That’s my body talking to my brain…. She, (my body) seems particularly angry with me lately, as “she” now has to wear pants with buttons instead of the summer dresses and comfy drawstring shorts. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to mess with “her”- who knows what “her” revenge would be. Perhaps a popped button or hole in my pants in public.
All joking aside, (I’m also done referring to my body as a person-you’re welcome) much of my writing, and overall thoughts, seem to focus on mental health, emotional health, and spiritual health. My body is getting ticked off. Actually, the view I saw in the mirror, was what was ticking me off. Recently, my overall physical health, is one that has taken a back to all my other (needy) needs. Part of me is like “embrace your body and who you are.” The other part is like “But why stay this way if you are unhappy and not feeling healthy.” If you have read any of my previous posts, you know “Happy” is my mission, so let’s talk about the importance of physical health in our lives.
The term “Resilience” has always been powerful to me, especially, as a counselor. There are some people that just “walk the walk” of resilience. we look at them and think “wow, look what they have overcome, and they are still thriving.” So, what is Resilience? How does resilience relate to this widow’s earlier paragraph, where her body was going to seek revenge and pop a button in public? To answer these questions, let’s first dive into what resilience means.
If you look up Resilience, there are many definitions that you will find. My favorite is: To bend and not break. To me this definition means, that no matter what life throws at you, you keep going, surviving, living, despite the odds. Before my husband passed away, I viewed resilience as a characteristic that was “possessed”. Something, some people just had vs. their counterpart, who seemed to be “breaking” in a similar situation.
This summer, however, I attended a life changing empowerment weekend (a Modern Widow’s Club yearly event). This weekend, was surrounded by other women just like myself, who had lost their spouse. This is where my new view on resilience, started. This new view, entailed the idea, that we actually can build resilience in ourselves. Isn’t that such an amazing thought?!!! We actually, have the ability to look at our tragedy and say- “I will bend but I will never break.” But, just like anything- it takes work. And what do you think is one of the key factors is in building resilience? “Oh, look at you smarty pants, you guessed it- Physical Health!”
Now let’s be clear here, I am in no way, shape, or form an expert in this topic. I just know that when I exercise and eat right- I feel good and vice versa, when I eat like crap and don’t exercise- I feel gross. Which the latter, is where I am finding myself, as of lately. With everything in life, there are ebbs and flows, just like our physical health. But as I went back to work after summer vacation, I found myself struggling to balance all the craziness, which included shoving whatever food I had time for, in my face, and not exercising.
So what do the actual excerpts say about Resilience and Physical Health. At my Modern Widow’s Empowerment weekend, one of our keynote speakers was Dr. Steven Southwick. Dr. Steven devoted his studies to Reliance, and wrote a book titled “Resilience: Mastering the Science of Life’s Greatest Challenges.” Of course while I was at the conference, Amazon was delivering the book to my door (don’t you just love Amazon). In his studies, he noted that there are 10 key factors in building resilience, and surprise, surprise, Physical Health is one of them.
So what do these finding say? I promise, they will not shock you, but I will pose the question: If the findings are not shocking, and in fact common knowledge, then why don’t we get as much physical activity as we require? Ready? Here is the list of Dr. Southwick’s findings, regarding getting enough physical activity: reduces depression, decrease anxiety, improve sex life (ugh.. mom don’t read that-ha), improves brain functioning-including decision making, attention, memory and planning, improves mood, protects us from chronic and future stress, and lowers the likelihood of future mental illness (Southwick, 2018). Pretty sure, I want everything on that list!!!!
I knew my situation (loosing a spouse) was gut-wrenchly painful, life changing and stressful, but at my empowerment weekend I found out that according to the “Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory” my experience was life’s most stressful event. Now isn’t that just fun information to learn about yourself (sick humor- I know). I want to emphasize, that loss is my tragedy, my stress- but we all have tragedies that we will face throughout our lives (yes, I said “we will” face-I am pretty positive you won’t go through life without stress or tragedy- aren’t I a bright, little ray of sunshine). I know after my tragedy- the odds were stacked against me. So anything that I can do to “bend and not break” was both necessary and urgent. I want you to know, that it is equally important to anyone, (not just widow’s) that are surviving through their own tragedy or stressful life event.
So to ensure we are all on the same page here: Tragedy and stressful life events suck. We will have one or more of those crappy events in our lifetime. We can change how we view the outcome of these sucky events, by building resilient factors within ourselves. The widow, not health expert, found that Physical Activity was one of those factors. I included enhancing your sex life as also a positive feature of physical activity, and my mom probably read that. All joking aside, if you find yourself currently, or in the future, trudging through the “yuck” of life- know that exercise can help, and potentially make you a more resilient person. Isn’t that cool!
The challenge becomes that we need to make time to do it. Today, I was sad and having a “grief” day. I did do other positive things to make help lift my spirits, but I also included exercising. I really didn’t want to. But after, I was done, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I was able to take control over my grief. Even though, I can’t control what I have experienced-loss (insert your stress). I can control my body and how I move it. Those 30 minutes of activity, are not only one of the 10 resilient factors, those moments of physical activity also helped me take control over Grief, for the moment and future moments. There is no other way to say it than- “Damn, that feels good!”
So take it from this widow, if you want to feel better, build your resilience, and take control back- peel your sad- self off the floor (that was me- earlier in the day) and get your body moving!!!!!
Resources:
https://www.stress.org/holmes-rahe-stress-inventory/
https://www.amazon.com/Resilience-Science-Mastering-Greatest-Challenges
Life is short, but sweet for certain-DMB