I’m in Montana, visiting my family. I’ve attended my niece’s 8th grade graduation. I’ve visited my hundred-year-old, great-aunt in the nursing home. I went to the senior graduation of my high school and then to a party afterwards where I happily mingled for hours with my former classmates. I’m spending time with my mother who isn’t in good health; and with my father who is seventy-eight and in excellent health – yesterday he walked four miles across the muddy prairie because his truck broke down in the pasture when he was checking his cows.

I’ve had a fascinating week observing the parade of life pass at warp speed. One minute I was with my young nieces, who spent most of their day giggling and texting their friends or boyfriends – the next minute I was with my Aunt May who spends ninety-five percent of her days sleeping in her nursing home bed.

At the party, I spoke with former classmates who represented every stop on life’s wheel of fortune: happily married, thrice-divorced, never married, unhappily married, aging well, really wrinkled, in fantastic shape, obese, stricken with MS, promoted to CEO of a publicly traded company, living on disability, happily ranching, unhappily ranching, tragedy-stricken, abundantly blessed.

When I graduated from high-school thirty-two years ago, I could have never predicted how my life would unfold. I look back with regretful amusement at my youthful conviction that I could control the journey: extremely regretful that I unnecessarily stressed myself out with vain attempts to control the uncontrollable.

Talking with my old classmates, I realized that when it came to our personalities, our characters, our intrinsic beings, we were all fundamentally the same as we were when we graduated so many decades ago. Those who were shy were still shy. Those who were the life of the party were still the center of attention. It was apparent that a mountain of self-help books would have been of no avail in trying to rewire any of us.

Every one of us has a fundamental core that is unalterable.

Yes, the decades had mellowed us, but none of us had broken out of the molds in which we were cast. And I found peace in comprehending this for the first time – that the only thing one needs to learn to live happily in the world is to accept and love oneself. Acceptance. That’s where we’ll find the calm at the center of life’s storms.

The universe is perfect exactly as it is now.
You are perfect exactly as you are now.

Breathe in acceptance. Breathe out acceptance.

The Universe is perfect exactly as it is now and is providing you with exactly what you need and want.

How are you doing keeping the resolutions you made for your brand new year? 

New Year's resolutions and our ability, or inability, to implement them are a window into the true desires of our souls.

If you've been successful keeping to your New Year's resolutions, then that success demonstrates that they're very important to you.  Your goals represent your heart's true desires, and your mind and body are united in making these goals a reality.

That's the recipe for success: a mind and body that are united.

If the resolutions you've made have already fallen by the wayside, then take that as a sign that your subconscious does not really want to achieve these goals.

And that's okay.

If you want to discover why this is so, find a quiet place where you can be alone with yourself, and your thoughts -- no music, no television, no people -- take a pen and notepad, and write down all the reasons why you may not want to achieve the goal you are convinced you really want. What are the benefits for you in not achieving it? I bet you'll be surprised at the answers.

For instance, perhaps you'll find that you have more to psychologically, perhaps even materially, gain from being overweight than you do from losing weight. I can't tell you how common it is for women to use their fat as a shield -- against men, against the world, against themselves.  Their fat provides them with a level of comfort that they can't achieve as a thin person. 

If people want to be fit, they'll be fit.

Every adult who isn't a prisoner or a captive slave has the free will to get what they want in life -- in fact, everyone has exactly what they desire at this moment -- whether they realize it or not. 

Don't beat yourself up because you can't lose weight.  The reality is that you've made a decision that you like where you are right now -- you might be content or you might be miserable but that misery or contentment is exactly what you want and need right now.  So accept that.

Don't compare who you are now to your fantasy self.  Right now, this is your life; this is who you are; and you need to love yourself and your life because you have exactly what you want and desire at this moment in time.  This doesn't mean that your life will always be as it is now . . . it just means that, in this moment you really do have everything you desire. 

Ike Turner died yesterday, and as I was reading his obituary this morning I started thinking about his his ex-wife, Tina Turner.  (And here's a bit of video from Biography about her.) There was a photo of the two of them singing back in the fifties, and my first thought was, WOW, she's just as sexy at the age of sixty-eight as she was when she was a teenager! 

Tina Turner Lesson Number One:  Take care of yourself.  Exercise.  Smile a lot.  You do have some control over how "well" you age.

Curious, I stared reading about her life.  Anna Mae (Tina) and her sister were abandoned by their parents and raised by their grandmother.

Tina Turner Lesson Number Two:  You do not need to have an ideal childhood in order to succeed in life.

There are different versions of how Tina and Ike got together.  One is that she was discovered by Ike in St. Louis when she was singing at a club.  The other is that she pestered him to let her sing with his band and he finally agreed. Tina had a relationship with a saxophone player in Ike's band and gave birth to a son out of wedlock.

Tina Turner Lesson Number Three:  You can overcome the "mistakes" that you make in your life. 

Tina and Ike toured the country and became successful as a rock group.  However, Ike was physically abusive, a serial philanderer, and was heavily into drugs.  One day he violently beat Tina on the way to a concert in Texas, and she decided to leave him.

Tina Turner Lesson Number Four:  Value yourself.  Don't ever let any one make you feel insecure or worthless.

Leaving Ike took a tremendous amount of courage.  Here was the man who discovered her, promoted her, and made her famous.  I imagine that he probably told her she wouldn't make it on her own . . . and many would have agreed.  But after a brief hiatus, she went on and became an even greater success.

When the press asked her for a comment about Ike's passing, Tina's spokesman responded that Tina had not spoken with Ike for thirty-five years and that she would not make a comment.

Tina Turner Lesson Number Five:  Don't give attention or time to people who do not bring love and kindness into your life.

Many of our clients are very successful people who have a difficult time intellectually embracing the idea that in order to find contentment and peace in their world they need to accept the world and their bodies as they are right now.

People who are successful in their business lives believe that they control the environment in which they operate and so they shun the idea of acceptance, or "giving up control;" but control is just an illusion.

Your life depends upon many important factors over which you have hardly any control -- you weren't able to choose your parents, your siblings, your children . . . and since fifty percent of American marriages end in divorce, most of us might have better luck finding an appropriate spouse if we just settled for an arranged marriage.

You had nothing to do with the measure of intelligence with which you arrived on this earth.  You had nothing to do with with your skin tone, your hair, your hips, your chest, your nose, your height, or your sex.  You have no idea when to pencil in the hour of your death in your appointment calendar!  The fact that we will die proves that control is an illusion.

When I ask people to name the best things that ever happened to them, invariably they are the things they could not have planned.  Meeting the love of their life.  Having children.  Being blessed with loving parents.  Meeting an important mentor who became an invaluable life guide.  And my favorite, the simple fact that they were born and are alive!

What successful people have going for them, is that they intuitively know how to go with the flow . . . to accept what is.  They understand what the current economic climate presents as opportunity, and they pursue that opportunity.  Successful executives move up the ladder, not by fighting the status quo, but by understanding how the corporation functions and working well within that structure.  Successful stock traders know that the "trend is their friend" and that they don't control market conditions.

If you want to thrive, you have to accept what is.  You have to be content and happy with your life and your lot.  This acceptance doesn't mean that things won't change . . . it simply means that you embrace and revel in your life as it is.  And most importantly, that you're dealing with the REALITY of the moment.

When you can extend this acceptance to your body, to love it as it is right now, and stop wishing that it would magically change to look like the body that the super model Gisele or the actor George Clooney were born with, that is when your body will start to change.  Because when you aren't mentally attacking your body, you're willing to exercise, you're eager to eat healthy food.  You'll take care of a body that you love.  Conversely, you'll abuse a body that you hate.

Less is More is the guiding principle of the fabled French lifestyle.

French women know that having style does not require having a lot of money.  They know how to elegantly mix the few pieces of clothing that they own and add accessories so that their ensembles look innovative, sexy, and fresh. 

French cuisine is world-famous for its small, yet flavor-packed portions. 

The French take six weeks of vacation a year and only work thirty-five hours a week.  Yet their productivity is higher than Americans who work for more days and hours. 

The emphasis in French life is on quality not quantity.  And as an American, I think that's a difficult concept to grasp -- that if we just cut back on our consumption of everything, our life would greatly improve and there would be less stress.

If we worked less hours we'd have more time to spend loving our families.

If we drove less we'd feel less stress and be thinner.

If we ate less we'd be thinner and healthier.

If we drank less we'd be more interesting and thinner and healthier.

If we watched less television, we'd improve all our relationships, we'd be more creative, we'd feel more vibrant, and we'd be thinner.

If we worked less we could work better.

The French lifestyle is not about deprivation -- it's about truly cherishing and accepting what you currently have, and making that as wonderful as it can possibly be.

Yesterday was my dear neighbor Roger's seventy-ninth birthday.  I called him up in the afternoon to wish him a bon anniversaire and ask if I could come over later to bring him a present (a box of Leonidas chocolates and a bottle of Tattinger Champagne).  He said, "What's the date?  I didn't even know it was my birthday."

My husband Craig and I went over to Roger's later that evening to bring the gifts and have an aperitif of Roger's moonshine and we were cheerfully joined by the neighboring vintner couple from down the road and their teenage daughter.

Roger told us that when he was a kid, he wasn't given a present for his October birthday.  But when his father took the annual tobacco production to Cahors in February he would come back with a gift for Roger . . . his only gift of the year.

Can you imagine how excited Roger must have felt when he was presented with that gift?  I'm certain Roger was a lot more excited with his annual gift than my son has been with his hundreds of plastic and tech toys that his parents, grandparents, and friends showered him with over the years.

One year I gave Roger a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Champagne.  He unwrapped the box.  Took the bottle out.  Held the bottle up appreciatively and said to me, "All my life I've wanted to taste a glass of Veuve Clicquot."

The next month I attended a party in California where the Veuve Clicquot was flowing freely, where the wait staff never let the guests' glasses run dry.  I am certain that Roger's glass of Veuve Clicquot was much more intense and satisfying and magical than were our bottomless glasses at the party.

Cut back on the quantity of your consumption and watch the quality of your life improve.

No one does anything regularly if they don’t find pleasure in it.

Rarely, do the long-term results of an action drive a person's choices -- it's the immediate sensation that is the motivator.

Most everyone claims they’d like to be in shape; but that’s not the truth. If someone really wants to be fit, they are fit.

The truth is that most people who are out of shape find more pleasure in eating unhealthy foods and leading a sedentary life than they do in embracing a lifestyle that would make them fit.

Many people find pleasure in living a life that causes them to become overweight. They probably won’t admit it, they probably don’t even know it on a conscious level, but they’re getting a payoff from being overweight that’s greater than the payoff they think they’ll receive if they get in shape.

If you are one of those people who “can’t lose weight” or “don’t have the time to exercise” take out pen and paper and write down the reasons why you might prefer being out of shape to being fit.

These conscious and unconscious payoffs are extremely important to you and weight loss will only come when you decide that you no longer want to embrace them. On the other hand, you might find that you really want to keep your same lifestyle because it brings you great pleasure. This is a perfectly valid response; knowing this and accepting that this is how you are, at this moment in time, you’ll be able to free yourself from the defeating, obsessive self-flagellation that comes from thinking your body should be different than it is.

Accept and love your body as it is now. Within the confines of your genetic framework, you have the body you really want at this moment in time.

Don’t exercise to lose weight.

Exercise only because it brings you great pleasure.

In order to make lasting physical improvements to your body, you need to learn to love your body exactly as it is now.

Your ego will thwart any self-improvement program if it is constantly engaged in attacking your body.

If you don’t like your body, you’re attacking the very mechanism that keeps you alive. When you criticize your body, you are attacking your reason for being.

When you criticize your body, your mind and body are at war, and this disconnect creates disharmony and unhappiness in your life.

If you want to find happiness, if you want to achieve a permanent state of fitness, you must learn to love your body. You must create a harmonious connection between your mind and body.

But this is an extremely difficult task in the modern world when you are continually bombarded with messages that your looks are your most important feature . . . and the media send you the constant message that there are many beautiful people who, because of their superior looks, are more “valuable” than you. Your mind internalizes these messages exactly as the marketers have intended them to be absorbed, and creates a feeling of insecurity and discontent.

You try to erase this insecurity and discontent by buying the products the marketers offer for sale . . . but you only achieve a fleeting sense of satisfaction.

If you don’t shut out the media messages, you become a manipulated victim of billions of dollars that are spent specifically with the intention of making you feel crappy about your body and your very existence.

If you don’t love your body, your mind will not cooperate with any self-improvement plan. Your mind thwarts you by telling you that you’ll never make any meaningful changes . . . this is taking too long . . . exercise is boring . . . you’ll never look like one of the models so you might as well stop exercising and eat a pint of ice cream because that is the only thing that will make you feel better.

Love is simply positive acceptance. Extend loving energy towards your body by positively accepting your body as it is now. Every time you find yourself attacking a body part, turn the attack into a positive message. If you are attacking your thighs, tell yourself that you love your thighs . . . they do their job by supporting your body and getting you where you need to go. Realize that your thighs look exactly the way they were engineered to look based on your genetics, the amount of calories you ingest, and the amount of exercise you give them. There is nothing wrong with your thighs except for the way you treat them.

Turn the television off. Stop buying the magazines that propel you to compare yourself with airbrushed and photoshopped models. TAKE CONTROL OF THE MESSAGE. Don’t be the manipulated minion of people who have a vested interest in making you feel insecure.

You have to create your own positive messages and actions. Demonstrate that you love your body by exercising each day, enjoying good whole foods, and accepting your body exactly as it is in this moment in time.

If your mind feels that your body is worth the effort, it will start making positive decisions and take positive actions to keep your body fit and healthy – fitness will literally become second-nature to you.

Last Friday, we hiked to the village of Catus to pick our spot on the sidewalk and wait for the Tour de France riders to speed by. We were lucky to nab a corner so we could see the riders’ faces as they swung into view. We stood for two hours in the hot sun as the parade of corporate sponsors drove by in their trucks and suped-up car floats and threw little trinkets at us. It was like Mardi Gras on speed. Dancing young women were harnessed to the floats so they wouldn’t fly off when they rounded the corners.

It was a magical five seconds when the Tour riders finally appeared. Lithe, muscular, determined – they were the manifestation of the transcendence that occurs when the mind and body are truly united and working in harmony for the health and pleasure of the individual.

Our main objective at Camp Biche centers around trying to unite our clients minds with their bodies. People who have weight and body image issues have a mind and body disconnect that perpetuates a constant state of self-loathing. They attack their body as unworthy of attention and love, setting up a self-perpetuating spiral of self-disgust and refusal to do anything positive for their body.

The first step towards creating a rapprochement between the mind and body is to accept your body as it is now. This acceptance doesn’t mean that you will always be the same; it simply means that you refuse to keep attacking yourself. You wouldn’t stay five minutes in the presence of a person who told you that you are fat and ugly and not worthy of exercising and eating healthy – but you think it’s perfectly natural to harangue yourself with these never-ending, self-sabotaging messages.

In this moment, you’re perfect exactly as you are now, because you can’t be any other way. This is the only reality at the moment. Every event in your life, every cell in your body, all the socialization to which you have been exposed, has led you to this moment and the state in which you find yourself. You are the unique, perfect product of your life experiences and view of the world.

You are what you are because the laws of the Universe are applied to you as well as to every other person and thing. You can’t fight the Universe. It is perfect and you are a perfect specimen of its laws. You will get fat if you eat more calories than you burn off each day. Your body will atrophy if you don’t exercise. Your height and body shape were determined by your ancestors. These laws are set in stone.

You keep thinking you’ll find a pill or a surgical procedure to make these truths disappear; but no external aid will help you achieve contentment and well-being. Only you can give yourself those gifts when you finally love and accept your body; and the best way to accept your body is to revel each day in its movement: to comprehend that exercise is the pathway to bliss.

Through daily attention to the needs of their bodies, those riders in the Tour de France have achieved that state of Nirvana where the mind and body are seamlessly united. While only the elite can ride in the Tour de France, everyone can embrace daily exercise and find bliss and contentment – by just walking out the door.

I often get a lot of resistance when I suggest that clients turn off the television and stop looking at women's magazines in order to bolster their self image. 

For some reason, many women enjoy the self-flagellation of comparing their bodies to some editor's photoshopped idea of how the female form should look. 

Click here to see how the beautiful Faith Hill was unnecessarily "slimmed" down so she could fit on the cover of Redbook.    I can't understand why Redbook would think that having Faith Hill look emaciated would be an improvement.

You are bombarded with many false messages telling you that your body is deficient.  If you choose to believe these messages, which are always emanating from a source that wants to manipulate you, then your mind negatively turns against your body and thwarts your attempts at self-improvement.

Your mind and body are connected.  If you love your body, you love yourself.  If you love yourself, you love your body.

The single, most important step towards changing your attitude towards your body is to stop judging -- yourself or others.

Just accept, and you will find contentment and love.

Love your body and it will take care of you, eagerly responding to the positive stimuli you give it.

While you aren't in control of anything outside of yourself, you are in control of your thoughts and how you perceive yourself and the world.

Your happiness and contentment are products of your internal interpretation of what is happening to you.

If you’re unhappy with yourself, you will effortlessly find reasons and events upon which to justify your unhappiness. And if you're content with yourself, you will effortlessly find reasons and events upon which to find happiness permeating the world.

Whatever you choose to see in the world, that’s what you’ll find. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If you want love, then create love by responding lovingly to the world. You don’t have to understand the reason behind events, you just need to accept the event and respond lovingly.

Your body is designed to crave food.

Your body is designed to find pleasure in eating.

This is why diets don’t work. When you deprive yourself of food you are going against the laws of the Universe. You are waging war against your very instinct for survival.

Your body is designed to find enjoyment in food.

Your body is designed to eat until you feel satisfied.

These are the laws of the Universe.

Flow with the Universe.

Eat what you want, but insist on eating delicious food in small portions.

Your body is designed to crave movement and that is why exercise makes us feel good, relieves depression, and prevents or ameliorates most every illness known to humankind.

Eating brings joy.

Exercise creates bliss.

The Universe is perfect exactly as it is now.

Therefore, you are perfect exactly as you are now.

The Universe is perfect exactly as it is, because it cannot be any different than it is in this moment.

If you find the current moment lacking or unacceptable, it is only your weak ego that is creating that judgment, unable to comprehend the flow of the Universe.

To fight the reality of the moment is to fight the Universe, and you cannot win that fight. When you fight the Universe you will drown in frustration and discontentment.

You are a part of the Universe and you are perfect exactly as you are now. If you find fault with yourself, it is only your weak ego that is judging you and finding yourself inadequate.

Attacking and criticizing your body is an exercise in futility. Your body cannot be any different than it is at this moment. Know that it may be different in the future; but love and accept it as it is now.

Your body is a product of heredity – over which you have no control; and it is also a product of exercise and diet over which you do have control.

Find joy each day in eating whole foods, the best the Universe has to offer.

Find bliss each day in moving your body. If you don’t move your body, it atrophies. If you move your body, it thrives.

Love everything as it is now. Love yourself as you are now. Know that you may be different in the future; but love and accept yourself as you are now; because to attack your body is to attack your very existence. You will not find contentment and equilibrium until you can accept yourself as you are now.

You cannot lose weight until you quit attacking your body. Your body is a reflection of what you think about it. Your body cannot reach its highest potential until you love it unconditionally.

One of the teachings of the Camp Biche course is that the past doesn’t exist and is irrelevant; and that the future is a figment of your imagination.

Accepting this forces you to live in the moment, concentrating on what is important: loving and living.

Negative incidents from your past paralyze your ability to function fully in the present.

The unkind and thoughtless words of a long-ago childhood bully, or harried parent, can still control our thoughts and choices decades later.

The only way to wipe the slate clean is to accept yourself as you are now; understanding that negative input is a part of the human experience, and that your happiness has nothing to do with how others perceive you.

You are the only one who determines your magnitude of happiness and contentment.

It is the guiding premise of Camp Biche that you cannot permanently lose weight or get fit until you accept your body as it is.

This means that you stop fantasizing about a body that is different than the one you have. This means that you stop fantasizing about an idyllic future life with a different body.

As long as you are at war with your body, it will thwart your efforts to lead a fit lifestyle.

Your body and mind are one entity.

Attack your body, and you attack your entire being.

Spend your energy lamenting your weight or your looks, and you destroy your self-esteem.

With your self-esteem in tatters, you have no desire, or motivation to treat yourself well. You will eat crappy foods. You will not exercise simply because you do not feel you’re worth nurturing and loving.

Love your body exactly as it is now. Embrace every aspect of your unique being. It is the only body you possess so you might as well quit fighting it.

Once you learn to love your body, you’ll be amazed at how quickly it will start making loving choices to effortlessly take care of itself.

The Universe is perfect exactly as it is now. You are perfect exactly as you are now.

Someone said to me the other day that everything eventually "comes into place." 

I responded that everything is in place.

There is no destination.  There is only the journey.

Our ego may pass judgment and not approve of how the present moment has manifested:  but everything is perfect as it is now, for it cannot be any different than it is.

Your body is a finely tuned mechanism that is amazingly resilient and requires little maintenance; but it will collapse when exposed to continued abuse. 

Your body isn't shy.  It chastises you loudly and clearly when it's being mistreated.

Drink too much during an evening, and your body penalizes you for your excess by giving you a hangover the next morning. Drink too much over the decades, and your liver will rot away and your life will crumble away. (Ah, there’s that inescapable mind-body connection again.)

Eat too much at dinner tonight, and your body will feel uncomfortable. If you continually eat to excess every day for decades, and don’t exercise to burn off those calories, you will get fat and fall prey to a host of nasty diseases such as diabetes and heart failure, in addition to continually feeling crappy about how you look and feel.

Listen and heed what your body is communicating to you.  It needs good food every day.  It needs some exercise every day.  It doesn't need massive amounts of either.

Find joy by eating and drinking moderate amounts of what you want, enjoying what you eat, and exercising every day. This is the formula for bringing equilibrium to your body and your life.

Food is not your enemy.

You can eat as much as you’d like as long as you keep moving.

The Universe is perfect exactly as it is now.

It is only your ego that passes judgement, and then finds the Universe lacking.

You are a creation of the Universe and you are perfect exactly as you are now.

It is only your ego that passes judgement, and then condemns yourself as inadequate.

Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of U.S. Presidential candidate John Edwards, announced yesterday that she now has treatable, but incurable cancer. Despite this heart-breaking development, the couple has decided to continue with the campaign, and Elizabeth is keeping her schedule.

She has decided to embrace the present and not fixate on the unknowable future; and in taking this path she is an inspiring example to all of us on how to live a fulfilling life.

Each of us has an upcoming rendezvous with death. You may meet up with it when you get in your car to drive to the grocery store today. You may be given an estimate of its arrival the next time you visit your doctor. Your heart may stop beating while you’re reading this sentence.

Elizabeth Edwards is a testament to courage, and her situation is a vivid example of the fact that we have no real control over the screenplay that unfolds as our life. She and her husband have lived the American Dream yet they have had to deal with great tragedy. Their teenage son was killed in a car accident. Elizabeth was diagnosed with incurable cancer in the prime of her life.

No one is shielded from tragedy. No one. The only thing we can do is accept what ends up on our plate – and then embrace our lives and loved ones with thankful passion every moment we draw breath.

This is how life is to be lived. Accepting what you encounter, and choosing to respond lovingly and passionately.

Click here to read a great editorial from C.W. Nevius at the San Francisco Chronicle on the Edwards' announcement. . . including some interviews with women who have Stage 4 cancer.