What's Your Purpose?

"I’m gonna find my purpose…I gotta find me!" Princeton from Avenue Q

When I signed up for IIN, I thought of it would help my diet and health and possibly enable me to change my career. I signed up for my classes in July 2009-on my birthday actually. I saw it as a very nice (and generous) birthday present for myself. Looking back halfway through my program, I realized that it was very symbolic for me to sign up on my birthday. That day was the start of a whole new life-a rebirth of sorts. It was the start of a fundamental shift in living my life. The past 10 months have reinvigorated me. I have been able to find and redefine myself, to strive for what I believe to be my life's purpose, and to finally be excited and fully engrossed in developing my future. Since starting the program, I have worked harder than I have in a while, maybe even ever, but am happier than I have ever been. The greatest change has been a gradual shift in alignment of my personal beliefs and life to my career.
By shifting my focus to something I am truly passionate about, I feel vibrant, whole, and fully nourished-more than any amount of vegetables and fruits can do for me. I spoke of primary foods last month as a foundation of our health and happiness. To review, primary foods are our career, spirituality, relationships, and physical exercise.  When we are happy with those four elements, our lives are enriched.  As for our careers, it is really important to have a job that is fulfilling. We spend many hours in a day, week and most of our lives working. More often than not, we spend more time developing our 'careers' than our relationships, bodies and minds. Why would you spend so much time doing something that does not feed your soul? Back in the day, people defined themselves by their careers and took pride in it. Most notably is the last name Smith deriving from the occupation of blacksmiths. We have come very far from that alignment and our career has become one compartment of many in our lives. We no longer see the need for our careers to match our life's purpose.
Our career is a very sensitive subject mainly because it is the source of money, our income. It is not easy to walk away from an unfulfilling job if it pays nicely. And I am not telling you to do that. Ideally, we would all work jobs that we completely identify with and can live comfortably off of. Reality is we live in a world where money is a necessity and we can't just up and leave the source of it. However, we can always make small changes.  In the spirit of embracing primary foods, I would like for you to take a look at your career. How does it align to who you are today? How does it align to who you want to be? What are the missing pieces and how can you fill them? Can you change your career without sacrificing other components of your life that are important to you (e.g., standard of living, paying rent, feeding your puppy)?  Can you add something to you job that aligns with who you are (e.g., join the wellness committee, form a lunch group with other parents, start a company dodgeball team)?  Can you address who you want to be through your hobbies, spirituality, relationships or physical exercise? 
What have you done with your career to better align yourself with it?

Primary Foods

Happy Tuesday! It’s the post you’ve all been waiting for-Primary Foods! I eluded to primary foods a couple of times already in the blog but have not described it in full. As you know, in my practice, I take a holistic look at my clients’ lives. Although diet is an important component of our health, I believe that our lifestyle is “primary” and even more important than your diet. This is mind blowing stuff, people! At first, the idea may seem a little out of whack with what the mainstream diets preach. Ninety-nine point nine percent of them focus strictly on dietary changes. But you cannot expect to make lasting changes to your diet without addressing lifestyle, both physical and emotional.

I’m not the first nor will I be the last person to state that your emotional state is really important in achieving health goals and preventing disease. There is correlation of happier people being healthier people and unhappier people being less healthy. However, there are no studies that say being healthy will make you happier. This is why I view lifestyle to be more important than diet. Being satisfied with your lifestyle will have a domino effect on your health.

Breaking it down, the four components of primary foods are your career, physical activity, relationships, and spirituality. I will definitely be covering these areas more in depth, but in the meantime, here is a quick overview.

Career: We spend many hours in a day, week and most of our lives working. More often than not, we spend more time developing our “careers” than our relationships, bodies and minds. It is so important to have a job that is fulfilling to you whether that is monetarily, ethically, or mentally.

Physical activity: This is the only component of lifestyle that mainstream dieting promotes yet people still do not successfully integrate physical activity into their lives. I work with clients to participate in activities that they like and can fit into their lifestyle which makes it more likely that they will stick with it.

Relationships: We are social beings who thrive on relationships. It’s a primal need. There were incidents in the 19th century at orphanages where babies were dying, not from infection or lack of food, but from lack of touch. Now I can’t guarantee that I’ll get you hugs and kisses but I do work with my clients to examine their family, friend and romantic relationships. We examine where those relationships are and where they want them to be.

Spirituality: Now, don’t be turned off by the term spirituality. It can mean your relationship with God, but to me, it really means your relationship with yourself and how you see yourself in relation to the world. Believing in a greater being is only a component of that. I work with clients to believe in themselves and seek a spiritual practice that works best for them. That may encompass working on self esteem or better understanding their relationship with God.

This was a lot to take in, but don’t worry, I will be referring to it often and elaborating on in future posts. In the mean time, spend some time tonight to examine these aspects of your life. Are they where you think they should be? Want to talk about it? Email me for a free hour health consultation.