The Butterfly Effect

I don’t remember a time since my mid-teens when I have not thought that I was overweight. Even when I was at my thinnest, I thought I needed to lose the fat on my behind. If only I’d known that in the future (now!) people would be working their asses off (literally) to grow their glutes! For me, there has always been this sense of “I need to …” and “I should….” regarding the way I should look which ultimately signals the underlying beliefs of not being enough.

Many or even most of us fall in this trap. Rather than focus on health and wellbeing, we perceive health as a number on the weighing scale or the minutiae of our diets.

The word health actually comes from the old English word “hale” which means being whole, well or sound. Today, the World Health Organisation defines health as, “a state of complete physical, social and mental wellbeing, not merely the absence of disease.”

We are all at different places on our path to “physical, social and mental wellbeing” so health is a journey not a destination. Rather than obsess over the destination, why not enjoy the journey? Why not see it from the perspective of curiosity and exploration. Each of us is a biologically unique being and this sense of exploration and curiosity will help us uncover the diet and lifestyle that is unique to us.

One way to do move towards a more holistic view of our health is to follow a few general universal guidelines for good health and notice the changes we see in your level of health and happiness. Here is an example of a set of 12 guidelines from Integrative Nutrition Inc.:

Here is a list of the guidelines above:

• Drink more water.
• Practice cooking.
• Experiment with whole grains.
• Increase the intake of sweet vegetables.
• Increase the intake of green leafy vegetables
• Experiment with proteins.
• Eat fewer processed foods.
• Nurture your body.
• Have healthy relationships.
• Enjoy regular physical activity.
• Find work you love.
• Develop a spiritual practice.

I am sure you already follow some or many of these guidelines to some extent or another. Pick one thing this week that you’ve been wanting to work on (one of the 12 above or something else that you’d like to improve on) and just follow it.

I’m choosing to meditate every morning for 10 minutes this week. What’s your mini- step towards “a state of complete physical, social and mental wellbeing” going to be?