Topic: Health Choices
Learning to cope with new realities requires that we turn down the volume for some music in our heads, even as we increase volume on what we most want to hear. It also necessitates breaking old habits in how we think or spend time. It’s possible to fall into new sets of bad habits, as we attempt to cope with the trauma and stress of violence, abuse, and collusion, even as we are working to establish functional ones.
In January’s Good Housekeeping, Dr. Phil said that we really don’t break old habits. We just replace them.
When I was a kid, most New Year’s resolutions were centered on character issues. That was before the greatest mortal “sins” became boredom, and pain, and obesity--all to be avoided if we are to have this ideal world that we find so elusive. Amazing how priorities can change in one lifetime!
Seems the greatest resolution most want to tackle in western cultures today is the hard work of getting the scale to move in a southerly direction. While most of the world’s population--the ones who can’t afford a computer or even the electricity to run it--are struggling to get enough to keep the scale from going that way! In our narcissism, we complain about our boring diets, never stopping to think that we might be able to change the world if we poured half as much creative energy into reflecting on ways to solve the economic inequities and social injustices that cause starvation. Instead our efforts go into “disciplining“ ourselves to put up with a calorie-restricted, boring diet along with finding motivation to leave behind the remote control and forwarded e-mails so we can get out and discover some magical ways to burn calories in our leisure time. Fun ways, of course!
As you go about your routine this weekend, please take time to think about your own health priorities and the well-being of others not so fortunate. If being free from physical disease is the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of the word “health,” maybe you can explore ways to broaden the meaning and identify some healthy habits you’d like to establish, to replace some of the old ones that have you in a rut.
