I’m always a little afraid of myself when I get to that fed up point. That point where I’m calling myself out on my own bs and I’m serious about it. The place where I acknowledge I’ve not done what I said or have ignored something for far too long. That’s the beauty and curse of being an adult isn’t it? There really isn’t anyone to truthfully call you out on stuff the way you really need it most of the time. We have to get this point of emotional value release to realize we need to do that for ourselves.
The blessing and curse of being and adult is that there really are not many people who will get down to really calling you out on your real bs. Oh sure we’ll call each out other in teasing and it sometimes catches our attention but it doesn’t have that punch until we deal with it ourselves. It’s not until later when we are alone with our own thoughts that the real accountability and responsibility of our actions truly and fully rests with each of us. I like to think most people are really honorable about keeping their word to others. Yet where we fall short and need the accountability is where we short ourselves on those same standards. We let ourselves down over and over again as second rate to everything else we have going on in our life. Then we wind up frustrated, over it and fed up and these reality gut checks kick in to remind us.
When I reach the fed up point I’m really bad about talking negatively to myself. It gets ugly and some of the things I let get said in my own head about my own action or behavior is quite horrible. I end up feeling worse than I did and then the guilt piles up. Why didn’t I deal with it earlier? Why did I have to reach the point I’m disgusted with my own behavior, actions and inactions, intentions and more? Why did I have to wait until things were a mess in my life before I noticed I could have prevented it from happening or building something better when I had the chance? It is an unending litany of why didn’t I statements that do a thorough job of beating my own backside.
The truth is sometimes we have to reach that point of being fed up. Most of our life is spent in an auto-pilot mode of living where we just float from thing to thing not really fully engaged. We are distracted with our phones, social media, group texts, over busy schedules and anything else we can throw up as a reason. It’s easier to say we don’t have time than it is to deal with a change we know is going to take some work or that is thought to be hard. Who wants hard when we can be busy instead? There’s always later with the secret hope it goes away on its own.
With the 2020 events of this COVID-19 virus I found myself for the first time in years not traveling for my job. I adapted to being at home by doing projects around the house. I became busy with them and thought this is going to be awesome! My house will be clean, I’ll keep a schedule of chores to do that, we put in a garden and did a bunch of yard work. Yes this was good productive time so that when the world returns to normal my house will be in order. I replaced a busy work travel schedule with busy home project schedule and work at home stuff. By June I realized I needed to call myself out on this behavior because I was making stuff up at this point to say I was being productive. I was ignoring things that actually needed my attention and I knew I should deal with them but it was easier to be busy.
When my work offered a free 12 week personal trainer program I’m not sure what possessed me to sign up for it. I know it’s great for our health to exercise. I always say I need to exercise more but never have the time. Well, one day I just signed up for it and said this is it. I was tired of being tired, making up excuses and despite doing everything but exercising I decided it was time to actually exercise. It was time I dealt with the elephant in the room which in this case was the tightening of my own pants waistline and clothes that weren’t not fitting me at all. Just eating right, taking good supplements, reducing my toxins, and everything else I was doing or somewhat doing didn’t include the one thing I also needed to do. Exercise. Time was no longer an excuse.
I have learned a lot about living more naturally and have seen results in every area of my life, including my health. Yet, it ultimately comes to this point where you have to decide if you’re all in or not. All in, includes taking that deeper step to apply these principles to the areas you’re ignoring. I was doing really great at the easy stuff like changing out the products we use at home, taking great vitamins that actually work but I wasn’t all in. I was still thinking I could have my cake too. Well, as it turns out I can have cake and it actually tastes better too.
There are many facts of living naturally. We usually start with the easy ones and stay there though missing out on what happens next. This is level one stuff that is great but what happens when we take that next step? What happens when we stop seeing changes or benefits? A lot of people give up and revert back to what they were doing, developing this opinion that living naturally is baloney. The truth is, just using some good products is only the beginning. The real benefits come when you use the products AND make actual real changes in your life. That’s where many of us have to get to the fed up point or that diagnosis we don’t want to hear to realize this necessity too.
So, while I dreaded the workouts I knew I couldn’t put them off anymore. I knew I had to do more and build off what I had started changing in my life and home. It was obvious in my mind that health is an all encompassing integrated and unified being that is me, all I am and the environment around me. Yet I needed my heart and body to get that message too. I knew I was living naturally but I was not getting the full effect until I really took this next step. I had to try it even if I dreaded it. I had to go there and see for myself if this was all hype or there could truly be something more behind the elusive curtain of living well naturally.
What I learned has changed me. My mind knew just like yours does too but when we act on it we see transformation happen. Just like that first time I noticed a change in using essential oils and what it did to my over 40 aged face filled with breakouts, I started to see changes in my body weight, shape, energy, sleep and focus. I had already seen changes in these areas but now it was more progressive, happened easier and had results that compounded what I had started. My dread turned to motivation and curiosity to go even deeper. Instead of just working out with the personal trainer on my assigned days I found myself more active overall. I felt good and wanted more of that feeling.
It took me getting fed up to make this change. It took me calling out my own bs of just using good pure products and believing that was good enough. I had to explore and work at it to make this happen but the results, even the tiniest of progress became exciting! What I learned was it is great to have good pure natural products I use daily but when I use those in the true application of making changes in my health real changes occur. It was time for a change for me. A real change to deeper living in a natural way that not only serves my family but my own health.
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