Are You Well?

How Well are you?  and How do you know??

How is your health?  Are you well?  Are you in good health?

Do you have energy? Do you feel well when you wake up in the morning? 

Do you feel like your mind is sharp?

How do we measure our health, anyway, if we’re not actually sick.

If you don’t feel well, you’re NOT FINE.

          (even if your labs are “normal”)

If you don’t have ENERGY, it’s not normal.

If you’re full of aches and pains for no reason, you’re not fine.

Sometimes we feel “off” a little bit, for years.  It creeps up on us and we hardly notice it…until we do.

We’re not sick (possibly).  But we just seem to be getting worn down.  Oh, well…AGE, right?  Let’s think about that.

Our bodies were made to be healthy; to want to move; to come up with new ideas for our lives; to “feel like” mastering something new; to feel like Caring; to have energy.

Our bodies were not made to be sick, tired, slow moving, slow thinking, and not wanting to improve our lives in new ways.  (And it’s not “old age”).  Our bodies actually want to heal themselves… and they were designed to do that.  They try to tell us… we need to listen to our bodies.

We also weren’t made to hibernate ourselves away from other people.  We feel so much better when we associate with others in some way.  And other people need YOU, too!

I heard an Ag person on a podcast, talking about regenerative agriculture, and all the wonderful benefits of it.  And he said, “Do you know what the hardest thing to change is?”  Answer: “The thinking of the human mind.”  I understand that quote.

We’ve been taught a lot of things through the years that do us harm today.  One thing I was taught was that doctors make us well.  The truth is, Nature make us well.  If we look to nature, we learn a lot.

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To be sure…

I’m not being critical of doctors, believe me.  We need them.  They are a blessing to us—and to civilization.  And they can fix us when we break, and they can give us medicine to help us feel better…but they do not usually look into the cause of our problem to actually FIX it, to keep it from coming up again.

If their medicine makes the symptoms go away…and if we don’t work on the cause, the problem will continue to show up in some way.  It will either come back again, or show up in a different way.  Our bodies talk to us.

Usually we’re so busy or distracted, we don’t even consider that’s what those symptoms mean—our body is trying to tell us something.  And in this world we’re living in today, Health and Wellness don’t just fall from the sky.  So then…What do we do??

When we have symptoms, our bodies want us to pay attention—they need something; they want care.

And we can’t get healthy from just eating a certain way, or from reading a book, or from following a specific lifestyle prescription—or any other “magic bullet”.  Each of our bodies are different, and have their own unique needs.  And it’s almost never just one thing.

You are the one with the key to what your body needs.  But you have to pay attention to what it’s telling you.

Sometimes our health is like a riddle.  We need to figure it out.

Think of things that you feel need to be improved, and start by making one change.  Try making that one change, and if you need to, tweak it or change it up a little, or try something totally different, over a period of time. 

It can be a struggle: failing, learning, getting stuck then trying something else.  What works for one person may not work at all for another.  It depends on the CAUSE.

If this process sounds like a lot, just know that in addition to possibly overcoming your issue without assaulting your body with chemicals, (your body doesn’t know how to use them), you will get to know your body better, and your body will like that.

We have to take responsibility for our health…for our wellness.  Our health is not the doctor’s responsibility, and we can’t depend on them to make us healthy.  They have very little training in how to do that.

With the new focus nationally on health, it is becoming more common for traditional doctors to be getting education in health, and that’s THE BEST!  But unless the doctor has specific health training, it’s almost impossible to find a traditional doctor who knows how to “make us healthy”.

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Does Medicine make us well?

We need medicine at times. 

But do you realize,

1.    the way we sleep (or don’t) affects our bodies?  It also affects our brain. 

a.    New research is linking lack of quality sleep to dementia and Alzheimer’s…but that’s not the only way it affects us. 

b.    Our muscles don’t have time to rest and get ready for another busy day.  Our intestines don’t have time to digest our food properly…causing us (even if what we eat is very healthy) to lack the nourishment from our food (plus so many other things that don’t work properly when we don’t get proper sleep).  And medicine can’t fix that.

Do you realize that

2.    the amount of stress we’re under can severely attack our bodies?  Estimates are that over 90% of doctors’ visits  have their origin in stress. 

a.     There is “a saying”, Stress will kill you.  Well, yes.  Yes, it surely can.  A little painful bit at a time. 

b.    There are ways to reduce our stress naturally, that work better than any pill. And without the side effects of the drugs

c.     And in today’s rush, we think too much, want too much, and we seem to have forgotten the joy of “just being”.

Do you realize that

3.    Food can actually take the place of Medicine? When I had my health problems, and had been going to various doctors for 4-5 years for help…

a.    When I finally got the clue that it might be autoimmune-related, and I researched and found a Functional Medicine Doctor who specialized in autoimmune conditions (traditional doctors had been telling me there “was no cure”), they were able to totally make my symptoms go away… after I changed the way I ate and a few small habits! 

b.    Yet, no medicine had helped me at all during those years.  Good food can make soooo much difference in our health.

Do you realize that

4.    Our bodies were meant to move?  Well, they are! And it is now scientifically proven that if we keep our bodies strong, and move them a lot every day, we will live healthier, longer lives?  It’s true.

a.      And it will give us energy!  Not later on, but right now.

b.     And the more regularly we keep our body moving, the better it will feel, and the stronger it will be. 

c.     And not just our body, but our mind too!  It works.  It works better than any pill.

I coach about the 5 Pillars of Health: Sleep, Stress, Nutrition, Movement and Relationships.  It takes them all.  One won’t do it.  One will definitely HELP!  When you improve one Pillar, you’ll feel much better.  And as you add improvement in the other areas, you will be amazed at your life! 

If you’re wanting to make this change, I’d suggest you pick one of the pillars to work on.  Set your mind to do it.  Just one.  Make a plan of exactly what you will do toward that, and how often (every day).

Then, think of how your life will be after you make that change.  Think how your life will be because you’ve made that change.  Where you can go, or how you can go, or who you can go with…whatever changes these accomplishments will cause.  Think of how that will be.

And work toward that.

FEEL THE VICTORY!

Then, pick your second Pillar to work on.

After you’ve accomplished that goal, you will see, you can do this.  Your body wants to be well, have energy, think new and creative thoughts, and be able to be calm and at peace.  Productive, yet peaceful.  What a concept!  You can do this.

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It’s easy to get stuck in a rut and not even know it.  But you will eventually know because your body will let you know.

We can not create better well-being in ourselves, our families or our community, if we stay the same!  Every new level of well-being requires a new level of change.  So if you want to create more life in your life, it will mean getting comfortable with making changes in your lifestyle.

And it’s just not acceptable to say these negative changes happen with old age.  It’s being proven by science every day that “old age” symptoms are actually caused from how we treat ourselves, and how we eat. 

Yes, we will all get old.  But we can stay healthy for many more of those years than we think!  Our bodies just need for us to pay attention, and work with them.

Let’s make a change.  Do what that Ag person said was the hardest thing to do: change the way we think.

Believe me, it’s a BETTER WAY.

We can prove it, together, if you’d like.  Let me know if you need some help.  I can help you move from comfortable to uncomfortable with ease.  It’s a journey.

Talk to me about your health journey.  Together we can get you to your health goals.  Weekly coaches sessions can help you stay on track, with encouragement, direction, education and tracking your progress.

There’s a whole new life out there…and it’s for real!

Thank you for reading.  Let’s enjoy living here.

Sharon