Daily Musings

My body doesn’t believe it but my mind is trying to find reasons to make it true. Why?

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So much has to get strong for you to get strong. I was doing barbell deadlifts today, a move I used to love and do all of the time, but have only recently got back into. I realized in order for my deadlift to improve my grip strength needs to improve, my rear deltoids and upper back needs to develop in a different kind of way that supports holding heavy weight. My breathing needs to improve. There are so many pieces that need to fall into place before my deadlift can really take off. It’s true of deadlifting, and it’s true of many other things as well. If something isn’t improving, think about what else needs to also improve to support it. 

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I was thinking about getting a comprehensive blood test done at a functional medicine office, which is something I’ve done before. The price has come down, but it’s expensive, and so I was thinking how nice it would be if either a) the physicians office covered under my insurance I pay for did comprehensive testing, or b) I somehow got reimbursed, credited, or a tax break for paying out of pocket for tests that are out of my network. But we don’t, even though it helps my insurance carrier.

My brother was having bad GI problems for a few months. He went to the doctor and got a colonoscopy and endoscopy, and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong. So they suggested medication. Instead he ordered a food tolerance test from a company online. With a simple finger prick and a little bit of blood, they’re able to tell you foods that cause an immune system response in your body. He discovered that there were more than a handful of foods that he ate daily that did not agree with him. He cut them out of his diet and cured his issue.

No more tests or medication for his insurance carrier to pay for, but he had to pay out of pocket and go out of his way to do that. Imagine a world where what my brother did on his own was actually part of the healthcare system. How much money would we save, and how many lives would we improve?

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Your mind is this tricky thing where it tries to convince you you don’t want to do things you actually want to do. Like last night as we were getting into bed I realized that we hadn’t done the dishes from dinner yet and the sink was full. I don’t like waking up to a dirty sink so I thought, I’ll clean those up. But immediately my brain put up a road block and said, no it’s late, go to bed. So I said to myself, I’ll just do them tomorrow, and left the kitchen. But that’s not what I wanted to do. I wanted to spend five minutes doing the dishes to make my morning just a little cleaner. 

So I went back and forth trying to decide if I would do them or not. My brain continuing to try and convince me not to do them. After a few minutes, I went and did the dishes. It’s such a weird thing that happens so often. My mind goes, let’s do this, and immediately another voice goes, noooo, you don’t want to do that. But the question I have is, why would I have thought it in the first place, if I don’t want to do it? It doesn’t make sense. 

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I think we, myself included, shy away from changing our habits and trying new ways of doing things because we think we have to make a lifelong commitment to it. We like the way we do it now, even if it’s not the most efficient or pleasant, and we don’t know how the new thing is going to work or make us feel. So we retreat to the comfort of what we know and don’t change. But we can try something out, decide if we like it or not, and always go back to the old way of doing it. By agreeing to change, we don’t have to commit to change in ways we don’t like.