What Does It Mean to be Responsibly Healthy?
“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
Responsibility is a big word, not just in length but in meaning. It can hold a different meaning for many people, it can be very narrow or it can be very broad. What does it mean for you?
Over the last several years I have spent countless hours trying to truly understand what it means to not just be responsible for myself but to be responsibly healthy. I have made it part of my Life Purpose to educate and share with people what being responsibly healthy has to offer them; Freedom, Inner peace and ultimately Happiness. Who doesn’t want some of that?
So what does it mean to be Responsibly Healthy from my perspective?
First and foremost, it means that I realize and recognize our responsibility for our lives and for seeing ourselves as holistic beings with four key aspects. Let’s look at each one briefly.
Body/Physical
Most people can certainly relate to this one, and some people only relate to this one. It is important to keep our bodies healthy if we want to live a long life. That is a given. To be healthy we must take responsibility for the choices we make with respect to food intake, exercise, stress management, and sleep. It is important to take responsibility for educating ourselves on the truth about what is healthy and what is not, what hurts us and what heals us, and what works for us individually because as much as we are all the same we are also different.
Mind/Intellect
Our minds are very powerful and can set us free or they can wreak havoc in our lives. To be responsibly healthy, we need to feed our minds with thoughts, ideas, beliefs and knowledge that bring out the best version of who we are capable of being. Use your mind to serve you, not to undermine you. Exercise it through learning and reading. Practice mindfulness and being present. Let it rest through meditation and relaxation. Your mind is an extremely wonderful tool and an asset if you take responsibility for it.
Emotional Being
Our emotions are strongly connected to our bodies and our minds, and are a very intricate part of who we are as human beings. They are often referred to as energy in motion, which is why they can create such strong physical responses: laughter, crying, sweating and shaking.
Historically and still today, the emphasis in society has been about IQ. However, more and more people are starting to see that EQ–emotional intelligence–is extremely important if we are to be healthy individuals. This means understanding and taking responsibility for our emotional reactions to what happens in our lives and, if we are not emotionally healthy, seeking out support that can help us heal. This could be in the form of counseling, alternative therapies, coaching, or grief work. There is no magic pill to healing our emotional wounds. It is work and it is our responsibility to do this work.
Spiritual/Soul
Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? What is this life all about? How am I connected to others and to the Universe? These are questions spiritual seekers are often trying to answer. It is hard to deny there is an aspect of us that is part of a greater whole. Millions of books are written about it, entire religions are founded on it, countless movies are created about it, and billions of people on the planet base their lives upon it. To be responsibly healthy in this aspect of our being is to embrace the possibility that we are all connected, to see we are all on a journey together and that our primary purpose in life is to love and support each other while we are on it. All the rest is mere detail.
As holistic beings, we need to work on being responsibly healthy in all four areas; they are connected, each one affecting the other. It is not important where we start, only that we start. Typically, this is in the area where we are feeling the most pain. We cannot work on one without positively affecting the others. We cannot, however, neglect one without negatively affecting the others. It comes down to making responsibly healthy choices in life, to the best of our ability physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.
Make a choice today to start or to persevere on your path to becoming Responsibly Healthy.