The Power Revolving around the Choices We Make
Dr. Adam Brown
Health4Life Chiropractic
615-893-2211
www.health4lifechiropractic.com
Have you ever stopped to consider the consequences of your choices? Well, keep in mind that every action and thought leads us in a particular direction. Joyce Myers once said, “Sew a thought, reap an action; sew an action reap a habit; sew a habit, reap a character; sew a character, reap a destiny.” Every direction has a specific destination as attached to every thought and action is either a healthy outcome or a disease/illness-related outcome. In other words every choice preserves our health or diminishes it. During his appointment as US Secretary of Health & Human Services, Dr. Sullivan said “the choices we make influence our future, our lives, and the lives and future of others.”
Involved in choice-making is the issue of responsibility; Responsibility, not “fault” – similar to taking charge. We learn at an early age to put the blame somewhere outside of ourselves. The world is full of “should of’s”, “would of’s” and “ought a’s.” So, the weather takes the weight for our not running or I don’t have time to workout has a familiar ring to it. Often we are too fat, too tired, or too bored to do what we know will serve us. A cartoon says this clearly, “I never put off until tomorrow what I can avoid entirely.”If you are overweight, eat less. If you are flabby, exercise. If you have disease, treat it. If you have an addiction, deal with it. If you have a pain, address it. Etc., etc., etc. But what makes this so hard to carry out? COMMITMENT…
Commitment overrides feelings and circumstances. Commitment has to be greater than the reasons that get in the way. It is a driving, propelling force. What are your commitments? It has been said that in this world there are only two things: reasons and results. And guess what? Reasons don’t count. Commitments do.
It is hear where I must pause and let you know that as a health care provider I see this on a daily basis in my patients but to be truthful…the main place I see it is within me! I know the risks, benefits, and alternative treatments, lifestyle changes, and see the outcomes of poor decisions daily, yet it is hard for me to follow through with good choices. I say this to let you as the reader know that we all are challenged daily to make decisions that have deadly consequences if we are not careful.
Where was I? Oh yes….. We must be responsible for making the choices that carry out our commitment. If we are not responsible for our exercise program, our bodies, our diet, our caffeine craving, then WHO IS? And making choices is not an easy process. Every change entails both an emerging and a perishing element. We have to let go to move forward. And in the letting go a little bit of dying occurs.
It is fear that is the biggest obstacle to action. Fear of whatever – rejection, failure, success, the unknown, pain. But breaking through the fear is like a muscle itself. It improves with practice and dwindles in idleness.
And for sure there is a certain amount of risk taking necessary. We must step beyond where we have been. We must explore new boundaries, new dimensions. We have to give ourselves permission to give up the old and take on the new.
As humans we spend more time and energy in resisting new ways than in opening up to them. And yet the old ways of seeing things, of doing deeds, of living life only provides us more of the same. We only get to relive the past and our lives become predictable as we live out the photo album.
But the past doesn’t have to equal the future. We don’t have to continue to see what we’ve seen, to do what’s already been done. We can go beyond familiar limits. We can seek the seemingly unimaginable.
I will end today’s newsletter with a challenge… Be responsible for your life. If you aren’t WHO IS? Declare your commitment. Make choices that nave your actions, be aligned with your commitment. Create your destiny rather than living a life left to fate. Go beyond where you have been.
Yours In Health,
Dr. Adam Brown
Health4Life Chiropractic
615-893-2211