90 Day Regimen Breakthrough – Week 1

90 Day Regimen Breakthrough – Week 1

Building Your Foundation

“A Journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.”

Welcome to the 90 day regimen breakthrough program!

This is the first week of a twelve week process to help you to accomplish specific goals with your healthy regimen. Two elements are being woven together to create the fabric of this program : 1) the building of a general framework of regimenal principles as a lifelong foundation for you to work from; and 2) A process for you to define your own current 90 day goals, and identify and overcome your roadblocks to reaching them.

While the principles and foundation for a healthy regimen are fairly straightforward and easy to understand, their consistent implementation can run into all forms of internal resistance, including patterns of self-sabotage, and other forms of subconscious content which skews our natural self-love impulse into its opposite.

The idea of using a 90 day time frame is that it is a short enough duration to stay focussed and engaged with a specific goal, but also long enough to ingrain new habits (or break old ones) over the long term. The philosophy of this program is a marriage between taking baby steps towards a tangible goal, along with ingraining regimen habits and methods of self-reflection which keep you  getting unstuck and moving forward for the rest of your life.

 

Where to begin?

There are three main topics for you to go through this week:

1. Drawing a map to your goal
2. The principle of resonance
3. How to keep yourself on track for 90 days

1. Drawing a map to your goal:

The key point to this step is to foster an objective viewpoint of yourself, and to draw a map from where you are now to where you’d like to go over the next 90 days. The key to change is to be able to discard old “baggage”, and emotional responses which keep you married to old habits and behaviours.

One “heads up” that would be good for you to keep in mind, is that there will be a lot of different regimen content covered in this program, and that you need to be very selective about which concepts you work on applying now, and which ones you save for a future 90 day challenge to yourself. The idea is to create a framework of principles which you can draw on, and work with for the rest of your healthy life. Your focus during this 90 day program is to choose a goal which is “just right” in size, as baby bear would say.

Homework on “Drawing Your Map”:

In your journal, reflect on what an objective picture of your map looks like right now – where are you (present tense), what baggage do you have to let go of (carry over from the past), and what roadblocks could you anticipate on your way to reaching your regimen goals? Notice where your objectivity is being impaired through emotional judgments, or other baggage.

 

2. The principle of resonance:

Here are the notes I used for myself to create the voice-over for the “resonance” video:

Resonance – The master principle behind every dimension of healthcare.

Before I begin to explore the many different aspects of regimen with you over the next 12 weeks, I first want to begin with the master principle underlying all of regimen, and in fact underlying all of health care.
This is the principle or concept of resonance, and it is something which you should always keep in mind through everything you do with your health, and your life in general.

What is resonance?

Resonance is a concept which comes from the science of acoustics, and can also apply to other fields of study, such as other branches of physics, and healthcare.
Resonance describes a relationship between 2 things, such as two frequencies, or two vibrating bodies, such as the strings of a violin, or the column of vibrating air of a clarinet, and it can also describe how one thing can evoke a response in another thing on the basis of a resonance between them.
An example from music is of how one tuning fork can be struck, and through sympathetic resonance will cause another tuning fork of the same frequency to spontaneously ring the same note.
In your own health, you will have experienced this anytime you have “come down with a cold”, when you “caught” a virus or bacteria because you had a resonance with it at that moment. Anyone around you who did not share that resonance, would have been safe from catching it from you.

Everything which is alive is made up of dynamic polarities, where two opposites interact with each other to produce a living function.
Your body, for example, is constantly in an interplay between forces of life and death, such as in the process of generating new cells to replace the old ones which have died.

Resonance is made up of the polarities of expansion and compression, or consonance and dissonance. A well composed piece of music, for example, will be a pleasure to listen to, because it artfully mixes the polar functions of harmony and dissonance, to create a feeling of moving forward through cycles of tension and release.
The same is true in any resonant relationship – the functions of expansion and compression are what ultimately causes forward momentum. Constant agreement, or constant disagreement would represent a relationship that was stuck.

Resonance or Attraction – What’s the difference?

The terms “resonance” and “attraction” are often used interchangeably, but I need to draw a sharp differentiation between them.
Unfortunately, this has been compounded by the popularity of the concept of “The Law of Attraction”, which is actually not the same as resonance.
To keep it simple :
Resonance is anything which gives you more of your true self, or helps you to unfold the fullness of every aspect of yourself.
Attraction may provide you with a superficial or short-term pleasure, but it always comes with a price of something that you need to give up or sacrifice in exchange. This is the metaphorical “deal with the devil.”
Is resonance easy?
There are any number of reasons why resonance may be difficult, including:

You may find it difficult to distinguish between resonance and attraction, as your “resonance organ” may be dulled, or may never have been properly developed in the first place.
You may know the difference, but succumb to attraction for any number of reasons, including being driven by an unresolved disease state you have.
You may know what is resonant, but avoid it due to the conscious or subconscious desire to avoid the “growing pains” which resonance ultimately leads you towards.

Homework on the concept of resonance:

In your journal for at least the next day, or two, reflect on your regimen and lifestyle in light of the concept of resonance vs. attraction. Which principle dominates your choices, and why? Name at least one specific example you’d like to work on changing for yourself.
How strongly do you feel connected to your “resonance organ”, or your inner voice? What do you think you could do to better develop it?

This will give you a starting point and foundation from which you can work through the next 90 days of the regimen program.

*If you’d like to read a further exploration of the difference between resonance and attraction, you can read this blog post I wrote about it.

 

3. How to keep yourself on track for 90 days:

At a practical level, one of the key ideas of the 90 day regimen breakthrough program is to help you to approach your goal in a “one small step at a time” kind of approach, and to have tangible activities that you can engage with on a daily basis.

One of the basic habits I’m suggesting is that you commit to yourself to spend a few minutes every day reflecting on anything that you did, or thought about, or had feelings about as you engaged with your regimen goals that day. Did you have issues around motivation or willpower, for example? Were there specific triggers that set you off down a better or worse path?

Even a small time commitment to reflecting in a journal, such as 5 minutes everyday, can be a powerful habit to keep you focussed on, and working on your goals daily.

If you are not already in the habit of keeping a journal, Lifehacker wrote a blog on some of the best and most popular journalling programs online, or for specific computers or devices. I also have written a blog post about the benefits of journalling, and how it gives you an enriched experience of what is happening in your inner world as you go through a healing process like this.

In addition to this very private exploration of your inner world, if you have an extroverted streak, you may also want to share some or all of your reflections in a more social context. If you have the desire and comfort level to do this, you will also get the benefits of social support, feedback, and encouragement this way. There’s always the good ‘ol fashion “chin wag” with your best friend or spouse about what you’re going through. Or there’s also the more modern forms of social interactions on platforms such as Facebook, or Twitter, or other online social networks. If you already write a personal blog, for example, the experiences on your 90 day journey may be something you want to share with your readers. Likewise, if you have a personal vlog (video blog), you may want to share in some of your video broadcasts.

In addition to journalling (whether you do so privately or publicly), another basic tool I would recommend to you is any kind of daily habit tracking or reminder system. The original, low-tech version of this is the drawing of an “X” on your calendar every day that you complete your specific goal, which grows into a very compelling visual motivation as you see your calendar filling up with an “X” on every day of your progress. Once you get momentum going, you’re more likely to keep going so as not to “break the chain”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you’re more tech-minded, you can do the same with any number of programs or online tools for tracking such daily habit “chains”, including:

• www.dontbreakthechain.com [This one is set up to be a private experience].
• www.lift.do [This one has more of a social element, where you can encourage, and make comments on other people’s progress in the same habit you’re working on yourself, such as “drink 8 glasses of water”, for example. This one is accessible online, as well as on your smartphone.]

 

Homework for your “keep on track” tools:

Choose at least 1 of these reflection and tracking methods above, and commit to starting a daily practice today, and to carry it through the 90 day program. The idea is that a small daily commitment, even of 5 minutes spent writing in your journal, is what keeps your intentions grounded and practical, and keeping you moving forward with momentum and clarity.

The key at the beginning of the program is to create an environment for yourself where you have a place to reflect on a daily basis, as well as some way to get encouragement, support, and feedback to keep you moving forward.

 

The 12 week roadmap:

Here is an overview of the 12 week “backbone” to the core principles taught in the 90 day regimen breakthrough program, coming up in the following weeks: