Every New Year health gurus and wellness coaches start bullet pointing goals and creating lists on how best to achieve a healthy lifestyle.
This prompts you to begin a mental dialogue with yourself about how you want to do better when it comes to your health and wellness in the New Year. The conversation begins with, “ I am going to start eating more vegetables, but I don’t really like vegetables, but I want to be healthy, and the experts say you have to eat more vegetables, so I am going to change my diet, even though I hate vegetables.” The thing to ask yourself is, have you ever won this argument in your own mind? Now, you know this conversation never ends well. Someone on your mental committee always enters the conversation reminding you that you hate vegetables and after 2, maybe 3 weeks of healthy vegetables making their debut onto your plate, they lose the battle. My motto is, if it doesn’t feel right for you, it’s not right!
Let’s be honest, achieving wellness can be confusing and wellness means various things to different people. Having the right wellness approach that you and your mental committee can agree on is even tougher. So what is the solution for deciding on the right formula for a healthy lifestyle in the New Year?
What I know for sure is when one’s lifestyle is complicated, the approach to health & wellness needs to start by being uncomplicated. The ultimate goal would be to have wholeness in health, such that all systems support each other in development and healing without resistance.
But you have to start with an aspect of your health and wellbeing you feel confident you can achieve. Instead of adding something healthy to your diet, maybe omitting foods or habits that you know don’t agree with you would be a better choice. Cooperating with your body’s ability to heal means staying connected to how you feel and identifying what triggers make you feel less than well. When collecting these signs you may trigger a feeling that wants to be avoided. Generally that is the area of health & wellness that needs your most urgent attention.
Consider the following:
- Processed foods at every meal
- Refined sugar intake
- Reactive stressful situations
- Lack of adventures that bring you joy
- Topical products that assault your skin
- Contributors to chronic respiratory disturbances
- Contributors to chronic bowel disturbances
- Detachments from friends
- Heightened frustration
- Lacking acts of kindness in your life
Finally, having the willingness to cooperate with your health is essential, versus resisting the changes that could draw you closer to wholeness in health. Life would be much easier if, when we hit a snag, we would stop, address it, and move ahead smoothly. The truth is, in most cases, we could do just that. The reality is, we don’t do it!
It’s really hard to stop that internal chatter and remove one’s self from the commitments of life. But that is actually where nature comes in! Now is the time more than ever to be connected to nature, which is in direct proportion with what we are looking for in life, wholeness in health. Whether it is taking a walk at one of the parks, sitting in your yard and enjoying a cool breeze, or sipping on a cup of herbal tea, nature’s grounding force has the great capacity to quiet the mind. There is no resistance when you immerse yourself in nature. Nature takes all the complicated decisions you make every day and makes them seem far less complicated.
So my advice is that the best formula for health & wellness in the New Year is to be your own health guru by listening to the force of nature that lives within you. Tell your mental committee to take a walk in the park. Believe that you hold the answers to what small changes you can make that will enhance your health and wellbeing and use nature to fill the void. Give yourself the wholeness you are so deserving of.
Anne Willis is the founder and formulator of De La Terre Skincare. After four decades of practicing clinical skincare, Ms. Willis gained a unique perspective on skin health and how modern lifestyles have altered its resistance. Her training in Germany, Thailand, India, and Ireland prepared her to be a leading formulator in natural skincare preparations and to develop some of the most sought after skin therapies in the world.
