Recognizing That Healthy is Hard

@bethvogt

I was talking with my daughter-in-love, Meagan, when she said, “Healthy is hard.”

Her three-word statement was one of those “This is so true!” moments.

You know what I’m talking about, right? You’re in the middle of a conversation with someone and they say something that reverberates inside you as if someone hit a massive gong with a hammer.

No matter what kind of healthy we’re striving for – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual – achieving our goal is going to be a challenge. And sometimes more than one health goal can be woven together: Physical and emotional health. Mental and spiritual health. This reality makes what we’re trying to accomplish all the more difficult.

Are there any steps that make getting healthy easier?

Becoming healthy means saying yes. Sometimes we choose to start off by adopting new, positive habits on our way to changing our behavior. I decided that during the COVID-19 lockdown that I wasn’t going to watch my bathroom scale go up, up, up. But to do so, I had to stop my evening snack routine. What can I say? I can be super-diligent all day long and then – bam! – 7 p.m. rolls around and I’m a walking, talking snack machine who can’t say no to useless calories. It’s not that I don’t eat anything in the evening. Doing that would be all about saying “no.” Instead, I’ve discovered better foods I love and want to say yes to after dinner.
Becoming healthy means saying no. It’s a simple, and yes, as hard, as that. Let’s be honest, we don’t like to say no to ourselves. We want what we want when we want it – be it a book by a favorite author or a too-expensive pair of shoes that blow our budget. We also don’t like telling other people no, especially family members, no matter how unhealthy they may be to our emotional and mental well-being. As the medieval proverb states, “Blood is thicker than water.” Well, sometimes blood is just a bloody mess and we need to be the one to tie the tourniquet and stop the hemorrhaging.
Becoming healthy means you be yourself  while you allow others to be who they are. Soon after we got married, my husband decided to break me of my habit of drinking Coke on a daily basis. How much I drank was in proportion to my stress level. Reality was, my husband’s good intentions were not my own. I stopped drinking Coke six years ago because I wanted to. We’re choosing healthy for us. Maybe we’re in a season of becoming stronger emotionally or progressing in our faith journey. We focus on that – not on someone else’s unhealthy choices. It’s not up to us to demand anyone else get healthy the same way we do, even if we know they need to make better, wiser, more beneficial choices. Sometimes the healthiest things we can offer someone else are daily doses of grace and prayer.
Becoming healthy means not being a perfectionist along the way to achieving what you hope for in the future. On our way to physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual well-being, we’re going to blow it. Make poor choices. So what happens then? We try again. Healthy doesn’t happen all at once, it happens when we make the choices that are best for us, consistently, not perfectly.

I’m willing to accept that healthy is hard – and it’s worthwhile. Care to join me?

 

Recognizing That Healthy is Hard https://bit.ly/39tCe9b #Choices #Challenges
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'A sad soul can be just as lethal as a germ.' Quote by John Steinbeck https://bit.ly/39tCe9b #health #perspective
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