Itz Holistically Wholesome

When we think about a healthy lifestyle, for many of us, our minds are quickly drawn to a nice lean body and proper nutrition. As such, we quickly find an exercise routine and formulate a list of things to eat, not to eat, how to eat and when to eat. With this thinking, it is no wonder why many of us are coerced so easily into trying fads that do not benefit us in the long term and leaves us wondering if we will ever achieve that level of content concerning our overall health.

When I started my lifestyle journey, I thought I was doing everything I needed to do to reach my goal of true and optimal health. I was eating right and exercising six, sometimes seven days per week. Yes, I saw results because my skin was glowing, and physically I was happy with how my body looked. I felt great and confident. I got this, I thought, and I was on my way to becoming a healthier me.

While things were looking up in that regard, I was facing so much emotional and mental stress. Some days it got so overwhelming, to the extent where I would cry and complain. Mind you, many of these stress feelings that I was having I brought upon myself due to choices that I had made. I also harbored negative feelings, got upset about what I had no control over, allowed the negative attitudes and behaviors to affect me, and remained in situations and environments that were of no good to me. In all of this, I never really looked at how all this could affect my goal of wanting better health if I kept it up.

I was having a conversation with one of my sisters about how stressful my life was. After hearing what I had to say about all the things that I was dealing with, she replied, “you know that all this exercise and eating well that you are doing will be useless with that level stress that you have to deal with.” Her words hit me like a ton of bricks. At that moment, I realized that I was focusing on my physical body, thinking that what I was doing was enough after all; when I run, work out, and eat well, I feel great. But, I never gave much thought to my emotional and mental state. Wow. Her response got me thinking, and I began to look more closely at what it means to lead a healthy lifestyle to have good health.

In my quest for a deeper and better understanding, I discovered that a healthy lifestyle does not only involve changing your diet or exercising. Instead, it involves a complete assessment of your entire you and taking steps to change or improve those aspects of yourself that need improvement. Your whole being needs attention if you desire to be “truly healthy.” From your head to your toe, inside and outside. Emotional and physical health is just as essential, and it would be detrimental if you choose to ignore it.

You are detoxing when you have decided to change your life by embarking on a healthy lifestyle journey. You are removing dangerous and harmful things from your body and life and replacing them with better ones. True detoxification must be done from all levels within you. Since our minds and emotions have the power to affect our health positively or negatively, it cannot be neglected.  The bible tells us in Proverbs 4 verse 23, “more than anything you guard, protect your mind, for life flows from it (CEB). Did you hear that? Life flows from our mind. Therefore, in order to attain health and vitality, you must detox your thoughts and emotions, not just your physical body. It is necessary to create more positive energy and eliminate the negative ones holding you back from being your greatest self. It is time to “let it go,” as Elsa said in the movie Frozen. One of the best pieces of advice yet.

It is so crazy how easy it is to hold on to negative things and allow them to become a burden to us. Sometimes, we cannot eat, sleep or smile because it weighs so heavily on us. Yet, we can’t seem to get rid of the feeling. How often do you stop to think that this is no good for me; it will affect my life negatively at some point? Not often enough, right? The reality is that negativity is no good for you. Suppose you are prone to negative emotions like a grudge, hate, resentment, evil mind, malice, doubt, failure, or otherwise. You will have to be more intentional about moving past these thoughts or feelings and not allow this to remain a part of your life. It will make you miserable and sick. All the work that you have been doing to better yourself would be in vain.

You can judge whether something is good or bad for you at any particular time and respond accordingly—for example, the emotional state of love versus anger. When you feel love, you are at peace, and this makes you happy. Every cell in your body responds favorable to this emotion, and you feel good all over (in my Stevie Wonder voice). On the other hand, anger makes you unhappy. You may even start screaming at the top of your lungs and act the fool (Ludacris voice). When I am angry, I feel light-headed, sick to my stomach, and my heart gallops like a horse on a racetrack. Everything inside feels like it’s out of place, and I feel shaky. It holds that this affects your cells, blood, and lymph flow negatively. I have realized now that it’s harmful to enable such feeling, and immediately I want to rid myself of it. Getting control of negative thoughts and emotions is not always easy. It takes work. Sometimes I see it coming, but I am so mad that I tell my good thoughts that try to caution me to shut up, and I blew a gasket. Then I feel horrible after. So what I do now is to begin working on how I want to respond to negative emotions. I am more intentional about it because I know it will compromise my hopes of having proper health, which is not an option.

When you increase your physical body’s energy, you must also increase the energy of your emotional and mental body. Thoughts and emotions are like glue; they stick together. They can adhere to your cells and cause obstructions that you can carry for a lifetime or until something goes wrong. As the saying goes, “watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.” Let the obstruction go and let the positive energy flow through you like the Euphrates River. Create a holistically wholesome lifestyle for yourself; you have the power to do so.