Making Myself My Life’s Passion

I had one of those A-ha! moments in the bath this morning. I often have revelations in the bath. I figure it must have something to do with being in the water. Anyhow, while I was in that bath this morning, I was contemplating why I feel as though I have hit some sort of wall with myself these days. For almost two years now I have been going to the gym and trying to take very good care of myself. I’ve been desperately trying to kick my sugar habit, and I have been mostly eating very healthy food.

The past few months I have sort of lost interest in all of it. It’s not that I don’t care about myself, and it isn’t that I don’t want to feel good about myself. I think that I’ve just grown tired at feeling like I have to work so hard at being healthy and happy. I remembered today that I had a conversation with some friends the other night, where I was telling them it was so much work to take care of myself. We all agreed that it was hard work to look after ourselves. As I remembered this conversation it dawned on me: No wonder I was tired of going to the gym and trying really hard to be healthy! I had turned my self-care into a job. I was treating it like it was work.

I think it’s really important for me to look after myself, and to be healthy and happy. I feel very passionately about it, as a matter of fact. Truth be told, I feel really good when I’m exercising regularly and when I avoid eating lots of carbs and sugar. The thing that I am getting all caught up in is that I’ve made it into something that isn’t fun and I am losing sight of my goals. When I get wrapped up in my fitness app, monitoring my calories and scrutinizing what I eat, I am not allowing myself to relax. When I make a regimented schedule out of my life, eventually I get bored and uninterested. I start to lose my passion when I have turned it into the idea that it’s a full-time job.

Being honest with myself here – it does take effort to be healthy and to do activities that I love and enjoy. Obviously if I just sit around all day eating junk food, I’m not going feel very good both physically and emotionally. The thing that I am learning here though, is that if I take myself too seriously and start to lose the joy out of what I am doing, I am missing the point. I don’t want my life to be a make-work-project. I want my life to be full of passion, joy, love and happiness. I want my life to be my life’s passion!

So starting today, I am going to return to the passion. I am going to return to the reason why I started on this journey of self-care. I am loving myself and listening to my body. I am giving it nourishment and love. I am giving it lots of exercise and healthy food. I am doing this not because it have to, I am doing this because I want to. I want to feel good. I want to be kind to myself. I want to love myself. I’m not doing this for anybody else, just me.

This journey doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be difficult. The only reason why it’s been a challenge is because I was approaching it as a challenge. I’ve been thinking it’s difficult and hard, and so it has been difficult and hard. No more! This life’s passion journey of health is walked with ease and grace, with skips and jumps of joy and happiness.

Here is to making myself my life’s passion.

All my love,

Erin