As we enter the New Year, I know many of you will be setting New Year’s Resolutions, looking at your goals and thinking about where you’d like to focus your energy this year. While things are starting to relax after the pandemic and many of us are returning to the workplace and our old routines, I invite you to think about whether your old routine was something you would really like to return to. As we build back after COVID, let’s look at our habits and make some changes to our lives to ensure we’re building back stronger and more resilient than before.
Reshape Your Outlook
To make any major change, first we have to make sure our mindset is in the right place. There will be plenty of sacrifices so it helps to reframe some of the difficult decisions to focus on the benefits as opposed to what you’re losing out on.
After speaking publicly, for example, I always reward myself with half-hour of sitting still, reflecting and relaxing, then a healthy, supportive snack. While many people’s first instinct might be to reach for some salty greasy chips, when I say ‘reward’ I mean something that will nourish my body. Of course, it should still taste good, but it should support your body and help it recharge after the incredible feat you just pulled off.
Changing your mindset is tough, if you’d like some help getting started, try the noemi app. It’s a personalized life coaching app that helps you overcome the things that are holding you back or making you sick and form new habits that serve you better.
Optimize Your Diet
Probably the most vital part of my healing journey was changing my diet and creating a plan that was bio-individual to me and what my body needs. Diets have been mislabeled as eating less calories and cutting out fat. Sometimes the opposite is what you need. If you are suffering from an autoimmune issue you might have individual triggers causing your inflammation.
Personally, I went on the Wahl’s Protocol and it changed my life. Through an elimination diet I was able to figure out what foods my body was sensitive to and what I needed to be eating more of. In the process, I realized I was Celiac as well as having sensitivities to a whole host of other foods including beans, grains, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, dairy and even something as healthy as spinach!
Having changed my diet, within a week I went from barely being able to get out of bed or make a fist, to up and about in just a fraction of my previous pain. Within a couple of months I had lost 40 pounds and most of that was inflammation. I started to feel much more myself. Diet isn’t everything, but it can do wonders.
Get to the Bottom of Perfectionism
Perfectionism is a reaction to relationships we formed in our childhood. If we formed positive stable relationships with our primary caregivers in our childhood, we didn’t have to worry about pleasing others or achieving perfection. If however, our relationships were neglectful, abusive, or conditional, as children we probably learned that we had to be a good boy or girl to receive love and attention. We adapted to that and now in our adult lives we fear that if we don’t achieve perfection we will be rejected or cast out from our social group.
Unfortunately, while this behavior probably kept us safe in our childhood, in our adult life it can cause serious mental and physical health issues. It’s time to look into the root cause and begin to treat it.
Try Somatic Exercises
While not my personal specialty I would like to highly recommend looking into Somatic Exercises. They allow us to connect to parts of our spirit and our body that we have disassociated from and understand what they are trying to tell us. This can help us to release blocked trauma that our body is holding on to and may be manifesting physically.
So if you’re thinking about revamping your health and your life this year, remember, anxiety, trauma, stress, uncertainty, bad food, toxic relationships, and spoiled environments is what helped us arrive at where we are. Do we really want to go back to it? Or do we want to build back stronger, healthier, happier and more united than ever. It’s your call.
Listen to The BS We Feed Ourselves Podcast Episode: Was There Ever A Normal?
