Are we there yet?
Ah that age old chorus coming from the back seats; Are we there yet? I remember asking that all the time as a child and I now get the joy of hearing it ALL THE TIME from my own kids. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 40 minute trip to their Aunty and Uncle’s house or a 7 hour drive to Granny and Grandad’s, the question comes up within 20 minutes and continues periodically throughout the journey. Such fun!
As a parent I hear myself spouting out the usual; not yet honey; still a long way to go; enjoy the journey; we’ll get there when we get there; no!
My answers might appease them for 5 or 10 minutes but it’s sure to be asked again.
I’m not sure what age we grow out of asking, whether it’s when we have more awareness of time passing and keep track ourselves, we know the journey and can tell where we are, or we just give up asking. While we may have grown out of whining on a car trip, I’m not so sure we’ve grown out of the impatience to arrive at our destination.
My husband and I are both the same when it comes to road trips, let’s just get to our destination as quickly as possible. With my husband’s family based a 6-9 hour drive away, we’ve spent a fair amount of time driving the length of the North Island in New Zealand. We invariably leave before dawn to avoid traffic and before we had kids, if we could get away with the odd coffee stop then we were happy. Having kids slowed us down a bit but we have never been one of those families who stop off at different stops on the way to have a picnic, or do some sightseeing. We just want to get to where we are going.
Life is for living
When I first started on my health journey, I had this same attitude. I’m going to do what I have to do to get to where I am going. There is a destination of perfect health ahead and my only focus is going to be getting to the end of the journey.
What I have learned though over the last nearly two years is that my health will always be an ongoing journey and I need to start enjoying the process, the journey instead of just focusing on the destination.
I am still learning how to get the balance right, to listen to my body and hear what it is communicating through symptoms, making changes and adjusting to restore balance but not obsessing over my symptoms or letting my pursuit of health stop me from living my life in the now.
There was a time in my health journey that I realised the balance was off, I was getting a little too focused on every little symptom in my body, getting anxious about eating out or social engagements and how I would manage what I was doing to heal and re-balance my body. I realised that I was just as inhibited by the healing as I was by my symptoms.
Stepping back, seeing the bigger picture and really choosing to live life helped to gain some perspective and a better balance. Don’t get me wrong, I am still doing the hard work on healing and re-balancing my body. I don’t want the symptoms I experience to develop into disease, so I listen to them and act accordingly but it is happening alongside me living life to the full. My life isn’t on hold until I am symptom free, I would miss so much beauty if I live that way.
Part of my vision for Wonderfully Nourished is to reconnect people to the life they want to live. Health isn’t meant to be our main focus, but when symptoms and bad health impact our day to day living, they take over our ability to really LIVE. Equally though, if we are so focused on perfect health, then that has the potential to also rob us from really living our lives. My vision is that I help to equip and inspire my clients to live through the journey. To pull over and enjoy a picnic by the lake, to do some sightseeing, to enjoy the process. Your life is happening now, in this moment. Are you living it or waiting till you’ve reached your destination to start living?
grow in the journey
I have a growth mindset, I am always looking at ways to learn and grow, I don’t want to be static. I go to therapy, I’m vulnerable with my friends, I admit my mistakes, I have people in my life who pull me up on stuff and tell me when I’m wrong. I want to learn from my experiences, from my mistakes, from the hard stuff I live through. I want it all to have purpose, so that I grow from it and it isn’t wasted.
There has been an explosion of personal development in the health and wellness sector of late. You can pick up a book about anything, learn and grow. It’s everywhere you look and I LOVE the fact that I can learn from others, hear their stories (oh how I love hearing people’s stories), be inspired and grow as a result. It has such an important role to play.
There is a danger in it though and especially for a very self critical perfectionist like me. The pursuit for perfection, for having everything right, for never being static and always moving forward. Oh my goodness it can be EXHAUSTING, and not always, all that healthy.
We end up in a never ending loop of; ‘It will be better once I’ve mastered……’; ‘Once I feel better, I can start pursuing my dreams’; ‘When I’m not feeling anxious anymore, then I can start……’
It ends up just holding us back.
What if we could do both? Grow and learn as well as living in the journey.
Are symptoms normal? NO
Should we ignore them? NO
Can we take steps to rebalance our body and resolve our symptoms while we continue living life? ABSOLUTELY!
Like everything, there is a balance and it’s so individual. You can’t judge yourself based on what others are doing, no two people face the same situation in the same way and so comparing yourself will never support you in your journey.
There is a saying that comparison is the thief of joy and it is, but I also say that comparison is the thief of contentment.
learning to be content
I’m involved in an online community of women called BEVY which stands for Best Ever Version of You. I’m the in house Functional Nutritionist and it is a great, supportive community fo women wanting to grow and become the best ever versions of themselves. As BEVY was being launched, I was asked, what does being the best ever version of you look like? My response? To be content. I want to be content, whatever else is going on, not in a way that settles or is static but in a way that means I’m not constantly waiting to be fixed before I get to live life. I get to live now. I’ve been given today, I can’t change yesterday and I can’t see tomorrow so I have today.
I’m still on a growth trajectory, one of learning and change for the better but I’m also living in today, and learning to be content with the much and content with the little. Content in health and content in the midst of symptoms. Still heading to my destination but content on the journey.
We can’t wait until we get to the destination! Life is in the journey and it’s beautiful if we allow it to be. Maybe I’ll see you on the side of the road for a picnic along the way.
