I know some of you are working very diligently on your health. At times it can be difficult to avoid feeling that life on earth just isn’t fair. Take for example the gentleman in England who doesn’t drink water – only beer – smokes cigarettes, doesn’t pay particular attention to his diet, only to eat what he likes, stays up late and in 2008, at 101 years of age, ran a marathon. He also managed to establish records for being the oldest person to complete a 5K, 10K and half marathon.
Let’s contrast that to many of you who avoid gluten. You have found that sugar and other foods don’t agree with you; you try hard to get proper rest; you take a multitude of supplements; you work hard on your attitude and inner being health. In short, you are conscious of your health every day, yet you still seem to have chronic health issues that just will not go away no matter what you do. In some cases, even new health issues pop up.
Someone trying this hard might experience feelings of bitterness, defensiveness, awkwardness, depression, despair, fear, vulnerability, humiliation, loss of control, feeling lost, anger and/or frustration. Even with this long list, I am sure I have left something out.
Bitterness comes from noticing that you are working hard and getting worse results than some people you know who barely pay attention to health issues and don’t have half the problems you do.
You feel defensive because you have to explain to people why you can’t eat this or that; plus every time you think about your health issues, you wonder what you are still doing wrong.
You might find a feeling of awkwardness, especially in social situations where it is obvious that you are choosing different foods than everyone else and people say, “Why can’t you have birthday cake just this once?”
Fear pops up because you wonder if you are going to die of some horrible disease before your friends. Especially when your friends think they are healthy because of their wise choices, even though they are more like the English man mentioned above who really doesn’t pay attention and barely knows what a calorie is and hasn’t passed up an offer for another beer in decades.
Loss of control comes from thinking that your health is doomed no matter what you do.
Anger and frustration can be directed at God, Life, or the Universe, that is any of the big stuff that set things up to be like they are. We can’t control these aspects of our existence but just have to roll with things the way they are. We wonder why we have to deal with these limiting health issues when other don’t.
And of course you feel vulnerable because these health limitations constantly remind you of your morality. You wonder when the other shoe is going to drop.
I bring this up because some of these issues came up when working a long-time client and patient recently. It was then that I realized most of the people we work with here at OVitaminPro probably feel this way to some extent but really can’t talk about it with anyone. If you mention to your healthy friend that you get migraine headaches, they might respond saying, “Gee, I don’t get headaches.” Or you say that you are gluten free and they reply, “Yeah, I had to cut back on pizza for a time.”
What do you do if you have health challenges and have these feelings? I think it is helpful to acknowledge that they exist. I don’t know that you need to explore all of them, but I will leave that to someone more qualified in psychology than I am.
I have heard that wisdom begins by recognizing the situation and at some level coming to terms with the conflict and in this case, the conflict is the desire for better health and obstacles at achieving it. This is the paradox of the human mind. We can on one hand accept our situation, while on the other hand we continue to work to solve the problem. This is a concept that Nelson Mandela would talk about in referring to his 26 years in prison. You will gain a certain amount of peace by working on accepting the limitations of your human body but at the same time working to overcome these challenges. I am not going to say this is easy. The reason for this blog is for a bit of comfort to the person reading this who has felt those feelings and has felt isolated and alone. These feelings are normal and it doesn’t make you a bad person to have them. That also doesn’t give you license to wallow in self-pity. That just isn’t productive in the long run. Accepting that this is the hand you were dealt and learning to love your body as it is, along with resolving to keep working to help your body be as healthy as it can be are more productive ways to go about it.
A great product that everyone can benefit from, especially those who are overcome with the feelings mentioned above is FloraGenix. It’s a probiotic from the BetterGenix brand. We personally use it and love it, and everyone can benefit from good probiotics supplements. Contact us today to learn more.
