A healthy man wants a thousand things, a sick man only wants one.
-Confucius
I got the big scary test result from my doctor a few weeks ago- the one that told me I was pre-diabetic. The one that told me I needed to see a dietician because if I want to avoid going down the same shitty health spiral that my mom has been in for the last 30+ years, I need to do something. Pronto. (Okay, my doctor didn’t say the thing about the shitty health spiral; I added that.)
I’ve been feeling a little more quiet lately and I’m okay with it because I’ve been spending a lot more time moving my body and taking care of myself in that way. The most fun way I’ve been getting that movement in has been through walking people’s dogs. I get puppy time and movement. Neat! I’m so lucky that my partner- the cook in the house- is totally on board with sneaking more veggies into our diet.
So much of my resistance to movement has come from the conditioning that it’s supposed to look a specific way. I can’t ever imagine being in love with the gym, but I’ve been surprising myself a lot lately with the types of movement I enjoy so who knows?
Physical self-care is definitely the form of self-care that has presented the most challenge throughout my life. I’m nailing it in the areas of adornment and environment, which I consider to be forms of physical self-care. I let my body choose my clothing in the morning and whether or not I want to wear makeup and/or accessorize. I love my home and keeping it beautiful.
However, the areas of nutrition and movement have been challenging for me throughout my life. The relationship I had with food as a younger person was “sweets as a reward” and using certain foods to numb out. I’ve been intentionally healing that relationship over the past several years…but it hasn’t exactly magically become a scenario where my taste buds have transformed to crave the foods that contain the nutritional content that my body needs.
It’s not for lack of knowledge. I’ve read so many books about nutrition. I’ve taken classes and courses and have learned so much about muscle groups and how my body moves through that embodied experience. But I’ve been going about this in a different way- healing the trauma my body has been holding onto in order to best treat myself as I increase the movement in my life.
So much of the work I do- my personal work and in my coaching practice- is about making the body a safe place to be again…a pleasurable place to be. Because our bodies hold so much wisdom and are constantly communicating with us. The area of movement is where I’m working on this connection and communication with my body the most right now.
This is what’s working for me right now and what I’m working on. I certainly don’t have it all together here. But I’m learning and am more than happy to share more specifics…especially if it will help others. This physical health part feels like the final piece of the self-care puzzle for me. It's certainly the thing I want the most for myself right now.
I'm so curious. What areas of your own self-care are you working on right now? Is there any area you’d like support in?If so…BOOK A JOYFUL POSSIBILITIES CALL WITH ME. These calls are meant to provide you with simple, usable tools to begin applying immediately. For transparency’s sake, these are also times for us to talk about any of my offerings that might serve you best on your particular journey.It’s all about what’s going to serve you most.
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