This weeks article is all about how change isn’t always quick or easy, and can be quite a long slog at times.
I’m seeing the word ‘hack’ being attached to all sorts of things at the moment, hacks are meant to be showing the inevitable short cut we are all looking for to something that will change us in record time.
But from my experience there really are no life hacks, and I’ve said before that small consistent changes that take us in the right direction, as small as 1% over time, have an accumulative effect, so for me it’s about carrying these out consistently that I find matters.
Just this week I connected with someone on Facebook who I worked with about 13 years ago, and the first thing he said was how I hadn’t aged. To be honest I didn’t really agree with him, in the words of the Rolling Stones “I’ve had good times, and bad times, I’ve had my share of hard times too”, so I’m happy with my lines, both worry and laughter that I’ve accumulated. But even I know for my age I’m not aging any where near as quickly as those around me.
Why? Well it’s not because I look for short cuts to health, it’s because I’ve made health my lifestyle and focus over the years, and this has included working daily on diet, exercise, balance, mindset and lifestyle. Like many people who have been very ill at some stage, I’ve been given my incentive to do this, I never want to experience that level of ill health every again. My other halves favourite comment to me is when we disagree about dinner is that not everything is about health, well for me it is, because there are no short cuts if I want to stay this well as far as I’m concerned.
Consistency with change, no matter how small that change is, over time will make the difference.
I know from not only my experience, but my clients that for some it can feel like an absolute slog to get to a place of good health, a life lived consistently over the years has taken it’s toll, energy wise it’s ground them down over time. So moving out of the zone of comfort with any change at first can feel even more stressful and tiring, trying to find new food replacements, a new lifestyle, new drinks can feel like another mountain to climb on top of the one of not feeling very well in the first place.
So yes it can get stressful and even uglier during those times of concerted change, particularly if cleansing reactions are experienced with the body finding other routes of elimination for that which has been accumulating over the years.
There is often fear that arises during these healing crisis, mainly about whether the goal will ever be achieved, I felt the same, at the start it is clear, we know what we specifically want, but then as we move through it becomes muddy, and unclear in regards to what we should be doing. This is particularly as we put in place changes that seem difficult, test our strength and resolve, move us out of our comfort zones where we may have lived for years, moving us out of our daily rituals into new ones. Wondering whether it’s worth all the stress, and going through it as we seem to be going backwards rather than forwards, a bit like breaking new walking boots in, they look great, but the blisters the first few times are so painful. But all of this is part of the process, working out the path that works for ourself using the tools provided, I’ve found that those who embrace change, and work consistently on themselves, listening to their bodies, investing their energy wisely in the right places and pacing themselves tend to do the best.
Of course it’s rarely a straight line upward to great health, change takes on the roller coaster effect, testing strength, resilience and the resolve sticking to what feels like an even bigger mountain to climb. Then out of that climb quickly descending into an abyss, to wonder what the hell just happened, when it all seemed to be going so well…faced with another set of issues the climb starts again, more blisters, a new mountain in front of us a new frontier to face.
Let’s face it, no one said life would be easy, but they didn’t say the journey back to health could be so hard, but it is because of how much emotionally and physically we’ve collected, never mind the environmental issues that we now have to also contend with.
Ill health comes as a clear message of change, it’s the lights coming on the dashboard alerting you that things need to be different, ignoring them leads to more pain over time, but no one tells you that tackling them can also lead to roller coaster times as well as you move towards recovery.
How long will it take I’m often asked, I never know because it’s not my journey, it’s not my body, it’s not my mind, every one of us is unique, and therefore every single healing journey is equally unique. Even after the years of practising I’ve now had, everyone I work with has a unique response to the changes, the direction taken to putting in place the plan’s and actions and how they react are never the same. Embracing that uniqueness allows the healing to happen, I accept everyone has a different experience of their health and therefore also their journey to improvement, acceptance of the ‘blister’s on the journey is for me potentially one of the few life hacks I believe in.
