Years ago I needed to change my health. I was spiraling downward and didn’t know what to do. Life didn’t really feel like I could do much or change much without negative consequences. I did start to examine my beliefs and definitions about health. And also what my overall goal was in relation to health. What did I really want and why?

My history of health and my definition was based on physical health. Time and time again I would loose weight and think that I was healthy. Thinking that all the other things in life that I was struggling with should go away or be easier to deal with. But then a year or so later I would gain all the weight back. If health was really just physical health, a number on a scale or a piece of clothing than why couldn’t I maintain it? I had achieved it several times.

I know that this sounds like a dumb thing. Like everyone knows that health is more than just weight and physical health. But was the actual belief I was functioning on. I was making choices based on this narrow belief. The thought of “If I just loose weight than everything in my career will improve” or “If I just loose weight than people will like and love me”. Then when nothing else seemed to change the weight would start to come back. Even without realizing it I saw the falseness of my own belief.

This is when I started to rebuild the belief to be more than just weight or physical health. The reasons that I never kept it off where because my emotional, mental and spiritual states. I could see how eventually I would start emotional eating because I still felt the same inside. Or how one time to deal with an over active mind I exercised too much and got injured. I stopped exercising altogether and gained it all back.

When the realization of how vast health was and what I felt like my current state was, I was overwhelmed. Even more afraid to make changes. It felt impossible. But behind that was also a determination to overcome it. I did two things. First I broke my health into categories. I knew that I had to keep in mind that these categories were part of the whole. But I also knew that if I was going to make any progress I needed smaller steps. Here are the categories:

Categories:

1. Emotional
2. Mental
3. Physcial
4. Spiritual
5. Nutritional
6. Soical
7. Intellectual

The second thing that I did was I started getting more information. If what I believed at this time was wrong that I needed to get an idea of what was right. Even though it was scary I knew that those answers needed to come from within. So I started reading “Loving Yourself to Great Health” by Louise Hay, Ahlea Khadro and Heather Dane. Here I found new ideas and small steps that I was able to start working on right away. I didn’t read with a mind that what they said would fix everything or that I even wanted to do everything. I read open to what they had to saw and acted with what felt right and what I felt like I could actually do at that time.

The things from the book, mostly Mirror Work, which is basically saying affirmation to yourself in the mirror made room. It made it so that I could be open to taking more steps and to doing so according to what I needed. So I also started another list of small steps. Here are a few.

• Mirror Work from a Louis Hay book
• one fruit or vegtable a day
• reading health books
• thinking of positve things
• stopping energy drinks
• journaling
• walking everyday
• getting good sleep

What I started with made a huge difference in my own growth. And I am always grateful for that first step of Mirror Work. But the one thing that kept things going was consistency. I did it everyday. And the other steps I have started I have done consistently. Certain things have fallen away over the years when I felt like I didn’t need to do them everyday. But other things have found a permeant home in my daily routines. And these have helped to maintain health.

The Steps that I took:

1. Self Evaluation: both of past actions, present state, motives and beliefs. It was hard to look at some of this but it was crucial to finding steps that were aligned. Being honest with myself took time. I was just as honest as I could be in that moment. Even though the step were small, they helped to get things moving an a personalized way. I got clear on what I wanted and how to begin. I did not know all the steps that would follow or how it would actually happen.
2. Working Around Obstacles: Deciding how those beliefs or motives would affect the current goal of achieving Balanced Health. How would they help or deter the goal? And what I could do to navigate around them. And what other obstacles where there. Money? Time? Actually energy to put towards it? Other people? Habits? See the obstacles but only to find the solution.
3. More Information: since my beliefs were linked to a lie, I needed to see how others viewed health. As I read and listened to more and more things I started to see what I really believed. Or at least felt better.
4. Listing Possible First Steps: My list was much longer than the one above. But it was an exercise to see and to feel what felt most aligned with me. And most of the steps on the list did become small steps when the time was right.
5. Choosing the First Steps and Acting: what felt most aligned, possible and what would make the biggest impact. Looking at myself in the mirror and saying that I loved me, didn’t feel good. But the point of choosing it was that it would make the biggest impact and I had the time, resources and energy to do it everyday. I also view this as one step. When you realize what the step is there is no break in the doing. You just do it. The choosing is part of the action.
6. Being Open: I remained open to what other possible steps might come through and having a willingness to act on them when they did. I also kept the mind that I didn’t have accept everything that I read or heard. It was my choice to act or not.