"I Don't Have Time for This?!"

This is something I hear a lot. It’s probably something I SAY a lot, too. It’s clearly an expression of our frustration with the hand we’ve most recently been dealt. Bigger, better, more pressing things are on our plate. No time for “this!”


There’s lots of things I don’t have time for. Traffic. Lines. Waiting on hold. Verizon’s customer service (My own personal pet peeve. Hey, it’s my blog! I can say that!). But, these mundane examples aside, I feel like I hear it and say it often when it applies to health related topics – my health, to be more specific.


Sometimes it’s about finding time to workout. Or cook a healthy dinner. Or about getting sick. Or getting hurt. Definitely no time for any of this!


I often feel like this when it comes to being chronically ill. It’s exhausting some days. My body feels crappy, my joints hurt, my head feels like it’s in a fog machine. I really, really don’t have time for this.


But, when I back up a second… what do I have time for? Work. Cleaning my house. Commuting. Chores. Paying bills. Playing on facebook. Watching Netflix… None of that includes time for my body to heal.


When you break it down, when you’re sick/injured/feeling less than your normal self, it’s a clear message your body needs time to recoup. It is, in fact, exactly what you should have time for. It’s a time to put a lot of the other stuff aside and focus on getting well. It should be where you are funneling most of your energy, not diverting the depleted resources you have by pushing yourself to keep the same (or as close to it as possible), pace you have when you are well.


I wonder why we feel so much pressure to just keep pushing through and plodding along? Perhaps it’s the idea that so much work will pile up while we rest that we would just rather tackle it all while sick than deal with the mountain that has grown in the meantime. Maybe it’s that we don’t want to disappoint other people and we feel like we need to keep meeting their expectations. Maybe it’s the idea that we don’t meet our own expectations. Or we enjoy the challenge of pushing through, as if it’s a victory to get to the other side without appearing to miss a beat. Or we feel like others will perceive us as weak, lazy, replaceable. Or is it our fear of being weak, lazy, or replaceable and we are then motivated to keep going to outrun that idea. What it comes down to is that we make the “stuff we do” more important than it really is; we make the “stuff we do” more important than ourselves.


Our health is really all we have in this whole world. It’s a cliché phrase tossed around a lot, but seriously – if you were stripped of all material goods, what’s left? You, your body, your soul. Nothing more, nothing less. Exactly as you entered this world. All the rest of the “stuff” we busy ourselves with is just that – stuff. Work, career, money, material objects. None of it really means anything at all without your body.


It’s crazy how we’ve prioritized all these other things in our lives rather than put the focus the one thing that really runs the ship. So, I challenge you to change your thinking. You DO have time for this! If you’re battling something large it may be ALL you have time for. Give your body a chance to be a player. The team is only as strong as the weakest link. If all the stuff you juggle is your team, it’s not a good plan to have your body as the weakest link. Not getting too far without a good coach.


You must figure out how to make YOU important! You have to have time to fit into your own life, with your health being the foundation upon which everything else is built.
 
-        Cheryl