Why Be Healthy?

As I look at my own progress at becoming healthier, and my process around attaining a level of health that allows me to live a fulfilled life, I look around and I see people...people that I know who aren't so healthy and seem quite often, unhappy with life.

I define "healthy" in a variety ways...it's me digging deep, excavating my old issues, ridding my soul of those skeletons who've I left to rot and corrupt my vision and potential to grow. It's me no longer beating all those dead horses for not having had this or that in my childhood and no longer allowing myself to be comforted by my own dysfunction.

Healthy is making conscious choices about my food. What I put in my body is what I also feed my mind, my soul and my spirit.

As a health and wellness counselor, I am very much invested and interested in helping get others to the state where I am now, I'm happy. And I'm happy MOST of the time. As one client said to me, "I wanna be where you're at. I wanna drive over to where you are!"
Drive, now, that's a very LA thing to say!

But that hasn't always been me...for most of my life, I (by no means) had ever been close to being a spokesperson for health and wellbeing. And that helps me answer the question of why be healthy. Why is health important to me, or to you? There's a saying that says life is like a river, no matter when you step into it, it's always changing... well so is your health and sense of wellbeing. So tomorrow or next week, I can find another good reason for being healthy, but for now this is what I had on my mind...

I woke up last night in the middle of the night thinking about this. I was thinking about how to articulate the answer to those questions around health. I was thinking about the choices we make as individuals. Then later this morning, I got a phone call from my 16 yr old niece, and I found a simple answer.

I want to be healthy to be a role model for young girls (especially girls of color) who still have so much to life to live, so much to experience. I want to continue to inspire them to make choices for all the right reasons. I want them to know that in this world, there are women who make the choice to be healthy because they know that it allows them to believe they can live and fulfill their dreams. I want to be healthy because I love myself, and I love myself more because I choose to be healthy. So I want them to know that they can love themselves too...and that they should.

That's my answer, what's yours?

Live a good life...