You may have heard about Whole30. It has become pretty popular since its beginning in 2009. My husband and I decided to try it to reset after the holidays. Sugary and starchy foods are all too common from November until January, and our bodies can begin to crave them. We decided to nip that in the bud and do a complete reset in January to start the new year off right.
Here is my experience.
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It's a common concern I hear about. When Christians start delving into the world of more natural options regarding their health, they can run into a lot of confusing information. Some of the practices that seem like they could help are condemned as new age or occult.
When this happens, you need to take a careful look at what the practice is versus what people have made it to be.
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Do you want to improve your overall health in the new year but aren't sure how to go about it?
So many people set healthy New Year's resolutions like "eat healthier" or "exercise more." However, those aren't very effective goals because they're not measurable. Eat healthier than what? How much do you need to exercise to be "more"?
Let's look at some good goals that will actually inspire you toward better health.
Modern/western medicine has only been around for a relatively short period of time. Yes, it is all that most of us have known, but a hundred years is a tiny fraction of the span of human history.
How did people survive without the medicines we know today?
They used what the earth provided. Plants have incredible powers to keep us healthy and give our bodies what they need to heal.
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Grief, I think, is the most difficult circumstance of life to navigate.
It is a journey on which you are entirely alone. No one else feels exactly the way you do, so you don’t feel like there is anyone who truly understands, anyone you can really talk to about it.
Each relationship is unique, so each grief is unique, and that quote, “Where there is deep grief, there was great love” ... it’s true. Please remember that you are entitled to your grief, no matter what anyone else feels.
And if you are experiencing a loss that's less "accepted" – maybe a beloved pet or an unborn baby or biological family you never met but feel just as deeply as the loss of immediate family – you will probably feel even more alone because there are people who will think it’s not a big deal and others who will not even know you're grieving. Just remember the truth of your love; that is the only appropriate gauge by which to measure grief.
I once read a shockingly accurate illustration of grief. It was posted on Reddit by a person who goes by “GSnow” in response to a simple plea of “My friend just died. I don’t know what to do.” I share it here in hopes that it will help someone else the way it helped me.
“As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float.
“You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.
“In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float.
“After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function.
“You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything … and the wave comes crashing.
“But in between waves, there is life.
“Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.
“Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them, too.”
How does this help? By knowing it's a wave. It will recede, and you'll have a chance to breathe again. Sometimes, it doesn't seem like you'll ever come out the other side of that wave. But you will. Trust that. Don't fight the waves, just ride them. Your feelings are valid. Concentrate on surviving one wave at a time. You can make it through.
If you feel like you’re drowning in your grief and have no one to help you float, please feel free to contact me. I am not a doctor or therapist, but I am a listening ear who has been through the waves, and I will not measure or shame your tears.
Written in honor of the greatest loss of my life – April 26, 2019.
