Confessional: The Beginning

I think it is time to admit something to myself.

I'm not healthy. I don't feel healthy, I don't appear to be healthy, I don't treat my body with the respect it deserves. I am not healthy.

Before I go any further, I feel it is imperative that I explain what my definition of healthy is.

You will not see me talk about my weight here. I do not know how much I weigh, nor do I care because weight, to me, is nothing but a number. It is a number that controls us; sends us into self doubting spirals of depression or offers us unrealistic goals of what “beauty” is. No. I will not talk about weight here. Nor will I talk about going on a diet, but rather, I will dedicate myself to changing my diet.

Instead, I will talk about health. Health is a feeling and it can be good or bad.

I once had a Complementary Medicine Instructor ask our class what our definition of health was by placing a notch on a scale he had drawn on the dry erase board. This scale went from “Death” to “Alive”. We each took our turns placing a notch on the scale, all ending up at the midpoint and onward toward “Alive.” Our instructor proceeded to explain to us that every moment of every day between life and death we are experiencing a state of health. Some days we feel healthier than others and some days we don't feel healthy at all. But even death is a state of health... it is the complete lack of health that creates the condition of death. This concept blew my mind.

Typically, when we think of health we automatically think of it in terms of reaching the positive, whatever that positive end goal is. We perceive ourselves as unhealthy or not healthy which in translation means: a lack of health. It means that this health does not exist. This idea is false because health always exists, we are just in a constant changing state of it.

So my definition of health can be found on a scale: 1 = “Death”......5 = “Existing”....... 10 = “Alive”. Every day, my feelings can change regarding this scale. While I hope I never feel like death, my goal is to feel alive every chance I can.

Currently, I have been merely existing. Without much reason to get up in the morning since my husband and I are on summer vacation, we simply don't. We go to bed late and wake up, eventually, around 10:30 or 11 in the morning. We have become sloth-like in nature. Playing online, surfing the internet for mindless entertainment, taking naps, and reading books on the couch. Sometimes we do yard work and sometimes we work on painting our kitchen cabinets (an on-going project we started back in June!) We eat whatever we want without thinking about what we are eating. The worst of it is, I'm a yoga instructor and I haven't done yoga in about a month and a half and I can tell.

This is our first summer vacation as adults, my husband teaches mathematics at a community college and I teach yoga there, as well. We hardly know what to do with ourselves without such structure in our lives as a job to tell us to wake up and get going. Somehow, we have to find the motivation ourselves and get back on track.

Last night I went to bed after eating homemade chicken enchiladas (which were amazing and delicious, but filled with dairy) and watching a movie, my husband and I decided to turn in (at about 2 AM). Before I went to bed I did three sun salutations. I'm not sure why I felt inspired to do them, but I did and was shocked at how stiff and weak I had become. The backs of my knees felt on fire as I did ahdo mukah savasana (downward facing dog) and uttanasana (standing forward fold). I wasn't able to hold chataranga (lowered plank) as long as I used to and I won't even get into my virabadrasanas (warriors). 

Hello, wake-up call!

To Be Cont...