Starting a health journey: Part 1- The pre-start

If you are starting off on a health journey, I want to provide you with nourishing content to combat what conventional, mainstream sources often provide us with.

When I was beginning my journey, nearly 12 years ago now, I found myself overwhelmed with information, with a diet that was consistently getting more rigid and smaller, and movement practices that didn’t necessarily allow me the space to freely exist within my body.

The mainstream noise will sound like overwhelm, empty promises, and a quick path to burnout and depletion. But here, we will enter a portal to a world that exists beyond that one. An alternate reality to the one we’re overloaded with, where our nervous systems can exhale, our bodies can thrive, and our minds and souls can rest in nourishment and peace.

Health, wellness, and healing, while can be long journeys with many obstacles to overcome, is actually not a complicated path. There doesn’t need to be so much back and forth, this and that.

Truthfully, the wisdom we need to guide us to the answers we are seeking is innately wired within us, and only we have answers to.

This week, I want to address a pre-starting point to begin reflection on your health journey and why you’re heading there. Participating in a practice like this allows us to visualize and -feel- within us how it will feel when we make a shift. When we have a more clear vision about where we are going, it creates more ease and flow. We can trust where we are headed when we can truly see the vision, instead of creating habits out of fear. (I.e.. if i do not count my calories, i will gain weight or lose control).

A health journey is meant to be nourishing. It’s about re-establishing connections and strengthening them. So let’s start with some self reflection and some visualization questions. Next week, I will follow this post with more physical steps to begin the journey.

While it can be enticing to jump all in on a new trend or fad that is promising results, following a path of authentic self nourishment and sustainability is how you will be able to move through life as your own healer, friend, and advocate. Anything less than true nourishment is a box to live within that sets limitations on your true, authentic, wellness.

Questions-

Before making any changes, asking questions can bring a sense of clarity to the behaviors you are hoping to change and why, and a more clear view on the new patterns, habits, behaviors, and thoughts you’d like to illuminate instead.

It can be so tempting to see trendy results or plans, and go all in, believing that if you follow the same map, you will achieve exactly the same results. Especially when you are ready to dive all in, the temptation to hit the ground running can roar a bit louder.

Taking a few moments to ask some questions and spending some time in thought playing out answers to them can be as long or short as a process as you would like. Here are some questions I would ask first so you can have clarity throughout your journey to improved health.

Questions about now:

“ Have I lost connection to myself and my body?”

“What does being connected to myself mean to me?”

“Am I hearing the cues and messages of my body, or is something preventing/blocking that communication?”

“What is my biggest health struggle”

“What are the behaviors I am most hoping to change?”

“Currently, what do my movement habits look like?”

“Do I eat regularly or am I a bit sporadic with eating?”

“Of that food that i’m consuming, how much of it is artificial and how much of it is truly whole, natural food?”

“how often do I spend time outdoors, and how much of that is distraction free?”

“Do I spend time alone in thought or allow time to go by without ‘doing’ or 'consuming?”

“What are my hygiene and other self care habits look like?”

“How am i showing up for myself in my life right now? What am I truly doing for me?”

Questions for clarity about the future:

“In my most ideal setting, what does health look like to me? How does it feel?”

“What are the ways in which I nourish my mind and body?”

“What does a movement practice look like to me in my most ideal world?”

“Are my health habits rigid, or are they a natural, fluid, piece of my life?”

“Who do I see myself when I am in good health"?”

“How does it feel when I show up for myself in this way?”

“When I live in the frequency of health and vitality, how am I able to show up differently?”

“What does an ideal morning in my life look like? what habits are present? What do I wear? how am I nourishing myself in that space?”

I hope that these questions can offer you the space to clear the weeds so you can begin building your foundation to the you that you want to unlock.

Come back next week for part 2 of where to start on your health journey.

In good health,

Melina