United States. I was really surprised, and I asked him why he thought I had been difficult. He told me because I had been crying. I told him that he had just been so mean I did not know how to behave.

 After that I had to deal with the fact that I had missed my flight and my connection in Denver. I was going to have to wait five hours for the next flight. That did not make me feel happy. There were different reasons why I had been crying while in front of the custom officer. One of them as I said was fatigue and stress, but the other one was that I know I’m a co-creator of everything in my life. And I was upset with the fact that I could not see how I had manifested that experience. I guess I’m good at what I do because I usually find the correlation between cause and effect  pretty quickly. And at that moment because I was spinning in my emotions I certainly could not see the perfection  and my ego do not like it. So at that point I just had to go on faith that I was going to understand sooner or later why this had happened.

What unfolded afterwards was pretty enlightening. When I got to Denver my connection had actually been delayed and I was able to make it. I also got upgraded to business class. When I got to Albuquerque the people in charge of the TLC , because I had been expected to be late, had organized a private limo for me instead of the bus that the others had to take. And that night while having dinner with a group I was able to tell the story and it was really nice to feel supported by the people at the table. It created a bond that would’ve not been there otherwise.

So what I learned from that incident, was to trust and not push all the time. We teach what we need to learn don’t we? I know that when something happens that is within my realm of understanding, I am wise. When a new incident occurs that is outside my wisdom, I get triggered. I also know that’s the only way we get to evolve, learn and grow as spiritual beings is by experiencing challenges. Because I got triggered, because I was out of my comfort zone, I learned a lesson that I have now integrated, I am now wiser  because of it.  Can’t wait for the next lesson!

Love & Light,
Dr Lise 

Last week, while skiing at Lake Louise, I had the time to reflect on what makes me feel most alive. I realized that being in nature is a spiritual experience for me. It helps me to feel connected with myself and the world.  I find that it is very easy for me to be so focused on my work and the responsibilities that I have and forget about taking time to enjoy the other areas of my life.

When I am in nature, it gives me the space necessary to reconnect  within, to feel and contrast different  emotions and what my real  truth is all about. When I coach my clients, a major part of my work is geared towards helping them create clarity around what matters most to them. It is so easy to get wrapped up in the everyday chores and demands and keep doing things just because that’s the way we’ve always done them: Not necessarily because they are the best things for us to do.

This is something I discovered many years ago when I started my practice as a chiropractor. When I first started I was afraid of taking time off, but I was also keeping statistics for my practice. And I observed that the years where I took time off, I ended up creating more income. I asked myself why it was so, And I saw that when I was rested, inspired, more grateful and on fire about being at the office, that I was able to attract more patients and that my results were even more powerful.

Even though I was self-employed and if away I was not getting paid, I ended up with more money at the end of the year. It was an obvious choice for me: I could live my life exactly as I wish it to be, have more energy, more joy and more financial security! It’s one of the ways that I learned that it pays off to live from my heart and not from fear. The more I trust this, the better the results are for me and my life.  So while I’m glad to be back at work, and I look forward to each day when I get up, I’m also planning my next adventure. The one movie in August when I go for a couple weeks to the Amazon to experience living with some native people. Just not sure about the mosquitoes.

Love & Light,
DR Lise 

Tonight I had a conversation with my friend Steve Pavlina www.stevepavlina.com, a fellow TLC  member. He gets millions of hits on his website and he recommended that I blog and reveal more about myself. I told him that it went against the grain for me, I am reserved and I don’t really like talking about myself . He told me that if I wanted to get my message across, it would be better for people to know more about me. I thought about it and since my centre is “The Centre for Heart Living”, there might be advantages to me writing from my heart not only about material that I think can help people but also by sharing some of my own journey while striving to live from the heart.

So I will start with something I would usually consider mundane and not sure you would want to know about, but here it is: tonight I was watching American Idol. If you knew me well, you would know that I don’t watch much TV, only if something is really good or if I am too tired to read and I don’t have cable. I know that a lot of people don’t think much of American Idol but for me it’s the perfect show for coaches. I have been following it for a few years now and I find it quite fascinating to watch the young hopeful singers digging in deep and going with courage after their dream. And that is what I find inspiring.

 For me courage in all its forms touches me very deeply. I love watching the Olympics for that reason; I am totally addicted to watching the Olympics when they are on. You’ll see me tear up when I see an athlete so beautiful in his/her courage and dedication.  Athletes training year after year, lonely times working out with discipline all for a dream, alone while facing themselves in a race, a game or a performance. Sustaining the pressure and keeping the focus so they have the chance to maybe win a medal.

For me American Idol is like a kind of Olympics but with the difference that we get to watch someone follow their dream from early on, we get insights into who they are, we get to see them overcome their fears. And what I found totally inspiring last night was that the judges were talking about coming from the heart and being fully present with their songs. And that has been my experience in everything. When we come from the heart, when we have the courage of jumping in without holding back, focused on the inspiration Vs the fear, magic happens.

From what I have seen over the years the contestants that make it to the top have these traits: they a great voice naturally, they are courageous, humble and have beauty and/or charisma. For me humility is not only talking about our weaknesses, making sure that we keep ourselves small, it’s about sharing our strengths as well. It’s being able to share both sides of ourselves, the ‘famous’ yin and yang, for me humility is about really loving ourselves.

All the people I have ever met who were really successful (meaning over all life success, not just financial/career success) I have found to be humble. When someone is humble, they are not elated with themselves or depressed about themselves, they come from the heart, they have inspiration, things they are going after, they have been victorious in many areas but they have also faced many challenges and failed many times. They have faced themselves, they know who they are and that they can rely on themselves when the going gets tough, which results in self confidence, true self confidence.  

So I look forward to watching the contestants face themselves, trip sometimes when trying too hard and sometimes not hard enough and because of that watching them triumph because they hit it just right and the joy that comes with that. Joy from my experience comes whenever we are able to be without our ego, fully engaged in the moment and giving it our best. Here you go, you now know about some of my quirkiness.
 
Love + Light,
Dr Lise

If the natural state for a human being is to experience fulfilment, love, gratitude, wisdom and abundance — because that is how we feel when we are connected in our heart — then any time we don’t feel like this means that we have disconnected. When we get out of the heart, we experience emotions: positive and negative emotions.

If you feel lonely, sad, angry, afraid, low self-esteem, betrayed or any other emotions, it is because you are not in your heart. You have not seen the perfect balance of support and challenge and you don’t have gratitude.

If you are seeing more negative than positives in the situation: you don’t have the big picture, otherwise you would be grateful. The same goes when you experience positive emotions like excitement, infatuation and elation. This happens when you see more positive than negative, which again comes from not seeing the full picture.

As human beings we often like experiencing intense emotion. We may want to feel anger or sadness, for example, as we consider them normal or righteous. They feel good to the ego but not to the heart. They make us feel empty in the long run. There is nothing wrong with wanting to experience big highs, just as long as you know that sooner or later you will experience big lows. When you come from the heart, it is centred — it’s calm and joyful but without a big high.

You feel grateful even when life sends you challenges because you know that they are there to bring the best out of you.

Love & Light,
Dr Lise