A New Path

This is third installment of my guest blogs.  Today, my friend Mary Lynn is writting about physical and mental wellbeing.  She’s a Pastoral Counselor in my area, and she’s also a great friend.  I hope you get a lot out of what she has written.  I know I did 🙂

A New Path

It is difficult to perform in our jobs, our family and our surrounding community when we’re not feeling well. This is why physical transformation is so crucial as we only have one body which in reality “runs the whole show.”

 Folks who deal with chronic pain issues know how serious the impact can be on their attitude, emotions and mental alertness.  It is very challenging to live up to all the expectations and responsibilities our culture places on us to survive economically today, much less to really thrive.  Imagine doing this when your body is always a little under the weather.

Getting our bodies in tip-top shape is not only healthier but necessary in today’s world if one expects to be faithful and effective in any area of life. The great motivational speaker, Tony Robbins speaks of the lowest point of his life after he had reached a level of fame and then lost it all. He describes his need for a “radical” change which he chose to initiate in a crisis following the posting of an eviction notice on his door and an empty bank account.

Not knowing where to turn he initiated his transformation physically by a desperate exhausting run on the beach, further than he had ever run before and filled with too many emotions to process. His run was followed by an exhaustive collapse at which moment he felt a personal surrender and the insight that there was much he had to change in his personal and public life.

What crisis is occurring right now in your life that has you panic stricken or a bit hopeless, wondering where to turn? Perhaps it’s time to make a “radical” change and surrender to the fact that you can’t control everything around you.. Maybe taking that first step toward changing your physical well-being will point you in the right direction.

In doing so you just may be able to see where the next opportunity lies or the path destined for you. It is imperative that you be physically ready and mentally alert, for how life is ‘setting you up’ for something significant. What will it take for you to say ‘enough is enough’ in your life….a divorce, estrangement from your children, preventable medical problems, isolation or despair? Remember the ‘how” is not important at this point only this initial desire and bone-deep commitment to change.

Now many might say that Tony Robbins was running from something, which he was, but more importantly he was running TO something. But first he needed to say he was done with the old way, collapsing in the realization that he wanted to get as far away as possible from his old ways and the old him.

Sometimes we spend too much time on the past and the future that we fail to recognize the reality of the present and that we have become stuck and way off track. I read once that if you imagine you were on a journey by sail boat and that you went off a course a few inches or feet everyday, you would be never reach your destination, eventually becoming miles and miles off course.

It is the little things we do daily to stay on course each day which help us move to our place in the world, as each of us has an enormous contribution to make in the lives of one another, however small or insignificant it may seem. What little steps can you take this day to do something different toward a transformation of Being someone different. Try doing something different every day…it could be smiling more, sitting in a different chair, driving a different route home, walking a little farther, using a new word or our other hand.

And yes you might feel a little funny and even anxious. Remember you don’t know everything and let yourself become more childlike and excited.  And above all be good to your body. You’re going to need it on this new path!