Audrey Veal Life Coach

18/08/2021

Summer's winding down, in BC forest fires are still raging, and COVID is rearing it's ugly head with the threat of a 4th wave just as kids go back to school. Most of us are crying out inside, will this ever end?

Hopefully this post may bring a smile to your face in spite of all the things going on around us.

I grew up on a small hobby farm in Langley and when my dad retired at 55, he went into raspberry farming. Just 3.5 acres, but my parents managed to go on a yearly vacation on the money the berries brought in. I think this may be the reason that raspberries are my favorite fruit. They were one of the first things I planted when we moved to Williams Lake in 2017.

My small raspberry patch has almost finished producing, so daily I hunt for the last sweet morsels on the bushes. Last week I noticed one berry had fallen on the sidewalk. It was deep red, ripe and juicy. I picked it up, popped it in my mouth and savored the dark, sweet taste. As I watered my garden I noticed something rough on my tongue. Must be a raspberry seed poking my tongue. I rubbed my tongue on the roof of my mouth. The seed's still there. I tried to scrape it off with my teeth. The seed is still wedged there. I tried to pick it off with my fingernails. The seed still wouldn't budge. About 20 minutes later I went into the house and stood in front of the bathroom mirror and stuck my tongue out. It didn't look like a seed. It was black and raspberry seeds are white. I tried to scrape it off with my fingernail. Still attached. I pinched it between my fingernails and pulled. This thing wasn't budging. Suddenly it lets go and I discovered it was an ant. A tiny little ant. So small it looked like 2 grains of pepper in my hand. I smiled, amazed at the strength of this little ant as I watched it disappear down the drain.

I encourage you to look for some small things to smile at today. Please share your joy with us. What's something that made you smile?

26/04/2021

In our 1st two nutrition posts we talked about being well hydrated, and the role ‘Supersize Me” has in the obesity epidemic. Now we’re going to look at what should we put on our plates.

A great place to start is with veggies. My goal is to have my diet 70% veggies every day. When I shared this goal with my husband he said there’s no way we eat that many veggies, but t’s not as hard as it sounds. For breakfast I have a green smoothie, lunch may be a veggie stir fry and a salad with a handful of raw nuts. Dinner almost always includes a salad, veggies and a main dish casserole with some protein and lots of veggies. What are some ways you increase your veggie intake?

My foundational veggies are:
1. Greens such as kale, lettuces, swiss chard, collard greens, arugula, spinach, Romaine Lettuce, baby greens.
These are bursting with health building benefits: Kale’s high in fiber, spinach aids in weight loss, Romaine lettuce high in vitamins & phytochemicals, and a serving Swiss Chard has 300% of our daily vitamin K needs.

2. Cruciferous veggies include cabbage, Bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, radishes and many more.
Benefits of feasting on these veggies: Cabbage fights inflammation and is rich in calcium. It’s high antioxidant content reduces oxidative stress which helps reduce chronic disease risk. Broccoli is rich in vitamins A, C and K and is nutrient dense. Brussels sprouts are cancer fighting.

3. Allium family of vegetables include onions, garlic, chives and garlic.
Some benefits of the Allium family are high in vitamin C, regulates immune health, increases collagen production, tissue repair, have powerful antioxidant and increase iron absorption. They’re also rich in B vitamins playing key roles in metabolism, red blood cell production and nerve function. They contain cancer fighting compounds, boost bone density, are antibacterial and boost digestive health.

1. Lean Healthy and Wise, 30 Best Green Vegetables List for Amazing health and Fast Weight Loss, 30 Best Green Vegetables List for Amazing Health and Fast Weight Loss (leanhealthyandwise.com), Accessed Apr. 25, 2021

2. IBID

3. Healthline, 9 Impressive Health Benefits of Onions, Jillian Kubala, MS, RD. Dec. 18, 2018, 9 Impressive Health Benefits of Onions (healthline.com), Accessed Apr. 25, 2021

21/04/2021

I apologize for my tardiness in posting. I am learning to practice what I recommend to clients: recognize you’re valuable enough to find ways to care for and bless yourself. My personal motto has always been, “short of death I can always put out more”. It has helped me to get lots more done but has NOT helped me to have a life flowing with purpose.

Now my confession: I am finding I don’t have enough hours in the day to post daily and keep up with my courses to upgrade my coaching skills. My plan is to make a post on the weekends.

Lastly, a gift to brighten you day. I’ve posted some pictures. Some of our dog, Tulip: before and after her hair cut. Since her cut, she’s been wearing 2 sweaters to bed. The next ones are of the beautiful Cariboo sky. And the last are me having fun with some kids floating homemade boats in their fields as the melted snow drains.

Hope your day is blessed.
Audrey

14/03/2021

Spring Cleaning Your Plate

One thing I've discovered coaching in the area of nutrition, most people tell me they eat a healthy diet and really don't want to discuss dietary changes. I sense a lot of us are afraid of feeling shame or failure when we talk nutrition. My first goal in nutrition is to give information so you can make an informed decision.

A few years ago, I was watching a documentary with my husband, Ted about President Nixon. What made this documentary most interesting is that the film used was shot by one of Nixon's aides, so it was like watching home movie clips. What stood out the most was the clip of the wedding reception of Nixon's daughter. I noticed that no one at the reception was obese and only a couple were overweight. These people weren't models or movie stars but were regular people at a friend’s wedding. One thing that’s changed since then is the ‘Super Size Me Revolution.” I personally don’t count calories but I do know that excessive caloric intake can be a factor in weight gain. When I was a kid (I’m 62 yrs.), an adult eating at McDonalds would have a small fries, a small burger and a small pop which would be around 600 calories and a child would have a small burger and small pop. Today an adult would have a larger burger like a Big Mac, a large fries and a large drink which averages 1,360 calories. The recommended average caloric intake for middle age men is 2,200 – 3,000 (31-51) and for middle age women (31-51) 1,800 – 2,000.

Even our dinner plates have gotten much larger. I have a friend who bought new dinner ware and the large plates were too big to fit in the dishwasher. In the past the average dinner plate would have been around 10 inches but today the average is 12 – 14 inches. Did you realize that a 14 inch plate has twice the surface area of a 10 inch? And we tend to fill our plate regardless of the size. What about beverages? The same has happened here. An 8 oz. cup (230 ml) is almost unheard of, now a Venti sized drink from a famous coffee chain is 20 oz. (570 ml). I didn't want to look up what a venti mocha runs for calories.

What do you think? For me, after looking at the stats, I think I may go out and buy some smaller dinner plates. I got a new set recently and the dinner plates are only 11” … but they do look rather large.

Be Blessed - Audrey

11/03/2021

Spring Cleaning That Lasts a Lifetime

We're leaving brain hacks behind and we're going to learn about feeding our bodies well.

The 1st diet hack is keeping hydrated. Water is essential for life. “A person may go from feeling thirsty and slightly sluggish on the first day with no water to having organ failure by the third.”1 Some things water does for us are: “regulates body temperature, aids digestion, help to balance body pH, lubricates joints, helps the brain make and use hormones, transports toxins from cells and delivering oxygen through the body.”2 So how do we know if we’re drinking enough water? One way is the color of your urine. It should be almost clear. Another is drinking the standard 8, 8 ounce glasses per day. I question this one because I’m 5’ tall and 100 pounds so why would I need the same amount of water as a 6’ tall 250 pound person? The one I like best is to take your weight in pounds and divide that number in half and that gives the ounces of water you should drink daily. If your more familiar with the metric system find a conversion table and convert your weight from kg to pounds, then divide that number in half to give ounces of water, then covert the number of ounces to liters.

1. Johnson, Jon. “How Long Can You Live Without Water?”
Medical News Today, May 14, 2019,
www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325174, (accessed Mar.
10, 2021).

2. IBID

The human body requires water to function properly. The ideal amount a person needs depends on several factors including age, s*x, and physical activity levels. Learn more here.

08/03/2021

The other day I was watching the house finches on the power line outside the window. The male with his red head was gloriously singing and he attracted the hearts of 2 females who joined him, one on either side. He looks at them both, then hops beside one of them. She flutters to the other end of the line. He then perches beside the other, and she doesn’t leave, but welcomes him. I watch as he keeps looking at the one who rejected his advance and within moments he pursues her again. He lands beside her and she flies away. He turns to look for the one he rejected, and she too has left. He is alone on the wire. This reminded me of times when I chase after things that I believe will make me happy only to discover that they can’t. When I seek happiness outside of myself, it always alludes me.

My lightbulb moment. What if, instead of chasing ‘external things to make me happy’, I choose to expand on what I am passionate about … on the things that bring me delight? My life would be filled by ever expanding passion and delight.

What external happiness are you chasing after? What would it be like to lay these aside and instead continually broaden your passions and delight? Take a moment and list the things you’re chasing to bring happiness? Next list your passions and delights and jot down some simple ways you could expand them. Then start doing the things you’ve listed and begin experience a world filled with ever increasing passion and delight.

Be Blessed Audrey

07/03/2021

Spring Cleaning That Lasts a Lifetime

Moving from “Stinking Thinking to Beautiful Belief”

Another way to rewire our brains to move ahead is by becoming a person who has a positive attitude, who views problems from a hopeful and optimistic viewpoint. People who are like this usually have positive self-talk.1 As we’ve learned in earlier posts, consistent, positive self talk is a great way to rewire our brains for positive life change. Unfortunately, many of us have brains that are wired to focus on the negative. I once had a client, that when I asked for them to share some positive things from their week, they really had to look hard to find even one positive thing.

One way we can begin to form a more positive outlook in life is to begin to focus on good things. One ancient writing says, “Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”2 I would suggest you focus on one thing from the verse, such as “truth” and see how many ways you can find it in that day. Pause at the end of your day and review the many ways you experienced truth that day and be thankful that truth was a part your life that day. The more we practice focusing on the positive the more we build strong positive neuro patterns in our brain, that positively affects our moods, our outlook on life and even out health. Focusing on the positive results in a more positive life.

Wishing you a great adventure as you exchange your Stinking Thinking for Beautiful Belief

1. Butler, Alia. “The Importance of Positive Attitude to Health, “Healthfully”, June 13,2017, https://healthfully.com/126155-importance-attitude-health.html
2. “Phillippians 4:8”. The Message Bible

Find your way to better health.

06/03/2021

Can You Imagine How Powerful Your Imagination Is?

Another way of building positive neuro patterns is by engaging our imagination. Our imaginations are more powerful that we can imagine. Einstein was quoted as saying, “Imagination is more powerful than knowledge.” This is because knowledge is finite while there are no limitations to our imagination. A good example of this is former Olympic springboard diving champion, Sylvie Berner who would user her imagination to ‘practice’ her dives before she went to sleep. This is how she described the nightly exercise, “As I continued to work at it, I got to the point where I could feel myself on the board doing a perfect dive and hear the crowd yelling at the Olympics,” she said. I worked at it so much, I got to the point that I could do all my dives easily.”1 By using her imagination, her physical ability to dive increased.

Set aside some time daily to dream … to envision … to imagine moving from where you currently are, to where you desire to be. Like Sylvie Berner regularly imagine your future, use all your senses, and keep honing your vision. Start by asking yourself, “If nothing was standing in my way, who would I be, what would I be doing, what would my life be like and how can I leave a positive legacy?”

1. Mikkelson, David. “Inner Golf.” Snopes, www.snopes.com/fact-check/legend-in-his-own-mind/ #:~:text=Inner%20Golf%20Legend:%20A%20POW%20who%20played%20an,that%20he'd%20markedly%20improved%20his%20game.%20David%20Mikkelson (accessed Mar. 5, 2021).

Legend: A POW who played an imaginary round of golf in his mind each day during his captivity found upon his release that he'd markedly improved his game.

05/03/2021

Spring Cleaning That Lasts a Lifetime

When Your Forward Momentum Hits the Wall

Yesterday turned out to be much busier than I anticipated, so my time to write the post was used for other essentials. I thank all of you for your grace and patience with my late post.

In our last posts we first talked about brain wiring and secondly how to identify and begin rewiring your brain for the positive. Today we’re going to briefly look at one reason why we make great forward movement for the first couple of weeks and then it feels like an internal war has broken out. Let’s find out why.

Every feeling we have is created by a thought. We have a thought and that thought produces brain chemicals (neuropeptides) that our brain interprets as a feeling. So, feelings are neither true or false, they are simply indicators of our thoughts. The chemical signature of the thought is then passed onto our heart that imprints it onto every cell that passes through the heart. Through the blood stream this chemical signature is passed onto the memory receptors in every cell in our body. Our cells get accustomed (addicted) to these negative chemicals. When you shift your thought patterns from negative to positive for several days, our cells crave the negative chemicals and we experience a “ni****ne fit” like someone quitting smoking. This often pushes us back to our old, negative thought patterns, which in turn releases the negative chemicals, our cells have their “fix” and when it’s over we feel good. Just like having a smoke extinguishes ni****ne cravings. All this is part of the detox process. When it happens to you, don’t beat yourself up, but tell yourself the truth. “My cells are just craving those old negative chemicals. When my body detoxes the chemicals, I will feel just fine.” When you respond in this way, you’re actually building the new neuro pattern and shrinking the old ones, producing more forward momentum.

02/03/2021

Hacking the Brain Blocks that Hold You Back

In our last post we discovered that our current brain wiring makes lasting change difficult to maintain. And using our will to change often fails because our powerful subconscious brain doesn’t like change. The mantra of our subconscious brain is, “Same is Safe! Even if it’s killing me, Same is Safe!” So how can we hack our brain so we can move forward in life? One powerful way is becoming aware of your internal dialogue (those automatic statements you make to yourself). Are these statements positive or negative? If they’re negative, ask yourself:
1. Is this statement 100% true 100% of the time?
2. Would other people say this statement is 100% true 100% of the time?
3. If it’s not true, ask yourself what is really true? If you have trouble finding the answer, ask a trusted friend or two what is really true?
• Don’t follow your feelings. These negative feelings come from the negative automatic thoughts.
4. Move forward based on what is actually true.
5. Find ways to celebrate this new truth. Write it on a note card, “It’s wonderful that I am …”, or repeat it every morning and night while smiling at yourself in the mirror, or …
Every time you move forward with what is true and celebrate this positive truth, you shrink the old pattern and begin building a new pattern.

01/03/2021

Spring Cleaning That Last’s a Lifetime

Creating a New Mindset

I chose “Creating a New Mindset” to talk about first, because it’s essential for us to make lasting life changes. To make changes that last we need to adjust the neuro patterns in our brains or the changes become like the New Years resolutions we used to make. For most of us they’d last a week or two before they were dropped. This has nothing to do with being weak willed, but it has a lot to do with brain patterning. To make life changes that last, we need to create new neuro patterns while also discarding the old patterns stored in our subconscious brain. Since many of these patterns are essential for life, our subconscious brain resists altering all brain patterns. If we use our will to make the changes, we place our will and our subconscious brain into a tug of war. Our will pulling for change while our subconscious brain pulling for the status quo. The more powerful side is the one who always wins in a tug of war. Unfortunately, our subconscious brain is at least 80% powerful and our will, at best, only holds 20%. This is why New Year’s resolutions rarely last because our will isn’t strong enough to overpower our subconscious brain. BUT don’t lose heart, in our next few posts I’ll share some ways to hack our subconscious brain, so we can make changes that last.

28/02/2021

March is just around the corner, days are getting longer and the house finches have returned. A sign that it’s time for Spring Cleaning. I’m not talking about sorting through your clothes and cleaning out your garage but about planting some new positive things in your life. We’ll talk about some ways to clean up your diet, to get up and get your body moving, to improve your mood and grow your spiritual life. Join me through for the next couple of weeks and get moving into a Spring Cleaning that will Last a lifetime. Maybe invite a friend to join us the next few weeks.
I won’t be posting Sunday as I’ll be celebrating my husband’s birthday.

27/02/2021

Yesterday when I sat at my computer I knew what I wanted to post - saying goodbye to my favorite things of winter, and I had the pictures already picked out. So I was ready. I wrote the post and added the pictures, but when I did the pictures didn't show up. So I tried again - same result. So I discarded the post and tried again and again and again. Same result. I was getting discouraged and feeling how stupid I am. And then magically when I scrolled down a bit, I saw the pictures so I hit 'POST". And as I did I realized that every set of pictures I thought I'd deleted were being loaded onto the post. Now I knew I WAS stupid and EVERYONE who saw would also know this "truth". I looked to heaven and asked God, "What's the deal? I'm trying to get my message out and my 2nd post is a failure." I could feel His smile as He lets me know, all this happened so that I would remember once again, that my performance doesn't determine if I'm a success or failure. Rather, it's how I respond to life's bumps and bruises that will determine is they hold me back or move me ahead. AND I can share this truth with all of you. Smile at you're "failures & mess ups" realizing each one is an opportunity to move ahead. Please Be Blessed - Audrey (or Audball as my brother used to call me)

25/02/2021

Where I live winter is coming to a close. We have days where the temperature is above freezing and small rivers of melted snow flow, and then return to below zero temperatures and forecasts of more snow. So its time for me to get ready to say farewell to winter. What are some things I’ll miss when spring finally arrives? First, the long nights grant me permission to get comfy and put my PJs on at 7pm. I will miss the -20 temperatures and and the beautiful frost patterns on the windows. There will be no more sledding with the great nephews and niece. I will even miss shoveling the driveway and sidewalks, I love the exercise in the cold morning air. But what I'll miss the most is the talking snow. Here in Williams Lake winter snow is dry and fluffy. When temperatures fall to below -10 when you walk on the snow it isn't silent, but it talks. And the colder it gets the louder the snow groans. These are a few things I'll miss as I say goodbye to winter look forward to coming spring.
Be blessed today – Audrey

07/02/2021

A year later COVID is still here and restrictions in BC have been extended. I haven’t seen my kids since last Easter. And winter is still here, with -30 being predicted for later this week. BUT the days are getting longer, and Spring is promising to be just around the corner. My favorite time in Spring is when the songbirds return after a long, silent winter. I remember last spring, almost every morning, just before sunrise, I’d step onto our deck, close my eyes and listen. The air was filled with the voices of songbirds announcing a new day had begun. Even in those early, uncertain days when COVID was new, I found a way to start each day with a smile on my face and hope in my heart just by enjoying the singing of birds. What about you? What are some simple ways that you have found joy in these COVID days? Please share where you’ve found joy this past year.

11/05/2019

22/03/2019

I am an insightful, challenging and compassionate life coach with a passion to assist you to get unstuck and moving ahead. I have the tools and skills to help you discover your unique pathway into real life.

By phone, video chat, or in person - I am available to meet with you!

✨ Message me to see how ✨