TRANSFORMING YOUR HABITS TO TRANSFORM YOUR HEALTH PART 10
External resistance refers to the forces outside of you that create challenges to your quest for your best health. External resistance can arise from your environment, your social and family support structures, as well as the modern marketplace of goods and services that attempts to sell you products that can keep you trapped in poor health. You must recognize these factors and the roles they play in your journey to authentic health.
Your Environment
Regarding your environment, this is an obvious point. If your issue is binge eating on junk food, then you have to make sure there is no junk food in your home, your car, or in your immediate workplace. You need to minimize your exposure to whatever habits sabotage your health.
There are a lot of tips and tricks for getting this done, but you cannot continue to expose yourself to the goods or services that are taking your health from you and expect to succeed on your quest for health. You must take control of your personal environment.
You’ll Need Support
Another form of resistance comes from the people with whom you spend your time. Friends and family can mean well, but they can often be negative influencers of change. Oftentimes, people will resist your change to improve your health. It’s not that they intentionally want you to be sick, it’s just that your change threatens them in some way.
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“When you undertake a worthy quest, such as the quest for your best health, you should hope that friends and family would come alongside and support you.”
You have to keep this impersonal. This is about you and your decisions. It’s not about them. When you undertake a worthy quest, such as the quest for your best health, you should hope that friends and family would come alongside and support you. You need to surround yourself with people who speak good things into you, who speak confidence and courage and encouragement to you. You need to surround yourself with people who will help you succeed on your quest.
If some of your friends and family speak negatively about what you’re trying to do, whether that’s telling you that you cannot do it, or you shouldn’t do it, then you need to minimize your exposure to these suggestions. You have to redirect conversations, or just avoid conversations with them altogether. I know this can be challenging, and you don’t have to be rude about it, but ultimately this quest is too important to allow others to dissuade you from undertaking it. It’s very important to surround yourself with those who believe in you and speak positively to you.
The Role of the Marketplace
At this time, the general marketplace of goods and services will resist the change you’re trying to make. This resistance is because the current status quo is to sell forms of entertainment, drugs and alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and foods that trigger your reward system and keep you enslaved to the habits and behaviors that are making you sick. Many people are profiting from this.
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“We should all use our marketplace leverage to insist on goods and services that promote our health and the health of our children and our families and our communities.”
Now it’s not true across the entire marketplace. There are many companies out there who are actively promoting goods and services in an ethical way that actually promote your good health. We should support them. Yes, their products are more expensive, but it’s because they’re actually healthy for us.
In the end, the marketplace is pragmatic. It will go where consumers demand that it goes. We should all use our marketplace leverage to insist on goods and services that promote our health and the health of our children and our families and our communities.
Status Quo
I’ll get off my soapbox and get back to the main topic, external resistance. The current status quo will strongly resist your change. Seductive advertising will pop up everywhere to try and keep you in your current habits. The current marketplace wants you to keep doing what you’re doing, and keep buying what they’re selling.
This quest has opposition, but it is worthy. So be prepared. Clean up your environment. Have it be supportive for you. Associate with those who support you. Understand the current marketplace and its role in forming your habits and creating your experience of health.
Change How You Engage
You may have to change some ways that you engage with the current culture like turning off the television. You may have to turn off the computers and social media. Just unplug and find some protected space so that addictive foods, various drugs, alcohol, and addictive forms of entertainment aren’t placed in your consciousness all of the time, tempting you to go back to your old habits.
Once you have set yourself free from the habits that are stealing your health, you won’t have to be as ruthless about this. Once you have your freedom, you’ll see it for what it is, and it really won’t tempt you anymore. I am speaking the truth about this. Many people believe they can never be free from the habits that are making them sick. But I have seen this freedom claimed over and over again in my clinic.
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“Just unplug and find some protected space so that addictive foods, various drugs, alcohol, and addictive forms of entertainment aren’t placed in your consciousness all of the time, tempting you to go back to your old habits.”
As we’ve learned, resistance is an active force. You have to be aware of it, and you have to be prepared for it. Overcoming internal and external resistance is part of what makes this quest worthy. You will be able to do it provided you have a true heart’s desire and commitment to the path of authentic health.
I understand the importance and difficulties related to changing habits. If you have questions about how to get started on this path, contact me. You also can like me on Facebook.
