Zette Harbour ~ Woman With A Gift of Story Telling

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Zette Harbour, the Woman With a Story

“Are you the kind of person who hears “that little voice inside” and wishes you had the confidence and strength to follow it?”

Zette Harbour, an amazingly talented Story Teller has that voice that materializes into compassionate conversations with her audience.

I had a chance to speak with Zette and find out more of who she is and why she tells stories.

Celebrate Woman Can you make a business out of your passion of what you love doing?

Zette YES. No way we can do it alone though. We rely on mentors in our life. We listen to mentors carefully with our hearts and souls. Then, we go into the world and allow our own selves to shine.

When we do what we love, all around us notice our passion and precision in our actions. These passions of my heart, I apply to the business. There’s no differentiation between the two.

You already have passion inside of you. Learn from others to apply business savvy to your passion.

Celebrate Woman  Do you have any support in life? And How do you find such support?

Zette  I rely on my inner voice a lot. It is my guide through turmoil and difficulties. It’s a matter of how carefully I listen to my inner gut feel.

Story Time is all about listening. Listenting to what those told stories may trigger inside of us. This is the biggest gift of any story telling.

Another valuable lesson we can learn from being exposed to a story telling is to discover what kind of stories we have inside of us. Staying open allows us to reach out into the depth of our hearts and souls and get that unique story into the world to share.

Celebrate Woman  Story telling takes a lot of energy while sharing with others. How do you recuperate and regain your strength to move forward?

Zette  I love taking long walks along my native California Coast. Those are the moments when inspiration crawls inside. That’s why I carry my little notebook everywhere I go. I just start writing. And later, I go through my notes and find things so relevant to this very moment in time.

What I find for myself is that what we carry inside of us is enough. The trick is to marry that feeling with our life path. I do it through Story Telling. What story do you have inside of you?

*****                    *****                     *****                     *****

Zette Harbour has offered one of my readers her fascinating CD – Story Harbour that was awarded 3 Awards:
~ Parents’ Choice Recommended Award
~ National Parenting Publications Awards
~ Creative Child Magazine, 2011 Preferred Choice Award Winner

Zette, thank you so much for your inspiration and depth of your story telling. Since our interview, I've been always alert to my "story inside of me." I have a lot to tell. But this telling comes from listening patiently, quietly first.

You Don't Have to Starve Yourself to Feel, Be Healthy & Beautiful

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This post has been inspired - sadly - by the French model and actress Isabelle Caro. She was only 28-years-old with all life and aspirations ahead for her. But she passed away from the silent and very disturbing disease - anorexia-nervosa.

On the eve of a new year, when all kinds of resolutions and promises people make to themselves, please know that a healthy, beautiful, sexy look and feel can be gained by loving great, yummy, living foods.

In the society of plenty, we need and have to learn and be taught how to make our daily diets a thoughtful and graceful choice. For we feed our body that is a sacred temple for all our dreams, and aspirations, and achievements, and a meaningful life. A life we share with a lot of people, making meaningful connections that feed our minds and our souls.

Take good care of your Temple to make 2011 a truly New Year in all of your senses, connections, dreams.

Celebrate Your Beautiful Body and Mind Today!


Disclosure: I only write about products I believe in and use personally and the companies who truly advance forward the best traits of the humankind. I am not compensated for my opinions.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
©2010 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

What is the Story That You Are Writing?

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What is the story, the personal story of your life, that you are writing? Does it have a happy ending? Does it end sadly? The middle part, the one you are living now, is it a tragedy, or a comedy, or drama, adventure, or perhaps so hopelessly muddled you’re not sure what it is?

What is the story you want to write? How would it end, if it ended perfectly for you? What dreams would you fulfill that now seem far beyond your grasp?

What role does your weight, your physical self-image play in your dreams? Is your present body an enabler? A restriction? Irrelevant? A spoiler? Have you thought about it that way?

In this story that you are writing today, the one where everything keeps playing out the way it is now… what role does sex play in it? Any? Nothing? Is it hopelessly muddled too?

In the story you would really like to write, does sex have a role? What kind of role? Or is sex something you have left behind, a relic of younger, and lighter days? Is it a driving force that lifts you to motivation for passionate fulfillment?

Cinderella lost a slipper, and discovered a kingdom. Are you a Cinderella, waiting for the grand ball, fearing the dreaded hour, running away from a confident triumph, and endlessly hoping someone will kiss you when you have lost your troublesome pounds?

If your story a love story? A story of heroism? Or a boring story to tell that leaves you barely curious how it all ends?

Who is the author of your life story?
Are you the author of your own story? Can you write the plot, fill-in the important characters, and find a twisting, but sure way, to a triumphal ending?

If you are not the author of your life, who, or what, is?

Every woman I have known who had a lot of weight to lose, has tried to lose it many times over, only to lose some and gain extra along the way. Every woman I have known who weighs a lot more than they should, has at one time or another given up, and accepted themselves, however reluctantly, as being beyond the hope of ever losing it all permanently.

A poet friend of mine told me the power of her much-published poetry was rooted in the sheer helplessness she had to crawl out from under – to discover a beautiful person staring back at her from the morning mirror.


Can you write the story of your life differently?
Are you a worthy writer? A creative writer? A prolific writer? Or a writer who has great difficulty getting that first word on the paper and tortures themselves as they bleed ink every sentence thereafter?

At this point in your life you have the gift of a chance to write a different story, a story with a new ending. A story more to your liking. You can, without asking anyone’s permission, without breaking the bonds you have to others… you can begin writing a new chapter, then another, then an entire book, until you have a new life emerging out of the cocoon of the excess weight that you carry now.

Sometimes, you need to look deep inside yourself, cry a painful cry, to tell yourself the truth – that you really are the master-writer of your weight-destiny. You really can change your life. You really can become the character in your fairy-tale book. You can be the person you have always wanted to be. You can succeed where you have failed in the past.

Write your own book, start a new chapter tonight. And wake in the morning to the role of the new you.

Will you write your story differently, the middle part you are living now, creating a new ending to your life-book?

Can you do that?

Do you want to?

VP Programs Development, ScaleDown for Life
VP Education, GoZonkers Inc.
Founder, CelebrateLifeNutrition.com
Curb Your Appetite – Stop Your Cravings
©2010 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Lower Your Expectations? – Rule 12 to Control Your Appetite

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You have to find a reason, a reason beyond food, to eat less, to lower your appetite. To weigh less. You need a counterweight to your hunger.

That is where, if you are like so many of us, you get stuck. And keep getting stuck.

Have you ever wondered why you can successfully lose weight, then gain it all back later?

When you treat weight loss as a problem with a bundle of calories, you’re going to get stuck. Because the calories you eat are tied to the human person holding the fork. It is the motivations of the human person that drives every successful weight loss effort. Plus, every failure.

Your motivations are complex. They may be not all be clear to you. Trouble is, many of your motivations may run so deep, so close to the core of who you are you don’t even notice they are in conflict with other, strong motivations.

You may want to lose weight, and are actively doing something about it. But other, hidden, internal “scripts” can get in your way. It is unintentional, self-defeating behavior.

Think about when you were growing up.

Was there a time when you were young that you had a sense of adventure, when you knew you would do great things when you got older? Did you have a dream, specific or general, that moved in your core – that was a beacon of light shining on your future?

Did you feel that sense growing in you as you got a bit older? Then high school and post-high school years, college, jobs, relationships, marriage became your focus. And before you knew it, you lost your path. You lost your way. Have you gotten lost on becoming who you knew you would be?

So you tried to re-direct your life, to get back to where you knew you were destined to go. But could never get back to that same sense of adventure and bright future you had imagined years before.

So, silently, you changed. Over the years, in spite of successes, and finding people you dearly love and respect, and need in your life, you felt something missing. And realized you were never going to get where you thought you were headed? So you lowered your expectations of life?

Growing up is often the process of lowering your expectations.

In your middle years it is hard to know how you can get back to seeing that bright light that had been focused on your future when you were much younger.

Sometimes you just give up. Not everything. Just enough that, as you invest in the lives of others that are so central to who you have become, you sacrifice pieces of your dream. Pieces of you. You sacrifice because that is what is needed to keep it all going. You do it willingly. Joyfully. Because this new reality is important to you, too. As it should be.

Then you get faced with a problem like excess weight. In the vast scheme of things, it seems so small. There are other problems, important ones to deal with. Money. Job. Spouse. Kids. Parents. In-laws. Your weight control problem seems so minor.

The realities of having a lot to worry about, so much else that needs to be done and prioritized, your struggles with weight are just not that important. Right? So, you slowly gain more weight. Add a few extra pounds. And, over the years, it accumulates.

Then, one day, you decide you must “really” do something about it. You diet. Start an exercise routine. But somehow, after weeks and months, the success of these efforts dissipate. The weight begins to reappear. Discouraged, you fall back into old patterns.

This is an old cycle that most people go through. The average person tries 7-9 times to lose weight before they finally succeed (usually gaining 5-10 pounds each time they fail). What makes them succeed in the end? It wasn’t a change in food or exercise. Those were the result, not the reason they lost weight permanently.

When successful weight loss becomes a lifestyle.

Successful weight loss becomes a lifestyle because something changes inside you. You quit lowering your expectations for yourself. All your life you faced other serious challenges and difficulties, priorities and time constraints. Each time you came last – your needs were less important than the needs of others that you loved.

To lose weight permanently your body needs to come first. You need to feed it, and exercise it in a way that supports you becoming lighter. And stronger. “You” needs to be the priority to do that.

You need to focus a bright light on your own future and say, “How am I going to keep being there for them in the future if I can’t be there for me now?”

At some future point you know that, with accumulating weight, even if holding steady at 30-40-50 + pounds overweight – your health will be at risk. Perhaps it already is. You need to take care of yourself. No one else can it for you.

This is not a repudiation of your love for them. It is a re-focusing on you and the unique spirit and body, hope and affirmation you were created with. It is a realization that the beauty of life that stirs at your core can be revitalized. With that, you can do wonders for them. And great good for yourself.

To lose weight successfully, and keep it off permanently, you have to get unstuck.

You need a counterweight to your hunger.

You have to find a reason, a reason beyond food, to eat less, to lower your appetite. To weigh less. You need a counterweight to your hunger.

When you treat weight loss as a problem with a bundle of calories, you’re going to get stuck. Because the calories you eat are tied to the human person holding your fork. It is your strong motivation that will drive your successful weight loss effort.

Reverse course. Raise your expectations for yourself. Regain the power of the bright future that lit your youth. It doesn’t have to be the same dream. It just has to be who you are now. Who you want to be 10 years from now.

You are important. Let your beauty shine again. Become out here, where we can all see it, what you have hidden inside while sacrificing to make the lives of others better.

When you do that, really do it, you have your counterweight to food. You control your appetite because it is the natural result of living out loud what had hid silently for so long.

Are you ready to do that?

How do you control your appetite?
Conclusion 12: Lower Your Expectations?

Next article...
How do you control your appetite:
Rule 13: Sleep ‘Til Noon


CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Be Worthy of It: Rule 10 to Control Your Appetite

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For you to permanently control your appetite, to be able to lose weight and keep it off, begin with an inner journey. That journey is to prepare yourself for the challenges of changing your lifestyle.

You already know that losing weight is not just a dietary problem. But why do you keep getting stuck? Why do so many of your efforts backfire, when they seem to work for others (at least they do in the ads)? What keeps happening that makes your weight loss efforts so difficult?

Here are some things you might want to think about.

1. Do you feel you have the POWER to handle life’s personal difficulties — to overcome the obstacles to permanent weight loss — to change what you are doing that led you to this place?

If you already feel powerless to change important things in your personal life, things you ardently feel need to be changed, you are drained of the energy, the confidence, the initiative to take the steps to make new weight loss efforts.

Even if you feel confident in some areas of your life, it is often difficult to have that confidence when it comes to your own self. So, here is a question: Aren't there things you would absolutely do to protect your kids? Let nothing stand in your way? But when it comes to doing things for yourself, deeply personal things, do you sometimes falter?

Start by believing you are worthy of having a different life, a better life. Not just that you want it, but that you deserve it. Beginning there, gather the power, the fierce strength you use to protect your children, to change yourself. And insist that others let you make that happen. That is the level of energy you must muster for yourself.

If you have spent a lifetime doing things for others, sacrificing your personal desires and needs year after year for your family, this may be very unfamiliar territory. It is difficult to turn all that energy you have focused on others for so long, and tell yourself you deserve to have it now focused on yourself.

But you must. Once you do, reach deep inside yourself and find the power to make it happen. That power is there. It always has been. It is what has made so much meaningful for your family and closest friends. You have the power. Use it for yourself.

2. Do you feel COMPETENT enough to make the right lifestyle changes, the right way, at the right time — do you believe you have the ability to do better and really make it happen?

If you've tried to lose weight several times before, and in the end you gained it all back each time (plus some), it is easy to lose confidence in your ability to discriminate in selecting what to do.

It is easy getting lost in the plethora of advice, and the constant stream of new and contradictory information in the media – TV, magazines, newspaper. Plus there is all that stuff you learned from mom, with friends and family eager to offer their opinions.

Sometimes, it just seems that you are swimming in so much information that its difficult to keep up. Let alone do anything different that is meaningful.

Then there are those nagging doubts... is this the right thing? Is this really going to make a difference? How do you know? How can you sort it all out?

Plus the biggest challenge of them all – when do you get the time, the alone, quiet time, to think it all out?

So, even when you get into change mode, you can lack confidence in your competence to do something effective.

3. Are you LIKABLE and WORTHY of this change? If you are not likable, if you are not worthy of this change in your lifestyle, you can never be happy. Why?

Happiness is founded on acceptance of yourself — you need self-acceptance to be happy. So, if you’re not going to be happy anyway, because you are not likable or worthy of it, what’s the point of making positive lifestyle changes designed to make you happy?

Your lifestyle changes may be well and good, but if you are still not likable or worthy, what’s the point of the effort, the inevitable pain, your changes will cause?

Besides, if you’re not worthy of it, you probably don’t deserve success, or happiness, or fulfillment – or to weigh less permanently — you don’t deserve the things you really want.

These three things significantly affect:
–Your ability to identify what you really want to do, that would truly make you happy.
–Your belief about whether or not you can change things, or can change them in a positive way, and
–Your motivation in making changes — is it going to be worth it?


If you are going to change your lifestyle, if you are really going to weigh less permanently, you have to look past the "diet" you are considering. You have to do some interior work – go on an inner journey. You have to decide, ultimately, if you are worth it.

Once you get that far, you will find a way to make it happen.

How do you control your appetite?
Conclusion 10: Be worthy of It

Next Article...
How do you control your appetite?
Rule 11: Unfold Your Butterfly Wings

You are not going to want to miss this article. It is the story of one woman's struggle to change, lose weight, and handle the unexpected effects it has on her family.

CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.

Make a Decision: Rule 9 to Control Your Appetite

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When you are fat and 40, you know you are good for 40 more years. When you are fat and 50, you're not so sure any more. If you're fat and 60, you're in real trouble. And if you're fat and 70, you know what I mean.

Carrying around excess weight can seem like just an appearance thing. No one wants to look overweight. Isn't that your first reaction to unsightly, ugly bulges on your own body?

But the really ugly truth is excess weight is a symptom of something that has already started to kill you. Because it kills you slowly, you don't see it for what it is. Thus, you don't give it the same urgent priority that you would if you had an aggressive form of cancer.

Excess weight is a pernicious malady. No one needs to tell you that it leads to heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. You may already know it increases your risk to some cancers. You know all that.

Here are some things you may not have considered about excess weight:

– For every pound you are overweight at the time of your last illness, you will cost your estate, or your family, $10,000.

– For every 20 pounds you are overweight, you will shorten your life by a year.

– Overweight is the leading cause of gallstones and kidney stones, especially in women.

– Excess weight is the prime factor in knee replacement surgery.

– Overweight has the same effect on your life expectancy as being a smoker.

But, these are just things you can face down the road. So, perhaps it is not of interest to you now – especially if you are fat and 40.

The real malevolent character of being overweight is in how if affects the quality of your life, not your body.

If you are overweight, if you are significantly overweight – especially if you have been considerably overweight for a long time, perhaps some of these may resonate with you:

• Feeling trapped by your body

• Not being seen

• Being judged by your size, not your personality, or even character

• Trying to hide your body

• Always feeling you have to make excuses for your appearance

• Feeling out of control of your life

• Being obsessed by food

• Hiding food to eat later, unseen by others

• It's better to risk your health to lose weight (with risky weight loss drugs) than to continue risking your sense of self worth by staying overweight

• Fear of food — hating food — loving food

• Feeling addicted to high fat, high sugar foods

• Losing contact with your inner feelings

• Not looking at yourself closely in the mirror

• Making less money than thin people

• Having fewer job prospects than thin people

• Seldom finding clothes you feel comfortable or attractive in

• Not doing things with your kids, spouse, and friends because they are difficult to do at your present size

• Giving up on your dreams — if you can’t control your weight, how could you ever believe you could fulfill your dreams

• Feeling kids and spouse are ashamed to be seen with you in public

• It feels good to be seen in public with a thin, attractive person — at least you can bask in the positive attention they get

• Fearing the health effects of excess weight in later life (stroke, etc.) will make you incapacitated and physically dependent on others

• Fearing that if you do lose weight your spouse will think you are out to get a new lover

• You spend so much time doing things for others, you have no time for yourself, so food is a comfort

• You might as well do things for other people, at least they deserve some attention and affection, even if you don’t

• Empty stomach = empty heart. Full stomach = full heart.

• Have failed with so many diets, there must be something wrong with you

• Loss of self confidence — if you can’t do a simple diet right, you’re really screwed up

• If you’re screwed up, you can’t possibly have the moral authority to teach your kids right, to act as a good example for them

• Losing all sense of sensuality and sexuality, knowing you’ll never feel sexy again

• Fear of physical intimacy, especially with someone new

• Fear that if you lose this relationship, you’ll never have another one

Have you ever felt any of these things? More than one?

Aren't the things on this list the real, present dangers and costs of excess weight, for you or someone you know?

Permanent weight control, on the other hand, is more than just having less weight. It is the unleashing of a more vibrant life. It is celebrating the life that was born into you – the joyful life you sensed when you were very young, but never quite got around to living as you aged.

Do you clearly see the contrast between the real costs of excess weight, and having a vibrant life – the life of your choosing?

Your excess weight, and difficulty in getting rid of it, is not a character defect. It is not that you lack self control. It is not because there is anything wrong with you.

After years of battling excess weight, you are worn down. You have done everything you knew to do, sometimes to a fault. But it always ends with you adding a few extra pounds. If everything you have been told to do fails you, then there must be something wrong with you. Right?

The real steps to rebuilding your life around a lighter you is quite literally in front of you, and well within your reach.

First, you need to understand that what you have been "taught" to do to lose weight is wrong. Wrong. Dead wrong. You need new, accurate, science-based knowledge, not some well-meaning guru who helped a celebrity get skinny.

Next, you need to know that the most powerful influences on your appetite are "caught" things, not "taught" things. (See How Do You Control Your Appetite: Rule 7: Blame it on Mom.)

Finally, and most importantly, your first step has nothing whatever to do with what you eat or not eat. It has to do with you. This entire, frustrating problem of years of creeping weight-gain has made you lose confidence in yourself. It has torn you down until your sense of self-worth is worn out. Could that be true about you?

In the end, successfully losing weight, and keeping it off, really is a decision.

That decision is: Are you worthy of having a vibrant life?

If you feel you truly have the personal worth to lead a vibrant life of your choosing, then you are on the path to solving your appetite, hunger, and craving problems. You will seek out, and keep searching for the right answers to help you control your appetite. And to eat less. You will succeed because you will not allow another reality to prevail. You will find the answer based on the science of weight loss, not on the endorsement of professionally skinny people.

But, if you feel unworthy of your own, self-directed life; if you feel you lack the incredible vibrancy born into your soul, then you will falter. You will discover obstacles that always seem to take control of your appetite. And, you will find one reason after another that forces you to continue gaining weight – forces that are always outside of your control – until you have run out of time to fix anything. At that point, you will have to leave it to the physicians to repair whatever damage they can.

How do you control your appetite? Start with a decision: Are you worth it?

Whatever you decide, once made, the rest will happen on its own.

It is not about weight. It is not about destiny. It's about deciding if you deserve to be happy.

Do you?

How do you control your appetite?
Conclusion 9: Make a Decision

Next article...
How do you control your appetite?
Rule 10: Be Worthy of It


CelebrateLifeNutrition.com – Satisfy Your Hunger
©2009 Laura Gontchar. All Rights Reserved.