How bright and appealing are the fruits in your future?
What if your participation in the food pyramid is determined by how well you manage anxiety?
I know. Hello Big Mac.
But really….to what degree are your choices….influenced by your mood?….your current opinion of yourself? How your career’s going?….heck….how work’s going today? To what degree are your behavior choices influenced by how your special person is thinking about you? (Or, more correctly….how you THINK he is thinking…and, by the way, you’re wrong.)
“Which is more important? The world as it exists? Or the world we’re making up as we go along?”
Symptomatic behavior, from angry outbursts to staying in bed all day…. are a result of a combination of: physical elements (including genetics and current state of health); life events (including upbringing experiences); the individual’s basic level of functioning (typical ability to manage stress and change); the functional level and availability of the emotional system (family).
And behaving in anything like a healthy, reasonable manner is hard as trying to drag yourself out of a pot of setting taffy. If it were any easier, no one would miss their daily walk, no one would be overweight, no one would overdrink….there wouldn’t even be a “Latest Stupid Diet Discovery Aisle) in the grocery store. Oh, and there’s now a separate section called: Anti-Aging. Now what kind of dream world is that?
I don’t have the answer on how to suddenly function better, how to easily conquer my ever-present, anxiety-driven, Emotional Guidance System. I haven’t taken my afternoon walk since….ahhhh…since we returned from Cabo San Lucas….since I returned to real life. I’ve figured it out how to cure all of us. If we can all stack up enough hotel and airline points to live permanently in a resort on the tip of Baja…I mean…we’re fixed. What a miracle.
Let’s start with the symptom of not eating fruit. Grazing the buffet overlooking the Sea of Cortez, I had no problem filling up my bowl every morning with strawberries, bananas, pineapple, apple slices. “Beautiful fruit,” I’d exclaim. “Omelet?” they asked. “Oh, not for me. This fruit looks great!”
Now, I’m back at my Dallas national world headquarters Hilton…and I can hardly look at the fruit. Gosh, all those healthy behaviors had come so naturally in Mexico. What happened I ask, as I finish up my bacon and wash down my blood pressure pill with coffee?
Now BEFORE WE BLAME the ENVIRONMENT and slap on all the cliches…”work too hard…traffic…weather…mom late picking you up from kindergarten…”…JUST STOP IT already.
I, like all of you, can take more charge of the world I see and make up. I can make those strawberries more colorful. And, there’s a way you can start right now. Say out loud, “Wow, what a beautiful, interesting sky. What lovely______.” Because remember, unlike the unfortunate Princess Diana…YOU ARE ALIVE. (See post on What Do You Have that Princess Diana Doesn’t?)
And as long as you and I are alive, we’ve got a shot at changing what goes on inside our chest cavities. We’ve got a shot at joy.
