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Happy New You!!!
From: Maintaining Our Temples
By Qaraandin
This is the time of year when most of us promise to make all of the changes we need to make to be "perfect." We promise to: lose weight, stop smoking, start exercising, spend more time outdoors, eat more fresh raw foods, and drink more water. In short, we promise to do all the things we need to do to maintain our temples.
At first, we are proud of ourselves because we are able to do exactly what we said we would do. We take walks every day during our lunch breaks. We stop snacking on chips and beer while we are watching television.
After a couple of weeks, we begin to feel a little better. We even think we look better! Then, because it takes a while to completely replace an old habit with a new one, when something comes up we fall back into our old program without thinking.
How do we react to our slip? Most of us give all of our attention to the single mistake and stop our program then and there. Because of one small mistake, we think that we have "failed."
We completely overlook the month or six weeks that we faithfully followed our new program. We ignore the ten pounds we have lost, the extra energy we have, how much better we feel when we get up each morning.
We focus on that one slice of cake we just ate, the three days we didn’t take our walk, the one cigarette we smoked without thinking. And we give up!
If we had stopped trying to walk the first time we fell down as babies, we would all still be crawling around! We have been programmed to behave as if one mistake makes us a "failure." Yet, not one "successful" person will say he or she got everything perfect on the first try! When we were babies we didn’t think of ourselves as "failures" because we fell down. We picked ourselves up and tried again. And again. And again. As many times as it took us to learn to walk without falling down.
When we decide to make the changes we need to make to maintain our temples, we will have days that we don’t do all of the things we want or need to do. We don’t have to beat ourselves up over what we didn’t do. Instead, let’s be happy about what we did do and plan to do better the next day.
At least we are trying. How many people do you know who know what they need to do but won’t even try? As long as we have life, we can make the changes that will lead toward our best health. Making the first step, no matter how small it may seem, is, in itself, success.
Sistah Qaraandin is the author of "Maintaining Our Temples" and the publisher and editor of "Sistah Qaraandin’s M.O.T. Healthzine." She is available for seminars, lectures, and workshops. You can e.mail her at: pantherpawproductions@hotmail.com.
“The healing power of a person lies within the person, not within the doctor, a pill, or a knife. The healing power of a community lies within the community, not within a ballot box, an executive order, or a referendum.”
from: Maintaining Our Temples
by: Qaraandin
