May my words and actions today reflect kindness,
may my thoughts be without judgment,
and may I see only the best in everyone I meet
– Jackie Bowden
Prescription to myself:
Rx: Recite first thing in the morning.
May be repeated several times throughout the day as needed for desired result.
Maximum dosage: Unlimited

With love, Jackie

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”                   – Buddha

What is anger? Anger is the experience of something or someone not being the way we want. Anger may be a normal response to a certain person or situation however, when we hold on to anger it becomes harmful to us.
Holding on to anger is a choice.

Here are just some of the ways anger can affect us.

1. We may think holding on to anger prevents us from getting hurt or disappointed again, but the wall of anger also keeps love out.

2. Beneath anger lies pain. It doesn’t feel good when we think about it, it hurts.

3. When we hold on to anger for a long time, it can become so normal or comfortable that we may not believe that it’s possible to feel good.

4. Anger can  make us feel stuck at a place in our lives that we don’t want to be. We may not understand why we can’t break free of a certain pattern or habit that we don’t like.

5. Some people notice the physical discomfort of anger like a knot in the stomach, a heavy feeling in the chest, or a headache.

6. Anger is the opposite of emotions like happiness, love or contentment. These opposite emotions can’t exist at the same time so, if we are feeling angry we can’t be feeling happy, content or loving.

Given such unpleasant possibilities, why would anyone choose to hang on to anger? Unconsciously it’s our defense against change. Our human nature doesn’t like change and feeling angry at someone or something prevents us from looking at what we could change about ourselves.

How do we begin to let go of anger? We can choose to become aware when we’re feeling angry, realize it’s just a feeling and not allow it to dictate our behavior. For example, if someone has done something that causes us to feel angry, instead of retaliating we could choose to ask them what happened, choose to say nothing, or choose to tell them that we felt hurt.

It’s not easy to rid ourselves of angry feelings. It takes practice.  In return we get to experience love, happiness, freedom, understanding and contentment. Remember, we get to choose for ourselves which emotions we would rather cultivate. Which do you choose?

With love, Jackie

“Children learn what they live.”  – Dorothy Law Nolte

Enjoying parenting and raising happier kids is my wish for you.
One of the most important lessons I learned while parenting was this:

If I wanted a respectful kid I needed to treat them with respect with my words and actions.

Here’s what I’ve come to know:
We are their most important role model.
They are watching what we do more than listening to what we say.
How we treat them and speak to them can make them feel like there’s nothing they can’t accomplish or like there’s no reason to even try.

Like me, you might think this sounds good but HOW do we make this happen? If I may offer a suggestion it would be this, find something you enjoy and start doing it for any length of time. Making ourselves happy is the first step to self-respect. Once we respect ourselves,we just naturally pass it on to our kids.

With love, Jackie

“If you’d like to go on the journey of a lifetime, begin living your life with intention.”                                           – J. Bowden 😉

In my work, one of the things people seem to find most helpful is the idea of intentions. An intention is our statement (to ourself) of what we want, like a new job, enjoying more free time, or to be happier. It’s something we want to create. Living life with intentions can make it more interesting and fun.

An intention can form from something we’ve always known we wanted, like a new car, or it can just be the opposite of what we don’t want, example: we have debt and we want to be debt-free. Why we’re choosing that intention is even more important. Is it because we’re afraid of something or because we desire something wonderful for ourselves? For example, an intention, like having a new car can originate because we want people to notice us (a somewhat negative reason) or because we think the car is fun to drive (a more positive reason). When we have intentions for a positive reason, like happiness or fun, we create good things in our lives and we feel better. The opposite is also true. Intentions that originate from negativity, like jealousy or anger, can create unwanted results and we don’t feel good.

Intentions can be the first step in creating a life that you love. Why not try one on and see for yourself? They don’t usually show up overnight, but over time, just like a toddler learning to walk, you can see the results beginning to take shape.
Happy Creating!

With love, Jackie

Because I work with many remarkable people dealing with the challenge of weight loss, I frequently get asked this question, “I want to lose weight more than anything, so why am I always choosing things that are inconsistent with weight loss?” I asked that question myself for decades.

Overeating, eating when we’re experiencing any feeling we don’t like, boredom, sadness , anger etc., or eating things that don’t support weight loss, comes from trying not to deal with, or cover over, our painful emotions. It’s the very thing that guarantees those feelings will stick around. When we allow ourselves to feel them and not judge them, they will go, and so will the need to compulsively eat.

We all experience painful or unpleasant emotions from time to time. It’s part of being human. I’ll be the first one to tell you, accepting painful emotions is not the most fun thing and sometimes it’s not easy, but it has a big pay off, FREEDOM. There’s a relief from the pull or control of negative emotions.

It’s helpful to be kind and gentle with yourself while you’re experiencing a painful feeling. Here are some examples, think of a comforting thought, recall a pleasant memory, read a favorite book, go for a walk or have a cup of tea.

Here’s what I’ve learned, the more we spend time doing what we love, the less important food becomes”. When we are doing things that make us happy, food is frequently the last thing on our minds.
The opposite is also true.

So what’s the answer to why we eat when we want to lose weight or adopt healthier habits? We are avoiding feeling painful, unwanted or unpleasant feelings. We are stronger than these negative feelings, and so it is possible to enjoy a healthy life and a sensible weight, but we must choose or the feelings we wish to avoid will remain.

With love, Jackie
P. S. The same is true for any other addiction. Remember that an addiction is much more than just drugs or alcohol. It’s anything we can’t stop doing or over doing.