The Little Things
April 15, 2013

Humans like things that are easy, right? We prefer the path of least resistance and effort. The thing is, health often doesn’t work that way. Health and wellness is about adding positive factors into our lives, and that takes work and effort. Health isn’t a passive choice. I know- not a revolutionary thought, but sometimes we just need people to remind us of that fact. If health was the easy choice, I would stay up all night, eat chips and ice cream, skip the work outs that were hard, never floss, and all sorts of other things. It takes a lot more effort to turn off the TV at night and get into bed, get up early to get in a work out, cook healthy meals, and have healthy communication patterns.

Health takes intentional work and effort, the adding of positive factors into your life. The good news is that, like most things, with practice it does become easier! But, nonetheless, health involves an active choice.

It goes back to the idea of Owning Our Reactions (and Actions) in life. Being passive about things (including our health) means that we aren’t actively owning our “stuff” in life. Even if we are choosing to own them, we aren’t doing healthy ownership. The thing is, no one else can “make us healthy” or do the work for us. It’s ultimately on us.

My challenge to you this week is to look at where you are and are not owning your health, and where you could be more active in your health. Do a health analysis and see where you could move away from passivity. It’s a lifelong journey. I certainly don’t have it all together, and catch myself not being active in certain areas of life.

Now it’s your turn to share! What makes it hard to be active in our health? Where are you being passive at the moment? (sleep has been a tough one for me recently)

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2 responses to “Mental Health Monday: Choosing To Be Active In Health”

  1. Christina says:
    April 15, 2013 at 1:56 am

    Great challenge! I think one of my tougher issues has been letting being tired get the best of me when it comes to activity and eating. But I’m working on some changes now that are feeling good 🙂

  2. kruzmeister says:
    April 15, 2013 at 5:45 am

    You’ve touched upon one of the most important things I learned in therapy Caroline and that is to ‘own your stuff’ (I love the way you put that!). Once I grasped that concept everything changed for me. ‘Health isn’t a passive choice’ aint that the truth and I for one have worked my mental and physical butt off to become healthy again. Being a victim or a martyr is easy, being the hero of your own story takes courage, strength, support and a lot of effort, but by jingos is it worth it!!! Great post! – Simone 🙂