Bestselling author and spiritual counselor Kathy Freston recently challenged Oprah to a twenty-one-day vegan cleanse—and people took notice. In her current book, Quantum Wellness, Kathy hopes to transform and inspire millions more. From conscious eating to formulating more fun, Freston’s valuable influence and wisdom is based on what she calls, “small steps, huge results.” Here, Kathy discusses a few of her favorite “small” suggestions for well-being and lasting joy.

1. Connect with and care about people and the planet
“Becoming deeply connected to the world around you begins with knowing and living according to your most important inner values—whether it’s integrity or kindness or compassion or service. For me, it’s alleviating suffering where I see it,” says Freston. In Quantum Wellness, Freston writes, “You can eat all the right things, exercise, and visualize all day long, but if you can’t relate to others in a healthy way in serious relationships, as well as in brief encounters, you will never be a well-integrated healthy and happy person.”

Freston explains, “When we become conscious of how all of our actions affect our life and others, and we can live in such a way where it’s an expression of inner values, then we feel as great as we possibly can. It’s a body, mind, and spirit integration thing—you might be totally physically healthy right now, but if you’re not feeling like you’re on that higher purpose of doing everything you can to make the world a better place, in whatever way you can, I don’t think you’re going to feel as great as you could.”

2. Understand the difference between service to others and codependent relationships.
“In my past, I had a string of addictive relationships and I did the codependency thing. I was, at one point, feeling so sorry for myself,” reveals Freston. Then she had a significant realization: “As I began to take charge, look inside myself, take a personal inventory, and see what I could do differently, I realized that in a co-dependent relationship you’re really getting your self-esteem and sense of identity from whether or not you can make a difference in someone else’s life. It's great to help people and make a difference in their life—but you have to know where you can do that successfully and where you can’t.

Freston continues, "Let’s say you’re in a relationship with an alcoholic, and you feel like it’s your job to get them to stop drinking. That’s not really your business to impose your system of thought or behavior on someone else, especially someone who is an addict because it never works. But when we extend ourselves in service, we do it for the joy of doing it. That’s how you give in a healthy manner. When you feel like, ‘I am so grateful that I can give something to this person who really has the need,’ that’s always going to feel good; it’s not draining on us. We’re not doing it to foster our sense of righteousness—and we’re not expecting anything in return when we’re giving through service.”

3. Do mini-visualizations throughout the day.
“I do quick blasts of visualizing what I want in my life throughout the day on an hourly basis. I bought a Casio timekeeping watch that beeps every hour on the hour. When it beeps, I just close my eyes for literally a split-second and I do a blast of a vision of the way I want to be feeling and living. It’s just me putting that energy out there quickly of how I want to be in my life,” explains Freston, who offers a number of guided meditation/visualization CDs, like “Perfect Weight," “Abundance,” “Healing,” and “Transformational Meditation: Finding A Great Relationship.”

4. Build meditation muscle.
“I used to think that if I didn’t have 20 minutes to meditate, why even bother?” admits Freston. Now, she knows differently. "Don’t impose a time restriction on yourself in meditation or you’ll never do it," she advises.

“If you just sit down for a mini-meditation, and start out with 10 breaths inhaling and exhaling, and perhaps add in a simple mantra like ‘I surrender’ or ‘I am peace,’ and you say it to yourself 10 times, it’s going to put you in a place where you feel more creative, more centered, more grounded, and, literally, your brain chemistry starts to change.”

Freston continues, “So, maybe you’ll do 10 breaths this time, and maybe you’ll do that for 2-3 months, but eventually you’re going to get used to showing up for yourself and closing your eyes. And your meditation time might eventually expand to 20 minutes. It’s just like if you go the gym to workout for the first time; you’re not going to expect to start running on the treadmill for 45 minutes or lifting a 100 pound weight, you’re going to start small and gradually, and build that muscle.”

5. Are you having fun yet?
Throughout Quantum Wellness, Freston writes about personal energy management, in both wise and specific detail. According to her, one of the 4 quadrants of personal energy management is to rejuvenate, which, according to her, means creating plenty of fun for yourself. “Having fun in your life is where the spirit shines through. It’s when you feel like you’re glowing and on fire. That’s when you get great ideas and you feel naturally compassionate and giving when you’re having fun. You get full when having fun.”

What can you do today to create more fun for yourself? Suggests Freston, “Whether it’s stopping and listening to your Ipod for 5-10 minutes, meeting a friend for coffee, taking that walk around a local park, getting a massage—or whatever you can do to make yourself feel like you’re being cared for, just do it!”

~Jill Daniel

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