We understand that moments in life can seem bitter.
We understand the frustration you may feel when you are faced with all the things you cannot do when you are trying to restore health and wellness. You may leave the office with a copy of the modified elimination diet and have a list of all the things you cannot eat. We tend to focus on what we cannot have instead of focusing on the multitude of things we can.
We remember the frustration of learning to adopt a lifestyle of wellness. Learning new recipes, trying new foods, working out all the kinks that arise when trying to do things the healthy way, when the unhealthy way is so much easier.
We are faced with all the mundane, kind of bitter-tasting facts of life. Pending bills. Dwindling bank accounts. Sick kids. Stressed marriage. Car problems. Leaky faucets. Overbooked calendars. Need we go on?
What would happen if we reframed our focus on the things we can have. The opportunity to experience new tastes, new experiences and new health. Making small changes each day can add up to big changes over the course of time. Instead of focusing on what you cannot have and have to remove, let’s work on focusing on adding in something healthy each day.
By adding in the healthy, you naturally crowd out the bad. Pretty sweet, huh?
If you made a 1% change in your life each day you would have added up a 365% change in your life after a year! Let’s face it. We all have things in our lives that we look back on and wish we would have started earlier. Going to the gym. Reading more. Spending more time with family. Enjoying life. If we aren’t careful days turn into weeks and weeks into months and months into years and we can look back with a longing of “wish I had” or change it to “glad I did”. This simple change when reflecting on life comes from making the choices to make small changes now.
We can change the bitter taste of regret, to the sweet taste of a life lived with purpose. We can truly learn to enjoy the journey.
I want to spend the rest of 2014 encouraging you to focus on small things that you can do to sweeten your life a little bit. I want you to reframe your health journey from one of “cannot’s” to one of “cans”. These are just the little things that make you pause…even for a moment… to really appreciate the gift of life, rediscover your purpose and refocus while there is still time to change things.
This concept of adding in the good, to naturally crowd out the bad was recently driven home to me by a patient. She started telling me how she had grown to rely on her afternoon Mountain Dew to be that pick me up she needed to get her through the rest of the day. She had fallen into this habit and relied on it each day. She decided to add in the good and made a point to make sure she drank her allotted amount of water each day. She didn’t set out to stop her Mountain Dew…she set out to add in more water. She happily relayed to me that in making that choice to ensure she had enough water each day she was no longer “craving” that afternoon sugary drink and didn’t rely on the caffeine fix to get her through the afternoon. She felt more energy, thought more clearly and was enjoying her afternoon again by simply adding in the good.
So in today’s climate of negativity, bad news and all things to avoid…let’s work together to be positive, focus on the good and come up with ways that we can sweeten life up a bit.
We will be posting simple life sweetening tips each day for the rest of the year on our Facebook page. Feel free to share these on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest…or your social platform of choice. Follow the #SweetenLife conversations and we hope they inspire you. Let’s make it a point to be a bright spot in someone’s day. Let’s learn to focus on the blessing of cultivating wellness in our life and in the life of our family.
Life is a precious gift, together let’s share ways we can #SweetenLife!
