Everyone has a different idea of what healthy is. With all of the conflicting information out there, it’s easy to believe that to in order to be healthy, you must stick to rigid plans and push yourself to your limit, no excuses. That’s how I used to feel anyway. But I think when you go through an illness, any illness, and come out on the other side, you learn to appreciate the simple things your body and mind can do for you on a day-to-day basis. You learn to work with your body rather than against it. You learn what your healthy is. This post is about just that 🙂
My version of healthy isn’t about drinking kale juice or running marathons or putting butter in my coffee. For some people, this is their healthy and that’s COMPLETELY fine if it makes them feel good. You wouldn’t take somebody else’s medicine so there’s no need to take somebody else’s version of healthy and adopt it as your own.
For me, healthy is waking up in the morning and feeling like I am capable of facing the day. I may not want to face the day sometimes, but being able to accept that it could be tough rather than hiding away from problems is, in my eyes, a great thing. (This doesn’t include hangover days when I am barely even capable of opening my eyes to face my ceiling!)
Healthy is being able to be flexible with my time, my life and my food choices, and not being guilt-ridden when I veer away from my plans or when I eat a slice of cake. On the subject of cake, healthy to me is being able to sit with friends and enjoy some coffee and cake (Thanks Lori:)) and actually be able to focus on the laughs and conversation rather than on the X amount of calories in front of me. It means listening to my body’s hunger cues and enjoying what I feel like rather than what I think I should have. It means understanding the importance of balance in life and not living a life full of deprivation.
Healthy to me means not forcing myself to walk 40 minutes to a gym in the hailstones to go to an intense gym class that I actually don’t want to go to at 7 a.m. This wouldn’t be a problem now as 1-I own a car and 2-I don’t go to the gym but the main thing is, I don’t force myself to do similarly horrendous things. Instead, healthy means moving in a way that feels good for MY body rather than pushing myself until I feel like I’m going to vomit. My type of moving could be a walk, yoga or my new hobby, pole dancing (#strippertastic). It doesn’t matter, as long as I enjoy it. Healthy to me means being able to stop this exercise at the halfway mark if I feel like I have had enough. Sometimes, it means not doing it at all, particularly if I’m sick or tired.
Healthy to me means being able to express my emotions and talk about things when they aren’t going so well. It means not pretending to be someone I’m not or pretending to be happy if I’m not. It means being able to laugh and cry uncontrollably if needs be.
Healthy to me means being able to relax 😀
Healthy to me is being able to accept that some days, I can’t be this version of healthy that I have painted above. Sometimes I might have slip-ups and fall back into a negative way of thinking. Sometimes I am going to force myself to do things I don’t want to do and I may even feel that bit bad about some cake. But is that not healthy in itself? Nobody is perfect. Nobody feels good about themselves all of the time. Nobody lives through life without falling a few times (if you do, please share your secrets!). For me, slipping up is ok and slipping up is healthy. But in my new and improved version of healthy, I can ask for help. I can believe that things won’t always be bad. I can see the bright future ahead of any of my darkened days.
All in all, healthy to me is respecting both my body and my mind and accepting that neither are perfect.
Peace out.
Amy.
x
everybody's grand 