Here is an excerpt from an interview with a retired medical and wellness doctor…..
Question: You’ve helped people with health & wellness for 4 decades. For individual people, what would you say are the biggest learnings. You know, to be more well?
Answer: Well….I often say “we all want to be well, or more well”. And I think that is true. But the first and probably most important learning is right there really. In the words…..Really? How much? What will you do? What will you not do? What will you sacrifice? Will you really give that up? How much will you spend? You see, I think we lie to ourselves here. On some level. We want to be well. We know how to be. (Yes we do! Closely enough, we do.) But we don’t do all the things that will make us well. We choose something else. Something easier or cheaper or less hassle or less painful or more fun or more fashionable. We all do. Some of the time, all the time. But we want to be well?!? The truth is in the nuance I think. Yes, we want to be more well. We do. But not at-any-cost. Some of us will commit to wellness, a lot. And some will commit just a little. Because our priorities vary. I think there are questions of self-discipline, skills like goal-setting and habit-development, and more, at play here too. But I think the primary core issue is deeper and has to do with priority and personal choice. And that means taking a proper look in the mirror to ask and answer tough questions about priorities and how we use our limited resources like time and money and more. This is actually a deeply personal life journey that involves much more than a vexing Tuesday-morning-gym-or-cuddle-in dilemma. I honestly believe that many of us miss or skip past, all too rushed, this crucial introspective phase. In wellness. And probably in life more generally too.
I’d also say that a HUGE mistake folks make is waiting for rescue…..the cavalry riding over the hill…..the hero arriving to save the day…..some intervention that saves us…….all these, and more, I think, are mind-games we play for and with ourselves. Life is pretty hard at times. Taking charge of your life and making pro-active decisions is really so very challenging sometimes. So we delay, we consider, we wonder, we worry, we discuss, we debate, we “what if…” and we “well, maybe…” and we “some-day…”. Much of this is some form of “code” for “I cannot face this now” or “I cannot decide” or “it’s too complicated and hard”. And that will often be pretty understandable. But often, too often I fear, we get stuck like this for too long. Doing nothing. Not choosing. Procrastinating. Being inert. Almost as if we are waiting for a hero. But the hero we really seek here is the one Whitney sang about. Not some John-Wayne on the crest of the hill. It is ourselves who will save ourselves. The subtlety here is the balance between compassion (yes life is tough and yes this is hard and yes choices are not easy…..) and realism (but reality is what it is and only you can run your life, so please try to take charge even though it may be hard…..). With each other. But mostly with ourselves. Or something roughly like that. The rescue our semi- or sub-conscious minds long for, is probably not coming. More often than not, we must look inwards for the hero we seek.
Yes, perhaps just those two learnings. As a place to start. These may be the keys. I think. If people can understand themselves honestly and even brutally-honestly. And if they can accept that, for the most part anyway, they are in charge of their own lives. Then I think folks would make better choices overall in life. And certainly be more well. I hope so.
Written by Dr Colin Burns
