Thinking Through The Heart
photo credit: pixabay.com/geralt
As the final weeks of 2017 float by like the beautiful fall leaves cascading to the ground, our thoughts often lead to the anticipation of a new year and a new start. Last year my resolution was to “get healthier” year. Just that phrasing was a huge change in and of itself for me. In years past the vow was always to “lose weight” or “exercise more” or some other edict that was virtually impossible to keep past the initial out-of-the-gate sprint between January 1 and January 15.
Change starts with our thoughts and I find I think a lot about change (and subsequently write about it as you can see here and here). Our world view brings about the actions we take and the words we speak, regardless of whether or not we are fully conscious of them. But lasting change, the change that sustains over time, lives in our heart. To change our hearts, we must start in our heads.
With that in mind I started my quest for a healthier 2017, as I start many of my quests, by reading. The first question I typically ask myself when I start something is “what’s already out there.” We can learn a great deal from one another when we slow down, listen and seek out others who are searching for similar answers.
I started with food. What I put into my body definitely needed a little tweaking. I love to cook so I started with something I loved – cookbooks. I needed to actually DO something that resulted in a small “win” to get the resolution bus moving in the right direction. Focusing on improving something I already do well would give me the momentum I needed to tackle my aversion to “working out.” I found some fun and easy things that brought better nutritional value to my cooking practice without having to completely overhaul a habit that was working well. Scoreboard: Win #1!!
After starting with cookbooks, I knew the harder stuff came next – changing the way I thought about food. Food to me is celebration, regardless if it’s a pb&j sandwich or filet mignon. I discovered that the juxtapositioning of food as enemy (i.e. dieting and a deprivation mindset) and food as celebration (feeding my body and enhancing my life) was absolutely killing my drive to become healthier. Like the rainbow after a good hard rain, Darya Rose & Summer Tomato appeared. (www.summertomato.com) Darya’s way of looking at the mind-body connection as well as our cultural, social and even political concepts of food resonated with me and challenged me to think about food and dieting differently (here is an eye-opening article about food from Darya). There were also tons of resources and tips that helped reinforce my new habits.
I realized that while my health was in my hands, I had to start in my head. I let go of the notion that I had to jump out of the gates with hard core exercise and realized it was about building a “health-style”, not a short-term fix to achieve a goal I had had most of my adult life. I started with food. Good stuff in, good stuff out.
I didn’t stress myself out too much about “working out” and focused next simply on “movement.” Starting with a simple goal of “some” form of movement at least three times each week quickly blossomed into a daily practice. The juices were flowing and the heart was soon following the mind. I didn’t push, keeping the mindset of something is better than nothing. This mindset shift alleviated all the have to’s and should be’s which brought about a feeling of self-empowerment I was not expecting to feel. My life was in my hands. I get to choose and it was frankly pretty clear that I could, in fact, do it.
My mindset shift trickled through other parts of my life as well. I find I am more accepting of life as it is while at the same time being more passionate and feeling more urgency to live my truest life. My 50-plus-year-old body is not ever going to look like my 25-year-old body. Truthfully, I still wish for that but I’m closer to accepting me as me than I ever have been. I’m learning to appreciate what this 50-plus-year-old body has done. It has traveled. It has moved apartments and houses more times than I care to remember. It has nursed sick loved ones. It accomplished a 3-Day Breast Cancer Awareness Walk. It has grown and nurtured two babies. It takes away all the worries and cares, at least for the moments my children are in my embrace. It jiggles a little when I laugh; and when I cry. I wouldn’t have it any other way.