Flow life – Step into the healthy life !

Last week we talked about why taking the first step is the hardest. And hopefully, you don’t get fired up right. You made all the plans. And you even made a stairs. First day you going great, second day done. But then you got up and it just didn’t go your way. Trust us. You are 100% Normal. You are not bad at making changes, you are not a disaster, and you’re certainly not a failure. You are in fact exactly the same as 99% of the population.

You see all the best plans for the first step into something new, will not carry you through, if your why is not big enough. Today we’re going to get a little personal, I’m going to introduce you to my why and hopefully help you see that with a great reason you can always carry on.

I’m gonna take you back 15 years to a time where things were really bright and breezy for me to be fair. I was just giving birth to my third child, he was six weeks old, I had two boys, a new house and really happy relationship. And then on one very bright sunny afternoon in a split second, everything changed.

My eldest son was knocked down and suffered serious head injuries. And what passed in the couple of years after that was something I wouldn’t wish on anyone and probably the hardest thing I’ve gone through in my life. It was certainly the biggest driver for change in an instant.

So, being that I am a complete control freak…… I admit this readily, all of a sudden, so many things were in control. As a mother, I wasn’t able to help protect or fix one of my children, and life was completely turned upside down.

I actually felt incredibly insignificant, a failure. It was a conversation about three days after the accident, with a very compassionate GP that sparked something in me.

I hadn’t slept between going in and out of Intensive care and minding a six week old baby and I was really struggling to keep it together. My doctor suggested that perhaps I needed some anti anxiety medication, something just to take the edge off which sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing. I wouldn’t judge anyone for it but for me, I just knew that if I couldn’t keep it together right now when they needed me the most, I would never be able to get it back together. So in that moment for me my why became really, really obvious. My why was to be able to be present for my family.

Through everything that’s happened since that is still my reason. Not to say that there aren’t hard days, there always are. But once you find that joy or that thing that’s genuinely good, then, you know that any decision you make that will make you better more capable, or present for whoever or whatever it is that drives you, is always the right decision.

There’s been several more moments in the past 15 years where my why has been tested, and you will always have tests!

I have learned that I’m supposed to reevaluate how I do things, how I turn up, and whether my choices are really serving my family. It’s often in a crisis that we recognize what is most important to us. And if something hurts brings a tear to your eye, or a lump in your throat then you know it really matters.

So when you make that change to take that step into a healthier life, your why has got to be the driving force. If too much of you goes into anyone thing, is it serving that larger purpose?

You’ve got to have something so big and scary, that you’re failing just isn’t an option.

It might be your children, it might be your parents, it could be your partner. If you’re really lucky, it could actually be you. It’s taken me, at least 15 years to take my why, and really be able to turn it in on myself. I have found that I have to be present, happy and healthy to best serve them, so I have become my reason!

It is okay to want to be better. It is, in fact, awesome. You should always be your own why. Take a few minutes and write down the things that are most important to you and don’t apologize for being on that list!