The Way Toward Heath

“I believe that the greatest gift you can give your family and the world is a healthy you.”

— Joyce Meyer

In the pursuit of a life that feels safe and secure, health is an extremely important topic.  Few things can be such a distraction from a life lived on our own terms as physical pain or disease, or emotional or mental pain and dysfunction.  Tending to our health is not as simple as building walls around our property or choosing our friends wisely (though these things may have their complexities).  I would have to say that there is more misinformation and confusion around what sustains health than in virtually any other area of inquiry I can think of.  Most of us are disheartened by the sheer volume of contradictions we encounter as we do our best to take care of ourselves and our families, and the fear-mongering rhetoric designed to sell us things pertaining to our health.  There is more information available than ever before in history, but no clear consensus on what works, and we are in danger of becoming overwhelmed and giving up entirely on having the experience of balance and vitality we’re after.

Many of us did experience vibrant health as children.  If so, we have a memory of what that felt like, at least.  We know what the best-case scenario is, and we can try to recreate and support it with our best efforts.  Those of us who didn’t may feel that the quest to gain it has about as much chance of success as a search for a legendary pirate’s treasure chest.  How can you find something you’re not even sure is really possible?  More on this later.  But chances are, if you’re out of your teens, that you may have encountered some sort of health challenge, whether that’s an old injury that just never healed quite right or a chronic issue that you haven’t been fully able to resolve.

Once we’ve had this experience of an unwanted problem that interrupts our physical, mental, or emotional functioning, fear of what the future may hold often creeps in.  After all, if this could blindside us, what else is in store in this life?  If the body can betray us in this way, how can we ever trust it again?  Of course, we may have been taught to have an adversarial relationship with our bodies before there was ever injury or meaningful illness in our lives.  We learn early from our families and communities about what our bodies do, what they mean, what we can expect from them.  If we see people around us suffering and feeling disempowered about maintaining and renewing health, then we come to believe that the body is fragile, and that our health is already eroding with each birthday.  We hear messages about how as we get older, aches, pains, and illness are inevitable.  Aging starts to sound like a bad deal for us, something to dread.  Does this sound to you like a helpful mindset for living in successful partnership with your body, mind, and emotions? 

If you notice that you have negative beliefs about your ability to enjoy health, working to be healthy, or taking appropriate care of your mind, body, emotions, and spirit, what can you do about that?  As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, admitting you have a problem is the first step.  Once you’re aware that there are conditions in place in yourself that you don’t prefer, congratulations!  You are now in a position to do something about it.  While these beliefs remain unconscious and unexamined, your life is likely to proceed in much the same familiar direction.  Becoming aware of disempowering beliefs can be painful and frightening, as this tends to stir up uncomfortable memories and the emotions that go with them.  This is where it might be a good idea to get help from someone more experienced, whether that’s a psychologist, a spiritual counselor, a coach, or a book about someone else who went through something similar and can give helpful guidance.  There is enough evidence now about the very real effect that our thoughts, beliefs and emotional states have on our long-term health that we should all be taking these into account and finding new ways to optimize them if we’re serious about supporting lifelong health.

Vast numbers of books have been written, and will continue to be, about the mechanics of what you MUST do to create and maintain health.  I am not going to enter the fray here by trying to give you some seven-step process to perpetual perfection.  As someone with some experience in dealing with chronic physical pain from different sources over the course of years, I feel that the most important thing I can add to the collective pool of knowledge is that we are each unique.  There is no one-size-fits-all solution.  I give you permission now to stop looking for it.  Now, before you wail in despair that managing your own health without a formal education in medicine is too large a project for you to be taking on, let me ask you, how does it feel to be clueless about how to maintain your health?  What if you could, little by little over time, learn what your body needs until you felt your energy, harmony, and confidence beginning to overflow?

The truth is, of course, that you can.  This doesn’t happen overnight, but if you decide that it’s what you want, and start thinking in this way, you will start compiling information that will help you in your quest.  You’ll start to notice that you feel better when you eat certain foods, sleep for a certain amount of hours starting and ending at certain times, do certain kinds of physical activity.  You’ll notice that you have more energy after spending time with certain people and less after spending time with others; some activities are more energizing, others more draining.  What most of us feel best with is the creation of balance, such that you intersperse these so that you never end a day feeling too drained, and you always add in some things that energize and uplift you to keep you going.  If you’re going to eat things you know aren’t good for you, at least you learn to balance that with making sure you get some high-quality nutrition into your body every day.  It’s the noticing and the intention to support your own health that will begin to swing your trajectory in a wide arc, over time, into an entirely new direction.  Those two things have more power than you might believe.  They don’t seem like the solution to anything when you’re desperate and in pain, but they are the long-term solution to finding what you need in order to thrive.  Most of us do our best to ignore pain signals from our bodies, minds, and emotions in favor of remaining functional, because this is what we’re taught to do.  We think there’s no point in dwelling on the negative or opening up to the experience of what the pain has to tell us because we haven’t considered that there might be wisdom there.  If you have a helpful technique to use, often there is, and it’s not necessarily hard to find (ahem…Tapping…or meditation or journaling or any number of others).  As you have some success in observing, implementing small changes, and feeling positive results, it will be easier to keep activating that intent to continue learning and implementing your way to vigorous health.

If you’ve never had the experience of health that you want, or it’s been a long time since you have, and you’re feeling disappointed and pessimistic, you will need to work on your ability to trust—trust that the world is large enough to contain the ideas and guidance you want, trust that you are capable of learning and growing, and trust your body to communicate to you when you are doing something right and when you may be contributing negatively to the issue at hand.  Read stories or watch movies about others who have triumphed in any situation for inspiration.  Allow yourself to relax for at least a few minutes a day and imagine how good it will feel to, well, feel good; really allow yourself to enjoy the experience of imagining this.  Enlist the support of others in reminding you of problems you’ve solved in the past, and all the fine qualities you have that can help you in moving forward this time.  Make sure you’re bringing some humor into your life by listening to one of the many brilliant comedians working today, spending time with someone who makes you laugh, or doing anything that tickles your funny bone.  Humor is essential to getting through hard times, and has profound healing powers of its own.

If you want to speed up you progress, then, as with anything, it’s a great idea to go do some research on what people who are considered to be successful in this arena have to offer.  Read stories about others who have had similar challenges to yours, or who are just passionate about health and sharing what they’ve learned.  Search for experts in relevant medical fields.  Find local health practitioners, including natural health experts like nutritionists and acupuncturists, who are highly rated online and seek their expertise.  Just remember that you are not everyone else.  What has worked for many others may not work for you, and vice versa.  If you’re really after health security, you’ll need to commit to firing up a lifelong curiosity about how to support your health as you continue to balance all the other areas of your life.

I wish I could say that I have all the answers and I can make it easy for you from this day forward to maintain glowing good health throughout your life.  I believe that the truth is that you are the only one who can chart the appropriate path to this goal, but there is support available for you every step of the way.  No one else could do this for you even if they wanted to, because the responsibility for the choices you make every day will always rest with you.  I think you’ll find that over time, as you grow to trust in your ability to care for yourself successfully, you’ll enjoy the ability to make your own choices and strike your own balance as a privilege.  The process will cease to be so overwhelming and become more satisfying, and you will become a source of information and guidance for others.  With no disrespect to the wisdom inherent in the Star Trek franchise, I say that I think that in today’s world the healthy functioning of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual unit is really still the final frontier, practically speaking.  Most of us aren’t ready to move beyond this challenge into the realm of space—currently an inspiring, fantastical, glorious avoidance of the fact that we’re not even able to get our basic selves together!  We still have so much to learn about doing a decent job of being healthy humans on this planet.  This is a challenge that’s worthy of us too.  By all means, let’s keep dreaming big, but let’s also do the work to buoy ourselves up long enough to get to our biggest goals by attending to the unglamorous bits too.  May you have the most radiant health this week, this month, this life!  Feel free to comment below on anything you find to be a particularly helpful part of your own health regimen for the benefit of others.