I love my new doctor. To go along with the move, I now have a new HMO insurance, which brings its own frustrations, and a new primary physician.
First she ran blood tests to get a baseline of health and surprise, surprise my body is showing signs of stress. So this visit was to discuss the results. Cholesterol jumped back up. Gained 10 pounds. Blood pressure up.
Did I just throw all my health training out the window? Well in a word, yes.
She gently touched my arm. “What’s going on?”
I took a deep breath and spilled. Mom is in Hospice and having increased days of pain and it feels like she’s being asked to choose between pain free and brain free. The drugs make her confused.
I still don’t have a job here or a renter there so I’m juggling two house payments. Tried to rob Peter to pay Paul and learned Paul is a thug and not having it.
I’m a writer and a health coach – two creative fields that don’t thrive in fear. But I found myself spiraling out of control down the fear well with emotional eating, not exercising, missing spiritual and social events that would sustain me. So I had to sit myself down, get still and listen for Spirit to get me back on the path.
That was the night before the doctor’s appointment.
I could already feel in my body that I wasn’t headed the right direction so I vowed to get back on track while acknowledging and addressing these overwhelming circumstance. It’s one thing to hear your situation in your head, giving voice to them seemingly gives them power. Or maybe just puts them in perspective. So you can make a plan.
I planned to tell my doctor that stress was getting in the way of my health. She already knew from the numbers.
“Well I don’t want to start off with a lot of pills,” she said. “I want to try natural ways first.” I was in heaven. I used to have a big bowl with 26 different vials of medicine that I took daily. I felt like a walking pharmacy. It’s part of what sent me on this natural wellness journey.
We talked about daily exercise, increasing my water and fiber. Things I go into detail with my clients. Then she touched my arm again, “do you pray? Good!”
Thank you God, I have been blessed with a doctor who is on the same page. A gentle reminder from Spirit that, “I got you.”
I told the nurse practitioner earlier that I walked an extra block because parking across the street from her office was $5 an hour but only $5 a day a block further. I did it for the exercise but more for the money saved as this visit could last at least a couple hours with testing. We laughed at how money motivates us. She relayed that she has a friend with cancer in Houston’s Medical Center where parking can be $12 an hour.
She was going to visit and pray with her friend in the facility and saw the parking prices. “I had to have a little talk with Jesus. This prayer is gonna be just as good at home as it is in the hospital right? It’s still gonna reach her, right?” She opted to park at the facility and pray with her friend in person and even made her friend laugh at the story.
Be it the trivial, or the overwhelming, Spirit is always just a prayer away.
This is not where I say that because of prayer I now have a job or money overflowing. That will come, I believe it will. But I have released the fear which allows creativity to return. Which in turn allows me to see Spirit walking with me in the valley and the hills.
So I decided to visit my health coaching website www.TheresaHealthySoul.com on my desktop computer so I could soak in all the peaceful and nurturing images that can’t be seen on my tablet. Like a visual mantra, I allowed the images to wash over me as I remembered feeling guided by Spirit when I initially created the site. Welcome to the new you. Wellness is natural. Listen, be gentle with yourself.
I needed to embrace the message I was giving away. And so I did. It felt good. Stress will always be lurking in the darkness. The trick is to not let it derail you and get you off track of being all that you are meant to be.
And if you get derailed, put on the brakes. Stop. Listen. Breathe. Pray. Listen. Spirit has a way of guiding you back to your path.
Theresa Healthy Soul 