My Journey Beings

Recently I shared my epiphany about my self-care Journey and about Restoring Nurses. I said that I am a nurse on a journey to learn what it means to take better care of myself and on a mission to bring as many nurses as possible along with me. That being true it seemed reasonable to start sharing my journey with you guys. So, this post is the first in a series that will document my journey to learn what it truly means to take better care of myself. Hopefully, some of you will join me on this journey.

My struggle

I have struggled with my weight pretty much for my entire adult life. Actually, that’s not really true. For most of that time, I was complacent. We talk a lot about struggling with this or that when in reality we are living with that thing we claim to be struggling with while doing almost nothing about it.

You see, to STRUGGLE with something is active. Imagine you’re walking through the woods when a cougar jumps into the path in front of you. I mean like an actual cougar, not an attractive middle-aged woman. Anyway, so this dangerous, wild animal is now standing in front of you and you have to decide how you’re going to deal with it; run, struggle, or do nothing. This would also be known as fight, flight, or freeze.

Run

In the case of the cougar, run is exactly what it sounds like. You’re literally trying to outrun the cougar. When it comes to taking care of ourselves, it looks a little different. For some, we may even call it self-care. It may mean drinking instead of dealing with our mental health. It may mean making jokes about your weight instead of doing something about it. Regardless, what it is not is actually taking care of yourself.

Do nothing

Ok, I know I skipped struggle, but I’ll get back to it in a minute. Doing nothing is where most of us find ourselves when it comes to self-care. Ok, we might go for an occasional walk, eat a salad, or go on vacation and call it self-care. These things are good, but they are hardly a comprehensive plan. Maybe you talk a lot about your need for self-care. Maybe you even read blogs or books or take classes related to how to take better care of yourself. But, you’re still not really doing anything.

Thinking back to the cougar. This would amount to falling down on the ground as the cougar pounces on you. Maybe you’ll scream. Maybe you’ll flail about. But, the truth is you are not actually doing anything to try and fight off this cougar. You’ve probably decided that the cougar is stronger than you and there is nothing you can do.

Struggle

In our cougar story, this is the person that is doing everything they can to fight this cat off. They recognize the power of this large cat. They know that beating this cat is going to be a struggle. AND, they are determined not to go down without a fight.

THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO STRUGGLE

To truly struggle with something, means that you are doing everything you can to fight for or against that thing. I think we grossly overuse the word struggle. We often use it to describe something that we know we SHOULD be struggling with, but are not. We use it to talk about something that we WANT to struggle with but are not.

So, I’d love to say that I have struggled with my weight for most of my adult life, but the truth is that I haven’t. Sure, there have been times when I’ve struggled with it. There have been times when I’ve worked really hard and made great progress. But, over the course of the past 2-3 decades, I’ve mostly ignored it.

So, where am I now?

Well, the result of ignoring this for so many years is that I find myself morbidly obese. Lots of really nice people tell me not to say such things. I know they mean well, but lying to myself about it doesn’t make it go away. This is not an attack on my character, it just is an acceptance of reality. As of the writing of this, I weigh in at 314 pounds. At 5’10’, there’s no way to define this except as morbidly obese.

Now, that’s just one aspect of self-care. If you’ve been with me for a while, then you know that I talk about the 5 Domains of Self-Care. Thus far we have just talked about physical health. In this area, I have not done well at all. However, there’s more to it than that.

For my mental health, I have done much better. I have made decisions, changed, things, and sought help when I needed to. I got counseling when I found that anger was eating me alive. When in difficult times I love to journal. I’ve left jobs that were truly killing me on the inside. I’ve done much better with my mental health. Still, even those actions I’ve made, while good, were usually just disaster responses. It was usually a matter of me responding to something. Yes, I responded in ways that protected my mental health, but I’ve done little to maintain or improve it.

We could go through each of the 5 Domains of Self-Care and find a similar pattern. I’ve done well at times and in some areas, I actually do fairly well. However, there is very little intentionality in my self-care journey and almost no evidence of a plan or strategy.

That changes now

As much as my past shows a lack of plan or strategy, I want my future to be filled with it. As I go on this journey to learn what means to take better care of myself, I want to be strategic. As I go on this mission to bring as many nurses with me as possible, I want to be strategic. I don’t want to look back on this time in my life and say that I struggled when really I ran from my problems or did nothing.

Our lives have been designed to get us to where we are

I believe that our current lives are, in a large part, a result of the habits in our lives. Certainly, there are circumstances outside of our control, but habits still play a large part in getting us to where we are now.

Anyway, Merriam- Webster defines a habit as, “a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior“. In other words, it’s the way that you normally do things. They also define it as, “an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary.”

Most of us are living in that first definition. We live as if the way we are currently or have been doing things is “settled”. Going back to Merriam-Webster they provide several definitions for settled. Among them is, “to establish or secure permanently.” So, to put these two definitions together we think that a habit is “a tendency or usual manner of behavior that is permanently established or secured.”

Now, most of us wouldn’t actually say that, but we live our lives as if it’s true. Still, some of us actually DO say things such as,

• “This is just the way I am.”
• “It’s how my family is.”
• “This is just how I deal with things.”

In these statements is an acknowledgment that where we are is a result of our past actions, but it also includes some degree of denial of our capacity to change.

So, where do we go from here?

Well, my journey is all about changing my habits. I have tried making drastic changes in an attempt to get the results I wanted. I’ve jumped into intense exercise programs and failed. I’ve committed to extreme diet plans and failed. I’ve hired personal trainers and failed. You name it, and I’ve done it or something similar, and failed.

I’m not talking about huge changes. For the vast majority of us that simply doesn’t work. Don’t believe me, google the winners of the weight loss competition show, The Biggest Loser. My wife and I LOVED that show. We would watch every single episode. Usually with a bowl of ice cream or bag of chips, but that’s a conversation for another time.

Anyway, go look up the winners of that show. For that matter even the top contestants. Those folks jumped into an intense routine of dedicated exercise and nutrition. They lived and breathed it day and night for weeks on end. As a result, they experience some truly impressive transformations. Some years have passed since the show went off the air and many of those top contestants have gained back much of the weight they lost.

Where did they go wrong?

Well, in my mind, they jumped into something that was unsustainable. They learned a lot about nutrition and exercise, but they didn’t learn how to incorporate them into their daily lives. They left the show, returned to their normal lives, and, in many cases, returned to their old habits. They never built new routines or habits. As a result, they experienced the same results that their old habits had given them.

Habits

I’m done focusing on big changes that simply don’t work for most of us. With over 100 pounds to lose, I NEED big changes. But, I’m done trying to make those changes all at once. If our current lives are largely a result of the habits we’ve maintained up to this point, then the life we want in the future will mean new habits. Instead of drastic changes that I think will get me where I want to be, I’m looking for small changes that can become habits and continually move me toward my goals.

My questions to myself look something like this:

• What small change can I make this week that will move me towards better physical health?
• What small change can I make this week that will move me towards better mental health?
• What small change can I make this week that will improve my spiritual health?
• What small change can I make this week that will feed and improve the important relationships in my life?
• What small change can I make this week that will improve my financial health?

It’s not about large, drastic changes. Some of us may need that. Some of us may be on the verge of disaster. For those folks, a drastic change is necessary. Most of us, however, are moving toward potential disaster, but are not facing it right now. For those of us in that situation, we can afford to make small, incremental changes that move us toward our goals.

So, what small change are you going to make THIS WEEK that will begin to move you towards your goals?