As you are working on those goals you established a few weeks ago how are you doing?

Approaching week three of my plan to walk thirty minutes per day, for at least five days a week, I must admit, I am off track! I started pretty strong the first week. I moved away from my goal a little more the second week. Then during this past week, the third week, I am recovering from a very negative food allergy reaction.

I spent a great deal of time with family during the holidays. I celebrated the time enjoying every possible minute! I overindulged in the food experience. I had fun and was hit with the consequences of my actions. My immune system went into overdrive to get rid of what it saw as a threat to my well-being; the particular food I ate liberally. More than a week later I am convinced I won’t indulge in that manner again. But will I?

The whole idea of my setting a goal to increase my walking began with a decision to change how I care for myself, how I love me. Yet I end up breaching my health pledge to myself, because of disregarding my health by eating foods, which put my health in a tailspin. It is almost as though because I focused on changing my health for the better it declined. This brings clearly to my attention I must change my actions, my focus in order for these outcomes to change.

How have you done with your affirmations, goals or resolutions for 2013? We are not yet in February and one of my plans to improve my health has already gone awry. I got in my own way. I ruined my own plan. Has that ever happened to you, or a better question might be when was the last time that happened to you? When did you think you had it all under control only to find you were exposed to something else?

I take my health seriously. Being healthy is important to me. I regularly examine myself taking inventory and taking action. I am thinking and thinking. I am thinking that I am going to take the changes that I want to make seriously. I will go back to my most successful week, the first week after setting my goal, and compare to see how my actions differed between week one and the next week.

During the first week I either planned ahead to walk or when I allowed myself to reflect, I meditated on those things I desired to achieve. I wrote about my experience of success or generated a note on my smartphone as a reminder of my feelings during or immediately after the exhilarating success I felt knowing that I had completed the task as planned. I dwelled on those positive feelings of happiness. What I think happened next was the happy feelings I had opened a door for me, through that door I went to old habits of eating in celebration. No major problem except overtime I moved into overindulgence. Warning, danger, danger, when this practice becomes a lifestyle there may possibly, be a chance of TROUBLE AHEAD! …you think?

I was looking at the one detail of increasing my walking I neglected to look at the big picture. I failed to make the connection between the other activities I engaged in during the other 23 and one half hours of the day for almost 30 days!

I am not a compartmentalized piece of software loaded onto the hard drive of the computer, working independently of the other loaded programs. I am a whole being with feelings, emotions, traumas, joys, concerns, gifts, proclivities, intelligence and the ability to make choices. Yet I allowed myself to fall back into behaviors, which though they served me in the past are no longer valid for me. I somehow went into automatic behaviors allowing myself to be caught in an old snare. As I dissect the events now, I am certain of when my path diverted from my goal. Now after examination I will be making adjustments! Planning to place proactive measures in operation so that I am able to be successful with my walking goal and improve my overall physical health (big picture).

So tomorrow I begin my second 21-day period, with a new strategy. I will focus on the greater impact on the forest and not just the isolated tree. In the event I find myself getting off track I will question and examine what is happening. I will be prayerful about my goal and ask God to assist me as I take each step. He is the loving Father that wants us, His children, to succeed. I will get back to my daily inventory and action. I was away from home for close to one month beginning at the end of December until about a week ago. This major change in proximity caused me to miss a number of the cues I would have picked up in my usual surroundings. Indeed not an excuse, rather a valid observation. Will I fall into that particular snare again, I think not, yet if I do I know the way out!

Accordingly I will make adjustments and move toward my goal of being healthier, literally one step at a time.

I thank you all for your personal emails that let me know that you are out there. I appreciate your encouragement and the understanding that each of us can be stronger when we stand together and move each other to live better lives by first loving ourselves. Then in the process we love each other more. As we focus on improving our lives it is inevitable that those in our inner circles will be exposed to that positive momentum too.

Take Inventory and Take Action. Send me your updates! Continue to let me know how you are doing.

Love,

Deborah

“Lighting the path to loving your neighbor as yourself.”