It’s not your fault. Cut yourself some slack.

Do you remember playing MASH when you were younger?

We’d come up with different categories for life…car, job, the number of kids, where we’d live, how much money we’d make, how old we’d be when you got married and of course the type of house we’d live in?

Do you remember drawing the circles and then they’d tell us when to stop and we’d count the number of rings to know the number of places to count?  Then go through all the categories counting and crossing things off until you were left with what was supposed to be your life as an adult.

I used to love that game!

When you’re young, it is so much fun to think about what your life will be like when you grow up.

Everything seems possible.  And when the game didn’t turn out the way we hoped, we’d be like…”nah man.  I ain’t gonna live like that.  Watch!”  

And that began our quest to decide what kind of life we want to live.  We get real specific, with timelines and everything.  Come on…admit it!  There were girls….maybe you were even one of them, who, at 10 years old, already knew what their wedding dress would look like and where they were going to their honeymoon.You planned how many kids AND their names!!!  We had all kinds of details, crystal clear in our minds about what life as an adult would look like

Looking back, I can see how most of our references about how to live life come from our family and tv.  It was all we knew and our goal was to live a more glamorized version of what we know.  However, how many of us saw adults taking care of themselves?  IF we saw our parents or other adults exercising, it was usually framed as a ‘have to’.....like, “my doctor says I have to walk everyday”.  Or maybe we saw our mother and other female adults hate their bodies and they exercised as a form of punishment.  And while our eating was much healthier back then, it was more by default.  Eating home cooked meals was more of a financial restriction than a healthy eating option.

So, as kids we started planning for a life that included college, work and family….but not ourselves. LOL…self-care was not a thing back then. We never knew taking care of ourselves was something important to include!  So, it is no wonder we are as unhealthy as we are.  We put a lot of energy into dreaming about a life we want to live…and we may even get it.  But the reality is, that dream is a nightmare if we don't take care of ourselves in the process.

I mean, is it even really considered a ‘success’ if you don’t have your health?  Let’s say you ‘win’ your MASH game and you have the career, the car, the house the partner of your dreams, but you are 50 or more pounds overweight, you’re self-conscious, your joints hurt, you are pre-diabetic and too busy with no energy to do much with friends or family….are you really winning?

Or maybe you are smaller or look the part, but feel weak, deal with mild depression and anxiety, addicted to medication because of your daily headaches/migraines, or need a bottle of wine after work and even more on the weekends…again are you really winning?

This is not intended to make you or anyone feel bad.

You haven’t done anything wrong.  

This whole adulting thing is hard enough….let alone HEALTHY adulting!

We didn't plan for this.

We didn’t know this was a thing.

We have achieved or are in pursuit of everything we KNOW and are TAUGHT to pursue.  

We aren't taught about being a healthy adult growing up.  But it is hands down one of the most important lessons we can learn because it impacts every area of our life.

Think about some of the aspects of adulting that our parents DID go through, but didn’t do such a great job of teaching us about it.  During the course of our childhood to adulthood, our parents experience lessons in credit, housing, career, RELATIONSHIPS!  How many of us can honestly say that with their experiences, our parents taught us how to do a better job? Bless their hearts, my parents did their best, but these were not lessons they taught me.  These are all areas of my life that I still struggled with and had to learn on my own during my young adult life.  And if I’m being honest, I’m STILL learning about relationships!  And again, these are experiences and lessons our parents DID go through that we were not taught.  Now, it makes sense why we are none the wiser about how to care for our health or our body because our parents didn’t have to learn much about it….at least not like today.

To be able to take care of our health and body today, we have to consider so much more than previous generations did.  We are literally living in an environment that is counterproductive to our health and humanity.  I've spoken before about how our desire for efficiency has robbed us of effectiveness.  As humans there is a certain amount of ‘work’ our body must do to stay in good health.  So our desire to make life faster, more convenient and ‘easier’ is actually removing our opportunities to exercise health…yes pun intended.

To stay on top of our health, we have to manage processed/ultra processed foods, fast food delivery, organic vs. non-organic, food deserts, sedentary work, staring at screens all day, multiple tv’s/devices in every room, constant notifications, longer commutes, or no commutes at all, living away from family, over prescribed medication, global warming, everything is oversexualized, social pressures of productivity, lack of sleep…just to name a few. Yes, all of this affects our health. And this lifestyle has lead to an uptick in diagnoses like ADD, ADHD, all types of cancer, addictions diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and mental health diagnosis like depression and anxiety

Clearly we are facing unprecedented times, which is why we are facing an unprecedented health crisis.  And to further the challenges, when we realize all of this and we decide that it is time to invest in our health…what do we do?  We start going to the gym.  And while, yes, that is a great place to start…take another look at the environment we are in that is creating our health crisis.  Being physically active is one of many tools that we can use to take care of ourselves.  But it is not the solution.  So, what else should we do?  Well, first give ourselves a lot of grace.  We really need to cut ourselves some slack when it comes to our health and well being.  Again, all of this is new, we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for not getting it ‘right’.  We aren’t supposed to know how to do this.  Consider yourself ahead of the curve for simply having an awareness of what is going on.

Another thing you can do is book a consultation call with Ori Ara.  It is because of this large gaping hole in our lives that Ori Ara was created.  As a society we lack foundational understanding and knowledge of how to thrive as an adult.  We have not been taught ‘Healthy Adulting 101’ and it shows.  And because we are becoming more and more aware of this, we are more and more confused about how to actually address it.  Ori Ara’s services include  mentorships that provide much needed  guidance for times like this.  Starting with your mindset, our health mentorships bring us into awareness and then provide education on how to thrive in today's demanding world.  Book a free consultation call, ask all the questions that are on your mind and finally breathe that sigh of relief when you discover the support you’ve been looking for.