My body is meant to behave. When it doesn’t, I’m irritated. Also, I am in a quandary: did it betray me or did I betray it? My strong core belief is that I needn’t be sick, in pain, or incapacitated.
My mother used to say, “We don’t have to be sick to die.” I believe her. For instance, I don’t get colds. I say this, I mean this, and I haven’t had a cold since I made the decision.
I have a cold.
My body has won out over my will. I have lost the struggle between treating my body well and being self-indulgent to my own detriment.
Back up a minute. I have food allergies. When I take care to avoid the foods that give me grief, I don’t have respiratory allergies. When I indulge, my face breaks out and I don’t feel so very good. I go round and round with myself about the allergies.
“Oh, I can have eggs every once in awhile.”
“Wheat isn’t that bad, it just gives me a bit of a cough.”
“Milk may not count if it is in baked goods, or cheese, or Greek yogurt.”
“I can have a LITTLE garlic.”
My constant mental game is about whether or not I have the allergies. Can trick my body, and how far will it take me if I abuse it? I know the answer…not very far without a tune up.
So how did I get a cold?
A. Did I weaken my physical resistance?
B. Did I let doubt weaken my will?
C. Did some sniffling clerk expose me at the checkout?
I choose A and B.
I have been nose-to-nose with my grandchildren, lips-to-lips with my husband and side-by-side with passengers on airplanes, all of who had colds. I haven’t been infected. Now I have eaten everything possible that I shouldn’t eat; ignored the resultant cough, ignored exercise; and harbored a fear that my immune system is lagging because of my behavior. Gotcha!
The first night I talked to myself in my wakeful hours. “You don’t have a cold (but you deserve a cold}.” “How can you admit you have a cold, you don’t get colds.” “I’m going to be VERY good tomorrow and settle these allergies down.”
Now I have been in hiding for two days. My better reason is that I don’t want to expose anyone. My selfish reason is that I don’t want anyone to tell me I have a cold. I am in here trying to figure out how to regain my solid stance.
I don’t want it to be that I get colds once in a blue moon. I want to say and believe that I don’t get colds. I want to be secure in the knowledge that I worry about the swine flu. I want my will, my courage, and my immune system to be indomitable in the face of exposure to illness and injury. I want to see the cause from a distance and prepare my defense.
So I am creating my personal health challenge to myself: Walk the talk!
A-a-achoo! Starting here, starting now…
xxoo