I was inspired to write this blog because I realized that people generally have a hard time fitting self-nourishment and self-care -- exercising, cooking healthy meals, doing recreational activities -- into their schedules. Understanding why it's so challenging will help you to make those changes.
As our lives seem to get faster, busier, and more out of control, we feel as if we have no choice but to keep up. Our responsibilities are endless, we feel out of balance, frustrated, angry, exhausted and overwhelmed, empty and disconnected. We feel alone. We want to fill this emptiness so we keep going hoping the next thing that comes into our lives will fill the empty space. We make ourselves busy, doing things without paying attention to our true needs and without taking care of ourselves.
No matter how hard we try to take care of our daily tasks and to get it all done, the list is endless. We hope for change and the time when things will get easier. We hope that soon enough we'll have more time to take care of ourselves, only that time just doesn't seem to come.
So we try to fill the hole with a new car, clothes, a new relationship, friends, parties, traveling, drinks, sex, drugs, food, but they're not giving us what we hoped for. So we just keep going, unconsciously hoping that the solution is coming, not realizing what's really missing. Our tension is not subsiding; in fact, it only keeps growing.
Life goes on, and we're on autopilot not thinking about what's really happening, repeating our unfulfilling patterns so these patterns ingrain themselves even deeper in our brains and nervous systems. We're creatures of habit.
Unless a sudden event, sometimes a positive one but most of the time a painful one, wakes us up, and we start to see how we've lived our lives and that the way we've lived is not working anymore. We realize that unless we prioritize to take care of ourselves, our needs, our bodies, and our physical and mental health, fulfillment won't happen on its own.
Our lives are in our own hands. We make choices every single day, and we have to take responsibility for those choices and the consequences that come with it. That's the only way we can make changes and create a new reality.
We realize our life experiences have limited our perceptions all along, and if we want to change, we can easily do it by expanding our vision and our perceptions. It's up to us, no one else! In this case, the perception is feeling that there is just not enough time. It is not about time, it's about the choices we make and the priorities we have.
So we need to start to think outside the box. The box is our past, everything that happened to us and all the beliefs we created from those experiences. We created a picture of ourselves, who we are, how we fit into the picture of our lives, society, family, and what life is about. This box is very limited to those experiences and beliefs, but there's so much more to life. The possibilities and solutions are infinite and endless.
When we're finally ready to break away from the box, we'll see there's a whole new world, an infinite world with infinite possibilities out there for us to experience. We can expand, change, do things differently If we choose to. The choice is ours. That is the most amazing part. This is when we finally reclaim control of our lives. We reclaim our own power when we stop the excuses and when we stop giving our power away to any circumstances we're in.
We need to learn to prioritize and do what's really important to us; after all, it's our lives. We can't make anything or anyone else responsible for it.
Of course, these changes can be tough because we're all connected and every single change we make affects others around us, and sometimes our environment makes it a little harder to make these changes, but it's also a great test for us.
If you would like to improve your fitness and health and the quality of your life, start here:
- Can you ask for help?
- Brainstorm with someone you trust. Other people might see things differently, so stay open to hear others' perceptions.
- Do you need to reorganize your life?
- Do you need to step away from work, family, events, friends to spend 30 to 40 minutes if not an hour on yourself?
- How could it benefit your life spending a little more time to nourish yourself?
- How could it change your attitude and your general well-being and mood and the quality of your life?
- How would it change the way you function at work? With your family? Friends? In your life in general?
Self-nourishment, fitness, eating healthy, taking care of your health in other ways should be fun and not feel like punishment. That's not the point. So how can you make it fun and not make it be another task to check off your schedule? Make time, and your body can give you more energy and a more positive outlook on life. It can help you deal with stress better. It can help to balance your hormones and help you release tension. It can help you to sleep better.
Are you sure you don't have time for all of that?
Think again!