The Irritating Truth

In what areas are you taking full responsibility of your life?  In what areas are you only taking partial responsibility of your life?  How successful are the areas of your life that you are only taking partial responsibility?

When it comes to our personal health goals, taking full responsibility is so important to becoming healthy and well.  So many times, I am in a session with a client and they talk themselves out of deciding to pursue health. 

There are many reasons why it seems easier to not take full responsibility.  For example, it is cheaper, more convenient, and much easier to eat fast food or to eat pizza for dinner.  But with every decision, I will bear the consequence to that decision.  If the decision becomes a pattern, my health will eventually suffer for this pattern. 

If I don’t take full responsibility for my health, other areas of my life will most definitely be affected as well.  The tough truth is that if my health is not my responsibility because it is “too hard” or “too expensive” or because there are just too many treats at my office, then I am deferring my responsibility and avoiding the tasks and diligence that it requires to be healthy.  Thus, I am even forgoing my right to have health.

“The truth that you are in charge of your life will set you free only after it really irritates you (Sky St. John).”  It may be an irritating truth that you are the only one in charge of your health, your finances, your career path, and your life and marriage.  It is so annoying that no one can really help me until I decide that I am taking charge.  However, once I delve into the responsibility, I feel the benefits of the diligence and the decision to pursue health. 

Any decision that I defer and chose not to make is already made for me.  If I chose not to ask my boss for a raise, then I chose to stay where I am in my company.  If I chose to leave my job and start a business, then the success or failure of that business is my responsibility and I will reap the joy or sorrow of the end result. 

When I was 25 years old, I took the first step of taking full responsibility of my health by reading 1 book.  As soon as I read that book, I made a decision to change my entire lifestyle to support health.  As soon as I was 30 days into the journey, I was reaping the benefits of more energy, more joy, and more clarity in my mind.

So many of us surrender to the “reality of aging” or have the mentality that certain symptoms of aging are “normal.”  This is a small way that we defer the responsibility that we have to take care of our health. 

“Full responsibility is acknowledging that life is my mirror, every thought is a request, and the only thing that I need to change in order to be happier is me (MK Mueller).”  I have spoken to married women before who are bitter, angry, and hardened towards their husbands.  Many times, I hear the women complain bitterly that if only their husband loved them more then they would be happy or they would be able to love their children more.  I was saddened when one mother told me how she rejected her son because she was not happy in her marriage with her husband.  Her son suffered much by being rejected by his mother.  However, she did not take full responsibility for this thought and behavior towards her child.  Rather, she blamed her husband for her rejecting her son. 

As long as she continues to believe the lie that her husband is responsible for the rejection of her son, she will continue with the behavior of rejecting her son.  The husband will not suffer for it because he is oblivious.  Instead, she and her son will suffer the consequences of this grave error. 

We only have control over our own lives and we have no control over the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors of other human being.  We must choose to take full responsibility of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.  When we change our attitude towards our health by choosing the annoying reality that I am the only one who will keep myself health, then we will reap the benefits of choosing a healthy lifestyle. 

Attitude Eating

Many times, as I meet with clients, I tell them that I wish it were as easy as giving them a list of things to do and not do within their diet and lifestyle; however, it is never that simple.  We are complex, integrated people and our health needs to be looked at in different angles in order to understand and unravel the hindrances to our health journey.

Our actions and behaviors day to day happen after we have thought about it, after we have felt it, and after we have made a decision in our will to move forward.  If I think that it is Monday and I am going to have a horrible day and then I feel mad and then I imagine myself eating a chocolate brownie and feeling better, I make my way to the nearest brownie store and I buy a brownie as big as my face and I eat it. 

I may feel good about it for a moment.  But then I pay.  I lived out my thoughts, my emotions, and my intentions for the day.  We need to learn to command our days, set out thoughts in order and choice a positive attitude. 

I have heard of emotional eating, but I have never heard anyone talk about attitude eating.  Some of us have the wrong attitude towards our health and this is the root issue to the sabotaging of our health.

Attitude is defined as:  a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person's behavior.  The main thing that concerns me about attitude is that it is "settled" in people's minds so many times and that people are not flexible and ready to change their attitude if necessary.

In addition, researchers suggest that there are several different components that make up attitudes:

1.  An Emotional Component:  How the object, person, issue, or event makes you feel.
2.  A Cognitive Component:  Your thoughts and beliefs about the subject.
3.  A Behavioral Component:  How the attitude influences your behavior.  

In terms of health, it is important that we examine our conscious and unconscious attitudes towards our health, health in general, and what it means to be healthy.  Many times, we will find that we have opposing and conflicting beliefs, thoughts, and emotions that strongly influence our behavior and actions in regards to taking care of our health or not taking care of our health.

For example, someone may hold the following attitude about health:  “I don’t see what the big deal is about health.  It is too expensive.  I feel angry that someone could possibly suggest that I am in control of my health based on the choices that I make.  Obviously, my health is predisposed from the genetics of my grandparents and ancestral line.  I have diabetes because my dad did, my grandpa did, and his dad did as well.  I have no control over my health.”

With that kind of attitude, it is easy to see how out of control this person’s eating patterns and lifestyle would become.  Eating to satisfy the flesh and taste buds becomes of utmost importance as well as convenience and ease of speed.  This person will most likely be dependent on insulin with no hope of regaining any balance.

I often ask my clients if they believe that they can be healthy.  Most people will say yes.  However, in further questioning, it most often comes to the surface that they will always have to take this or that drug because of the severity of their health crisis.  The truth about their attitude towards their health reveals how proactive and open to solutions they will be.

When I was seeking solutions to my own health, after having been diagnosed with PCOS, it became my definitive attitude that my health crisis would be resolved and that I would have a regular period.  What I believed to be true fully manifested only 3 years after I made the transition to believing and walking in the attitude of receiving this truth.

One simple exercise that you can implement is visualization.  Every day, practice visualizing yourself as a healthy, happy, balanced person.    Watch as you go into a co-op or a health foods store and find the most healthy, vibrant foods.  Watch as you purchase these items without batting an eye at the cost.  Then watch as you eat these foods and feel so healthy and good.  Visualize what you would do if you had vibrant health.  As you begin this ritual, you will be amazed at the transformation of your beliefs, attitudes, and finally behaviors.  Soon, you will be walking in and receiving your healing as well!

Writer's Ice Block and unexpected healing path

Cold does interesting things to the human heart and soul.  In my case, it has caused a serious case of writer’s block.  I am trying to flow in my blogging efforts and all I keep hitting is a thick, very cold ice block (haha…).

Minnesota proves to be an interesting state to pursue health.  We have many obstacles to health:  snow, cold, frozen soils, black ice, etc.…. it can be very challenging to find good sources of food throughout every season.  Freezing, canning, planning ahead become part of the tasks of finding health in every season.

One challenging situation that I experienced this year was the death of a close friend.  My friend, Terri, had been battling breast cancer for 2 years and died January 12^th.  It was a shock, even though she had been sick for 2 years. 

We were in it together.  She decided that she was going to make it, she wasn’t going to die and that God would make a way for her to be here for her boys.  She left behind 3 beautiful boys, 9, 17, and 19 years old.  And she will be missed terribly.

I have never lost a close friend before and at such a young age.  We fought till the end for her to make it and yet her body failed her.  She didn’t fail, her heart was in it, and she fought harder than I have seen anyone fight.

I am still processing this loss and yet I have peace.  We had asked God to heal her and to restore her life.  We had prayed that God would provide for her and her boys.  I have never prayed as much as I did for my friend Terri. 

She was a beautiful person with so much spunk and fight in her.  She was passionate about truth and health and being a mother.  She was such a great advocate for her children.  She was an awesome friend and a great listener.  I enjoyed so much our conversations and time together.

It was a difficult, awesome, scary, and beautiful process to be with someone who is dying.  I was with her every day in the hospital/hospice care before she died.  I spoke with her about forgiveness, letting go of hurt and pain and trauma, and entrusting her children to God while she was in a coma.  I was able to say some things that were more difficult to say to her while she was alive.  I was able to laugh and cry simultaneously.  I told her that it was okay to let go and go to God and then in the next breath I would ask her if she wanted to live, if she wanted to fight to live.  And it went like this for the last 9 days of her life on earth. 

I let her go to God and then I prayed that God would raise her up.  It went like this.  I didn’t sleep for a week.  I didn’t eat for a week.  I just forgot.  It was an afterthought.  When I came home, I was too tired to eat.  When I went to bed, I was too tired to sleep.  But I would pray and ask for help, for peace, for healing for Terri.

The fourth day that Terri was in and out of a coma, I noticed some improvements and they encouraged me.  Her eyes were actually open and I could see that she was not completely in a coma.  She was severely uncomfortable in her bed, so I prayed for her and prayed for healing and peace.  She moved a lot and was flailing her arms and legs.  It was so hard to see her in this state.  I just wanted her to be whole, to be healed.

I went the next day and she seemed more comfortable because she wasn’t flailing anymore.  The 6^th day, she was even more responsive and would look at me and other friends and family.

The 7^th day, I arrived and the shock of my life came when my friend Terri said “hello,” like I was stopping by to pick up my raw milk or something equally casual.  I was elated, I was terrified, and I had hope.  Maybe she was pulling out of the coma?  She locked eyes with me this day and I knew that she completely recognized me.  She knew everything that I spoke to her the days previously.

There was a quiet calm in the room, a sweet presence of God, and a peace that started to flood my soul.  I became more relaxed.  We called her family and friends to come and talk to her.  She said hello and spoke to her sister and brother.  She even said, “hey you…” like she would normally say to me and she said “hey Meg.”  It was beautiful indeed to see the transformation.

The other transformation that was subtle yet still very apparent was the deep peace etched in her eyes.  She held peace, possibly for the first time in her life.  The deep, unshakeable type of peace seemed to lay itself on her broken, failing body.    In that moment I knew.  I knew that she had let go of hurt, pain, trauma, and rejection.  I knew that she had forgiven those people in her life that were the most difficult to forgive.  All the hardness and bitterness were completely melted away from her face and her eyes.  Her normally hard appearance was soft and full of grace and mercy. 

It was a beautiful transformation.  I was in awe of the moment.  I wondered what she had experienced in and out of her coma.  I wondered if she had spoken to God face to face.  I wondered if she saw the brilliance of light and of heaven. 

I look forward to the day that I can ask her all the questions that I have about her last days on earth.  So many things unanswered. 

The transformation was not for this life, but for the one to come.  The healing and restoration that we prayed earnestly for was not for this life, but for the one to come.  Terri received her healing.  Terri received her restoration.  It is more beautiful and brilliant than we can imagine in a broken and hurting world, but it is something to live and to hope for. 

I miss her, but I know that she is truly happy and at peace for the first time in her life.  It would be selfish of me to desire her to be here with me.  As I know that she found was she was searching her whole life for on earth. 

It was a privilege to be with her and to watch her let go and receive the peace that she needed.  It was the most difficult, beautiful, trying time.  I received and held onto the same peace that my friend Terri received.  And I look forward to that conversation that we will have one day in heaven, when I will ask her, “What did you experience during the last 9 days when you were in and out of a coma?” (Watch the video about Howard Storm's near death experience and it may give you an idea...)  I can’t wait to hear the response that I will receive from my friend.  

Unhealthy habits: the holidays exposed.

Another year of the holidays.  Another year has passed and a new one to come.  Some will be celebrating a year of breakthrough, success, and happiness.  Others will be battling regret, loss, hurt, and disappointment.  And mostly, we will all have a mixture of all of the previously stated.

It is not necessarily what happens in our lives, but how we cope that determines health or lack of health.  Some people in order to cope, will binge eat, binge drink, and avoid talking to certain people in their lives, especially during the holidays.  Others will take a run, eat a salad, and juice to maintain energy and optimism.

How are healthy habits formed and unhealthy habits avoided?  It is not so easy and just deciding.  Sometimes it is about will power.  And sometimes we are more complicated than muscling through in a sheer act of steel will power.

One unhealthy "habit" that I would like to focus on would be the habit of people-pleasing.  Yes, you heard me, people-pleasing.  And I call it a habit because a habit is something that just seems to happen out of nowhere, with no actual decision, like we just fall into something or we just innately do what we deem necessary in a given situation with virtually no forethought.

In the past, I have been chronically late.  Why would you say that I have been chronically late?  Well, I would see someone and need to talk and say hi.  Or someone would call and I just couldn't get off the call because they "needed me."  Or I was in an appointment with someone who needed to talk deeply about something and I just couldn't leave them a crumbling mess on the floor, I had to stick it out and be late for the next appointment or the next person.

People pleasers tend to have the following in common with each other:

1.  In a given social or work obligation, it is very difficult for the people pleaser to say "no" out of fear of disapproval or rejection from the person asking for the appointment, task to be done, or social outing to be committed to.  Instead of saying no, people pleasers will just say "oh that sounds amazing, I will do my best to be there!"  People pleasers will avoid any sense of confrontation and will just avoid committing but sound amazingly positive, leaving the person thinking that they are definitely committed only to find out later that the people pleaser was just scared of saying no.

2.  People pleasers tend to not have a lot of time for themselves because they are over-committed/overextended/over-involved.  They don't have time to work-out, don't have time to cook, don't have time to journal or think.  They have to be involved, they have to fulfill other people's expectations and don't even know what their own expectations are in a relationship whether work, social, or familial.

3.  People pleasers may have different reasons why they people please even though the outcome seems the same.  Some people pleasers are afraid of people's response.  They struggle with fear.  Some people pleasers derive satisfaction or pleasure from being needed and they get a rush of fulfillment when they live life as the "martyr," giving up everything that they want for the happiness of everyone else.  Some people pleasers fear rejection.  They don't want to be rejected by people.  They feel a need to maintain synergy and balance in relationships.  If they feel someone pull back in a relationship, they freak out and cannot handle the space.  Some people pleasers are co-dependent and do not know how to function outside of the context of doing something or being around people.  Alone time is non-existent.

What people pleasers lack more than anything is a lack of identity or a lack of purpose.  People pleasers need to let go of the over attachment to routines and people "needing them."  People pleasers would do well to take a sabbatical and find an island to move to for year with no responsibilities, no family obligations, and no work obligations.  And for a year, people pleasers could work on getting to know themselves and figuring out what makes them tick and what needs to be unraveled and what needs to be discovered.

We all could do with a lot of self-discovery, spiritual discovery, heart, soul, and spirit growth.  In America, we are swept into a system of business, of busy routines, and of the knee jerk reaction of pleasing people.

We are in such a deep-rooted fear of man that everything we do, think, or say, is to protect the response or the other individual or a fear that we may offend someone.  To the point that people will spend over $30,000 in order to please everyone involved and to not let anyone feel "left out" or not acknowledged.

Think about your conversations, your social interactions, and about you day to day comings and goings.  How much of what you are doing is coming from the core of you?  How much of what you do is exactly what you want to be doing each and every day?  How much of your day is authentically YOU?  And how much is meeting expectations and obligations given from other people outside yourself?

Who said that you have to buy a house that you can't afford, buy a car that you can't afford, and life your life chasing money to pay for everything that you have already bought on credit and that you need to catch up to?  Who said that you have to ignore your own needs and the needs of your health to fulfill the demands of day to day?  Who said that you have to stay at a job that you hate just so that you can receive a paycheck every 2 weeks?

We are living in fear day after day after day.  When will we break free from fear and live free, to the fullest, and in the most authentic way?

I encourage you in this holiday season to examine your motives and your goals and how much of your life is authentic to you as an individual.  Maybe you don't really know who you are.  At least you are being honest and realizing that you need to discover who you are.  Whether you are 15 or 40 or 60 years old, it is never to late to discover who you are.  We all have a need to find our identity and discover who we are.

Our lives are becoming too disjointed and disconnected because we are not connected to the core of who we are.  We are not listening to our hearts and to the core of our beings to find what we need.  We are hopelessly distracted by TV, Internet, phones, technology, work, and money.  We have forgotten how to be a person, we have forgotten how to breath, and most off all we have forgotten how to have peace.

Let's break free from people pleasing this year and find authenticity.

“Don’t swim like goldfish, you might die.”

Swimming upstream can get tiring.  I remember owning several goldfish in my life.  Goldfish were content to just float.  I don’t remember them trying to paddle too much with their little baby fins.  I don’t know what would have happened to my goldfish if I put them in a rushing, gushing river with rocks and snakes and all the craziness.  It would have not been pretty.  The goldfish would have been swept away into oblivion.

Unfortunately, my longest living goldfish (2 years!) died in a tragic bowel cleaning gone wrong:  toxic chemicals or “suds” remaining in the bowel led to an overdose of the “suds.”  Classic goldfish mistake.  To make matters worse, it was my aunt and uncle and cousins who were babysitting my goldfish while my family was on vacation that killed the poor unsuspecting goldfish.  They didn’t understand the importance of this goldfish or the significance of this goldfish living for so long. 

I have few regrets in my life.  But the goldfish, this may be one of them.  I should’ve taken the goldfish with me on my vacation, but alas, I trusted someone else without any emotional attachment to the fish. 

Classic mistake #2. 

Moving on.  I like to swim against stream.  It is fun.  It is difficult.  It can make me super angry at times and it can make me exhilarated at times as well.  Depends on the day, depends on the moment.

I wonder which fish are the best at swimming upstream.  Sharks, whales, snakes (are they considered fish in rivers?   Probably not), craw fish, oysters, lobsters, lizards, porcupines (how did they get in the water?), shrimp (bottom-feeders, probably didn’t make it upstream), salmon (wait, what are they doing there?  Oh yeah, they are eating GMOed corn and being farm-raised, awesome.), etc.etc…

I doubt that the salmon being fed GMOed corn swim that well in general.  They probably just get so fat that they start to float and look like balloon fish, extremely large floating goldfish with a pale pinkish frown all over their skin. 

It is interesting.  I would like to interview our animals, fish, and land to find out how they feel about the recent developments in America (the last 50 years or so).  I can imagine the corn-fed salmon crying hysterically, lamenting about the move from salt water to water with no salt and corn floating everywhere.  It must be strange.  Or maybe they don't think, so it doesn’t matter (we should involve PETA in this conversation). 

Well, we think so it could matter to us.  If we learn to swim upstream in a challenging country to be healthy, perhaps the tide could change.  It is possible.  Or we could continue with little pockets of health, fighting to survive the industrialization of a country and a food industry. 

One thing that disturbed me this week may or may not disturb you.  But at least let’s think.  I was having a conversation with a person whose brother-in-law has cancer and has been given by the doctor 19 months to live, with the current medications that have been prescribed.  I recommended some natural remedies, food and whole food supplements.  When I got back to the individual about her brother-in-law’s thoughts, she told me that he was scared to try anything new or to deviate from the doctor’s instructions.  I was dumbfounded. 

How could this even be possible that this is where we have gotten in our beliefs and thought processes about health in America?  People are actually more scared to eat food in food form or to eat food in blended up food form than they are to pop synthetic, man-made, prescription drugs (that kills over 100,000 people per year with properly prescribed medications, not overdoses).

I am still dumbfounded.  The guy (who is young, probably 40’s or 50’s) would rather follow his doctor’s instructions after his doctor told him he probably would still die in 19 months following the protocol that was given, than a “risk-taking” protocol of food and whole food supplements (that may I add, has never ever killed anyone or never actually could kill anyone because it is food).

This is super challenging for me as a Nutritional Therapist.  Because I am scared for our country, for the millions of people who are simply doing what there doctor says and not exploring every possible option out there and not pursuing health through lifestyle changes, diet, minimizing stress, whole foods supplements, loving people, living for a higher purpose, and finding time to soak in the sun.

Simple things that can make a big difference in the quality and quantity of our lives.

Another crazy and disturbing thing that happened this week:  I saw a sign for an assisted living center for elderly people 55+…since when has the elderly population become 55+??  And who decided this?  55 years of age should be the prime of someone’s life, where they are in the prime of their career and flourishing!!!!  Not retiring and dying in an assisted living facility (remember the cultures that we discussed where it is normal to live well into 100 years of age with no medications and no health aliments to speak of?  It is possible!!). 

Let’s stop floating like goldfish that usually live less than 1 year (my fish was the only exception that I know to this rule).  Instead, let’s learn to swim upstream and figure out the things that we need to do to move counter-culturally so that we can live to our potential of quality and quantity!

We can do it!