For many of us, health and self-care can become a kind of chore, filled with fixed ideas, rigid assumptions, and many, many “shoulds”. Do what the doctor says, take these pills, avoid these foods, etc, etc, etc. In my view, health doesn’t have to be this way.
Instead, I approach the healing journey with a spirit of curiosity, playfulness, and an orientation of experimentation. Doing this frees you from the risk of health and self-care becoming a burden or too serious. It releases you from all of the rights and wrongs. It gets you out of perpetuating the boom-and-bust cycle of frustration, failure, and shame.
In my approach to health, you get to let go of the rulebook! You get to release yourself from what you think you are “supposed to be” doing, and instead do what you want to do. You no longer need to grip so tightly to the activity of managing yourself. In other words…
You get to heal your relationship with health.
By engaging with your health with this attitude of playful curiosity, you are able to celebrate each and every step of the journey. You can feel the aliveness in staying in motion, in remaining engaged with your process. Eventually, this celebratory attitude becomes a way of life.
And you’ll see that over time you become more and more skillful at navigating experiments, and more and more discerning and empowered in how you design them and how you live them. You won’t get caught in a boom-and-bust cycle on your self-care journey because you will no longer be attached to the journey looking a certain way. If something doesn’t work for you, you can explore one of the remaining endless possibilities that may bring you to a place of thriving.
The only limit is your own creativity,
and that’s boundless!
Celebration is innately part of this process, and it’s important. You are celebrating each of the little steps that continue to open you into greater freedom, ease, and thriving. You aren’t fixated on an end goal that has to be “just so.”
You are steering your life and responding to what emerges with the spirit of adaptability and flexibility. You are no longer the victim of your circumstances. You expect the unexpected. And because you are experimenting, you won’t get derailed as you might have before, because whatever you experience is simply the data to inform you about what to try next.
Being on your health and self-care journey doesn’t have to be difficult. While it can certainly be challenging, it can be playful, too. By bringing a sense of humor and flexibility to the journey as well as allowing yourself to feel the pleasure that comes from advocating for your own self-care, your health pilgrimage can be a truly joyful experience.
And what could be greater cause for celebration than that?
