Blessings, Darlings!
It's now almost 3 weeks into the new year. Do you know what that means? It means that most of the people who have made resolutions involving ... well ... ANYTHING are beginning to slip up on them. By February 1 the long-term users of health clubs will be able to get at the machines easily again, and grocery stores will stop having great weekly sales on diet foods.
By April 1, health club memberships and home exercise equipment will be readily available in classified ads.
It IS hard to change life habits. Change is painful enough, but add hunger or sore muscles or tendonitis or (my usual one) getting sick 2 or 3 weeks into an exercise program on top of that, the probability that the change won't stick increases dramatically.
It doesn't have to be like that.
I say that you can improve your health 100% in 21 weeks by making a series of SMALL and RELATIVELY EASY changes.
We all know that wellness is multi-faceted. Most wellness professionals seem to break it down into 7 major categories, along the lines of Physical, Mental,
Spiritual, Career, Environmental, Relationships, Financial. Or they do a tripartite division - body, mind, and spirit - a la Dr. Andrew Weil, at DrWeil.com. While I'm a Celtic Reconstructionist and DEEPLY into triads, and I have been into Dr. Weil's books for almost 40 years now - I find his three categories too broad, containing too many subdivisions, leading to a feeling of being overwhelmed. I prefer the 7 part division.
Here's the theory I'm putting forth, and that I'll be expounding on during this health series: IF you make ONE permanent change within ONE part of ONE the 7 aspects of health every three weeks, aiming for a 10 percent improvement in your health from what you have now THEN in one cycle thru' the 7 aspects you get a 94% increase in your health in 21 weeks. Not quite the 100% I talked about in the title, but close enough. Besides, once thru' the cycle once ... you start the cycle over working on one other goal within each of the 7 aspects. Two complete cycles in a year will yield over 200% increase in wellness!
In this series, every week I'll be writing about - cheerleading, if you will - one part of one aspect. You don't have to wait till I start cheering you on in next week's post to start making changes. You don't have to make the change I write about, or do them in the order I propose. Start ANYWHERE, aim for a 10% improvement in that one thing. A few weeks later, make another change that you think will net you another 10% wellness increase. Small changes, synergistic and cumulative over time.
Heck, aim at the low-hanging fruit first. If you know an easy change that will net a big improvement, go for that first. Let success build on success by starting that way.
Before I end this, let me make one thing VERY clear - wellness isn't just for the 'able-bodied' or those without chronic diseases. Wellness is about living the best life you as a UNIQUE INDIVIDUAL can live. It's not a once-size fits all thing, and all improvements for are based on where you are starting.
Frondly, Fern
Showing posts with label life skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life skills. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2010
Friday, October 9, 2009
Chaos Theory
As some of you know, I'm pretty active on Twitter. The 140 character nature of tweets is great when I only have a few minutes at a time during the working day, night, weekend .... well, my whole life.
On Twitter I follow over 500 people, picked semi-randomly. Most have some connection to survivalism/prepping, or pagan/wicca/witch issues, or guns, or environmental issues. Some I follow because they are members or staff of Stompernet, some I follow because they are locals. Some I follow because they are long time friends. Some I've followed almost at random. I'm not at all sure how I started to follow @ChicaJones, for instance, but I'm sure glad that I do.
I like the people I follow, even while I know that some amount of what we ALL post on Twitter, like all we do online, and in life) is a persona we affect.
It's like a far more intimate form of people-watching, for they add their own comments about t heir lives and what's happening in their world. For some their world is very intimate, for some it extends to all people/animals/the ends of the earth.
Sometimes I regret folling a person. Not because their tweets angered me or shocked me - anger is an instructive friend of mine, and I don't particulary shock easily. Not over politics - I comfortably follow folks on the far left, the far right, and all inbetween.
I unfollow because of how they handle chaos.
Chaos happens to all of us. Sudden thunderstorms wash out picnics. People forget that they were supposed to call us at a certain time. Children get sick or act ... like children. Sometimes we run our lives in ways that increases the chaos. We intend to pay bills, but don't manage to (even when we have money) and the phone is turned off. Some folks have repeated failed relationships with the same type of person, over and over. For whatever reasons, chaos happens.
I've noticed that I cannot emotionallyhandle watching people who feel that chaos is inflicted on them PERSONALLY by the world/others. The person who says she wants to be a writer, and planned to edit 11 short stories last month, but in fact only wrote 3 and edited none. Who is sure that it's the fault of all those around her for not supporting her, helping her, not being reliable. Who spends her free time tweeting at pop stars, playing Sims, napping, or vegging out when her toddler naps, is down for the night, or at her father's.
Or the man who takes someone messing up his name personally, or thinks that someone forgetting to cal him is practically 'enemy action' (enemy inaction????)
Not surprisingly, I find that I value Tweople who handle chaos well, who do NOT take it personally, who work hard, play hard, and surf the waves of life lightly.
Chaos Theory is a branch of mathematics which studies the behavior of certain dynamical systems that may be highly sensitive to initial conditions.
I think it's also a description of human function. Or, to quote the Magical Aphorism:"As above, so below - as the universe so the soul. AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT." (Emphasis mine, duh).
Frondly, Fern
On Twitter I follow over 500 people, picked semi-randomly. Most have some connection to survivalism/prepping, or pagan/wicca/witch issues, or guns, or environmental issues. Some I follow because they are members or staff of Stompernet, some I follow because they are locals. Some I follow because they are long time friends. Some I've followed almost at random. I'm not at all sure how I started to follow @ChicaJones, for instance, but I'm sure glad that I do.
I like the people I follow, even while I know that some amount of what we ALL post on Twitter, like all we do online, and in life) is a persona we affect.
It's like a far more intimate form of people-watching, for they add their own comments about t heir lives and what's happening in their world. For some their world is very intimate, for some it extends to all people/animals/the ends of the earth.
Sometimes I regret folling a person. Not because their tweets angered me or shocked me - anger is an instructive friend of mine, and I don't particulary shock easily. Not over politics - I comfortably follow folks on the far left, the far right, and all inbetween.
I unfollow because of how they handle chaos.
Chaos happens to all of us. Sudden thunderstorms wash out picnics. People forget that they were supposed to call us at a certain time. Children get sick or act ... like children. Sometimes we run our lives in ways that increases the chaos. We intend to pay bills, but don't manage to (even when we have money) and the phone is turned off. Some folks have repeated failed relationships with the same type of person, over and over. For whatever reasons, chaos happens.
I've noticed that I cannot emotionallyhandle watching people who feel that chaos is inflicted on them PERSONALLY by the world/others. The person who says she wants to be a writer, and planned to edit 11 short stories last month, but in fact only wrote 3 and edited none. Who is sure that it's the fault of all those around her for not supporting her, helping her, not being reliable. Who spends her free time tweeting at pop stars, playing Sims, napping, or vegging out when her toddler naps, is down for the night, or at her father's.
Or the man who takes someone messing up his name personally, or thinks that someone forgetting to cal him is practically 'enemy action' (enemy inaction????)
Not surprisingly, I find that I value Tweople who handle chaos well, who do NOT take it personally, who work hard, play hard, and surf the waves of life lightly.
Chaos Theory is a branch of mathematics which studies the behavior of certain dynamical systems that may be highly sensitive to initial conditions.
I think it's also a description of human function. Or, to quote the Magical Aphorism:"As above, so below - as the universe so the soul. AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT." (Emphasis mine, duh).
Frondly, Fern
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