In the hundreds of conversations I have had with people over the years regarding health, I repeatedly identify a number of concerns.
On the one hand, everyone wants change, or at least understands that change is needed, everyone wants to improve their overall well-being, and slowly realizes that they have no choice but to choose to live “healthily” in order to stay healthy, avoid medical problems, and feel good.
So perhaps the first and obvious question is: “Do I feel good?”
Am I energetic or tired? Do I suffer from headaches? Is my digestion working well? Is my mood stable or am I depressed and anxious on a fairly regular basis?
With all this, and despite the fact that many times the answer to the question “Do I feel good?” is no. At least after an in-depth conversation that makes people admit that they are not.
There is still the fear that a healthy lifestyle will harm their freedom.
“I want to be free” to eat whatever I want, go out drinking until late, and enjoy life without feeling like I am in asceticism or deprivation.
The main feeling is that a healthy life is a life of sacrifice.
When I find myself in the company of people at social events (this doesn’t happen often), they are amazed at my ability to refuse temptations or avoid things that seem so stimulating and elementary to them.
Whether it’s alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, desserts, processed food, which I avoid at these events or whether it’s in my daily life experience that I do and they are not like a life without sports, days without visiting nature or in the sun, sleepless nights in favor of entertainment or watching movies and so on. This is precisely what they “jealous” of. They also want it but “they have no strength, no discipline, no ability, no time and no idea how to start”.
I recognize over the years that for me the experience of illness that I dealt with for so many years was a gift. Of course it was a nightmare for most of my twenties, but the recovery, the strong health I created, the person I cared about being and the freedom I discovered have turned this situation into a gift.
If it is not obvious, it is important to say that the fact that I was sick for so many years indicates that I was not a healthy person most of my life, I did not have high ability, nor motivation, discipline, or anything else that seems relevant to you now to make the change that you may also want or would like to make.
The illness was an opportunity for me to understand how important it is to be healthy.
However, you don’t have to suffer from a chronic/autoimmune disease to remember how terrible it is to be sick.
Most of us have experienced illness in our lives, each in different forms: flu, strep throat, fever, sunstroke, migraine, and so on.
When that’s the case, suddenly nothing interests us in this life except getting our health back.
I’m not writing what I’m going to say now to scare you, but really just to share with you for a moment and make you think about another aspect. Maybe today you consider yourself healthy. Because on the surface or on paper you don’t have a defined medical problem. What is true, according to data from the World Health Organization, most of the world’s population suffers from some kind of medical problem, almost half of the world’s population suffers from chronic diseases, and so on. It also says that the new diseases are lifestyle diseases. In other words, Western medicine doesn’t have much to do. So everything is in our hands.
So maybe you’re healthy now, but what’s next? You may be saying to yourself, I live here and now, I only live once. At most I will be sick when I am old. So I invite you to stop for a moment and think about your parents/grandparents. I am thinking about mine right now. Do they have any illnesses? Medical problems? Do they take medication regularly? Do you think they are okay with it because they are already old? How does the illness affect them? Are they free because they have allowed or still allow themselves what comes to them? What the environment does? Everything that tempts?
If they are sick, suffering from health, and still delighted with life, without ignoring the deep emotional pain, then perhaps they are still free. But between us it is impossible not to be healthy and still be free.
The freedom in health is true. With ourselves. It is my prioritization as a person, as a being in the face of the multitude of experiences, temptations and people in my life. It is the choice to choose what is right for me at all times so that I can fulfill myself, my family life, my friendships, my body, the energy and the actions that I really want if I allowed myself to truly dream without cutting them off before they started.
This health is freedom. The chronic problems, those that are the product of our choices. From digestive problems to fatigue, weakness, obesity, skin problems, body aches and so on. When I suffer from my health, when every Monday and Thursday I have a headache, backache, stomachache, sleepless night, nerves, sadness, anxiety and the list goes on, I am no longer free. And with the problem becoming chronic, I am never free anymore.
And if my only way to achieve a small moment of freedom is a bite of sugar, a cocktail or a drink. That is not really freedom. It is called escaping from a life in which there is no freedom.
After all, the drink or bite is not the essence.
The essence is is this really what I want? Does it really do me good? Do I say I want one thing and act differently in my choices?
I don’t want a bite or a snack, I want to fulfill myself and create a life for myself that is the fulfillment of my thoughts. Maybe I want to work in an amazing job and travel the world? Maybe I want a good relationship? Maybe I want to be independent? Maybe all my life I thought I would be one thing and I was something else?
Where is the solution? It’s not in getting drunk, in food or in shopping. It’s in making the right choices that will bring me to be a person who loves life and reaches euphoria without unhealthy aids.
I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had read this a decade ago. I know that these are the life experiences in which I took part and learned from others that made me recognize the powerful potential of life through my beneficial choices.
I learned that when I give up food that doesn’t do me good, I feel good, and then it’s easy for me to get up early, put on music and dance, or do a workout or meditation that leaves me with the desire to make my dreams come true.
I recognized that my self-worth rose and rose every time I made a choice that served me in the long term, compared to choices that had quick gratification and then I regretted it later, like drugs, alcohol, sugar, or a fling.
I learned that every small choice changes who I am, how much I believe in myself, and how it developed in me, after years of worthlessness, faith, and ability – a new identity, and this is true health, and therein lies true freedom.
