Getting Healthy – It’s Not Work!
Our journey to a state of health should be viewed as an adventure rather than a job. Too many of us today feel we are stuck in our jobs. We dedicate an inordinate amount of time to our jobs (work) and hence anything we even begin to imagine outside of job often falls under a similar perspective (work). I need to paint the living room… more work. I need to spend time with my kids… more work. I want to change how I am eating so I can drop a few pounds and improve my cholesterol and blood pressure… more work. This illusion so permeates our culture and our perspective that many of us are paralyzed from doing anything for ourselves. We stumble through our day working for someone else and then allow the apathy and inertia of our current state to become a prison stealing our freedom and chance of uncovering, creating, and embracing something meaningful for ourselves. This is a tragedy of the greatest magnitude and is avoidable. Health is possible. We must stop limiting ourselves with words like “impossible” and “work”. The impossible health recovery is only impossible if we limit ourselves to the standard paradigm. As soon as we stop listening to the false narrative we have created for ourselves, the world of possibility and health opens up.
I’m not implying that improving our health is easy. It does require effort and discipline. We must strive to make positive choices even when our mental and physical stamina are depleted from the stress of our day to day routines. Often the benefits are not immediate. If one skips a fast food dinner and cooks at home for the first time in 8 months, the next day will not suddenly be charged with energy and mental clarity. Cutting out wheat won’t magically eliminate allergic symptoms in the first week that have been lingering on and off for the past 3 years. Recovering and establishing a healthy and energetic life is an adventure. The reward of an adventure is encountered throughout the journey. It is not found in some trophy or paycheck at the end of the road. We must shift our mindset away from work and obligation if we desire to transform our health.
When we make this shift, before we know it the path starts to feel less bumpy. Cooking at home is easier, avoiding grains and wheat based foods are the norm, and the limitations we had from our physical symptoms are no longer restricting our day to day activities. Now the other activities that use to feel like work – maintaining our home, playing and engaging with our family, cooking and eating nutrient dense food – are no longer a burden. These practices are the norm and the benefits from these efforts are the self-perpetuating reward. We continue this adventure not because of a paycheck or some other obligation, we continue because accepting any less is living a life void of color. What is the first adventure you want to take?
~Dr. Swanz
Image Credit: Petras Gaglias
