Podcast: Appreciate Your Life Today

Transcription of Podcast

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena. I hope that you are feeling amazing, amazing, amazing today. Today I want to talk a little bit about mindset. Now that you know that mindset is the foundational piece of all the changes that anybody wants to make and really the idea of getting to what I call healthy, amazing you is a combination of habits.

And you know what? We have habits in the way that we think, and we have habits in our emotions, as well as obviously habits in what we do. So today, my big question to you is, do you really appreciate your life? Now, I know that life is full of hardships and challenges and mundane things. Hello, negative brain.

Remember the negative brain. Human, the human brain is. totally, totally wired to be negative, which is great when you are running away from a tiger, when you're in survival mode, but it's not so great when it comes to enjoying life in modern world and really making the most out of this amazing opportunity of life that we have.

So, A few stories for you and some questions. Can you questions are, can you remember a time in your life when, you know, there was a really, really big challenge? Perhaps you were really unwell or, you know, something happened such that you thought, oh my goodness, if I get out of this, okay, I'm gonna relish every single second of my life.

So what comes up for me, well I have a few things in the last couple of years, but last October, so October 2022, my daughter fell down a flight of stairs and smacked her head open and had a very serious head injury and, oh my goodness, I can recount. That entire day in minute detail, luckily the details are fading a little bit, but it felt like the worst day of my life.

I knew that she was seriously unwell. I knew that she had a head injury that wasn't just a little head injury. And I remember sitting outside when she was on the CT scan just thinking, oh my goodness. I don't know what damage has done, but waiting for them to, you know, do the CT scan. And thinking, oh my goodness, just focusing on, I'm going to get her better, I'm going to get her better.

And then the radiologist came out and said, it's all normal. And it was a lie, it wasn't all normal. But I just remember the relief flooding over me. And then later on they said, oh, she's got a little hematoma. So she was lucky, it was only a little hematoma. And I've worked in head injury units for children, and I know the awful consequences of some nasty head injuries.

So actually, she came off. Relatively likely, she spent two days in intensive care and another day on a normal ward and then it took her a couple of weeks, really, of being unwell to get back to anything resembling her normal self. And at that time, I just, you know, every minute seemed to go past really slowly as I'm sitting there watching her and just willing her to get better.

And my entire life energy just thinking, I just need my daughter to get better. I just need my daughter to get better. Well, that was 18 months ago, and obviously now, my daughter, thankfully, is much better. And what does life look like now? It looks like me waking her up and saying, Celeste, your clothes are all over the floor, and Celeste, oh my goodness, can we brush your hair?

My, you know, you've got this huge great tangle in your hair. You know what I'm talking about? The mundane things of life. The mundane stresses, and the mundane challenges that we have and not doing what I vowed to do, which was really just relish every single moment and really just see this amazing person for who they were, for who they are, and just think, Oh my goodness.

I have this amazing moment with my daughter right now. She may be having a total strop. She may be being really challenging, but she's alive and she's well. And I always say, I used to work as a pediatric doctor and I always used to say, you know, when parents would complain about their children. Well, at least they have the energy to complain and to run around and to be wild because unwell children do not have that energy.

So if you're a parent and you're thinking, oh my goodness, my kids make too much noise and all of those things, well, it is a good sign of health, if nothing else. So that's one story. Another story, my son was unwell last year and a similar kind of story, his illness was less traumatic and less Severe in terms of he didn't go to intensive care unit, but it was really still really scary and thinking.

Oh my goodness You know what's gonna happen to him? And another story. Three years ago, we did up our house. And it was, again, it took all my life force energy to make that happen. We had to move out of our house for a year. If you've been listening to the podcast for a few years, you might remember that I was recording at that time.

And we lived in a small house, and we did our house up, and it is amazing. We have the most beautiful house that we love. It's my dream house. But oh my goodness, it was so stressful. And it continues to be stressful. It isn't all done and dusted now. We have Problems with the floor and et cetera, et cetera.

But, when we were in that little house, I just remember thinking, when we get to the big house, when we move in, that is my objective, that is my goal, that's what we're going to do, and life will just be perfect and normal and amazing. And yes, on one hand it is amazing, and it is perfect and lovely, but then, life, life happens every single day, so you know.

I don't know, the windows need cleaning, and I need to cook dinner, and all of those mundane things that take away a little bit of that sparkle of, yes, I'm in this amazing house. And on a daily basis, I do look around myself and think, I love my house. I love my house. When I'm in the kitchen, I think, I love the blue colour of the tiles, and when I'm lying in bed before I go to sleep at night, I think, I'm so happy that I'm in this amazing house.

But even doing those things, it's easy to get into the habit of normal, worrying about every small thing and worrying about all of the things. You know, life, basically. Life is always lifing. I always say to people, life is busy lifing. If it's not one giant, giant disaster that takes over your life, it's a lot of little things that just add up to take over your life.

So what does all this mean to you? Well, I am sure that you feel exactly the same. It's easy to get caught in the little stresses of every single day. Now, don't beat yourself up about this. These, these stresses, they're real stresses. But, I want you to appreciate your life and so I would like you for the next day to really just think about, okay, I'm going to spend a little bit of time every single day just reminding myself how lucky I am.

There's an exercise that you can do which is called an avalanche of abundance and just, if you can write it down, fabulous, or if you can Say it in your head. Just think of all the amazing things that happen to you. Now they can be mundane things like, oh, having breakfast. I love my breakfast. Talking about breakfast, I have fruit bowl with nuts and seeds and a little bit of porridge, which is much better breakfast than just porridge by itself.

So adding in some fruit and some nuts as well. I love my breakfast. I love drinking my cup of cocoa. I've switched from coffee to cocoa and I love my cocoa. And I love having a warm shower. And I love my clean clothes. All of these things which are obviously we take them for granted. But actually what would life be like without clothes?

Well it would be quite cold in the winter. So just really take stock and think of all the amazing things that you have in your life right now. And all the events, all the all the future hopes that you have. So thinking about, yeah, I'm really excited about this thing happening soon, and I'm going to make it happen.

Now you can do this. What I recommend you do is for One day, set an alarm, and do this frequently. If you can do it every hour, do it every single hour. If you can't do it so often, do it three or four times a day. See if you can do it for an entire week of just really stepping into that, Oh my goodness, I am so grateful and so happy for my amazing life.

Yes, it has its challenges, but look at all the amazing things that I do have in my life, including enough food and a home to live in. So, that's today's podcast. Now, a few announcements. Number one, if you are interested, this, this exercise that we've done is all about shifting you from negative brain into positive brain.

And if you are interested in learning more about negative brain and positive brain and really understanding how to strengthen your negative brain and turn on your, did I say that right? I don't think so. You know what I mean. To understand your negative brain and really step into your positive brain.

Then I. I invite you to email me and find out about my Positive Intelligence Program. So I actually have a few places to do just that program. So this isn't the entire of my Positively Healthy Weight Loss Program. This is just the mindset piece. Now this week I have a few places. Which is starting at the week.

So it's a quick turnaround. So if you're interested, email me and I will give you details. As I say, this is just the 6 week program. This isn't my full program. But it is an amazing program. And if you're thinking, yeah, I'd really like to work with Dr. Alina, but it just feels like, so, you know, the lifetime program feels like a bit of a jump.

This is a really good place to start to get that 6 week program. So that's number one. Number two tomorrow on Wednesday, January the 31st, I am offering Dr. Alina's office hours. So think coffee chat. It's the time I normally have my coaching session, but we don't have coaching on the last week of the month.

So I've opened it up to everybody to chat, to come and ask me questions. You can ask me anything. You can put your hand up for coaching or just, just chat and hang out and get to know each other a little better. So that is happening. Wednesday, that's tomorrow, at 8am Eastern Time or 1pm UK time. And I will put a link in the show notes so that you can sign up and obviously it's happening on Zoom and it will send out the Zoom link to you.

So my friends, appreciate your life. In the comments, come and tell me what you really appreciate about your life. Have a lovely day. Bye bye.