We all know that our state of mind, or perception, has a profound effect on our health. It’s the old glass half full or glass half empty question. How do you view your life?

Unhappy

I lived many years in an abusive situation. Mind you, I was not physically abused. The psychological abuse was severe, however, and as some of you know, that is devastating. Regardless of anything else that you do in an abusive living environment, there is always a dark cloud hanging over your life. One night I had enough. One night I had an epiphany. One night I realized that this is the only life that I will ever have and it was not turning out well. One night, I made a change. If you are living a substandard existence, if you are not elated to wake up every day, and you can’t blame it on a temporary crisis in an otherwise rich and rewarding life then maybe, just maybe, you need to make a change.

Passion

Do you derive great pleasure from any activity in your daily life? Are you fulfilled on any level? If you died tonight would you have that moment when you just knew that you had made contact with your ultimate purpose on this earth? If your answer to these questions is “Yes!”, then you may, have discovered your passion. I strongly encourage you to pursue it, providing that it is a positive factor, something that enriches your life and the life, or lives, of someone else or others. One of the certifications that we are pursuing is “Wellness” and this feeling of fulfillment and passion is at the core of the well being of every person. Unless we find this we will live adrift in a sea of meaningless activity. What are you most interested in? What is your default thought set? My mind just naturally defaults to “Health”. I work in it and I play in it. I have been keenly interested in the maximum potential of every human being for as long as I can remember. Now that my entire life is centered around “Health”, I have this flow that only comes from finding your purpose. Search your heart. Find your flow. It’s worth it. This feeling of “finding your niche” is a part of “self esteem stability” [1]. This type of self esteem is the healthy kind. It is based on who we really are, the person that we know ourselves to be as opposed to the type that is produced by a staged persona, a “poser” or a temporary activity or personality that draws accolades. We know who we really are and when that person makes a positive difference in the world, when that person is fulfilled, then we have come full circle. Our lives are complete.

Resiliency

Do you have the ability to continue? When life throws a hard ball at you and hits you upside of the head can you regroup? There is something about finding your niche that gives you this ability. It’s focus. When we have walked into our calling it is as if a bright light shines on that destination. We can be devastated and yet, we know that there is this bright spot that we must walk towards. I have lived this. It’s a real thing. After my home was destroyed by three direct tornado hits, while I was in it, I only wanted to get my barbell and weight plates out and contact my closest friends. Nothing else mattered, nothing. I knew exactly what mattered to me. It was not any of the debris that was once my “stuff”. It was the iron and people associated with it. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had found my passion. I have continued to follow that passion to this day and will for the rest of my life. Nothing brings me greater joy. Everything in my life revolves around the iron. This focus causes me to align the rest of my life to accommodate the necessary workouts that I must have in order to advance in weight training and while this may not be your cup of tea, it brings me more joy than I can even begin to tell you. It makes me resilient because no matter what else happens, I know that the only thing on my mind is , “When is my next workout and how will I do it?” Then I go into action to make that happen. Anything that forces you to act from passion to produce continuity makes you resilient. In order to initiate action, we must first be active which causes us to push in the most difficult times, to get up, to redo, to make damn sure that whatever ducks that we need in that row to make it happen, are present and accounted for. We have to “get over ourselves” to create this reality.

Self Care

How important are you to yourself? Is anyone else going to make you #1 priority? Can anyone else truly know exactly what you need? You know the inner workings of your heart. Do you need admiration or unconditional love or both? Admiration without unconditional love is a shallow existence and sometimes we are entrapped by the fleeting allure of the ego boosting quality of simple admiration. Do you have respect? If you are true to yourself, people will recognize that and you will garner respect in the most unlikely situations. Respect and unconditional love are psychological needs for everyone. They provide a safe place where we are free to be ourselves without fear of retribution. These needs are the ones that can be the hardest to satisfy but they are equal to the care of our physical selves.

We must care for our bodies and our minds if we want to be happy. There is no alternative. If we invest time into our health, our health will invest time into us by rewarding us with a long life of contentment even in the midst of the storm. Be true to yourself. Find those people who love you unconditionally. Eat right. Work out. Sleep. Live well, and when that day comes, and it will, when everything else falls away and you realize that there is really only one place that you have to get to because there’s a light shining right there, then you will have found your niche. You can’t force it. You can’t create it. You can’t just choose it. It chooses you. You just have to step out when it calls your name.

Live healthy. Live happy. Live fulfilled. ;-*

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00359.x