My health goals seemed pretty simple. For most of my life, I simply wanted to stop having so many stomach problems. I wanted to be able to eat food without being doubled over in pain, or deal with bloating and gas for hours.
Over time, my goals shifted and changed and morphed alongside my own changing life. I also wanted to feel more confident in my own skin, I wanted to stop hating myself, I wanted to stop having pain in my spine that felt like several tiny bones breaking every morning when I got out of bed.
These were all big and important goals for me, and I took them on like I knew how to take on big problems like these.
Determine the problem. What is missing? What isn’t working correctly? What am I doing too much of? What am I not doing enough of?
When fixing a problem, I need to first identify what the problem is.
It turns out, I am pretty good at finding problems. Here is a short list of things I found on my search:
I was eating food too late in the day.
I was overeating often.
I wasn’t moving enough or getting the right balance of movement.
I wasn’t consistently getting enough sleep.
I wasn’t making enough time for play.
My hip never fully healed from my hip arthroscopy surgery.
My gut microbiome was out of whack.
I’d get too sensitive about things out of my control.
I didn’t eat many ultra processed foods, but I was probably eating more than I should.
I was eating too quickly.
I was snacking when I shouldn’t be.
My core wasn’t firing optimally.
My posture needed to be aligned optimally on a more consistent basis: i.e., I needed to sit with better alignment and posture.
As I started to learn about all the ways I was doing things wrong, I started to find more things wrong about the way I was doing things. It became this forward feeding loop of discovering more and more areas that I could “grow” and become a better person or at least fix the terrible person that I was.
This may have been why my husband’s best friend claimed that I was “too serious for him” when we started dating.
I took everything seriously, because everything I did had a right or wrong way, it all had a consequence that was within my control, and I had to be paying attention or something terrible would happen.
This pattern didn’t really work out well. I still struggled with health issues, self esteem, and a myriad of problems that never went away.
Until I tried something unusual, bizarre, and unconventional.
I stopped trying to fix everything.
I let go of my rules, best made plans, and the list of my problems that needed to be fixed in order for me to be okay.
And surprisingly, things changed.
For the better, in every possible way.
My stomach pain went away, my chronic back pain eased significantly, my sleep improved, my relationships improved, my life was just a hell of a lot more fun.
What if the idea that I have to fix everything in order to feel peace in myself, was a fallacy that simply kept me caught in the loop of unhappiness and discontent?
Do you struggle with constantly trying to fix yourself?
Do you want to feel more at peace in your body, your mind, and your soul?
Reach out – I’m here to help.