Authenticity – The Key To Inner Health
Sedena Cappannelli, one of the country’s leading experts on health and beauty, shares her unique and valuable perspective on how women, especially women who are in the second half of life, can discover a pathway to greater health and wellness and an improved quality of life. While Sedena understands both the fascination with and the benefits many women experience as a result of their use of anti-aging products including creams, serums, supplements and more, Sedena reminds us that the beauty all women seek and the real secret to a long and satisfying life comes from the inside out.
A Wellness Post By Sedena Cappannelli – First Published in Women’s Digest – JAX Florida
The majority of women I work with long for a state of health that is expansive and limitless, a state that includes physical, emotional and mental well being, and of course, personal and professional success. And yet achieving this goal, especially in a world like ours where we are called upon to be super moms, successful professionals, effective community builders, loving wives and partners, caring colleagues, thoughtful siblings, good daughters, great friends and wise women, is certainly not easy.
When we couple these expectations and the other complex challenges we are asked to juggle with the whispers that issue from own hearts, it is easy to feel like we are performing on a tight rope high above the ground and without a net. Here in this unstable atmosphere we must deal with the onslaught of constant technological, social, political, and economic changes that life in the modern world brings. Add to this our tendency as women to substitute over-care for caring and we often end up sacrificing our personal well being and autonomy.
The result is of course compromised health and limited success in many of the crucial areas of our lives. We lose our ability to focus effectively on our work, to relate positively to our loved ones and to give ourselves the kind of attention we need and deserve. Most importantly, our passion for life and the connection with our authentic sense of meaning and purpose is often overshadowed or left behind.
Is it necessary to lose our balance? Are there other choices we can make — empowering choices, new and more effective strategies? Yes, I believe there are! I believe that it is not only possible to maintain our balance, it is essential if we are to live healthy, rewarding and successful lives. If we are ever to capitalize on what the poet Mary Oliver calls, “this one, wild, and precious thing called our life.”
One of Our Greatest Assets
What are some of these proactive choices and strategies? I believe our success and our health as women depends chiefly on our willingness to look at the reality that is our lives – to be aware of how we are feeling, looking, and acting toward ourselves and others. This awareness then becomes a powerful catalyst for change.
The second step is our willingness to accept our life situation as it is without judgment or criticism. And I know this can be challenging. Most of us want to change what we don’t like about ourselves and our lives and we want to do it instantly. But if we do this we miss an essential step in the process of becoming. We miss our authentic feelings and allowing that truth to guide us to our next and more positive destination.
The third declaration of our willingness comes about when having had the courage to look into our life circumstances, we then summon the courage to take positive action and work with the changes in a way that uplifts and empowers us.
To be sure, our health and success depend on this great asset of willingness. It puts us back in control of our lives by focusing our energy on the one thing we can truly change – ourselves. Yes, willingness, it allows us to turn the challenges in our lives into opportunities and then to view these opportunities and the changes they require as doorways to new discovery and growth.
Being Entitled To Our Authentic Best
A second choice we can and must make is learning how to break our addiction to instant gratification and to look instead for real, sustainable fulfillment. As I’m sure you agree, the society we live in seduces us with a fascinating array of distractions and the illusion of instant gratification. Coffee to stimulate us, movies and television to distract us. Gadget, fads and diets, instant make-overs and fast-paced lifestyles. We have become addicted to the adrenaline and the illusions these things produce. Cell phones, emails, voice mails, and a hundred other gizmos that lull us with the promise of more results, less effort, more pleasure, less pain and more excitement. You get the idea. Modern life pulls us compellingly in its direction and we are perked for busyness. In the process we may be losing our way just as surely as we are losing our health and well-being.
No wonder so many of us hunger for instant answers and live in a state of confusion that lacks true meaning and purpose. We have become used to side stepping our fears and avoiding the present and as a result, we miss the opportunity to hear our own wisdom.
So what else can we do? We obviously can’t change the world, at least not until we change ourselves. So how can we begin honoring that natural intelligence that issues from our own bodies, minds and spirits? How can we regain the state of well-being and health that is both our privilege and our right?
I believe we can start by being true to ourselves, by being authentic. Authenticity is about how we use our time and where we choose to place our attention. Authenticity is paying attention to what is good for us and what is not and acting on the good. Authenticity is putting aside our expectations for instant relief and practicing the basic tools of time-honored respect for ourselves and others. Authenticity is relying on our personal values and questioning those that have been imposed on us. Authenticity is choosing kindness, collaboration, expansion, creativity, love, reverence for life, and compassion rather than the values that feed our egos. When this becomes our intention in life, harmony swiftly replaces uncertainty and confusion and we rediscover a true experience of our meaning and purpose.
Garden Of Thoughts
One of the essential tools in the backpack of our lives is our ability to create meaningful intention. In any garden, before we harvest, we must sow the best seeds we can. And once we have sown them, we must hold a bright and faithful vision of the intended, abundant harvest in our heads and our hearts. No matter how tiny and insignificant the seeds might look, if we have faith in them and in ourselves, they will grow. In fact, we can be assured, if we plant only the best intentions, patiently water and care for them, then the time will come when we witness a rich and abundant garden; we will bear witness to the miracle of our renewed and restored well being.
Is this hard to do? Sometimes, yes. But if we want a life of vibrant health then we cannot give up on our dreams. Nor can we expect our dreams to flourish if we use the spades of doubt and worry to dig them up again and again. Instead we have to be faithful to our intention, trusting in the pervasive energy of the Universe that creates all things, and continuing to plant good words, good thoughts, and good actions. The experience of an unlimited life requires that we become perennial visionaries and believers and awaken our lives to authentic wholeness.
Stepping Into Our Most Authentic Selves
When we have lived in chaos for a while or even a lifetime, visioning the best, and staying with it can seem like an illusion. And yet, if we want to get back in touch with what really matters and harness the power of our authenticity, we must keep faith with the highest vision for ourselves. Authenticity is really the ultimate way to simplify things and balance the many roles we play.
Here Are Some Ways to Improve Your Authenticity
- Follow your passion – be curious, ask yourself what makes you feel alive and find ways to do more of that.
- Rid your mind of doubts – replace them with thoughts of peace, gratitude and joy.
- Make a choice to be happy at the beginning of each day.
- Be kind-hearted to yourself no matter what.
- Make it your intention to see the beauty in everyone and everything around you.
- Commit random acts of kindness and generosity…anonymously.
- Do each thing you do as if it were the most important thing you will ever do.
- Laugh more, with your children, friends, family, co-workers and yourself.
- Be of service whenever you can – especially to someone who you don’t like or don’t understand.
- Find ways to express your joy each day – play, create and share your gifts.
If you practice these keys, if you remember that there is nothing more important than being authentically alive in this one, wild precious life you have been given; you will regain your footing in dealing with day-to-day limitations and challenges, and in that way help the world to do the same.
Join me in becoming the powerful, magnificent, authentic woman you were born to be. Let us make it our intention to discover a whole new sense of passion, clarity, energy and enthusiasm and share our unique talents with a world in such need of our gifts. Let us dare to open to the unlimited music of our souls and sing our authentic songs.
Sedena Cappannelli is co-author with her husband, George, of Authenticity – Simple Strategies for Greater Meaning & Purpose at Work & at Home – available from our online store, along with other titles and e-courses that will guide you to a more fulfilling, creative and happy life.
Sedena is recognized nationally as a speaker, author, and Whole Life-Synergy Consultant inspiring and empowering individuals and organizations to create greater levels of energy, balance, wellness, and purpose. Her books include: Authenticity, Say Yes To Change and the soon to be released, Do Not Go Quietly, Keys to Making The Best of The Rest of Your Life. Visit Sedena on the Wellness, Careers and Transitions pages and at www.agenation.com.
Category: Wellness/Health
