Inspiration | LifeBliss Lisa

Stuck in a Weight Loss Rut? Try Affection, Adornment, and Adoration.

April 9, 2012 By Lisa Leave a Comment

You’ve lost some weight. You’re still working at it. You have you been eating right and exercising and you’ve reached a plateau. You weigh yourself daily and scrutinize your booty in your old skinny jeans. Is your mind on weight 24/7? Do you spend every waking moment obsessing, talking, tweeting, thinking, and worrying about what diet food you’re going to eat or what workout you’re going to do?

What if you gave all that a break for a while, it must be utterly exhausting!

Oh, no! Break your stride, no way! You know I would never suggest that you backslide to your old ways and reverse all that great progress.

But what if you do pretty much the same things you do now except within a different frame of mind? What if the high level of anxiety you are maintaining around the idea of “losing weight” were the very thing causing you to keep the weight on? How would things be different if there was a shift in focus from what you can’t eat and how many calories you burn with every single movement you make to giving your body something else it needs–affection, adornment, and adoration?

But how? You know how much I don’t like corny affirmations and “self love bla bla bla…” So we aren’t doing that. Here are a few handy tips to get things moving again and you feeling like a Goddess: [Read more...]

African American Women and the Divine Feminine

March 21, 2012 By Lisa Leave a Comment

Healing individuals, families, and communities
Warning: I’m about to get all Afrikka Bambatta on you. I lovingly invite African American women everywhere to gather around this sacred fire. Boomshakalackaboom *waves fragrant incense around* Ok, silliness aside . . .I see that we have important, restorative work to do. There needs to be a women’s movement to re-establish balance in our families and in our communities at-large. The movement is powered by our ability to tap the divine feminine or sensual spirituality. Black women in particular are needed to lead our own charge.

Shared Struggles
Our collective history has blessed us with strength, fortitude, and resilience. But it has also cursed us with identity struggles, health issues, social and economic challenges, as well as attacks from all sides by the mainstream American culture. And how does this affect our families and our communities?

Historic racial and gender injustices. Lately, turn on the news, or log onto social media and what we see about what is going on today is enough to make us scream. We desperately need our divine feminine power to help us raise strong children in a society that continuously depicts or girls as inherently unattractive, hyper-sexual, and unworthy; and our boys as dangerous, criminal, unintelligent, and less than human. ENOUGH! [Read more...]

What is a Sensual Lifestyle Like?

February 26, 2012 By Lisa Leave a Comment

A sensual lifestyle is one where you experience some joy every single day, no matter what, and that joy is not based on what you have, what you do, or who you know. It comes from entirely within. A sensual lifestyle is based on the philosophy and world view of tantra. The characteristics of a sensual lifestyle may differ slightly from person to person, but there are some commonly shared aspects. It is authentic, it’s super-juicy, joyful, and attracts more joy. It’s primary and immediate — right here and right now. This concept is very abstract and esoteric, so bear with me while I try to explain what it looks, feels, sounds, tastes, and smells like.

It’s how you feel when you’ve found the style that is so you, so REALLY you that you are like a gorgeous Goddess just the way you are right now, completely unlike the incomplete feeling you get when you get to a certain coveted size or weight. It’s the freedom and confidence of inner beauty that allows the natural outer beauty show through, it’s like that Ugly Betty carefree beauty. It’s the kind of beauty that you don’t need to fiddle with or worry about. This beauty makes you attractive to potential partners who really want you for who you are, not a set of statistics or facade. You find out that OMG! you’re sexy! Not necessarily the corporate media’s representation of sexy. I’m talking about the REAL grown-up irresistibly juicy sexy that can make a grown man cry. You can throw something together at the last minute and feel like a million bucks (and not think about how you look, instead focusing on having some fun).

You can really taste. Not just sugar and salt, suddenly you’ll notice a huge array of subtle different flavors that previously [Read more...]

New Attitude! The Many Shades of Fabulous

January 25, 2012 By Lisa Leave a Comment

I’m gonna get real personal here. Welcome inside my head. So I don’t look fabulous like Sofia Vergara:

I’m not talking about the makeup and the team of pros who fix her up or Photoshop. I’m talking about her voluptuous curvy figure I’ve always wished for. I will NEVER look like that. It still stings a little that I can’t have everything exactly and precisely the way I want it, but working through that… [Read more...]

My New Year’s Quiet Revolution

December 25, 2011 By Lisa Leave a Comment

It’s the end of the year. I love that the new year is the most defined abrupt change of the year. You see, spring comes gradually. But after the dark and noisy December holidays come a brighter, quieter, more peaceful January. It’s natural to want to use this time to make a big dramatic change in our lives.

You already know I don’t do new year’s resolutions and I don’t do diets. You’ve heard me say it before, we trade in the darned noisy toy and jewelry advertisements all in our faces just for them to be traded out for ridiculous diet plan and exercise gadget commercials. But by spring how many people are actually more fit than they were on January 2? I don’t have hard statistics but you and I both know the number is probably less than 20. 20 people in America.

So! I’m saving you from my whole bah humbug new year’s resolutions are so stupid presentation.

And I’m not preparing any rah!-rah! come on everybody and do this thing with me project. Been there, failed terribly.

This revolution is about body image. It’s quiet because it’s intimate, personal, not done in a class, and introspective in nature. Why share it with you? Because perhaps you’ll find it useful in your own journey. If not, that’s fine too. [Read more...]

6 Simple Steps to Gorgeous–No makeup, plastic surgery, or Photoshop necessary.

October 19, 2011 By Lisa Leave a Comment

Photo: Matthew Rolston

This photo is featured in O Magazine, of normal size supermodel, Katie Halchishick and founder of Healthy is the New Skinny, posing naked with surgeon’s markings indicating how much of her would need to be chopped off to give her the same proportions as the toy she’s holding. Whaaa?

The same way that greed is the root of evil, negative body image is the root of ugliness. Have you ever witnessed the not-super-attractive woman walk into a room and light it up like a Xmas tree? How does she do it? She does it the same way that so many pretty women make themselves hideous by shlumping around being catty and self loathing. It’s all in your mind’s image of yourself. [Read more...]

I’m Giving FREE Bellydance Classes! But First…(Long Story)

June 7, 2011 By Lisa 2 Comments

Secret Confessions of a wellness consultant

I am a wellness consultant/coach. I help people how to lose weight and/or get healthy without strict diets or extreme or monotonous exercise. I have plenty of sound knowledge on the matter, and yet from time to time I forget to follow my own brilliant advice and when that happens, things go terribly awry, like this:

See, wha-haa-haapened-wuz…

Last winter (Around December 2009) I decided that I was a little too plump (photo on right is in January 2010) and that I should lose some weight. I wanted to look good for an event in the summer. I ran outside in the snow. I was a maniac, not because I ran in the snow, but I just was. I became obsessive. Now of course by mid-June I was looking nice and slim and that was it. I stopped everything. I drank wine and ate cheez balls on the sofa. I got addicted to cookies again. Over the time when I was exercising I had been experiencing increasing knee pain. I just thought it was the cold air giving me that rusty feeling and kept on going. We had a blazin’ hot summer last year. So the pain got worse and I didn’t run outside, didn’t join a gym, didn’t do yoga regularly, and all but stopped dancing. So BAM! the weight all came back by October. That’s insane because it was about 25 pounds! [Read more...]

Guest Post at Leaving Fatville

May 25, 2011 By Lisa Leave a Comment

Leaving Fatville is a fantastic blog about weight loss and life:

60 pounds gone, a whole lot more to go! Follow me on this crazy road trip to learn how to be healthy and happy! (Not hungry!)

Be sure to stick around and check out her other posts. They are very informative and entertaining.

Struggling with Weight? Try a Food Attitude Adjustment

Ready for Spring? Sensual Lifestyle and Wellness Coaching Groups Forming Now

March 9, 2011 By Lisa Leave a Comment

Get healthy and enjoy life at the same time!

What if you could take the misery and drama out of maintaining a healthy body and mind? You can, with our playful work on creating an individualized, holistic approach to living, you will get healthy, prevent illness (such as diabetes or high blood pressure), or lose fat.

Most (but not all) of my clients hire me to help them lose weight. They are very successful because in this program they don’t sit around all day obsessing about trying to lose weight. They move, they grub, and before they know it, BAM! their clothes are too big.

This is what we do:

Get real about your fitness and weight goals and align them with the honest amount of effort you wish to exert, without any judgment;
Develop a sensual eating style around nutrilicious foods that please your palate;
Explore exciting and realistic movement options that fit your interests and physical ability;
Elevate your self esteem by sharing the journey with supportive, positive, adoring Goddess peers;
Prevent relapse into past unhealthy habits;
Let loose and act a damn fool!

The program works like this: [Read more...]

Bellydance Femininity, Sensuality, and Eroticism

February 26, 2011 By Lisa Leave a Comment

Last night I got to dance more and harder than I have since last summer and it felt so good. I LOVE bellydance. It’s my passion. It my most potent mode of expression besides words and my face. I rarely write about my art because it’s way too tedious. Some other day I’ll tell you why.

I started out with classical Egyptian style as my foundation, similar to how ballet is often the foundation for jazz and modern dancers. I studied classical Egyptian for around 6 years before I started to experiment with Turkish and Persian bellydance stylings and later Bollywood. After around 10 years I spent a few years seriously studying modern (not belly) dance. I was having fun with technique and flow and different rhythms. After 13 or 14 years of bellydance, I wanted to go deeper than the mechanical, into the emotional and the spiritual. Somehow I landed in the study of kundalini tantra. [Read more...]

Build a Personal Spirit Altar for Inspiration

February 16, 2011 By Lisa Leave a Comment

Creating and using altars are not only used for religious ritual, strictly confined to Eastern religions, or polytheistic worship. In fact, an altar can be these things, but in reality, an altar is defined by its creator. A personal spirit altar can be a practical reminder the important elements of the spiritual journey on an everyday basis, a simple collection of items that makes the creator feel good, or a peaceful area to reflect and rejuvenate.

The depth of meaning of an altar is not established by some unknown mystical force. It can be as light or as serious as the creator wishes. The creation and use of a personal spirit altar is not necessarily sacrilegious or iconological worship. While some may use the altar for worship it is perfectly acceptable to place certain statues or representations of deities or other items to serve as a reminder of some important attributes that the creator wishes to emulate or to invoke particular energies into the creator’s life and space.

There are many reasons to create a personal spirit altar. Among them are: [Read more...]

My Chat with Somebody’s Thighs

January 31, 2011 By Lisa 2 Comments

I went to my husbands gym with him to work on getting my legs and knees strong enough to teach and perform bellydance again next month. I went to do the quad machine (don’t know the real name of it) which is right in front of the big mirror. When I stepped off the machine I got a glimpse of the rarely seen in the dead of winter backs of my thighs. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Whoa! Whose are THOSE!?

The conversation could have gone like this:

OMG I HATE YOU! Big ole’ fatty thick cottage cheesy lumps of mush! Where the hell did you two hamhocks come from? [Read more...]

Meet “The Pretty Lady”

January 27, 2011 By Lisa 1 Comment

Her real name is Terry Nicholetti. She’s a neighbor who we met several years ago at a local community cookout. Some people might be surprised by my nickname for her “The Pretty Lady” only because Terry is not a standard beauty. But that does not take away from her gorgeousness. Her eyes sparkle. Her smile brightens your day. I’m reluctant to even try to describe her, because it’s not relevant. When we first met in somebody’s back yard we talked and I couldn’t keep my eyes off her, and my husband agrees. So years later I discovered that she lives just around the corner. Of course I had forgotten her name so I came home and told Hubby that I saw the pretty lady, you know, the one we were talking to at that cookout on bla-bla-bla street… Or recently when my daughter was doing some freelance work over at Terry’s place, I told Hubby, she’s at the pretty lady’s house and he knew exactly who I was talking about.

Terry is much more than a pretty face. She’s also very smart and talented. She is a chief encourager and an entertainer. Right now she is performing in her one act play in Madcap Winter Carnival of New Works, [Read more...]

Me, My 41st Birthday, Raw, Uncut, Xtra Juicy, and in a Bikini! (Plus a Bonus Bellydance Video)

January 18, 2011 By Lisa 17 Comments

Oh boy! It’s me, all the way live! Go Lisa, it’s ya birf-day, Go Lisa… Last year I was 40 and fabulous, but then came the plantar fasciitis, runner’s knee, and (unrelated) surgery. Compared to before, right now I am out of shape. I thought I was just crazy because I was having such a struggle during recovery but I recently found out from my physical therapist that general anesthesia can stay in your system for several weeks after a procedure and wreak havoc cardiovascular strength!

Thankfully though, today, at 41 I’m healthy, happy, and oh sooooo juicy. (Photo is recent, me in December 2010) I love my body and am so grateful for it having the ability to dance like a maniac but things kinda got out of place for a minute. We already talked about this so I won’t dwell. I gotta tighten it up real nice for the spring. I was recently super-inspired by a fellow bellydancer to work on some new dance performance projects. Weeeee-hooooo! Thanks S. B.! Another fantastic reason to step up my wellness plan.

I started this weekend with the nutrilicious brunch I made for my friends: spinach and feta fritatta, smoked salmon, broccoli salad, whole grain banana blueberry walnut muffins, and fresh melon. Bellydance is the perfect fitness tool at the same time as being an incentive (to look great in the costumes) to get your ass [Read more...]

Happy Solstice and Welcome to the Golden Age of Truth and Beauty

December 29, 2010 By Lisa Leave a Comment

It’s December 21, 3:28am, the winter solstice 2010. I woke up to get a glimpse of the total lunar eclipse this morning. Earlier I had been looking for historical or ancient symbolism of this unique event, a lunar eclipse on the winter solstice. The winter solstice is the time when the sun reaches its lowest point in the northern sky. The day of the winter solstice is essentially the shortest of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The seasonal significance of the winter solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days.

While I gazed out of my bedroom window (did you think I was really going outside in the 20 degree temps?) at the progression of the eclipse, it came to me. The solstice is the darkest and longest night of the year. [Read more...]

The 10 Pounds in 30 Days Plan Went Bust: I Confess

October 25, 2010 By Lisa 1 Comment

See, wha-haa-haappened wuz…back on September 9th I went on a mission to drop 10 pounds in 30 days with no diet or fake food and no boring crap. The whole plan went straight to hell when I discovered a health problem and took action to correct it. I will spare you all the gory details but I went through a minor surgery (which didn’t seem so minor at all) at the end of September. Before that I had lost 3 pounds of fat. [Read more...]

10 Pounds, 30 days, and No Boring or Nasty Crap

September 9, 2010 By Lisa 4 Comments

I decided on September 5 that I want to lose 10 pounds of fat, not water or muscle in 30 days. I lost weight and felt great in June of this year but much of that belly pooch has crept back again (which also lets me know that a lot of the original weight loss was water because the body can not put on that much fat so quickly). I allowed the super hot weather influence me to stay inside in the air conditioning and drink my friend Reba’s home made rum punch and eat jank just a few times too many.

NO FAKE FOOD!

Now I want it all back, the fabulous feeling, the super high energy and the cute outfits. So here’s my fool-proof plan. I am not going on a diet. I never do because they suck. Right now I am focused on eating nutrient dense food (if anybody is interested I can provide more complete details on this, just let me know). I’m not having any nasty fake processed food. Only fresh, colorful, delicious, whole, gastronomic delights. I have recipes.

Autumn is the absolute best time for this because of the bountiful harvest at the farmer’s markets. There is such a variety of fresh, whole, delicious things to eat. Honeycrisp apples will be available soon! These are the most delicious apples I have ever had in my life. I can’t get enough of them and my daughter will scarf down 2-3 of them in a day. I get mad when she eats the last one and leaves me none.

Play is exercise. I’m not buying a gym membership or an expensive boring machine. I am going to play. I have a big heavy hula hoop, a jump rope, Francie’s yoga class, my bellydance class, Wii Fit, Dance Dance Revolution, some good (crazy fast) soca music, and a bike. That’s it: fun and play.

Anybody care to join me on the 10-pound 30-day adventure?

NO BORING CRAP

This is not an ad for the yoga or bellydance classes although you are invited to join. But you could also just dig in your own closet and find some toys to play with or even better, throw a huge fun soca dance party every weekend and invite me! We can share ideas and experiences to help make this a non-painful, non-boring experience.

I must warn you though, there is actually more to this plan. Balance is key. For example, I know I want to go out with friends this weekend for wine and tapas. I hate going out with (or being) one of those “I’m on a diet so I’m gonna have the salad and water at this great restaurant”-type people so I must offset this moderate indulgence with something–more activities, or decreased caloric intake. There is a science to this. Not rocket science, but a little bit of brain work is required.

Ok? Let’s go!

What is Tantra? An Informal Explanation

July 30, 2010 By Lisa 2 Comments

I have been getting this question a lot more lately, “what’s tantra”? Nobody wants to hear my well thought out and researched dissertation on the topic. They want to know what it is, what it means to me, how it could help them, in 90 seconds or less. So here we go:

Tantra is a way of life, a world view, and a spiritual practice that involves full and non-judgmental acceptance of self and the full integration of mind (intellect), body (senses), and spirit (heart, connectedness to all of creation) into one unified being. So you see your whole self not as good or bad, but just as is. Tantra goes against the Puritanical concept that the physical body is dirty or sinful, and instead views sensuality (the senses – hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, and tasting) and sexuality as inseparable from the spiritual self. In short, tantra is like sensual yoga. Tantra does not however, degenerate into the practice of hedonism, or overindulgence and irrational devotion to extreme pleasure. The idea is that passion and desire are pathways to experience a higher state of spiritual consciousness, or pure contentment. The practice of tantra, much like yoga, taps into subtle energies and moves them through meditation (both moving and still), visualization, and ritual to affect health, beauty, state of mind, and overall wellness.

Tantra does not require adherence to any particular religious beliefs, dogma, or rituals and rejects all forms of prejudice. The only required ideal is to live as a whole and authentic human being, without the exclusion of natural passion, creativity, enjoyment, and sensual perception in order to become and remain deeply connected with life. Tantra is not all fun and games. It is challenging in that you must remain “present” most of the time. To be present means to be unattached to the past or preoccupied with the future. The focus is on the here and now.

I originally sought tantra as a way to experience a new dimension to my bellydance. It turned out to be an effective means of anger management, greatly developed my sense of intuition, enhanced my sex life, and helped me to be a more effective parent. In broader terms tantra is very useful in stress relief, living a lifestyle that promotes wellness, emotional stability, more meaningful relationships, and general success in challenging endeavors.

Reconvergence of Divergent Paths

May 29, 2010 By Lisa Leave a Comment

One of my favorite poems depicts the oft accurate story of my life journey:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And being one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~Road not Taken by Robert Frost

So I took the path of entrepreneur, sensual lifestyle and wellness coach. After all the (law) schooling, (office) training, (fun) sacrifice, and attention not paid to the naysayers. I loved helping people to manifest their deepest desires, having control of my time, and living a sensually spiritual lifestyle and being authentically delicious 100% of my time. La-la-la-laaaaa…

Enter a contracting economy. With a dwindling client base and mounting financial stress I decided to get a daytime office contract gig. Nothing ambitious, just something easy that yields a predictable base pay and requires no overtime. But of course, nothing could be so easy for me. Just shifting the remaining clients from daytime to evening, going on the short commute (to the other side of my neighborhood), doing some boring paperwork, and then coming back to my delicious life. Not quite. I ended up in a slightly different (higher) position than I had applied for. Word got out quickly that I’m also a lawyer and the responsibilities quickly multiplied and I found myself being sucked into the miserable abyss of indentured corporate (gum-ment) servitude.

A series of unbelievable events occurred and a year and a half later I found myself popped right into a real legal position under the wings of two top-notch mentors from my alma mater, earning a decent keep. Wha? Nooooooo! This was not what I intended to happen! I thought I was leaving all this behind when I founded LifeBliss Solutions. I wondered what would happen to my delicious life now? But this opportunity is one I could not refuse. So in the true spirit of sensual spirituality I decided to take it on, and just go with it. It was undeniable that I could shore up resources for the future of LifeBliss for years to come. I didn’t only decide to go with this, I decided to bring my delicious life along with me.

Living a delicious life does not mean always being free to do whatever you want, whenever you want. I’d almost forgotten that it means always making the best of what you have in the present moment. After all, it has been my life work to help others live deliciously, whatever their current circumstance may be. Now I had the opportunity to demonstrate in real-time.

I happily took on the new challenge and obtained the necessary assistance with LifeBliss’s functions, which I now have ample resources to procure. There are many bright sides to this spot I am in right now and since I am more comfortable that LifeBliss Solutions will continue to thrive and support the mission to change the world, one person at a time, I feel fully delicious again. It’s as though I have one foot on two different paths and I like it. With me, things never go as the textbook predicts. So I’ll just go with it.