When we start to realise we need support with our health it’s often because we’ve been ignoring the signs for days, months and maybe even years.
Those signs are like the lights on the car dashboard coming on, warning us that something is amiss and should be paid attention to. If these were the lights on our car we would be pulled over by the side of the road calling the AA but they aren’t, and we take a painkiller, another medication and carry on. Even the adverts such as Lemsip tell us to carry on whilst deadening the signs that something isn’t right with our health.
The weight keeps going on, the bowel is constipated, or we have IBS, food sensitivities are getting worse, our skin is spotty, our hair is starting to fall out, we have joint pain, our gums are bleeding, we get regular headaches, we can’t quite remember what we were doing the day before, and we ignore that constant feeling of fatigue by just ‘struggling through’. Potentially for you, that’s just a normal day!
We carry on for a variety of reasons but mostly because our vehicle that we spend everyday living in has become something that we take for granted, that’s it’s always going to function, and we have reduced its significance in being important for our quality of our life. We lessen the importance the health of our body has each day we ignore these dashboard lights, until the day, the vehicle can’t go on anymore. Then we listen, mainly because we have no other choice but to at that point, it’s brought us to a stop because it’s not able to keep doing the things that we ask of it. So it’s making us listen.
At this point we often get frustrated, thinking about how our body has suddenly started to let us down, and expect that a pill, the magic diet or supplement is going to turn around years of ignoring key signals of increases in dis-ease.
Our modern lifestyles drive us to ignore one of the most important assets we will ever have, and place other things ahead of it. We are surrounded by distractions that are made to feel more important for us to be investing our time in, but the best investment is one in our health and well being, and a daily deposit will pay dividends in the long term.
For each of us, these other priorities are different, and we prioritise our health in accordance with how high it is in our values hierarchy. We may think that our health and well being is high when we consider how important it is, but our actions often speak otherwise. If you fall off the wagon regularly then start to consider how important your health truly is. If you are not getting enough sleep, not drinking enough water, not exercising daily, and just constantly promising that you will do better tomorrow, then consider your values in your decision making.
Find out what usurps your health choices, what was it that you felt was more crucial to invest your time and energy in than your number 1 asset, and you will become clear on what is more important. For some it’s work, working long hours to find the deposit for a house, working hard for the next promotion on the career ladder, for others it’s the way they are perceived, it may be your family and putting everyone else above yourself. I call it to love list, how high are you on yours? Because if you always find making the right choices for yourself keep falling off the bottom of your to love list, and you just don’t have time for them, then your health and well being are not the highest priority, no matter what you might be telling yourself, and other things are, so either review those priorities or forgive yourself, make the changes that you know you can make and stop being guilty about it!
When did you last review the lights on the dashboard?
