Balance Your Life: Environment #2 – Body

This is part two of a blog series on The Nine Environments of You — a powerful coaching model designed to create balance in your life. Today we’ll focus on the Body environment — your physical appearance, health, and energy — and the role your body plays in designing the life you choose. I’ll provide an exercise to help you identify what needs your attention so you can enjoy optimal health and physical well-being. You can read more about the Nine Environments model by visiting my previous blog post here.

Is your own body a source of inspiration to you? Is it strong, flexible, and healthy? A positive body image is one of the most important aspects of happiness and well-being, yet it is an area which is a challenge for many. Creating strength, energy, and well-being through daily practices is an essential part of living a balanced and productive life.

When you got your first car, you were probably aware that you could replace it later. If someone had told you that this was the only car you’d ever have, you most likely would have taken better care of it than you did. Unlike a car, we only get one body. We cannot expect to abuse a car — or our bodies — and enjoy a long and productive life.

Weight Loss and Your Emotions

If losing weight is not one of your goals, you are in the minority. Here are some key facts about obesity from the World Health Organization:

• Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975.
• In 2016, more than 1.9 billion adults (18 years and older) were overweight. Of these, over 650 million were obese.
• 39% of adults were overweight in 2016, and 13% were obese.
• Most of the world’s population live in countries where being overweight and obese kills more people than being underweight.
• 41 million children under the age of 5 were overweight or obese in 2016.
• Over 340 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 were overweight or obese in 2016.
• Obesity is preventable.

Oprah Winfrey’s personal trainer, Bob Greene, teamed up with psychologist Ann Kearney-Cooke to write a book called The Life You Want: Get Motivated, Lose Weight and Be Happy. What Greene discovered over the years is that only 20 percent of people who lose weight keep it off. That’s because they don’t deal with the emotional issues that caused the weight gain in the first place.

Greene’s book helps people identify significant motivating factors, which he calls “emotional incentives” for staying active and eating healthy. A study found that when one’s focus is on happiness, unwanted weight comes off and stays off. When one’s focus is on weight loss, the results are short-term.

Intimate Connection Affects Health

Dr. Dean Ornish, a clinical professor of medicine at University of California San Francisco and author of the book Love and Survival, tells us that medicine today focuses primarily on drugs, surgery, genes, and germs. Yet love and intimacy are at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well.

Connections with other people affect not only the quality of our lives but also our survival. Numerous studies have concluded that people who feel lonely are many times more likely to get heart disease than those who have a strong sense of connection and community. People are four times more likely to have a heart attack within six months of losing someone close to them through death or divorce.

This year marked the 37th anniversary of my father’s death. When people ask how he died at such an early age — he was only 47 years old — I tell them that he died of a broken heart. I attribute much of my father’s heart disease to the high stress he was under as well an unwillingness to honor his own needs for a healthier diet and regular exercise. There was one more contributing factor to his fatal heart attack: my parents had just divorced, and my father was very lonely.

It’s ironic that my father died from a heart attack on Valentine’s Day — a day that we plaster hearts all over everything as a way to recognize those we love. The night before he died, his office assistant was visiting him in the hospital ICU. He asked her to write down a message and put it in a Valentine for his children. Because he was so heavily sedated, she told him that she would come back in the morning to take down his words. He begged her, “Please ... take my message now ... I’m going to die.” She dismissed his request — chastising him for talking such silly nonsense about dying — and she promised to return in the morning.

Even in his heavily medicated state, my father wanted to reach out and feel connected. He wanted his three children to know that he loved us. His parting gift to us was a handwritten message I will always treasure. Sometime before 2:00 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, my father expressed his final wishes that each of us experience love, joy, and peace. Dad’s homemade Valentine — scrawled on the back of a used envelope — was found at his hospital bedside after he was pronounced dead.

Everything is So Interconnected!

The studies cited in Greene’s and Ornish’s books provide additional proof that our Nine Environments are so interconnected. Happiness (Self environment) and feeling connected (Relationships, Network, and Spiritual environments) have the amazing power to reduce heart disease and help people maintain weight loss (Body environment). Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts that will offer insights about ways to care for these other environments.

What Are You Tolerating?

Do you treat your body as if you could just swap out parts when you need them, or do you treat it with the utmost care that it deserves? How are you managing the other environments in your life that enhance or impair your physical health and fitness?

Below are some questions to help you get clear about what you are tolerating in your Body environment.

1. Do I get exercise daily (cardio, strength training, yoga, other)?
2. Do I nourish my body with healthy foods and avoid overeating?
3. Do I stay adequately hydrated?
4. Do I get regular medical and dental checkups and follow the advice of the professionals who care for me?
5. Do I get enough sleep?
6. Do I have an abundance of energy?
7. Do I maintain a healthy weight, blood pressure, blood sugar level, cholesterol level, etc.?
8. Do I limit my alcohol and caffeine intake?
9. Do I abuse any drugs (legal or illegal) or have any addictions that need attention?
10. Is my selection of clothing and accessories a reflection of who I am and who I choose to project?

Once you’ve answered the questions above, you may have greater clarity about what needs some attention in your Body environment. I encourage you to identify some “upgrades” you desire, as well as specific actions you will take, and by when.

Here’s an example of what that looks like:

    Upgrades desired in the Body environment:

• Feel rested when I wake up.
• Get fit, toned, and healthy.
• Reduce stress and increase a sense of peace in my life.

    Actions to be taken by when:

• Beginning tomorrow, go to bed by 10 PM each night. No caffeine after 4 PM. No screen time (laptop, phone) after 8 PM.
• Beginning this Saturday, commit to daily thirty-minute walks at least five times a week. If weather is bad, walk in a mall or other indoor facility, or on the treadmill.
• Meditate fifteen minutes a day beginning July 4. By June 30, research and select which recorded meditation program I will use.

Now, it’s your turn to identify the upgrades you desire, the actions you will take, and by when. I encourage you to choose ONE thing you will do to upgrade your Body environment and commit to spending 15 minutes to take immediate action. As you do this with each environment, get ready to experience synchronicity in your life like never before, as things fall into place.

If you’d like a fresh perspective– someone to help you design the balanced life you want by aligning your vision, priorities, and actions—let’s schedule a no-cost, no-pressure Discovery Call today.

Additional Resources:

• Blog: Balance Your Life: The Nine Environments of You (overview)
• Blog: Balance Your Life: Environment #1 (Memetic/Mind)
• Free Webinar: Managing Priorities
• Guide: 12 Daily Habits to Improve Your Health & Well-being
• Guide: Creating New Habits

Life Architect – Creating Blueprints for Purposeful & Productive Lives

Kathy@OrgCoach.net
www.OrgCoach.net