What You Feed Will Grow

Let me make a little disclaimer here: I have yet to master this but when I do better with this I notice a HUGE improvement in my life and when I fail with this I drown quickly.  I wanted to share the concept of balance in the hopes that it will bring something better to your life.  After all I’m just here to be your “imperfect” cheerleader.  Maybe together we can walk the road to more peace in life.

A very wise woman once told me…..

You have three major parts that make up yourself.  What you nurture and tend, just like a garden will grow.  The trick is to nurture ALL three parts of yourself.  If you only feed one part constantly and ignore the others you will find that the one part will grow disproportionately large and the others will suffer.  This can lead to depression in short order.  I have found with my own life that no truer words were ever spoken!

Lets get physical….

This is the side of yourself that is your physical body.  It needs to MOVE and breathe in fresh air.  It needs to work, walk, lift and skip (yeah I know some of us are WAY to old to skip, but remember when you did how wonderful it felt? Maybe try it again? Go ahead! No one is looking).  This is the part of the body that craves healthy real foods to nourish and make you  stronger. And the part of the body that includes the hands that bring enjoyment by setting out to do something that you are gifted to do! And we are all bestowed a gift!  It’s not just the one that has the “green thumb” or the one “that can fix anything” but we all are good at doing something that maybe very few others are good at doing.  Feed the physical side of yourself daily!

And then there’s the grey matter…

The next part of yourself is the intellectual side.  Yes, we are all intellectual, some it may just be a bit more…..ummm….apparent then others. Have you ever heard the saying “if you don’t use it you lose it?” If  you don’t believe me try recalling that conversational Spanish you learned in 11th grade.  How did that work out?  Our brains are constantly changing and adapting and letting them remain idle for to long isn’t good for anyone.  Try learning about new things you’re interested in by researching a subject, take a class, read a good book, learn a new skill that you’ve never tried! It’s never to late to learn new things! Be careful though, mindlessly scrolling through facebook and Instagram aren’t necessarily the best things for your brain.  If you’re like me, my brain sort of goes into hibernation mode when I do to much of this.  No Bueno!

Everyone needs a little soul food….

This one is a biggie for me.  I don’t know, maybe I’m more susceptible then others but if I don’t spend time feeding the spiritual side of myself I turn into a basket case pretty quick.  If I spend to long a period of time neglecting this the looney comes out and the poor person standing near me is likely to get caught in the cross hairs!  My character flaws will raise their ugly heads! To me this is the most tender, private and personal side of ourselves and really needs to be nurtured.  Spend time each day in prayer, meditation and praise to the creator.  The one who made us knows all of our secrets, flaws and even our thoughts (eek) but yet is still enthralled to have our undivided attention even for a little bit of our day.  I like to do this first thing in the morning.  It just seems like my day goes so much better when I reinforce my connection to God often!

If you do get depressed…..

Stop and take a look at whether you are focusing to much on one aspect of yourself and neglecting the others.  Are you working to hard at work feeding the intellectual side of yourself and negelecting the spiritual and physical side or any other combination of the three?  If so start feeding the other two! What if all of those things are in pretty good balance?  Are you spending to much time watching the news with all of the doom and gloom or maybe spending to much time around negative “energy sucking” people?  Maybe time to make a change?

The good thing about life is that it is full of choices and it’s never to late to make a change to take a more balanced path to peace!