Creating Your Health
Your health is gift to you. It is not magic that makes your health, but choice, your choice.
When you were younger, your healthy body seemed invincible. You could function on a few hours of rest, run for miles, drink sodas and devour candies. Your young and healthy body showed no signs of rebellion.
Soon information began flooding your mind, convincing you to change your ways. Now, your health must become a private agreement with your inner-self; an agreement more important than any other.
Your healthy self asks you to pay attention to your body, pay attention to your anger and hurt. It asks that you note the food you prepare, your movement and your rest.
Understanding your past is also a link to your future. To be healthy, you must resolve the pain of your past, emotionally and rationally. This cleansing makes you wise and free.
Your health asks you to be a vigilant lover of life, and when your are, your healthy self will dance with the angels.
Kiss Your Life... 365 Reasons to Love Who You Are
By: Ann Mody Lewis, Ph.D.
Reason: 163 Page: 181
Commentary:
Commentary:
Your health is your most important creation!
it stabilizes your life to secure your future!
it forces you to become aware of yourself!
Your understanding of what it means to be healthy will determine how healthy you are.
- If being healthy is merely the absence of disease you will rush to a physician for medical treatment.
- If being healthy is functioning adequately to manage your daily life you'll strive for productivity and success.
- If being healthy is living in a state of equilibrium with yourself and others we'll pay attention to what is happening within.
Most of us never appreciate the importance of our health until it is threatened by illness and then shame ourselves for being ill...as if it were an indication of failure. The delicate balance between taking care of ourselves and yet understanding that we may become ill, is crucial to health. The presence of disease does not mean we are unhealthy. Disease does not replace health but it can become a time of becoming more aware of yourself. Your health is in place even when you're ill, like the "sky is in place even if it’s covered by clouds." Illness may affect your balance but it doesn't destroy your health! As a matter of fact, your health will determine how you manage illness. Using illness to define anyone is demeaning. For example: A person with cancer is different than a cancer patient! A person with schizophrenia is different than a schizophrenic!
Our attitude about our health is an important predictor of it! In 1948 the World Health Organization defined health in this way:
"..a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being
and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."
Health, therefore, includes what no one sees of us...our mental state! The body-mind connection is not a New-Age fade but an essential component of wholeness! This factor is especially important in today's culture that relies on medication, rather emotional and spiritual healing, to restore our inner balance.
We all want to be healthy and so we must learn how to make this dream come true!
This month’s discussions will include: How we stop shaming each other about being ill. How illness can become an important part of our maturity? Is creating your health a burden or a privilege? How is mental health connected to your physical health?
Let’s talk!
Ann
