The Search for the Open Door

"We so often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." -Alexander Graham Bell

This past year I’ve spent a great amount of time trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I’ve done a lot of soul-searching and trying to understand who I am. Not who I think others want me to be, but who I have been created to be. I’ve considered what I am naturally good at and how that can be incorporated into a career. I’ve set goals based on these thoughts and have found motivation and purpose by doing this. It has helped me see of what use my presence on earth can be. This is not selfish at all. Everyone is gifted in different ways and it is important for all aspects of our health that we utilize these gifts and feel that we are making a difference. But what happens when things don’t work out the way we would like for them to? We set goals for ourselves and see what we think may be the golden opportunity to pursue our passions and strengthen our abilities, but the door shuts before we even get to it. It can be discouraging and disheartening, but don’t give up.  Things happen for a reason, I truly believe it. Think about every time you’ve been convinced something should happen the way you want it to. Think back to the person you were just in love with and wanted to marry back in middle school or high school. When I think about that it puts it in perspective for me. Thank goodness I didn’t get what I wanted! One day you’ll look back on the door that slammed shut in your face and realize that the door opening behind you was just the right path for you to enter into. The hardest part is turning around and leaving the entryway to what you thought was the only way for you to go. If we dwell on all of our missed opportunities or disappointing turn of events we will miss the other possible directions our lives can take that will be a better use of our talents and abilities. Disappointment, unfortunately, is a part of life and is something we must all deal with. One of my earlier posts dealt with pain and how to deal with that in a way that is beneficial for our mental, spiritual, and physical health. Disappointment definitely falls into the painful category. What’s great about life is that there are so many ways to utilize your gifts and talents. If one way fails to work out, take your disappointment and use it to empower your search for another open door. Of course this is easier said that done. Once you allow yourself to acknowledge the disappointment you feel, pick yourself up, and continue on your journey to become and enjoy the person you are created to be. 

Life, in Moderation

“If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.” -Epictetus

Do you ever find a song, maybe you hear it on the radio for the first time, and then that radio station begins to play the song ALL the time? Give it a few weeks, maybe a month, maybe more, but if you’re anything like me, I guarantee you’ll begin to hate that song. Occasionally, though, I’ll hear a song that I really like, and the radio station will hardly ever play it. I enjoy that song so much more than the song I hear all the time. This is true of so many things in life. And not just in regard to our enjoyment… it is true regarding our health as well. There are very few things in which having an excess is a good thing. Unfortunately our society tends to advocate that we need everything in excess. We need the best of everything and we need lots of it. We need to super-size our meals and buy the newest generation of technology every time it comes out. We indulge in every bit of extravagance we can find. If you compare our ways of living to impoverished nations in the world, the one word I would use to describe our lifestyles is excessive. Moderation is not a concept we hear too often. In our excessive culture, it is fitting that the major diet crazes tend to revolve around excessive restriction. Don’t eat any carbs. Remove all fat from your diet. Only eat grapefruit. Can’t there be a balance? We want to find that one thing that is causing all of our health issues and take it away. Unfortunately, it may not be exclusively what we eat, but rather how much of it we eat that is behind all of the major health disparities afflicting our nation. As I have gained experience providing nutritional counseling, I have seen that promoting the idea of moderation is crucial. But why is it so hard for us to live with balance and moderation? It is very rare that we are told that living in moderation is enjoyable and beneficial. Until we come to this conclusion for ourselves, we will have no reason to be motivated to accept this notion.

I have several conclusions I have come to that I want to share. I’m going to relate each conclusion to food and then to life in general. First, the more we have the more we want. In regard to food, this doesn’t happen immediately. If I eat a huge meal, I can promise you it is NOT more food that I want. But, if I continually eat large amounts at every meal, my body will adapt and begin to require more food at each meal in order to feel full. This is why the best diet plan is to eat small frequent meals. If you eat small amounts throughout the day, you don’t allow yourself to become so hungry that you must consume excessive amounts of food to be satisfied. In regard to life in general, I don’t feel that I need to explain much, it’s pretty obvious. We all want more than we have. The newness of what we have eventually wears off and we are left feeling dissatisfied and wanting more. Just like with food, if we continually indulge in excessive living, it will take more excessive living to find that feeling of satisfaction, which will eventually wear off and we will be left hungry for more. We are merely setting ourselves up for disappointment. I’m not saying don’t ever buy new things. But if we live in moderation and avoid trying to find fulfillment in what we have, we can spend more time investing in relationships and other people.

Secondly, moderation allows us to continue to find joy in the things we don’t overindulge in. My mom makes this chocolate cake that I absolutely love. It is by far my favorite dessert. She made it for me a couple of weeks ago when I went home and I don’t think I’ve had it in years. Can I just tell you I enjoyed eating that cake more than I have enjoyed any type of food in a long time… and I’ve had some good food. Let’s say, though, that I make that cake for myself every week. Would I have enjoyed it, then, that much when I went home? Of course not! In fact, I would probably be sick of it and would never want to eat it again… and what a shame that would be! I think we could say the same of relationships, too. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Have you ever had those times where you spend excessive amounts of time with one person and you just begin to get frustrated easily? Things they did that were funny soon become annoying. Time apart is good! If we are excessive in the time spent we spend with others we can get worn out. Now, I want to explain myself here. I mentioned at the beginning that there are a few things that in excess are beneficial. I believe that faith, hope and love fit in this category. But what I am trying to say with this is that moderation, in regard to relationships, can allow us to continue to find enjoyment in the relationship even after years of time together.

Sorry if I have been rambling here. Accepting and then living out the idea of moderation is difficult. When we allow the idea that excess is needed to benefit our lives, we are putting ourselves in danger of making life a lot more difficult to enjoy. If we can begin to search for ways to live in moderation, we can enjoy what we have, not constantly crave more, and avoid facing the consequences of our over-indulgence, specifically with food. It is definitely contrary to what our society promotes, but if we can learn and begin to accept this lifestyle, it will help us live healthier more purposeful lives. 

Finding Purpose in Pain

“Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters.” - Jim Morrison

If you’ve been reading my blog posts, you know that I have a firm belief that true health, encompassing all aspects of health, stems from having a purpose in life. It can only be achieved, I believe, if one can see his or her body as a means to utilize their gifts and talents, and consequently strive to care for their body in such a way as to enhance their ability to better their world. What do you think is the biggest roadblock to living in this way? I think there are two major roadblocks, but I’m just going to address one today; and these are pain and apathy. When I refer to pain, I am including all emotions and experiences that are associated with heartache, disappointment, embarrassment, hurt feelings, and dissatisfaction. Pain has the potential to edify and strengthen ones capacity for true health, but it also has the potential to paralyze an individual’s desire for true health.  It all has to do with how we deal with pain. Do you acknowledge its presence? Or do you numb it with obsessions, addictions, and a false sense of happiness? Pain is real. We all face it and all sources of our pain are worth dealing with. We face these painful thoughts and feelings on a daily basis.  Our pain influences all of our actions, thought processes, decisions, and interactions with others. If our painful thoughts, feelings, and experiences have such a huge impact on our lives, as I am implying here, then they are something we should address when seeking true health in our lives.

It’s important for us to seize every opportunity we are given to learn and grow. This includes painful opportunities. It is so easy to become angry at our misfortune. It’s not fair. We didn’t do anything to deserve what happens to us. These thoughts plague our minds during times of hardship. It’s so tempting to play the victim in life. I do it all the time. We blind ourselves with the misery of the trials and difficulties of our own lives until we are unable to see the bridge that these circumstances create to bring us to a more able, gifted, and equipped version of ourselves. With each painful experience comes a new purpose for your life. Just think about how many people you can help because of your life’s circumstances up to this point. I’ve seen this to be true in my own life. The more I allow myself to deal with my painful thoughts and experiences, the more I am able to grow and share my story with others to help them deal with their pain. The lessons I have learned from addressing my pain have enabled me to walk through more difficult times with a sense of determination and preparedness.

I guess there are two points I am trying to make here. First, don’t ignore your pain. Numbing or ignoring your pain will only lead to deeper, more complex emotional issues that will eventually surface. You can only ignore the negative nature of your own mind for so long. Deal with these issues and search for peace from the destruction your pain creates. Secondly, look for purpose in all you encounter, especially your pain. In all painful situations, you have three choices. 1. You ignore your hurt and pain. You don’t consciously acknowledge it, but it is always there… reminding your of its presence. 2. You dwell on your pain. You beat yourself up and allow yourself to wallow in self-pity because of the pain you feel. You remind everyone of your pain and of his or her role in the development of your pain. 3. You step back and look at the situation from an outside perspective. You see how the pain you feel has affected your relationships, thoughts, and actions. You see what purpose this pain can have in your life. How can you use your circumstances to help those around you? How can you become a better person because of this pain? And how can you avoid 1. and 2. from overtaking your thoughts? 

There aren’t always answers for our pain and hurt. But if your life could be spent in one of the three ways I just described, which would your prefer? In order for us to continue on this path of true health, we must deal with the painful thoughts and experiences we deal with every day. It takes time and a conscious effort. But once you begin to use your pain to help ease the pain for someone else, the load your pain bears on you will lighten. It will become yet another means for you to find purpose in your life, and therefore another motivation for you to see yourself and your physical body as a tool to better the world around you. 

How To Change Your Mind

“The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else.” -E. E. Cummings

Why is it so simple to give advice to others, yet seemingly impossible to accept it for ourselves? I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve advocated for the truth that beauty comes from within and then turned around to critique myself in front of the mirror. I question whether we can ever do away with this desire to embody our society’s unobtainable ideal of beauty. If you’ve read my past few blog posts, you’ve read about some of my ideas on health. Constantly feeling defeated because we don’t feel adequate according to our culture’s standards is one of the most limiting factors to achieving an ideal health status.

In our own way, we all deal with these messages that are thrown in our face by our “perfection” crazed culture. Some of us put on a façade of confidence in front of others and then project our insecurities onto those closest to us. Some of us spend hours of our week in front of the mirror picking out features we wish we could change. Some take measures to surgically change these features. Some spend countless hours in the gym. Some of us torture ourselves by comparing our inadequacies to the perfection we perceive in others. Some try to find distractions from the overwhelming feelings of inadequacy. Some attempt to ignore these thoughts altogether. Can you identify with any of these descriptions? Some embrace a single trait they find attractive in themselves and flaunt it in attempt to receive positive feedback from others and increase their feelings of self-worth. Some constantly, publicly put themselves down in attempt to hear a self-esteem boosting comment from someone else. I think I have tried each one of these compensatory mechanisms (except the surgical procedures…. And maybe the countless hours at the gym…) and I can honestly say that not a single one has produced in me contentment in regard to my appearance.

I have found, though, a few ways to adjust my thoughts from dwelling on my faults and flaws.  I’ve always had a hard time with accepting who I am. I tend to compare myself to the other people in my life and find the things they are good at convince myself I am worth less because I do not have the same traits. If there has been one lesson I feel I have continually been taught over the 22 years of my life, it is that comparing yourself to other people is dangerous and stupid. There is nothing good that can come of making mental venn-diagrams of yourself with the other people in your life. You may think I’m exaggerating here... I’ve literally done this. You are you. Stop trying to be someone else. God made you the way you are because He has a unique plan to use you in a way He can’t use anyone else. If you stop and think about it, differences in personalities and talents is the only way our world can continue to go on. If everyone were gifted in the same field of study, nothing else would be able to function. I love to take notice of this idea in the hospital. There are so many disciplines that enable a facility like a hospital function properly. You have doctors, nurses, surgeons, physical therapists, occupational therapists, dietitians, social workers, speech therapists, etc. who work directly with the patients, but then you also have the business administrative professionals who take care of financial matters, environmental services who help keep the hospital clean… and the list goes on. No one position makes the individual worth more than the other and each position is necessary to make the organization function as efficiently and effectively as a whole. This is the same in life. Individuality is what makes our relationships so beautiful.

One other way I have found to change the focus of my thoughts away from myself is to do something for someone else. I will stand by this idea until someone can prove me wrong- as soon as you start to dwell on thoughts of self-dislike, go do something to help out someone else. I guarantee you the self-focused thoughts will fade away. It works for me every time, without fail. The hard part is finding the will to force yourself out of this self-consumed mentality. I have found nothing more fulfilling and self-esteem boosting than serving others. Especially if you find ways to serve that utilize your natural gifts. If your job enables to you to this, that’s great. But I would encourage you to find a way to help other out beyond your career. Volunteer with an organization that can let you help out in a way that brings you joy. Don’t make yourself do something you hate. Find something you enjoy, that makes you feel useful, and devote your time to this cause. It doesn’t even have to be with an organization, it can be in the lives of your friends/family/coworkers/neighbors. Just do something for someone else rather than spending excess amounts of time criticizing and evaluating yourself.

I feel like I may be repetitive in these posts, but I think these are messages we can all benefit from hearing multiple times… I know I’ve been trying to learn these lessons for years and years, so reiterating them won’t hurt any of us. With the constant reminder from society that none of us can match up to its ideal, it is next to impossible for us to avoid a negative self image without completely isolating ourselves from the world. So take my suggestions or find your own ways to avoid thinking about your flaws and faults, but either way, we have to find a way to stop living in self-defeat if we want to live a healthy, purposeful life.