Photo: Torkil Stavdal
Our health is so much more than just doing all the healthy things we define as “healthy”. We eat a certain way when we are being good, we exercise to not feel guilty, and we work hard to be acknowledged for what we do. And something is missing… What is often missing is how we feel, inside, in our bodies, in our being. We do feel healthy when we do all the right things, sure. But do we DO all the right things all the time? Probably not; and having to is not my point either actually! How we feel is far more about being nourished that it is about doing the right thing.
My question to you is: how are you? We use that question all the time and the answer to that question normally comes back with a long list of what we have been doing. But how do you feel? I am asking you about your physical state, sure, but what about your emotional state? How happy are you, how fulfilled are you, how satisfied are you, how stabile do you feel, how secure are you in your daily life? All these feelings affect your physical health but they are based in your emotional health. So you can actually will yourself to do all the right things, but still not be at your optimal health or feel very good.
Mind-Body medicine has researched and shown that your emotions drive your health, not only because it drives your choices, but rather because emotional stress and trauma can become manifestations of disease in your body! I am not here to tell you that your thoughts make you ill. That would just cause you to have fear of your own thoughts and reject your own emotions, which is often what I hear people say they “have to” do because of their fear of the “Law of Attraction”. I don’t see it that way. To me it is obvious that who we are and what we feel needs to be acknowledged, and loved…really! Think about how often you actually reject yourself and your emotions. Either you numb yourself out with food or other activities that create a distance to your feelings, or you tell yourself you are being silly, or worse…stupid.
Or you tell yourself to get a grip, that your feelings do not matter, and you are just being too sensitive…?
You might have heard the expression: your shadow. Your shadow self is the part of you that you are hiding, ashamed of, or simply reject and wish was not you. Well, guess what. It is! And we better get used to it so we can start accepting who we are instead of trying to change ourselves. Sure there is room for “improvement”. Or shall we call it growth? The way I see it is that we grow every day. Hopefully at least. But the part of us that we don’t accept, and don’t love, becomes the shadow and the ignored self. Basically it can mean that you don’t grow that part of you and instead it is the part of you that always holds you back and keeps you stuck.
So, it is time to grow. Which means it is time to starting accepting yourself and loving all of you !
Think of a plant. When you take good care of your plant you check in on it on a regular basis. And even if every leaf is not perfect, you still love it. You might even care more for the part of the plant that is having a hard time. Does it it need anything? Is it getting too much of something that makes it stressed? Does it have shelter from the sun? Do you feed it just right? Water it on a regular basis? Do you even talk nicely to it?
It is very much of a balancing act to nourish and nurture yourself. Be ok with that! If it came naturally we would all be doing it without effort. You might not be born with green thumbs but you can learn how to take care of your own inner plant, and you might even see it flower!