21 Ways to Allow Yourself to be Healthy
Or do you prefer to be sick?
If you don’t make time to be healthy you will make time to be sick, yet in our working lives, this simplicity is so rarely acknowledged. Workers are overloaded in the name of efficiency while the term “human resources” is so common we barely question it. But we are not resources to be exploited, we are whole human beings to be loved by and to love. I dream of building real bridges over the artificial boundaries between working life and all other aspects of life, and resolving the modern conflict between health and work.
Here are 21 ways we can allow ourselves to be healthy.
1. Just wait
Society cultivates an unhealthy impatience for rapid answers and solutions. Train in the discipline of boldly protecting and allowing time to support your cause.
2. DOG!
I posed the question How can I allow myself to be healthy? during a solo quest. Contemplating the question lying on a tree trunk stretching over the river Dart, nature answered DOG! Repeatedly, persistently, and allowing me no room to question it — DOG! I’ve never had a dog but have gained much joy from walking with Angus Peroni and watching his joyful army-rolls in the grass. Play, touch, walks in nature, learning, companionship and unconditional love.
3. Sleep
If you need eight hours sleep a night and consistently get around six, two mandatory 45-minute snoozes scheduled into your day is a smart idea.
4. Encourage and celebrate THINKING
An institution’s capacity to learn is crucial to its sustainability. Learning involves thinking, reflection, and experimental actions, while thinking requires space and time. All too often when we sit thinking, go for a walk in nature holding an important question, or act creatively in the workplace, others judge this as not work. The environment in which we think will affect the kind of thinking that takes place; consider your state of mind and body in a stale-air classroom compared to standing at the ocean’s edge.
5. Nature’s teaching
Nature heals and teaches. For so long I have been researching what an ecological view of education might look like but I was trying to think my way through it. Finally, I am learning in a context with guidance on how to let nature teach me. Much of our week’s schedule was outside in nature. People shared speeches of inspired leadership around an ornate swan-love fountain, in front of expansive fields, and under sturdy trees. Though intellectually I’d accepted that nature teaches us, this week I experienced it for myself. It is simple, beautiful, and speaking to all those who care to listen.
6. Walking works
There’s so much evidence on the multiple benefits of walking yet in the modern world, so much of work is sedate in front of glaring screens. I frequently corrected Japanese learning English when their pronunciation of ‘walk’ and ‘work’ were indistinct — perhaps they weren’t wrong after all. It’s also difficult for them to pronounce words beginning with a ‘si’ sound because in Japanese, they only have ‘shi’. Perhaps again they were more correct when it comes to the multiple problems associated with ‘shitting’.
7. Nourish
Decide on the minimum time between your evening meal yesterday and morning meal today — when will you break fast? 12 hours is a standard window of non-eating though many people go for much more. Consider the balance of what is on your plate — the colours, nutrients, and textures. Explore how different foods and drinks affect your mood and body by not consuming them for a while. A week without coffee had little effect on me besides making the long-awaited more delicious. A month without refined sugar has helped stabilise my energy throughout the day so I’m thinking about reserving desserts for Sundays. Hunt for ideas, play around, and enjoy nutritious delicious food that helps you be the best you you can be! Garbage in = garbage out.
8. Four primary ways of knowing
- Cognition: head, reasoning, data-based, rationalise
- Intuitive: instinctively, (often quick), may be clearest when you first wake
- Emotional: feelings, heart
- Embodied: in your body, somatic, hands
The dominant educational paradigm today focuses almost entirely on the cultivation of one of the four primary ways of knowing while pretending the others don’t exist. It is not only a tragedy that the talents of ¾ of the population are being left unnourished, it is criminally contributing to the self-destruction of the only planet we call home. Resilience comes from diversity and we humans have gifts spanning all four different ways of knowing — let’s celebrate them all. Notice which ways of knowing are less developed within you, open doors to explore them and allow your magical fullness to radiate!
9. Courage
“Strength in the face of pain or grief”. Courage isn’t doing what others think is courageous but treading softly towards one’s own boundaries and looking for a safe-enough bridge across them. For a high-achieving workaholic, the most courageous thing may be to take a snooze at work. This week, my courage was sharing the obstacles I faced in learning about intimacy. I said words such as ‘sex’, ‘vulva’ and ‘womb’… though I didn’t yet have the courage to say ‘masturbation’, here I am writing it which is scary enough for me. A small step is a huge step when habits of a lifetime are being unlearned. Courage comes from the heart!
10. Play
Devote time to having as much fun as possible. If you are too busy to imagine doing that, I challenge you to a 30-second play session — just 30-seconds, go on — I dare you!!! When I started doing artist’s dates this year, I was saddened that I struggled to think of ideas of how to have a good time. But like most things on this list, they are like muscles you can train with even the slightest intention. You don’t need anything besides the will to suspend what is to move to what if.
Nothing to play with?
Play with your voice
Play with your toes
Play with your breath
Or your eyes or your nose
Look like an idiot
Dance like a fool
Laugh with your playmates
As you make and break rules
11. Tell stories
Why has it taken me 36 years to experience the gift of openly sharing honest life stories of pain, suffering, hope, strength, intelligence and wonder…. of abandonment, enforced separation, death and life, play, party, creativity, compassion and courage. As 11 women told stories around the fire, I felt honoured to hear them yet perplexed that we usually hide these truths from one another, from society. The creation of safe spaces in which to share stories is vital. If you don’t share your stories, how can anyone truly know you? Knowing what we 11 have survived already, I feel empowered that we can achieve anything we imagine…. together.
12. See boundaries with doors that open and close
Know yourself. No one else can define your boundaries nor tell you what is normal for you; learning and being able to clearly communicate around them is your responsibility. Learning involves safe exploration and support. Have you ever strained a muscle in a group fitness class? Following a group just because everyone else is, is a form of self-harm. Being completely closed all of the time will lead to shrinking and a slow turning to stone. Being completely open all of the time will lead to depletion and withdrawal. Once you understand your boundaries you can learn how and when it’s best to open and close its doors. In case you think you’ve got this one sorted, remember — all things change!
13. Find what gladdens your heart
Don’t try to figure out what the world needs, find what makes you feel wonderful and how this may serve the world. If what you are doing does not nourish you today, how well will it sustain you long-term? This doesn’t mean that everyone should blindly follow their passion nor that everyone should make a living doing what they love. But what gladdens your heart enriches you and your riches enrich our world. How you dance the dance of integrating these in life is up to you.
14. Take fun breaks, especially when doing heavy work
Sitting around the fire listening to people share their life-stories was incredible and sometimes heartbreaking, so every two stories, we took a small break. I invited people to stand up, breathe, enjoy the sky, admire the floor and let out a big sigh. Someone else introduced a song which we all sang together. Another led us to a game of ‘going to market’ in which we found ourselves dancing around ridiculously, laughing like lunatics. Breaks are not ‘not-work’, they are an integral part of it.
15. Put down the leaden burden of saving the world alone. Join with others of like mind. Align yourself with the forces of resolution.
This is from the Shambhala Warrior Mind Training and particularly resonated with me.
16. Raise your heartbeat with other living beings
Move with other living beings. Raising your heart rate and keeping it up for a while makes you feel great. Sharing that feeling with other living beings transforms the experience. Run with others, walk the dog, make love. If you feel alone, move in nature — there’s a whole world of living activity out there ready to share heartbeats with you which may help sustain your movement for a little longer than you thought possible.
17. Acknowledge when you are tired, rest and trust that another will take the lead
While it is a fact that geese flying in a V-formation add 71% to their flying range than if they flew alone, it is also true that
When the lead bird tires, it rotates back into the formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front of it.
Lesson: It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership. As with geese, people are interdependent on each others’ skills, capabilities, and unique arrangement of gifts, talents, and resources. McNeish, R. (1972). Lessons from the Geese.
If you ignore your tiredness and try to force beyond your physical ability, you may cause permanent harm to yourself and negatively impact everyone around you. Honk honk, nobody wants a dead goose crashing from high in the sky upon their head — real bloody messy.
18. Protest what is wrong. Protect what is good. Create.
Protest: It is wrong that only ill people take ‘sick days’ from work while people who actively take care of their health are not encouraged with time off.
Protect: Time off to take care of oneself and one’s family is vital.
Create: Can we switch ‘sick days’ to ‘health days’ or consider mandatory days off for healthy folks who struggle to take leave for themselves?
Thank you Satish Kumar for the wisdom of Protest, Protect, Build.
19. Care for yourself and others if you can
Check in with others — create space to be safe, open and caring together. Who cares? Who shares? Why should I hide how I am truly feeling — mentally and physically — from my colleagues? If we can be open, sharing and caring with one another, wouldn’t that be a healthier way for all? Instead of the formulaic how are you?, experiment with other more specific questions about health and well-being, such as “How did you sleep last night?”, “What have you eaten today?”, and “When was the last time you moved or exercised and felt great?”
20. Don’t force it
This morning I went running in bare-foot running shoes designed for running on concrete. Running on rocky trails can be particularly painful and yet I continued. A friend called from behind, “the stones massage the feet, so many nerve-endings — you should walk!” Why did I wait for outside confirmation to acknowledge my suffering and give permission to free myself from it? Yes we need to challenge ourselves and our boundaries but we need to do so with compassion. Sometimes there are cases when we need to push harder and other times we need to let go — unfortunately I’m yet to find a rule to identify which is which.
21. Love
Self-love. Self-compassion. Self-care.
In the service of other-love, other-compassion, and other-care.
In the service of nature-love, nature compassion and nature-care.
Because we’re all one.
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