Being Human Makes You Sick. (Is Change Possible? or The Huge Need for Patience!)

Tongue in cheek here, no one listens to me until they have a crisis or someone else gives them the same information I've been touting for years.

When answers are clearly evident, people don't jump on them.  This is because it requires personal change, change of habits, giving up something they like, such as an unhealthy food.

I'm the same way.  I wouldn't take advice until I really was tired of suffering.  I let a lot of  time pass before admitting I was failing at something before I would actually reverse course.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.  We've all been there and done that.

We've all followed bad health trends.  Going low fat is one example.  It's still a hard belief to break.  The soy craze.....yikes.  Gluten free is another one.  It took me years to really try a low carb diet and let me tell you, it was a fantastic and welcomed change.  Changing my supplements from some very fancy sounding products that were actually synthetic and switching to whole food concentrates has given me huge benefits.  Yes, I was stuck in my ways.  Who wants to try something new when you hear of all the snake oil sales stories out there?

In some instances I gave up and turned to God after realizing I had no answers when it came to relationships.  The best advice I refused to follow was  to let go and let God and truly let faith guide you.  That's when I decided to become almost insanely humble with certain people.  I even began to pray for people I didn't want to pray for.....

From a health care perspective, we do have a lot of bad habits, based on poor knowledge, and very bad health reporting in the media.  That is beginning to change.  Medicine can't change our behaviors.  In fact, some medical options allow us to stay in a bad way.  People believe there are no other options.  I understand limitation of matter, and some things can't be perfectly healed.  But I am from the mind-set that we can always improve. Our genetics are not set in stone.  But we have to do a lot of changing.

There are times I really hate watching people digging their own hole and getting buried when they can't toss the dirt out anymore.  I see it happening.  You see it happening.
Being human sure teaches us to be patient and forgiving.


This reminds me of a past blog post I wrote about the book, Change or Die.

Listen to Your Head; Your Heart Will Follow

How do people change? I've heard it only happens when they really want to. Everyone wants to improve something in their lives. They spend years thinking about it. The only problem is thinking is not the same thing as doing. Most actions we take each day are habit. They are so automatic that very little thought is needed to accomplish them. Often our emotions keep us glued to where we are in life especially fear or anger.

Certain emotions can hide behind ambivalence or avoidance, as well.

Why do people stay the same? Are emotions involved? Some would say no, especially Dr. Edward Miller of John Hopkins University. Studies show 90% of heart by-pass patients cannot change their lifestyle habits, even though they already flirted with death. Fear of death is not a motivator here.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/94/open_change-or-die.html

Success requires ignoring your emotions and getting involved in a series of action steps until a new habit is formed. This is a time to listen to your head instead of your heart. If you want to replace a behavior, make an unemotional contract with yourself, follow through with it and see your don't have a different emotion accompanying the result.

Also check out this article I wrote for the Citizen about how change can work.