Recently I attended a professional development workshop on mental health. The presenters studied and work in the field of psychology and within education and training. For me, a large foundational part of mental health is ensuring that our physical health – our bodies – are taken care of, supported and nurtured. In my experience, the two go hand-in-hand.
It seems quite strange to me when I see someone who is ‘qualified’ in a physical or mental health field or holds a position of importance or power, yet their body, movements and manner do not show signs of good health and vitality. It highlights there’s a greater problem stemming from our education on the topic, and what we have chosen to accept as true. No matter how much we ‘know’ about a subject, the body always has its own marker and gauge of whether it is working at its optimum vital level and in harmony within all other areas or not. This fact we cannot change.
On the morning of my professional development workshop I had quite a distance to drive in peak hour traffic, so I made sure that I gave myself enough time without rushing. I arrived 15 minutes early and was the first to arrive. I walked in, said hello to the two presenters and went to find a seat.
As I was choosing my seat, unpacking my belongings and setting them up just as I needed them to be for the next 8 hours – placing my drinks, pen, paper, books, computer etc. down – one of the presenters said to me, “Whoa, that’s healthy.” Immediately I knew he was referring to my vegie drink and not my herbal tea or the manner in which I set up my space, simply because it was green in colour.
Initially I felt a little awkward that my choice of drink, which was a normal for me, had been highlighted. So, at the time I smiled and replied “Mmm…” But this comment caused me to pause and got me thinking… I pondered on why his response was a “Whoa.” I recalled that I have come across this reaction quite a few times over the years with ‘healthy’ food and drink choices, either when I myself was making them or when others around me at work or in public were making them.
These types of comments are reactionary to a way of eating or drinking that is not so commonly seen or practised, thus highlighting the person who is looking after their body and consuming nutritious food as being ‘different.’ Immediately I questioned what our societal gauge is being set from. If I had come in with a sausage roll and cream bun, it is likely I would have got no comment, or perhaps one that was in favour of my food choice.
Let’s face it, making supportive food choices that nutritionally support the body is going against a current norm and way of how people commonly choose to eat in society today. We do not eat to nurture or hold our body in harmony – a fact that is shown in the continuing rise of non-communicable illness and disease rates today, such as diabetes.
If it is not common and even considered unusual for people in general to drink or eat something that is good for their bodies to a point that it stands out and gets labelled and highlighted as ‘healthy,’ then how far have we slipped away from what is true and natural for our bodies. I find it interesting that we even have this word ‘healthy’ and don’t just live as our bodies need us to live. It is a clear indicator that we base our living and vocabulary around looking after ourselves from a way that is not conducive to the true vitality of our bodies.
Why do we not seem to question the meals or food people are consuming that are clearly not supportive for the body, yet are very quick to identify those who make more supportive food choices? Imagine if people started speaking on behalf of the vitality of the body by publicly noting to other people, “Whoa, that’s really unhealthy.” I wonder if we would start to think twice about what we are putting in our bodies.
The fact is that more supportive food choices do stand out from the crowd. And this is simply because the norm, the majority, the crowd acceptably choose food that is not supportive to the body. BUT, what if the majority did eat in a way and manner that nourished and vitalised the body, allowing it to run at optimal level?
Why do we even have a perception of what ‘healthy’ is and why is it not just embedded into the way we live?
Our understanding, perception and definition of ‘being healthy’ today is actually only based on and comparable to, the very unhealthy lifestyle – the way the majority of society are choosing to live, eat, indulge in and over consume.
This to me is a type of rot when we look at the extent of the damage it does to our bodies, our perception of health, the pressure it places on our medical system and so on. The illness and disease our bodies are increasingly showing through our health statistics speak loudly of our current global choices… to the point that the definition of health in our English language dictionary is stated as “the state of being free from illness or injury.” (1) Why is health not defined as, “the body working in its true optimal and vital order, each part working in harmony and joy with all others”?
If we all naturally lived from the latter definition as being our norm, then the word ‘health’ and a definition for it would probably not exist, simply because this would just be the way it was. Caring for our bodies would be the norm.
Back to my professional development workshop and the comment from one of the presenters that started this line of pondering and blog . . . if I had the moment again to respond to his “Whoa, that’s healthy”, I probably would have replied –– “only relative to how we live today.”
By Johanna Smith, Ba Education, Diploma of Counselling, Esoteric Practitioner, Perth, Western Australia
References:
1.Oxford Dictionaries | English. (2018). health | Definition of health in English by Oxford Dictionaries. [online] Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/health [Accessed 1 Aug. 2018].
Further Reading:
Eating Dis-orders
To Nourish or Bludgeon – How do we Use Food?
Living your own medicine
412 Comments
When every movement you make has an impact on those who are around you then it is very useful to know what the impact is and this allows us then to respond in a beautiful way.
Instead of comparing our health to a standard average it would be wise to use our own potential as our marker.
The decline in health over the last few decades in the whole world is very serious and yet the way we are living is simply not considered anything but normal and this is something we really need to address in the world for there is another way to live considering the whole and not isolating exercise, diet ,emotions ,movements and our thoughts all as separate and not accountable as to our quality the way we simply breathe and move in the harmony and with the sensitivity and honouring of who we really are.
The old saying, ‘a healthy mind, a healthy body’ but surely we can’t have one without the other. It is crazy that with the ill-health problems we have today that all of our focus is not on what we consume because after all we are what we eat.
‘It highlights there’s a greater problem stemming from our education on the topic, and what we have chosen to accept as true.’ because it’s easier for us to accept the message of ‘it’s ok to carry on as you are because despite what I say I am really also not truly healthy’ than to question it and feel the truth of our state of health and take responsibility for the choices which have got us to this point.
Deep down we all know what is healthy for our bodies and what is not, but we override everything for the pleasures of a taste or the comfortable numbness
What I believe is ‘healthy’ for my body from what we are sold is healthy is not what my body tells me, what my body needs is constantly changing and the more in tune I am to this, the more vital I feel.
The whole healthy eating thing is such a game – no one wants to consider that we make ourselves sick by our thoughts and movements. It’s a joke to be worrying about food when we are allowing pure poison into our body through our thoughts.
There is also the ugly comparison in eating healthy. People think eat healthy six days a week, and then eat whatever they want on the seventh day, because they deserve it. It doesn’t work that way, it is still one body.
The reaction from people is a great sign of well done. You have reflected what needs to be looked at.
It is great that the person did say ‘whoah that looks healthy’ because that showed they had noticed, they recognised something that to them supported health, and the comment offered a potential to start a conversation such as “yeah and you know it helps me stay alert and it’s so easy to make… “. Unless it was said with a sarcastic and ridiculing tone, which is very different.
It feels so important to just stop and take a moment to consider the choices we make and why we make them, this allowing some space to make a truly new choice.
The problem being that our choices lead to our choices. Therefore many of us are making choices that don’t include the choice to stop and consider our choices.
It is quite disturbing that someone who lives honouring their body and being is considered an anomaly yet as you have pointed out so brilliantly, this is our natural way of being. Our bodies have not stopped reflecting the truth of our choices, yet we have clearly stopped listening.
It is startling that in one generation we have seen health decline so alarmingly. Far from looking into why this is so we have opted for more numbing and denial. How bad does it have to get before we start to ask the right questions?
When he saw you being early and setting yourself up and the way you moved he couldn’t really say “Whoa – I can’t do that” so the sentiment might have come out as “Whoa, that’s healthy”?
“Why is health not defined as, “the body working in its true optimal and vital order, each part working in harmony and joy with all others”?” That is a good question to ask – our perception of health is measured against our normal and our normal has become illness and disease. That is so far from our true health.
I’ve seen how we have such an ‘on trend’ version of health. If everyone is talking about it, then it sticks. So you end up with things like coconut oil pulling or matcha shakes or a juice fast without discerning what is right for our bodies and the way we live.
Interesting article. I often get the same reaction from people on my food choices. But there is also a trend of people who think they eat healthy fresh food, while their bodies are showing that there is no vitality. Fresh and biological is not always healthy.
I find that over eating or eating foods that don’t support my body- that might be too salty, sweet or heavy leave me feeling foggy, over stimulated or uncomfortable, none of which feels healthy or vital by any stretch of the imagination – An end result that asks me to look at what got me to those choices.
So true, our bodies cannot hide our lived way. It’s really as simple as that. If you are an open, loving, transparent person your body will emanate that – regardless of size and if with illness – what is within and lived shines out of us.
There is so much conflicting information about health around, no wonder people are confused, but so many people come from very different angles about the subject. I love what you write Johanna here..’No matter how much we ‘know’ about a subject, the body always has its own marker and gauge of whether it is working at its optimum vital level and in harmony within all other areas or not. ‘ The body tells us the truth.
Yes, there is a lot of conflicting information around but Johanna’s movements and actions spoke with certainty and therefore had a strong impact.
Fitting in to eat what is ‘normal’ seems to make no sense – surely we all need to feel what’s true for our body and not eat by some ideal of what everyone else is eating, for lets face up it it – health globally is not so great, so perhaps we all have something to learn here?
” We do not eat to nurture or hold our body in harmony –” this is something we are not taught, we, are taught to eat to give us energy and maintain a body and have healthy bones but we are not taught to be responsive to what we can eat and what we can’t eat by listening to the body. This way we can truly begin to nurture ourselves so that we are in sync with the body and not constantly working against it.
Thank you Johanna for your article. We won’t see that what we consider as the norm today is way out of balance for our body until we decide to make more supportive choices for ourselves.
Often the moments we perceive ourselves to be in a bad way are the times when we are closer to true health – we are willing to see the truth about reality.
Food choices are a key factor in determining the state of our mental, physical health and true wellbeing.
It has become so obvious to me that, in general, humanity’s “perception of what is healthy” is far from what healthy actually is. And when someone chooses a truly healthy life-style, like yours, you are classed as being different, when you are actually choosing to live in a way which honours you and respects your body. And it just wasn’t your drink that was healthy. To me, it was the way you planned your journey so you could arrive in plenty of time to set up your space to support you throughout the day. Now, if that is being different, I’m saying yes to it too.
Count me in. That is what I would have called healthy, the willingness to be on time, to consider the body and the mind and what supports each to learn.
There is a big difference between intellectually understanding something or learning something and actually living it.
So true Andrew – we can think we know something from our minds or actually know it from what we feel in our body.
Despite societies claim to being looking to be healthier when it is presented with the truth of what is behind our ill-health and dis-ease it rejects it on the basis of the level of responsibility it asks us all to take equally for the state of our wellbeing.
Society has to pay lip service to what seems healthy while behaving in a way that makes most of us less and less healthy. It would be far harder to maintain the current, very unhealthy prevalent lifestyle if we would all admit how bad our lifestyle is. It might be far too much in our face without the lip service to health.
The problem being so many of us have fallen for the beliefs that abound in the arena of health. There is no way that I could’ve admitted that my lifestyle was unhealthy because I was absolutely convinced that it was not. I was sold on the idea that masses of fresh food and masses of strenuous exercise were healthy and nobody could’ve convinced me otherwise. The only thing that convinced me in the end was my body and it did that by breaking down.
A friend of mine once joked that mine was a ‘food free diet’ when I said I’d given up gluten, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, and sugar. My body feels a lot better for it and when, as I do occasionally, I eat sugar, my body complains. We generally eat more than we need to. I would never recommend a complete food free diet, i.e. fasting, but we can survive very well on water, protein and greens. We don’t need anything processed.
Interesting how we define the word food – is it something that actually supports and nourishes our physical body or is it something that we use to just fill us up and stop feeling hungry? Or anything that actually we put in our mouths? I would say that the 5 things you have chosen to give up in your diet could hardly be called food if we define it as something that actually supports the physical body.
Very true Carmel. And it makes doing the food shop and cooking a whole lot simpler and less time consuming as well!
‘Health’ is such a game, we are sold un-truths by the ton and accept them readily as the untruths support us to be, not just irresponsible, but to indulge in whatever we choose.
BUT, what if the majority did eat in a way and manner that nourished and vitalised the body, allowing it to run at an optimal level? – if we ate healthier then we’d live healthier, and if we lived healthier we’d enjoy more harmony between us all.
‘Why is health not defined as, “the body working in its true optimal and vital order, each part working in harmony and joy with all others”?’ now that’s a true definition and not the lack of something.
Sometimes I forget that I live quite healthily just because of the standards i’ve set for myself.
It seems to all be relative in that our normal is a level and way of living that may be shockingly healthy for one person and shockingly unhealthy for another!
I find it interesting that we even have this word ‘healthy’ and don’t just live as our bodies need us to live.” If we all lived in accordance with our body’s needs and requirements, the word ‘healthy’ would disappear from our vocabulary. We only need it to maintain the truth in times when ‘un-healthy’ is our predominant way.
You ask some great questions here Johanna, it is absolutely crazy that we can be singled out for doing something we should all have part as a natural way of being. I wonder often, how bad things are going to get to our overall heath, before we all see that the only way to live to avoid ill health is to take responsibility for how we live and what we put in our bodies.
In answer to your question Kev, I’d say that looking at the way that things are going then the majority of us are gonna have to be on our knees before we sit up and look at our part in why we have allowed ourselves to reach such appalling levels of ill health.
It is astonishing how we keep focusing on different parts of our bodies and our lives, imagining that we can just target one part and try to make an improvement whilst completely ignoring the rest of the whole.
We all live in a body and we have experienced it again and again – if we have not slept well, did not eat or drink according to our body’s need, had a disagreement, are worried and distracted about something (plus loads of other possible scenarios) we are likely to feel compromised and handicapped in whatever we face in our day. So we do know deep down that every part is important.
The fact that we can target just one bit, to me shows that we are only interested in patching things up and a relief. We are not interested in committing to what is required to return to a magnificent whole
Great question ‘Why do we even have a perception of what ‘healthy’ is and why is it not just embedded into the way we live?’.
Vicky I love this to, its like we have so much in life the wrong way around and accept it as it is the normal.
Perceptions allow for thousand different variations, where the truth is a wholeness we feel.
Love this Joseph, wise words for us all to adhere to.
The perception of health can vary remarkably. I used to think it was healthy to have a little bit of anything and everything, even if it was something that was very sweet and obviously not good for the body. We certainly know when we eat something and it feels heavy in the body, it does not like it. Feeling within us what is healthy to eat from the body feels a lot better than having a picture of what is or isn’t healthy.
Agreed Gill, the bit that sometimes still gets me is that how I feel and my health is all in my hands. I have a choice of how I eat, what I eat, how i talk, what i say and so on. All in all life is up to me. So in that its key I listen to my body and what it shows me as I then know what is and is not healthy.
How easy it is to override what the body is telling us with ideas we have taken on from the head. The only marker for what is healthy or not should be by listening to the body. One day as individuals, we will pay much more energetic attention to the foods we consume allowing the wisdom of the body to dictate, regardless of where anyone else is at and regardless of what anyone else’s body needs. One size doesn’t always fit all, neither does what works for us remain fixed. We need to pay careful attention to refining how we support our health as we grow and change.
Ideas, images, beliefs and notions are all designed to interfere with the truth and that’s exactly what they all do.
I share your observation that people tend to comment favourably on an unhealthy meal and are surprised or a bit fazed by a healthy meal. Its like you are in the ‘in crowd’ if you eat rubbish and are a bit of an anomaly if you don’t. Not a great sign for the health of people in society if this is what it has come to. No wonder we have so many lifestyle related diseases if unhealthy is the norm.
If everyone makes irresponsible and unhealthy choices whether it be food, drink, conversation or whatever and they all support each other in it then there is a comfort in that. If some starts to make a different choice it exposes what is really going on and some people do not like that and some people do not like that at all ie vehemently!!!