How Do I Improve My Health?

A lot of my clients are overwhelmed by the multitude of aspects involved with creating positive health.

When you’re feeling contractive, emotionally reactive or clouded, and find yourself wondering where to begin to build a strong foundation for your well being, it’s important to be practical, if not outright pragmatic about the choices you make in the very beginning. Why? Well, when you take the first step towards creating change in your life, all of your limiting stories, beliefs, and judgments get challenged. In this internal process of friction whereby your addictions are brought to the forefront for clearing, the decisions you make during this chaotic time can determine if you ultimately continue building towards positive health.

If you back down when your core beliefs, stories, and judgment get challenged, then you’re instilling that changing the course of your health is hard to follow through on. When you seduce yourself into believing that changing your habits, thoughts, and even the words you use about your body are difficult, you’re likely going to further judge yourself and what you‘re experiencing. The process of letting go of all that obscures optimal health should feel joyous and exciting. If you haven’t tapped into anticipation for what joyous experience is in the process of being revealed for you to feel, the path of well being will seem like a job.

There’s no right or wrong way to reveal well being in your body.

Your internal relationship with your own physical and emotional health is exposed in the conversations you have with friends, coworkers, and family. Are you listening? The beliefs you have about your health are reflected in the things you eat and how often you do or do not exercise. Are you paying attention to the choices you are making? The regard you have about the functioning and well being of your body are felt in how often you consciously breathe, do yoga, or receive expert massage and bodywork. Do you give yourself the tools to increase the acuity of sensations flowing through your body?

When all of these aspects are at play as you acknowledge the need to make new decisions about changing the course of your health, it can be tricky to decide where you should practically start. After all, how many times have you decreed that change was necessary, started making new decisions, but found yourself being distracted by life and forgetting? Are the stories playing out in your reality preventing you from exploring the deliberate choices you need to make?

If you’ve created a track record of not following through on changing the habits that obscure your well being, then it becomes more difficult to trust yourself to remain in integrity with your decisions when your body is showing signs of breaking down even more.

The self-judgment you feel comes from expecting more from your body than it has to give when life is stressful and you absolutely need to fulfill all of your responsibilities and obligations. “This can’t be happening to me right now. I have so much work to do!” Indeed, the judgment you project at your body can make it seem like your health is separate from your repetitious decisions. “Why can’t you just work?!?!”

Everyone, at some point, experiences brief instances of self-judgment when the consequences of reality weigh heavily on you. That kind of self-judgment distances the emotional relationship you have with your body. So when imbalances creep into your daily experience of yourself, the inconvenience of bad health can make you angry and frustrated for feeling like your body is making everything so much more difficult. Even though you know that everything you’re experiencing is the manifestation of disregarding your own well being for too long. You’re only witnessing the long term results of ignoring what’s best for your body in order to maintain your livelihood.

So where do you begin when your health is on the verge of going from less than optimal to flat out non-functional? If you do one thing every day, whether it’s going to sleep and waking up 30 minutes early to afford yourself the time to do yoga and be deliberate with your breath, than do that. If you want to start changing your health by improving your breakfast habits and eat fresh fruit, instead of eggs, or toast, or cereal, than do it. Maybe you want to start drinking fresh vegetable juice twice a day to begin creating new sensations of well being? Perhaps getting a massage every week or two; cultivating some nurturing energy in your life will keep you deliberate, as you follow through on defining and redefining what are enjoyable and exciting ways to reveal well being? For me personally, I’m choosing to not eat any food after 6pm. Just that one little tweak in my habits has made a huge difference in the amount of sustainable energy I have.

The point is, there isn’t any one size fits all recipe for getting back on track to start feeling better. Everyone is different. Whatever decisions you can easily follow through on, start there. Once you’ve shown yourself that making new and healthy decisions can be easy, then you can start tackling the places in your life, internally and externally, that have bigger Emotional Charges or triggers. However, if you try to make all kinds of changes in one or two days, you’ll very likely get overwhelmed and start forgetting. If that happens, you will only add to the stories you’ve already created that feed the internal dialogue that streams through your mind saying “CHANGE IS HARD!”

Change isn’t hard.

Just start where you, choose one thing to change, add, take away, or do RIGHT NOW, and focus on just that. The supporting decisions will effortlessly come about as you’re ready to tackle new challenges. Don’t force change. Don’t contrive change when you don’t feel inspired. Too many people judge the ill-conceived choices they’ve made and try to overcompensate all in one big, massive declaration. It’s a nasty cycle to reactively abuse your body, then try to overcompensate by completely changing your life because your body is breaking down.

Hey, if you can eliminate everything that’s unhealthy, and only eat, speak, and do what’s in your best interest; more power to you! However, if you’ve already embarked on the path of conscious change, only to find yourself way off the trail in some belated epiphany; the methodical process of honoring your body, one easy step at a time will be much more effective. You’ll also squelch the noise in your head of self-judgment when you demonstrate your true ability to commit to the choices that feed and build upon your well being.

On a personal note, keep apprised of my new book/ebook “Noise” to be released around this time next year! And give me a ring for a massage if you would like to reach out for my assistance in your deliberate path towards sustainable expansive health.