It's all about MOTIVATION...
What drives you?
How do you stay engaged and on track?
How do you move from dreaming to doing?
Grab a cup of coffee let's chat...
Are you Soul Sick?
We are experiencing a health crisis in this country of unprecedented proportion. More and more people are feeling stressed, anxious, depressed, overwhelmed, tired and generally unfulfilled. The end result often leads to physical illness as well. Although there are clinical mental health issues that you should have addressed by a qualified doctor, many people are experiencing a self-inflicted imbalance in there lives. Just like having a balanced diet, we also have to have emotional balance.
What caused this emotional shift? Our intentions are good. We go to work or school, we take care of our families and our homes, we push ourselves to work harder in hopes that we will get ahead and not have to work so hard in the future. We feel guilty when we take a day off. Work ethic became our driving force and time off became synonymous with laziness. The 40 hour work week became the 50, 60...80 hour work week. Even if those hours weren't spent at our job or school, we often filled in those hours with projects, second jobs, running kids to and from after school activities, cleaning house, yard work, volunteering, and obligations that wore us out and added even more stress. Often we burned ourselves out during the day and found ourselves sitting in front of the T.V. hoping to recharge for the next day. If we're lucky we take a vacation once a year. But within a few days, that vacation high disappears and we are back to being stressed again. In other words we've ignored our very human need for daily doses of happiness and joy and we've become Soul Sick.
Throw in the towel?
Before you go and quit your job, and let your life go, you should know that none of those things are bad. Long work hours are sometimes necessary. Your boss has you on a new project that is time sensitive, your ramping up a new business, a client can only see you on the weekend. Volunteering is the backbone of a caring society. Our houses would be condemned if we didn't take care of it and our neighbors would get cranky if we never raked our leaves. But life has a way of encroaching on our time off until there is nothing left but work. That's when we start to see symptoms of being soul sick.
In the last 10 years there has been a 3.4 percent increase in people needing medical treatment for mental health problems according to the April 18, 2017 Newsweek article. That's 8.3 million people! And it's not just adults. Teen depression is on the rise too. Time Magazine published an article November 16, 2016 called “The Kids Are Not All Right.” that stated that "According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than three million adolescents aged 12-17 reported at least one major depressive episode in the past year, and more than two million reported severe depression that impeded their daily functioning."
Stress can adversely effect your immune system too. Back pain, joint pain, gastric issues, frequent illnesses, and numerous other health issues have all been linked to stress. We are literally working ourselves sick.
Somethings got to give...
But if you're looking for a positive spin, then here it is. Not only is it okay to have a healthy balance between work and fun, your health actually depends on it. You have permission to stress less and have more fun. So now what...?
Who are you really?
If you could snap your fingers and suddenly have a body and mind that could accomplish whatever you wanted it to do, one that was strong, healthy, energetic, smart and motivated, what would you do with it…?
My brain lives a very exciting life filled with travel and adventure. In this life I have plenty of money saved to travel regularly. I am unafraid of getting lost, and danger doesn't lurk around every corner. In this life, I’m smart enough to navigate the entire globe by myself. I pack my bags and fly off to Thailand to see wild elephants or head out on an African Safari snapping pictures of lions or to Australia to walk in the outback with aborigines. I travel to remote locations feeding and clothing hungry children across the globe. I sell everything and live on a sailboat visiting deserted islands, living off the food I catch while spearfishing. I go places where few people dare to go and live. I start a multi-million dollar company. I take that novel I wrote and get it published...Wouldn't we all like to pursue our dreams with freedom, abandon and no fear?
So what was stopping me…
My body lived a completely different life. I woke up most mornings with aches and pains that someone my age probably shouldn’t have had. My bank account seemed to only cover neccessities. My willpower packed its bags and seemed to have taken a permanent vacation (at least one of us was having fun). Fear crept in the moment I thought of doing something challenging. I overthought and under planned...
Somethings gotta give!
One particularly cold weekend morning about a year ago, I rolled out of bed with a typical groan. Everything hurt. I gingerly made my way downstairs. One of my favorite things to do on a Saturday morning is curl up on the couch with a hot cup of coffee and chat with my husband. We have the most amazing conversations. We contemplate the meaning of life, dream and plan for an exciting "some day". What a great way to start the day. We managed to pull ourselves up off the couch to putter around the house clean up, repair a few things and do some laundry.
But wait…what happened…? The next thing we knew it was dark out and the day was nearly gone. We were tired…stressed, life was hectic…. And there you have it…that’s what happened.
We spent our lives making these great plans but somewhere along the way we forgot to lace up our shoes and take that first step. We forgot to actually Go Out And Live!
I realized then that my pain was going to be there whether I sat on the couch or went for a walk. I would always be tired if I stopped moving and my willpower would never return if I didn't at least try to do something to get it back.
So rather than resign myself to a life of wishes and daydreams I decided I was going to learn what it takes to defeat my lack of willpower and chase some joy!
I decided I wanted to be that person that makes other people say...
“If she can do it, so can I!”
Action doesn't always feel good at first.
That night with my brain screaming "Get back on the couch, this does not feel good!!!", I grabbed my husband and we went for a walk. It was a cold, dark, drizzly March evening. I'll be honest it was not the best walk I've ever taken. My nose was running. My head hurt and just that short walk left me out of breath. But I did it. And the next morning I had that good kind of sore. If I'm going to keep it real, I also had the bad kind of sore. But it was a start.
...and then it was a stop...and then it was a start. I struggled to motivate myself. I was tired, more tired then I could remember being. At the time I had no idea something was brewing...
My husband and I planned our first trip alone without kids (since they were born). We met scuba diving and it is the one adventurous thing we do that I never want to lose. Before we left he kept asking me “are you excited about our trip?” and I kept answering “I’ll be excited when I lose ten pounds and feel like I can physically enjoy this trip.” I guess the inner me hoped he would pick me up, carry me to the gym and make me lose that weight. That wasn't going to happen...What did happen was a bout of diverticulitis. It turned out to be one of the best things that could have ever happened to me. It forced me to change my diet.
Crazy thing about eating healthy...suddenly you start to feel healthy! The muscle aches disappeared. My mood lifted, and l slowly got more energy. I looked back on how long I had been putting up with not feeling well and it hit me...I had to figure out how to motivate myself or I would never leave the couch and never really live!
A few months later we went to Curacao. Our trip was amazing. We dove almost every day. We went dune buggying and toured the amazing capital city of Willemstad. I wasn't in perfect shape but I knew it was only the beginning. I had a lot to learn - about getting motivated and staying motivated. There would be starts and stops, successes and failures along the way, but I would learn and grow from all of it. I was going to find a way to stop dreaming and start living!
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Are we working to live or living to work?
Looking back on that cold March evening, I got a few gems from my husband as we walked:
“Honey, we have to keep moving. The opposite of moving is death.”
Okay…moving good. Death bad…got it!
Then he asked me when we became a society that rewarded sitting behind a desk with money.
“I guess we let it happen” I replied. When we agreed to take the job that put us behind that glowing screen of death, we said “Okay we’re good with this. I will trade my joy for money.”
My husband is a scientist. At times he worked in a lab and other times at a desk. I could tell those desk days sucked the life out of him. I have a desk job, I get it.
“I would sit at my desk with no sandbox to play in.” he said morosely.
We can't all quit our jobs, but we all need our sandbox. We all need to find a balance between what we do and who we are. Our joy is in the sandbox.
Maybe if I walk again tomorrow I’ll get closer to my sandbox. They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Okay put down your coffee…let’s take a walk!
