The Wake Up Call. This is the one call we really don’t want to get. But for many of us, we get the call perhaps many times over until we “get the message.” It’s the call that can change your life.
I certainly got the Wake Up Call 14 years ago when my body finally gave out and forced me to stop. After years of pushing myself, I developed a heart problem. I had been pushing myself for 20 years in corporate America, enduring massive stress on my body and mind. I finally changed careers to become an acupuncturist to help others with stress like it helped me. But four more years of intense schooling added to my already high stress load.
When I finally realized my dream and moved to the mountains to slow down, my body finally said, “I’ve carried you long enough, now I will make you stop and pay attention.” That was my first Wake Up Call. It resulted in three years of major medical problems and a lifetime of blood thinners. Pretty embarrassing for a “healer.”
I am often reminded again to slow down with more Wake Up Calls. When I experience a higher than normal load of stress, don’t exercise and push myself too hard, something shows up. Recently it was a bad case of vertigo. Today, my back “went out” from a week of traveling, stress, no exercise and a not-so-perfect diet.
I am constantly reminded that my body is out of balance when I have been neglecting my self-care, pushing myself hard and not eating like I should. We all pay the price for this and stress is the biggest culprit.
What inspired me to share this is I had a patient that really got to me– a 29 year-old woman who was just diagnosed with breast cancer and is facing a mastectomy in 2 weeks. Wow, talk about a Wake Up Call! She is blown away but admitted that her life has been full of stress, she had eaten poorly and had taken her body for granted. Her life is now changed forever.
And recently, I saw another patient who was diagnosed with MS. Ironically, the patient reminded me to take care of myself because she didn’t want me to end up like her. It was a great reminder.
What’s it going to take? We go on with our lives and forget to take care of ourselves until our body forces us to do it. Please, let’s all remember to take time for ourselves. You don’t want to have that BIG CALL…