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Motivation to Stay Healthy and Active

Friday, February 12th, 2010 | Featured, Health, health tips, nutrition | 2 Comments

My longest-term goal is This:

I will be able to

walk

Wipe my own butt

And feed myself

Until the day I die.

Now there are plenty of other good goals to have for one’s entire life but these ones are the ones that motivate me most to continue caring for my health.   I find that I consider deeply the long-term effects of things like eating candy or drinking alcohol.

I want to feel good now AND 50 years from now.

There have been many times over the years I would try to tell my friends to drink more water.   They would say to me “I don’t feel sick! I don’t want to drink water. I feel fine and I’ve been drinking diet Coke for the last 4 years, (9 years, 19 years) That doesn’t apply to me” or something along those lines.

It’s one of those things that people do to destroy themselves, I think. (I have compassion for that.  I destroy myself as well in the ways of eating, drinking or lifestyle.  I have said in other posts that I recognize this.)

If one is told that something is bad for them – and they do not want to consider the advice – I believe this is a way to stay oblivious to one’s health.  It’s a form of self-delusion.  A way to stay fixed into immediate gratification by not considering long-term effects.

Scares the shit out of me to think of the health problems one would face after consuming so much processed food over a long period of time.

I can imagine our nurses, surgery experts and nursing-home employees could speak much on the subject of diseases caused by poor maintenance of the body.

It’s not like I want to have a body that’s pristine and unused in my old-age.

I just want to be able to

Walk

Wipe my own butt

and feed myself

Till the day I die.

This is my solid motivation to stay active and healthy everyday

Don’t Wait till it Hurts

Monday, December 21st, 2009 | Featured, Health, Massage | 6 Comments

I know better than most people how easy it is to put off receiving bodywork until my body hurts so bad I can’t move.

There’s a resistance most of us have in this society against taking care of ourselves.

We feel that we can solve our problems with our logic and intellect.  Staying stuck in modes where thought is master and all our actions are based on what our minds want.

When in these “mind-modes” our body’s needs tend to be forgotten or at least
“tuned-out” in order to meet the needs of our minds.

Is there something wrong with this?

No and yes.

Your life is yours to live as you choose.  My message is:  usually when people start actually taking care of their body’s needs – they are dealing with damage that’s already been done, and pain becomes their motivation to heal.

There’s nothing “wrong” with this – unless you have a desire to live a better and more comfortable life.

Having a body that is pain-free only comes when you maintain your health in a way that addresses body tightness and structural misalignment before they turn into pain, injury or more debilitating maladies like fusions of joints or bone spurs.

 Say you have a tight back.  It feels tight and uncomfortable, but you keep working anyway.  The tightness turns into pain once in a while.  Then it gets more frequent.  You keep working because you can “live with the pain” while working.  You’ll find you can still work even though you’re in pain; it becomes habit. You keep working and pushing your pain aside, and think maybe you should get a massage but instead you think the money it takes to go to a good massage therapist isn’t worth it because you can still live and work relatively well through your daily pain.  Years go by, and you’re doing little to nothing for your tight back and the pain that you have just gets a little worse everyday.

Then something happens.

You lift a heavy box and turn around to set it down and feel something “go out” in your back, or you slip and fall out of your chair while reaching for something at work.  “All of a sudden” you have so much pain in your shoulder or low back that you can’t sit for more than 3 minutes without having distracting pain.

You finally decide to see someone about the pain because it’s so bad it’s got to be something serious.  You get an x-ray that shows you have a slipped disk or fusion in your neck vertebrae.

Those types of serious spinal injuries happen due to “little accidents” or “slip-and-falls” (*note – this does not include injury from serious fall, crashes and extreme emergency life threatening situations) because your soft tissue was so tight.  Your muscle tightness made your structure unstable.  When an unstable, weak, misaligned and imbalanced body gets tipped, jostled or pushed into even a “small” accident – the likelihood of injury and chronic pain issues become huge.

Choosing to “live with” and ignore your pain will make it easier for you to get hurt in more painful and lasting ways.

As a health care practitioner, I meet many people who “live with their pain.”  They argue for their ability to ignore their pain, saying things like “I don’t hurt that bad”  “It’s just a little tight, I can still get by just fine”  “I don’t have the time or money”  “Massage is too expensive… and by the way you charge more than other massage practitioners so I can just go to Massage Envy and Pay forty bucks to get a massage, if I really needed it”

Not to bash my fellow heart-giving colleagues but employers like Massage Envy don’t pay their employee therapists nearly enough to care about your pain and injuries and be motivated to apply the effort and diligence it takes to truly address and correct their clients’ injuries and pain.

You can PREVENT injury with regular cheap massage.

But once you’re “feeling it” it’s too late.  The damage has already been done.

For those pain and tightness patterns to be truly addressed – you need a therapist who has put their focus into really dedicating themselves to YOUR healing process.

Doing injury treatment work isn’t easy to give or receive and it’s not the kind of massage where the massage practitioner can just blissfully rub you and make you feel all warm and fuzzy the entire time.

Injury Treatment takes focus, study, practice and a shit-load of compassion to do it with skill or effectiveness.

You know why?  Because people destroy themselves everyday.  They hurt themselves.  They do not see how they created their pain and injuries with their own choices and neglect.

A healer could really stand in judgment for the tragic results that neglect produces in their client’s bodies.

That’s one of the top reasons why the average career span for an LMP is about 2 years.  (A few other top reasons: low cash-flow and injury while working.)

Most of the retired LMP’s I have met told me they couldn’t stand to see people destroy themselves anymore.  They got to know what peoples’ lack of care for themselves looks, feels, smells and sounds like on an intimate level.

That’s pretty heavy shit, man!

Seriously.  The ways people hurt really tugs at any healer’s heart.  But even if someone is a so-called “accident prone person” we healers can clearly see what, in our clients, draws their injury.

I think a great healer recognizes the duality of all people wanting to both destroy and heal themselves and just loves people anyway.  Let me say that again: we continue to love our clients anyway.

We see the organic naturalness of this consistent opposing dynamic between healing and destroying because all humans seem to have it in one form or another.

We can have compassion for our client’s situations without judgment.  We can gently show them how to understand the ways they are hurting themselves, and kindly (sometimes sternly) how to reduce the “destroy-self” compulsions and increase the “heal-self” habits and motivations.

Really good healing work is often not particularly fun.

It makes sense why someone would avoid getting healing work because, on some level, they know it’s going to make them face their choices, selves and destructive habits and why they are in the place of being in pain.

Not to mention – purely on the mechanical level – injury treatment massage can hurt.  Knots and tightness tend to hurt when they are massaged and released.

Seasoned receivers of massage will talk about “good-pain” that comes when tight muscles or “knots” get massaged into less painful or tense states.

So it’s your choice to live your life as you desire.  I honor all paths whether they lead you to my door or not.

I trust that you know what’s best for you to have a life that fulfills you.  And I’ll support your healing in whatever way I am allowed.

I am allowed to voice my opinions and give advice based on the interests of healing my clients and operating my business:

Please don’t wait.

Please get bodywork soon and choose to heal before it hurts and especially before the pain you have right now turns into something worse that may never heal to ideal standards again.

Do yourself a favor: Don’t ignore your body.

Spend the time, money, effort and attention it takes to live a better and more comfortable life.  Think about doing it soon.

Your body is your vehicle.

Maintain your healthy body – and you’ll be able to live longer with less pain and more vibrancy and freedom.

Overeating is a habit overcome…

Friday, December 4th, 2009 | nutrition | No Comments

Overeating is a habit overcome best by awareness and discipline. I notice food stops tasting as good after my hunger is satisfied.

Just remember to relax and tak…

Friday, November 27th, 2009 | health tips | No Comments

Just remember to relax and take deep breaths. Really deep breaths. A few of them. Right now, maybe.

*Stretching* is always a good …

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 | stretching | No Comments

*Stretching* is always a good idea… well unless you have an acute injury… then well – it’s STILL a good idea – just VEEeeeery gently

drink water!

Friday, November 13th, 2009 | Health, Uncategorized, health tips, nutrition | No Comments

drink water!

I am stretching my arms into t…

Friday, November 13th, 2009 | Health, health tips, stretching | No Comments

I am stretching my arms into the sky and taking a big deep breath! People with abdominal surgery history need to stretch *regularly.*

Depressed? It May Be Your Diet

Thursday, May 28th, 2009 | Health | No Comments

Studies show that food allergies and intolerances to common foods can cause emotional instability due to chemical imbalance.

For myself, I know I have intolerance to gluten and wheat, but I don’t have Celiac disease.

Like most people, I’ll slip in my diet when I’m stressed or when I have no food options other than wheat-based foods.

I strive to keep my health in good physical and emotional condition, so it’s easy to notice when I do slip.  After last week’s stressful running around, I found myself letting off steam this weekend and I ate pizza.  It was yummy.

On Monday, I cried several times, feeling overwhelmed by life, and finding it difficult to motivate myself and challenging to switch my thoughts from negative to positive.

When my diet is clean, I find I am more productive, more positive and enthusiastic in every area of my life.

All I have to do is cut out food products with wheat in them, and my overall energy improves and I feel so much better about life.

Poke around the Internet to find studies on the effects of wheat on an allergic system.  Chemical balance and imbalance cannot be denied.

And if doing the research doesn’t convince you, try this experiment: Change your diet long enough to notice the difference. Cut out just wheat or just corn or just soy…and pay close attention to how your life changes…especially after you put the particular type of food you chose to cut out back into your diet.