I’ve been asking this question of myself and those I care about a lot lately: “Are you taking care of yourself?” I know when life gets difficult one of the first things we stop doing is taking care of us. We can find ourselves incredibly stressed, overwhelmed, and running on nothing but fumes for days on end. The last thing we care about is what or when we’ve eaten, whether we’ve exercised, when the last time was that we cleaned our house…etc. In those dark times it might only be by the grace of God that we even got out of the bed that day! Self care is at rock bottom on our list of priorities.

Between working one or more jobs, paying bills, being all other places demanded of us, juggling life’s eventualities, and maintaining our bodies well enough to stay alive, we wind up depleted, malnourished, exhausted, and increasingly more inward. Been there, got the T-shirt! When life took a nasty turn for me a few years ago the first thing to go was my self care. I lived in my thoughts and loneliness and found myself neglecting some of my most basic human needs. It was a slow fade but I eventually awoke to the reality that I was debilitatingly depressed and functionally ill.

I cannot express how different my lifestyle in that season of life was from who I truly am. I’ve always been something of a “health freak” so to watch myself abandon what I knew was necessary to a life of vitality shocked me. Yet it was simply an outward expression of an inner struggle. While I’m sure some people could share similar seasons in life, it doesn’t excuse my negligence. I’ve been spending months rebuilding the damage self loathing did to my mind, body, and spirit. When life gets tough the very FIRST thing we should do is run to God and begin to care for and protect ourselves. Instead, we seem to abandon ourself and mentally check out of all self care responsibilities. Why??

If we aren’t holistically healthy we stand little to no chance of overcoming whatever difficulties we are facing to begin with. It’s completely counter intuitive to abandon your basic needs and neglect your humanity when things turn dark. We all seem to “know” to take care of ourselves when life gets its toughest, but why do so many of us fail ourselves instead? While we do need God more than ever in those times, I would venture to add that we also need the healthiest version of ourselves to overcome!! It’s a partnership.

So, how do we truly take care of ourselves?

Well, you’re going to hear me talk about many ways to achieve optimal personal health in upcoming blogs (as this is one of the single most important things in my life and I believe it to be vital to our spiritual wellbeing), but to get us started off….You must start by healing your body. If you’ve lived under the standard American diet (ironically called “living S.A.D.”) then legitimate damage has been done to your mind and body, whether you know it yet or not. We may still feel good overall but a time is coming when the SAD diet will catch up with a vengeance if a change isn’t made.

Step One: Go ahead and accept your responsibility of getting on a path of healing the damage before you try to do much else. If we put the cart before the horse and establish extensive exercise regimens and plan a major lifestyle overhaul we’ll burn out before we’ve even removed sugar from our diet!

Step Two: Find a physician who treats patients via nutrition response testing. The test is neurologically based and will, rather simply yet scientifically, pinpoint exactly what ails you (if you can believe it).  Subsequently, it will allow him/her insight needed to create an individualized nutrition based treatment plan that will target the functionally ill organs within your body that need healing. Once the priority organs are identified and on a path to healing, the lesser priority organs will begin to strengthen by design; consider it “trickle down healthcare”. But don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself, or contact those who have experienced the benefits of nutrition therapy. What do you have to lose? Instead of putting synthetic, man-made drugs in our earth-based body what if you tried giving nutrients and minerals a chance to heal your malnourished American self? Now that’s a thought…. 😉

I am not a doctor. I am simply an educated human who’s findings have left me dissatisfied with the state of the American diet and American healthcare. There has to be more, and I believe it doesn’t have to be as complicated or as expensive as “the system” has made it. Also, I happen to have the pleasure of being treated by Dr. Brett Spradlin of Divine Design Natural Health who has reignited my passion for personal health and brought me back to life.I would feel insanely selfish to not share what I’m learning with YOU! You can read some testimonials of his patients HERE if it’ll make things a little more clear.

I will talk increasingly more about additional steps we can take to get healthier but for now I just want to get the discussion going and get us taking hard looks at the way we live each day. So, will you do something for me? Whether you’re in a great place in life or the darkest of times, will you ask yourself, “Am I taking care of myself?” If you are not, commit to joining in my journey of establishing a life of vitality by sticking with the blog and taking the steps you can towards a more nurtured you.

To your health,

Rachel