Feelings … nothing more than feelings … trying to forget my feeeeeellllllinggs … Ha! I just got that song stuck in your head, didn’t I? My apologies. It’s the whole “misery loves company” thing. It got stuck in my poor head when I thought about this concept so … may as well drag you into earworm hell with me, right? SorryNotSorry. If you’re young enough to not have any concept of what I’m talking about — regarding the song, not the rest to come — please, let me redeem myself and save you at least. Do NOT go look up the song. Don’t. Just don’t. It’ll get stuck in your poor head, too, and you will regret that. Consider it my gift.

Now, onward to actual feelings. They are such a useful health tool. How? In any of the building blocks I use to help people create their own wellness lifestyle, feelings help you know you’re on the right track. You feel awful? It tells you something. You feel good? Awesome; it’s doing something for you that works.

Examples:

Nutrition: Watch how you feel after you eat. Feel awful? Tired, nauseated, gassy? Something in there doesn’t agree with your body. I don’t care if it’s a health food or non-health food flavor of the day. It still is or isn’t good for you.

Connection: How do you feel after you interact with a person? Lifted up, joyful, happy, peaceful? That’s a great connection. Honor it, cherish it, treat it with respect because you want that in your life. You feel miserable? Pissed off, defeated, depressed, worthless? That connection is not only harming how you feel, it’s harming your overall health.

Movement: You do some exercise you think you need to do, and you hate it. Hate the damn thing with a passion. But, damn it, you gotta do it, right? Wrong. Find something you enjoy more. Or find a way to tweak that something so you find yourself enjoying it. Movement you basically enjoy is movement you’ll keep doing. It doesn’t help if it falls by the wayside.

And so on. Each element I use to help you build a wellness-geared lifestyle has this marker in it. It’s a great guide to finding what works and to help you keep doing it. In some cases, it’s vitally important — like food that isn’t harming your body or people who aren’t harming your psyche. In other cases, it helps because it leads you to the right choices for you. And those are the choices that will stick this time.

Confused? Want more? This is what I do. Help you figure out these pieces so you can — finally, easily, joyfully — build a lifestyle that keeps you headed toward being well, not away. Toss me an email at: cindy@wellnessreinvented.com and I’m glad to answer any questions. (No, not as in salesman-y, slimy talk. I don’t do that stuff. It’s yukky, which equals being bad for my health and moral compass.)