The Power Within… Just Change Your Mind

The Basket of Life

I had the honor of speaking to a local women’s organization this past Tuesday. The organization has been using a “basket” as this year’s theme for their monthly meetings and the respective topics each month. As I was preparing for the meeting, I decided to try to inter-weave the basket topic with a St. Patty’s day twist all about health and fitness (of course), since the lunch meeting happened to fall on that very day.

If you think about it, a basket is a very interesting item and many things in life can be correlated into the “weaving” pattern that a well-made basket has. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that our lives are patterned like a well-made basket. Think about it. The inter-weaving of all the strands of material, come together to form a sturdy, completely functional and often very attractive piece of work. Just like living a healthy life style!

When I give a presentation, I always preface that living a “healthy lifestyle” isn’t solely about exercising and eating perfectly every day. In fact, those two things are only two of the strands to our basket of life. Our body is literally a basket and it’s important to understand that there are many, many strands that run through us putting us together, like a perfectly woven basket.

The strands of health and wellness begin with preventative health practices. Practicing preventative health is one of the stabilizing strands that give us a fighting chance to live a productive, independent and functional life for many years to come. Each one of us needs to get into the habit of seeing our favorite physician for a “healthy check-up” every year; we must be on-top of the game of health, not waiting until we are sick and the only way to do that is through preventative measures.

Another strand to this basket is entwined with all the facets that family and friends bring to us. It’s so important to make both of these aspects in our life healthy. We’ve all experienced the satisfaction and the frustrations that family and friends are capable of. When the immediate family doesn’t function well, then you won’t function well. Stress affects us on many levels, but family stress can dig right to the roots of your personal health.

Financial/career/professional health is huge as well. You spend a big majority of your life working and building a career in order to be able to retire and experience the kind of retirement you’ve been dreaming and waiting for. Is it worth spending three quarters of your life in a job that you hate or one that physically is not healthy?

What about spiritual and/or religious health? No matter what you believe or don’t believe; spiritual health is very personal and often goes to the core of your existence.

Research has shown over and over the benefits for individuals to connect with other people. Individuals who stay connected and remain social, remain healthier and live longer! If you are social and enjoy stimulating activities, your brain also stays that way. If your brain continues to be stimulated and social, then so will your life! The mind-body connection is huge!

Finally, there is nothing in this world that doesn’t affect all the inter-weavings of health and fitness more than exercise and proper nutrition. If you exercise on a regular basis and eat healthy, it’ll give you the ammunition to build the basics, the basics towards being healthier and well. I’m not talking about crazy exercise; I’m talking about exercise for independence, function and quality of life. Inter-weave all of these aspects of wellness and health, and you’ll discover a strong, healthy basket, one that you can fill with all the joys and thrills you wish for in your life.

Where does “Luck” fall into the equation of wellness? It becomes obvious that not being able to pick our parents, when we were born or the medical generation we were born under leaves us pretty helpless in the luck department. Never the less, luck is not bias and somewhere within the “inter-weavings” of our lives we’ve got some hiding in there somewhere. Trust me!

Deborah Holmes

March 18, 2009