Empower Wellness Blog - Erin Tracy - Health Coaching

The Nitty Gritty Of New Year’s Resolutions

January 2, 2017 By Erin Tracy, Medical Qi Gong and Health Coaching

Release what you are finished with…bring in forgiveness, calm, whole-hearted love.

New Year’s Day 2017

This short video linked below of this super cute 4 year old has gone viral today. She and her social media parent partner(s) in this project have nailed it: The nitty gritty of how we make lasting change in our lives.

Resolutions aren’t made and kept in one day – usually.

fullsizerender — Resolution Tree, First Night Raleigh 2017

Make resolutions, but be kind to yourself when you don’t stick to them entirely.

Big changes don’t happen in an instant. Embrace the little moments where you move towards self-evolving and how you want your life to look, because that is where the magic happens. I love the saying “small hinges, swing big doors” – those small steps add up to life-altering progress.

True healing and living gracefully with less suffering happens when, we choose, yes, CHOOSE, to learn to handle our stress.

How do we do this?

Take ourselves a little less seriously – maybe there is an opportunity to bring in humility here.
Choose to forgive instead of holding to bitterness or remaining the victim. Include yourself in the list of those to forgive – if applicable.
Slow down – if it isn’t a “HECK, YA!” – it’s a “NO”. Do less and do it with more presence and open-heartedness.
Be grateful – find joy in the little things and be proactive to ensure you enjoy the big things.
Stay calm. Notice where you know you lose your cool. Chances are you know yourself well enough to see it coming. If you don’t believe it is a choice to stay calm, let’s talk about how you can access this part of you. Always honor your emotions – Have your emotions – Let’s talk about not inviting your emotions to have you.
Go with Faith and Trust instead of doubt and suspicion.
Choose Love instead of hate. Choose Love instead of judgement. Choose Love over insisting your are RIGHT. Choose Love instead of digging in. Let it GO.

Chances are you feel some resistance to this time-tested guidance above. Or some doubt that it can really be that impactful to embody this advice. You are not alone.

Many of us, including me, have struggled embracing this guidance and applying it to various aspects of our life. When we can remove our physical, emotional, and spiritual obstacles, our lives are impacted. Our relationships will transform. Our physical health will improve. Are you ready to be empowered to gently open the parts of you that may have been resistant? What would it be like for you if that resistance to creating lasting change in your life started to loosen its hold or dissolved entirely? Hmmmmm.

I offer no-charge consultations for us to chat about what your goals are and to uncover what is stopping you from realizing those goals. A Package of sessions is a great value (especially now through Jan 10) and acknowledges your commitment to self-care, healing, and lasting pattern change.

Here’s the little girl in the viral video to back me up.

Peace!

Downtown Raleigh New Year’s Eve Dec 31, 2016

Wake Up The Radiant You

December 2, 2016 By Erin Tracy, Medical Qi Gong and Health Coaching

One of the most joyful parts of my chosen career is noticing the glow, the openness, the relaxed states that are visible after a healing/coaching session or a healing group meditation. Sometimes, my clients look like different people as they head out the door on their way back to life! It is even more lovely to hear how they experienced subtle pattern shifts that empower them to stay connected to that more open place they found in the session. The Radiance is within you – sometimes we just need support to let it shine again.
Do the holidays bring up stress and overwhelm for you? Leaving you feeling low-energy or drained? Or you are aware that year-long stress is taking a toll on your health and you are not enjoying life as know you can? I offer these ideas to empower you to access your Radiance and Energy:
– check out my blog from last month : easy tips to stay well and grounded through the holidays.
– download the complimentary book I wrote about ancient and time tested wisdom for healing.
– schedule a free consultation to discover if we are a good fit to work one-on-one together.
– purchase a package or subscription before early January for a Substantial Savings on my services before packages prices change.
– schedule a single one-on-one session for extra well-being support this season (lots of space available in the second part of December).
– attend a guided healing meditation this month

Peace be with you,
Erin Tracy

Wilmington Next Week
Individual Sessions in Wilmington still available Dec 6-7. Limited availability remaining. Schedule yourself or share with a Wilmington friend who might need the support this season of a Qi Gong Healing/Coaching session.

Guided Healing Meditation ($10 Donation)
(an excellent and inexpensive way to support yourself thought the holidays)
Sunday, December 4
Sunday, December 18
Sunday, January 8 **time may change to an earlier start time in Janurary
Sunday, January 29
4:10 pm-5:10 pm, Raleigh Yoga Center, 609 Oberlin Rd (Burnie Batchelor Building)
Erin will lead a guided meditation intended to help participants to deeply relax. As part of the meditation a group healing will be offered where privately shared individual concerns will be addressed. If you are interested in Pangu Shengong, Qi Gong healing, or meditation, this is a good way to experience this modality. Qi Gong Healing is based on the same principles as acupuncture methods. Please arrive 5 or more minutes early to get settled. Raleigh Yoga Center: It’s nice if you sign up – you get a reminder and I have an idea of how many are coming – but it isn’t necessary. $10 Donation suggested.

Intro to Tai Chi Series
January 12-March 9, 6-7pm,
St. Giles Presbyterian Church Adult Center (West Raleigh), 5101 Oak Park Rd
Erin Tracy and Mark Paris will be leading an Intro to Tai Chi Class that includes instruction in Returning Tai Chi form (Pangu Tai Chi) starting again January 12 through March 9 for 8 Thursdays (we will skip February 16). The cost is $80 due by a few days before class starts. Save $10 if you bring a friend new to this Tai Chi – your friend saves $10 too. Please contact me for the code to sign up with discount. Much more info is here about why Tai Chi is good for you.

Sailing Through the Holidays

November 10, 2016 By Erin Tracy, Medical Qi Gong and Health Coaching

For years, even before I had kids, I would careen head first into the holidays: Taking on way too much, eating way too much stuff that I knew wasn’t good for me, drinking too much socially, freaking out about my house that was not perfect, overdoing the decorating (usually single-handedly), planning to do too much without scheduling downtime. And most Januarys (and some early Decembers), I would end up VERY sick. Sometimes even in excruciating pain that led to emergency room visits or expensive tests.

It is clear now, that the predictable pattern came from not taking care of myself at the holidays.

I not only was not taking care of myself, but I did not enjoy the festivities of the holidays because I was so over-extended and exhausted. My family definitely did not enjoy the stressed out, over-extended version of me. One of the best gifts I can my family and friends is to be a healthy, joyful, and balanced version of me.

Here are a few tips so that you can move towards a more healthy, joyful, and balanced version of YOU for the holidays.

PLAN HEALTHY EATING IN ADVANCE

Make a plan so you don’t overdo the sugar, “bad” fats, and alcohol this season. I get that one of the joys of the season is all the delicious options – you don’t have to skip the deliciousness all together (I would never advise that).

Plan healthy eating before holiday parties — Eat healthy foods before you go out…

Before attending an event or having people over, plan time in your “getting ready” to eat healthy foods before you go out to take care of yourself. Why? You won’t arrive starving to your event. You will help regulate your blood sugar by putting these foods in your body beforehand. I’m sure you are familiar with the blood sugar crash/craving cycle. Not pretty.

Fill up on healthy snacks before you will be around all the wonderful goodies of the season. Before going to a shin-dig, eat a big leafy salad or a serving or two of veggies. There usually isn’t a plethora of these types of foods on the wonderful buffets. Get your healthy fix beforehand.

Fix yourself a high-protein smoothie with a scoop of anti-oxidant green powder.

No matter how busy things get, don’t skip breakfast and lunch, you’ll be starving and you blood sugar will drop and you will will crave the sugary high fat sweets that are undoubtedly all around the house and office this time of year.

Be picky about your sugary and full of saturated fat indulgences: Handfuls of Hershey’s Kisses or peanut M&Ms – probably in the “not worth it” category. But a small slice of homemade pumpkin or pecan pie? In the “worth it” category. Just say no to eating and buying treats for your family and for gifts that are full of artificial flavors and colors. Focus on the higher quality treats for your family and get togethers and say no to cheaper, but highly processed stuff full of artificial flavors, colors, and sweeteners.

Drink lots of water and tea before you go out or entertain. Keep drinking water through out the evening (although I am a fan of having water between meals and not a lot with food). Stop drinking coffee at lunch. Really. If you think you need a little caffeine try green tea.

Have a mutually supportive moderation-in-drinking buddy (assuming you are not driving).

CLEAR CLUTTER FROM YOUR CALENDAR

Only attend events that you know will bring you (and those tagging along with you) JOY! Say NO to events that you feel obligated to attend or that you know will drain you. I promise at no time of year is this more important than now. Leave plenty of free nights and then don’t fill them up with shopping, or other seasonal tasks. And HEY! Do not cut regular exercise or movement from your “to do list”. If anything, make more of an effort to make sure it happens during the season.

What to do if you must attend something that you are not feeling JOY and excitement about? Or you know that the interactions might stress and drain you?

Download this E-booklet from my home page on my website to get encouragement and support about how to approach any tough situation with a more grounded and open mindset. Short title: Transform Pain and Stress into Empowerment and Radiant Health.
Remember: The situation will be temporary (i.e. you won’t be having your relatives stay with you indefinitely, you will leave your in-laws in just a few short days, etc.). Breathe and relax and know that you will be back home or have an empty house soon enough.
With people that you have unresolved issues or much tension who you can’t easily chose to avoid, I invite you to see what happens when you watch your interactions with them from outside yourself: Where is your ego playing into the tension? Their ego? Is there fear or a threat that you are aware of where this person is concerned? Notice the dynamics of the relationship(s) from the outside. This takes practice – I can help.
Where can you connect to a full sense of unconditional love for them and for the push and pull of the relationship? Even just a tiny bit? This takes practice – I can help. 🙂 If in Raleigh, come to the twice a month guided healing meditation to see where they may be some space for you to open your heart in ways that are less painful.

schedule unstructured time in your calendar — Schedule unstructured time in your calendar

TAKE AT LEAST 15 MINUTES DAILY OF RELAXED, CENTERING TIME THAT FEEDS YOU

If your first thought is, I don’t have 15 minutes in my day, then this tip is especially for you. Take a look at where the “time sucks” are in your life. For most of us, those things involve electronic screens in some way… Go to bed earlier and make a commitment to getting up 15 minutes earlier (this is easy this time of year with the recent ending of Daily Savings Time). Set the alarm, actually get up out of the bed – stretch, light exercise, yoga, qi gong, meditate.

Need a mindfulness practice or to understand how powerful it is: I am giving a FREE class on Intro Qi Gong and Qi Gong Healing next Tues, November 15 at 6:00PM at my office building. This is followed by instruction in the Pangu Moving Form Qi Gong at 7:00PM til 8:30PM. This is a GREAT practice to start this time of year to ground you, support you, and help you stay well.

CLEAR CLUTTER FROM YOUR SPACE

By the weekend before Thanksgiving, be ruthless with decluttering. Clean up and straighten. Get things to a “good enough” place. Then keep it that way. You can do this if you make time for it (see helpful tip above about decluttering your calendar). Let go of perfectionism here.

Do you know Flylady? She saved my sanity when I was a young stay-at-home mom with an infant and toddler. I still use her techniques to stay sane at home. Once you get the house to the “good enough” place, keep that way by teaching the people who live with you and yourself to pick up afterwards. Spend 15 minutes a day picking up after yourself (so do the other people who live there). Hey! Just start where you are…

To speed straighten/declutter: Set the timer for 5-10 minutes and do everything you can in a room in that time. When time is up, deliver the items that you found in that room that don’t belong to their rightful spot, and set the timer again and do the next room. Or spend a chunk of time (with the timer) in a room a day. Vacuum “the middles”. Dust with a duster.

Letting go of perfectionism will make you happier – trust me. Later on, when you have the time and inclination, you can do nitty-gritty work. Flylady.net has a BUNCH of other great stuff for coming out from under the overwhelm that your home can make you feel.

GIFT GIVING WITH PRESENCE

If you participate in a tradition this time of year that involves gift giving, now is the time to evaluate if your traditional way of approaching this is serving you. I know not everyone struggles with this, but I talk to plenty of people who do, so I mention it here. Some questions to ask to shed light on this might be:

Do I go into great debt every year because of how much I spend at the holidays on gifts?
Does the time I spend picking out, purchasing, wrapping, giving gifts bring me JOY?
Do I notice that loved ones don’t always appreciate what they have received? Consequently, am I bothered by that?
Do I feel overwhelmed by receiving gifts?

So take a mindful look at your patterns and see where there can be a subtle and slight shift to more mindful and joyful gift-giving and receiving. Write out everyone who you would like to give something to, brainstorm what you might give, write that down too. Set a budget and stick to it. Particularly for the kids.

For those on your list who you are challenged to decide what to get them, make a donation in their name to a organization that would benefit. World Vision and Heifer Project are great examples of such organizations but there are undoubted local organizations that would benefit too. Here’s a good local one that is close to my heart.

This blog covers well this idea of keeping it real and focused and also alternative gift giving. Nuff said.

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These are basic and totally do-able mindset and actionable tips that I hope will help you sail through the holidays with more joy, better health, and more balance. If you know that you get stuck implementing this or any other new pattern you know that would serve you, please contact me so that we can discuss how we might work together to support you to have the experience you want this season or in life in general.

[You may find it helpful to download this e-booklet I wrote with mindset and living tips and experiential exercises. You will be subscribed to a series of about 7 emails and my newsletter. It is totally easy to unsubscribe whenever you want – I promise I won’t be offended. See link on this page (below) to the ebook or else find it here on the home page: The Instant Healing Solution]

May you connect to the peace within you this season and always,

Erin <3

Postpartum Depression and Overwhelm to Finding My Joy Again

November 3, 2016 By Erin Tracy, Medical Qi Gong and Health Coaching

If this blog helps one mom with young kids it will be worth the pain it has brought up to write it.

Fourteen years ago, I was thirty year old mother with two children – an infant and a toddler. My husband and I decided that it would be best if I left my career as an public school administrator in Wake County after my first child was born in 2000. Our second child came, less than two years later. We felt incredibly blessed to have these two children. Although I quietly lamented putting my career on hold at the time, I knew I was lucky to stay at home with my very young children.

My son, the older child, had a difficult and traumatic birth and by the time he was 2 years old, signs of neurological issues were starting to emerge. Adding to the stress about my son’s development, my newborn never slept for more than a couple of hours at a time, spit up every bit of breast milk, and was generally inconsolable for portions of the day.

The lack of sleep made it increasingly hard for me to function, let alone find moments of joy in my life.

I felt overwhelmed by even the little things. The house was a wreck, it was a challenge to get to the store, my marriage was under strain (as it had been for a few years), coming up with dinner while being in charge of two tiny children would undo me everyday. I was not enjoying much about being a mom.

I carried on. I tried to run errands with toddler and infant in tow. In fact, I made a Target run each week to get necessary supplies and, in my haste to get in and out before one of the three of us had a meltdown, I often grabbed clothes, baby gear and clothing, and household items quickly, not caring if they were the right choices. Just get in and out. And as long as I didn’t come back to the store at a busy time, Target made it easy to return things. It was easier to bring back stuff that didn’t fit/work/belong than it was to ponder which items to choose in the store with my two little ones with me . Trying on clothes before buying them was a thing of the past.

One night, after changing my infant daughter, my clothes, her bassinette sheets, for the THIRD time since I went to bed. I had a revelation:

I should just take this baby back to Target and trade her in for a baby daughter that worked; I should just get one that wasn’t broken.

In my mind, in that sleep deprived moment, this was a perfect solution to all my problems.

My next thought, a good while later, was horrifying disgust at myself for thinking such a thing and for letting myself consider it for even a few moments..

To this day, the memory of where I was in that moment, was so painful, it’s been difficult to write about. But I know that if my story helps one mom, my discomfort now is worth it.

I had a post-partum check up the next week and began to cry as I told my doctor that I thought I had post-partum depression. With barely a blink of the eye, she wrote me a prescription for Zoloft.

They say that it doesn’t really work this fast, but I swear, the next day, it was as though someone had removed gobs of cotton from inside my skull. I could think clearly, felt in control, and even began to enjoy being a mom a little bit.

I stayed on Zoloft for about a year. Even though it was a low dose, I had a very hard time weaning off of it. I eventually did, very SLOWLY and used some supplements that helped temper my nervous system..

I wish I could say that everything was great after that.

Over the next few years however, I continued to struggle with overwhelm, frustration, lack of patience, and generally not finding much peace in day-to-day life. I was increasingly jaded by issues in my marriage and the stress of being in a family owned business.

I found an outlet in training and competing in triathlons. However, I started to develop minor health issues which flared occasionally into big health issues (i.e. emergency room trips and wild goose chases to find the elusive cause of some disturbing symptom). The health crisis would simmer down for whatever reason and I would come right back to my life of overwhelm.

I would regularly think, if only [Insert something out of my control] were different/better/gone, then I could be happy. THEN I could start enjoying my life.

You can probably relate to this pattern too. And you probably know that looking outside of ourselves for the answers or change in circumstance is usually futile.

Jumping ahead a few years, my children were in second and third grade when my mom was diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumor. This was her fourth diagnosed cancer – colon, breast, and skin cancer came before.

Wake up call.

My mother’s first cancer diagnosis had been over twenty years before, when she was just a bit older than I was at the time. I took for granted that she had been “cured” with no chemo or radiation (just surgery or surgical procedures for the previous diagnoses). This diagnosis of glioblastoma was terminal – there were not many people who had lived longer than a year with this type of cancer.

Over the next 3.25 years my mom defied the odds. You can read a little about what went down here.

Here’s the what I learned from that journey:

It was time to start living.
Western medicine does not come close to knowing all the answers.
I wanted to find the joy in every day, even the smallest moments
Stress causes most of the disease in this country – not carcinogens, although they contribute A LOT.
I love my kids and I wanted choose to have more enjoyable time with them
Taking other people’s behavior personally cost me more than I realized.

So began a journey to create a new legacy.

That was 2009. Over the last few years, I have explored deep, soulful work that really wasn’t that hard to access (or even that uncomfortable) once I realized the power of surrender, complete acceptance of the now, and how strong unconditional love is. Eckhart Tolle was my first teacher on this journey – I am so thankful my sister suggested I read his book, which she’d given to my father and sat unread on his shelf.

There have been many teachers along this path, but the simple yet deeply profound message I have learned from practicing Qi Gong and from studying Pangu Shengong with Master Ou Wen Wei has been the most healing. Since then, I have become a certified holistic health coach and I combine these backgrounds to work with clients today.

A couple of months ago, I was talking to a client who revealed that she didn’t think that joy was meant for her and that when she had moments of joy, she didn’t enjoy it fully because she knew the moment would end. It was then that I realized: I’ve been there. I used to feel that same way. I knew that I could help her access joy and empower her to structure a life that allowed her to experience joy every day.

I don’t spend much energy on regret; I have found that it isn’t so useful.

So, although there are wistful moments about not fully being present for those years that my kids were so young, what I have learned can guide other moms to manage their stress, heal physically, become the women they choose their children to know. Having more energy, a stronger immune system, and finding that chronic conditions can melt away, has made me a better, happier, more balanced mom. This is the role model I want to be for my kids.

I invite you to schedule a visit or a call with me for no charge to discover how we can work together. Take a look too at the guide I wrote (available below at the bottom of this page): The Instant Healing Solution. Using ancient, powerful, and pertinent techniques and real world coaching, I can teach, support, and empower you to live the life that you were meant to experience. It’s important for you to be there fully for your kids – this begins with taking care of yourself.

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