How Not to Give Up on Yourself

Readers of my newsletters probably remember the one sent during Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel's military operation, in which I described a wonderful coaching client with colitis who continued our phone session between trips in and out of her protected room. Her name is Ola, and she continues her coaching today. The bleeding with every bowel movement has stopped, her abdominal pain has decreased greatly, and her weight has stabilized. She continues working on her diet and attending exercise classes, and she is certainly on the way toward the remission she hopes for with her colitis.

Most importantly, she thinks differently!

That is precisely what I want to return to today: our thinking.

Our thinking is responsible for how we conduct ourselves. Nothing happens on its own because someone said something to us one fine day, even if it was the best doctor or the most expert dietitian. What really determines what we do and how consistently we do it is our habits, thoughts, and feelings. We have an entire inner world, and it determines how we behave in the outside world. This means that if I want to change my behavior, I first need to address my thoughts and feelings. If I want to keep making carrot juice in the morning, attend yoga twice a week, or avoid fried food, I need to change the way I think.

Whenever I am about to let myself off the hook and eat something that does not really suit me, I remind myself that this would be "giving up on myself". If I give up on myself, who will remain here to help my children? My husband? The world?...

Would you also like to learn to think differently? Let us begin.

The first thing to do is to find yourwhy , the big one: the big Why

Ola realized that as long as she sacrificed herself and her needs for her children's and husband's needs, everyone suffered. Her husband, her children, and she herself. So what should she do? Neglect her family? Absolutely not. Family is a very important value for many of us; the question is how we put it into practice. Ola identified a thought she had: "I am not important. My children matter more than I do, my husband's love matters, so I do not have time to make myself juice. First I will cook for them, clean, and care for the baby." As long as she thought this way, she had no energy left to make her juice, go to yoga, or even rest a little.

Instead of continuing to think this way, Ola formulated a new thought, based entirely on her values of family and love: "To keep caring for my children, cooking for my husband, and maintaining a clean, functioning home, I need to invest in myself. What will help me? What affects my health? My diet, my rest, my peace of mind, and the flexibility of my joints. I will therefore spend an hour a day maintaining my body so I can continue doing everything that matters to me."

You might ask: did she become a different person the moment she formulated that thought?

Of course not. But from that moment, she began catching herself with a defeating thought, such as "I have no energy, I have no time for myself, not now, first I will cook for everyone else and then...",

and reminding herself that everything she does now is for her family, that her husband deserves a healthier wife, and that spending 10 minutes steaming her pumpkin will not get in the way of the housework planned for today.

Why does this matter? Because we have become accustomed to thinking in a certain way. That way of thinking brought us this far, so if we want to practice new thinking that takes us somewhere new, we must keep practicing it. Just as we train in a gym to develop new muscles, we need to practice and rehearse new thoughts to develop our "healthy-thinking muscle".

This is general news information and is not a substitute for personal advice from a doctor or dietitian.