Wherever you are in your journey to be healthier in body, soul and spirit, it’s unlikely that you’ve got everything completely sussed in this area. The good news is that being whole in body spirit and soul doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve achieved some pinnacle of health, it’s more to do with having the right things in place. The video and blog below explore this a bit more detail, and share ways to targetting the triggers that can trip you up and keep you from achieving wholeness.

Body, spirit and soul wholeness is a little bit like financial wholeness: when you’re financially whole it doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily a millionaire, but rather that you have a plan. Even if you don’t have much money, you can still be saving some, putting some towards a pension, using some food, using some for fun things, using some for an emergency fund, or whatever. The financial pillars are all in place and you start to feel like a grown-up, knowing where all your money is and where it’s all going. And It’s a bit like that with our body spirit and soul health. We aren’t going to be ‘millionaires’ yet, and we’re possibly not going to be millionaires in that sense until we get to heaven, but if we have the right pillars in place we can move forward.

But, the problem is a lot of the time we put sticking plasters over things that need sorting out. Instead of working on the pillars and moving forward from good foundations we often gloss over issues, or apply a quick fix but don’t actually look at what’s going on underneath. So, it might be that you give something up: perhaps you give up television otr alcohol for a month, or you do Couch to 5K and really go for it. Or you commit to some kind of exercise programme for a month or two. And in the short term you may feel good and reap some rewards. You could be healthier for a period of time, but at what cost?

Often these kinds of ‘quick fixes’ can actually put you out of balance and may hold you back because you haven’t worked out what’s really going on, opting instead for a little plaster over the wound. If you’ve ever been a yo-yo dieter for example, you will know that you are perfectly capable of losing some weight, but what happens next? All too often the weight all goes back on again and nothing much has been learnt. And the same goes for any kind of health craze, where you can really go for something and put all your energy into it in the short term. But when you look at the bigger picture, the whole experience has actually put you out of balance a little bit. 

To give you a personal example, in the past, when I did Weight Watchers I just immersed myself in it. I’d just moved to a new town and I’d go to the meetings, take home the magazine and just pour over it. I’d be on all the group message and chat boards, planning and tracking. But I was out of balance because, for a start, it stopped me from getting out of my bedroom meeting people, but more than that, it became my whole focus. And for a time maybe my body was slightly healthier, but my spirit, soul and mind certainly weren’t.

So instead of putting sticking plasters over the wound what can we do? Well, I think we need to target whatever triggers us into not quite living to our potential in the area of body spirit and soul health. We need to ask ourselves what’s really going on – and there can be many reasons we can’t move forward.

Is it that you actually don’t believe that you can be healthier? Is it that you’ve got all the head knowledge but somehow you just you just can’t do it? Is it where you live, your surroundings and environment that just trip you up all the time? Is it because you go to lots of social occasions and you can’t say no when people offer you different kinds of food? Is it because you actually crave sugar and keep going round and round in the sugar cycle? Is it because you don’t like exercise or you think you don’t like it because you’ve never found an exercise that you enjoy doing? Is it because you feel self-conscious when you exercise? Is it because you are addicted to Netflix?

The reasons may be many and complex, but I strongly encourage you to try and work them out and a good way of doing this is to ask yourself ‘why’? So to give you an example:  “I over-ate last night; I ate a whole pack of biscuits. Why? Because they were there. Why? Because I let them be in the house. Why? Because actually I quite like them being there, because when I feel upset I like to eat them. Why? Because I don’t feel I can do anything else, it’s the only thing I know. Why? Because so-and-so is not talking to me. Why?” 

And you can go on like that until you get to the root of what’s really going on. Until you work that out, you will be trying to move forward on a false footing and are more likely to slip. So, I challenge you to really find out what your triggers are: Perhaps it’s your mindset, your limiting beliefs, or that you’ve tried it before but it hasn’t happened for you? Are you an emotional eater? Is that you’re self-sabotaging? Is it that you’ve just got unhealthy habits and just need some help change them? What’s going on for you? 

So, take a pause, reflect and work it out. It might involve praying, journalling, talking to God, talking to a friend, talking to a group, talking to a coach or personal trainer if you have one, or doing some kind of course or programme. Whatever you choose, try and dig deep rather than glossing over the issues. That way you will have a firm foundation to move forward in obtaining wholeness in body spirit and soul. 

If emotional eating is something that you might struggle with and you want to overcome it, then check out our very first Fitfish Quiz.  It will help you find out if you are an emotional eater and what kind of emotional eating you do, and from there you can work on firm foundations to build yourself a healthier future.