I am not one who consciously makes a list of new year’s resolutions.  Rather, my life seems to consist of regular tidal motion, a continual ebbing and flowing of goal setting and goal re-evaluation, in a constant attempt to live the best life I can in the present moment.  I am always aware of this intent.  I also always seem to be aware of falling short.  As I  reviewed 2022 and looked at ways to live better in 2023, I came to a somewhat shocking realization.

I know that caring for body, mind, and spirit are all necessary to live my best life.  I thought I was doing a decent job of addressing this trifecta of self-care.  And I was…

…but not all three parts simultaneously.  I would manage to care for one, maybe two, parts at a time, but almost never all three.

That was the great revelation to me.

Yes, I was intentional about caring for my body, but that came at the expense of nourishing my mind.  Or, I would get totally wrapped up in reading to nourish my mind and skimp on nourishing my body.  (Because i can effortlessly eat popcorn while reading). I can sleep in on Sunday mornings to give my body the extra rest that it so often craves; this comes at the expense of nourishing my soul because I will then either skip my long Sunday morning walks or skip community worship.

On the multiple choice test where the question was, “Of mind, body, and spirit, which combination is necessary for complete self-care?’  I never got to the correct answer, which is “All of the above.”  I have and do utilize good practices for taking care of each of the parts of me.  What I lack is an effective and sustainable way to integrate them all on a daily basis.  The compartmentalizing of my self-care is what has kept me from feeling like I am living my best life.

Good to know!

From this realization came my primary intention for 2023 – figure out how to live a more balanced life, one that nurtures and sustains all of the vital parts. Body, mind, and spirit on a daily basis.

Because I am human, when faced with the need for some radical change in my daily way of living, I first met this challenge with resistance.  “I can’t possibly do it all.  There are only so many hours in a day and mine are already filled by what I am currently doing!” But, because I truly want to do the best I can to achieve my goal of balance, I confronted that resistance head on to understand why that was my knee-jerk response.

The answer was quite simple.  I have always compartmentalized my life.  Life is much easier to manage that way.  Why?  For me this is because I don’t like to multi-task.  I can and have lived in situations where multi-tasking is an essential life skill, but I don’t like existing that way.  If I have the option, I will not multi-task.  When I am doing something, I prefer to give my full attention to whatever that something is.  If I am eating, I want to focus on the food and the process of eating.  If I am running, I want my attention to be on the physical aspects required of running well.  If I am reading, I don’t want any distractions of any kind; I want to be one with the world of that book.  When I am practicing music, I want to leave this world behind and escape to that magical place where connection like no other exists.

Can you see my issue?  Such a lifestyle is not practical or even possible.  Intellectually, I know that.  Yet still I dream.  The reality here, though, is that my inability or unwillingness to multi-task is the missing link in integrating and balancing self-care of body, mind, and spirit.   It is not that I need to “do” more; rather, it is that I need to approach and think about the things that I do do differently.

For example:

• When I run, I always listen to music, preferably music that makes my body feel strong.  (A favorite group for this is Two Steps from Hell).  I have never been a fan of audio books, likely because I am a visual learner and want to see the words.  But, if I was to listen to an audio book while on the treadmill, my body and mind would be nourished simultaneously.  And possibly my spirit too, as the book may help to distract me from my feelings of defeat that often accompany mile 4.5-5.5 of a 10K run.
• Recipes are abundant and free on the Internet, But there is something wonderful about picking up a skillfully written and photographed cookbook.   Such cookbooks contain not only recipes, but also stories about the recipe ingredients, or culture from which the recipe originates, or personal anecdotes.   Our body is nourished by the food.  Our mind by learning about what we are putting into our bodies, and our spirits by appreciating the beauty of the book itself and the connections that it encourages us to make with all that was necessary to bring food to our tables.
• I have the luxury of being within a comfortable walking distance to work, approximately a mile and a half.  Depending on the traffic lights, the walk takes me between 22 and 25 minutes.  It is easy to think about this walk as being simply a necessary means to get from point A to point B.  But, it can be so much more.  Any time spent moving is good for the body.  Being outside, even in suburbia, listening to the birds, seeing the squirrels playing, feeling the air and sun on your face is good for the spirit.  It makes us feel connected to the living world that surrounds us.  And walks provide a playground for the active mind.  But, one has to be open to seeing, hearing, and feeling the possibilities.  When I become hyper-focused only on where I am going, I miss opportunities for simple moments of self-care.
• We regularly eat dinner out with friends on Thursday evenings – diner dinner night.  Though we do eat dinner, food is not our primary purpose most of the time.  Friendship is.  And nothing nourishes the spirit more than time spent in the company of true friends.  I am trying to be careful with my sodium intake thanks to having rogue blood pressure.  Eating out and a low sodium diet don’t play well together.  It dawned on me that I don’t have to eat a whole meal when we gather for dinner.  I can order a simple salad or a fruit plate or even just a drink and still enjoy our time together just as much…maybe even more because I am not stressed about the healthiness of my meal.  Since stress is not good for body, mind, or spirit, choosing to focus on fellowship over food becomes a win-win-win situation!

I could continue with many more examples like these, but they all illustrate the same thing.  Finding balance in our lives and feeling successful with self-care does not come exclusively from the things that we do or don’t do.  It comes from thinking and perceiving differently each moment, opportunity, and feeling we experience every day.  Everything that we encounter each day affects and changes us somehow.  Awareness of just how is key to finding a healthy path to physical, mental, and spiritual wholeness.

In a first step to creating this kind of awareness for myself, I decided to journal daily about key aspects in my life – the F This Day part of this post’s title:

• Food – keep a complete and honest food diary, something I have thought about many times but never done.
• Fitness – continue to log miles both run and walked, as well as any other intentional physical activity
• Fun – even on the worst days, something fun usually happens.  This is where a creative perspective is beneficial.
• Food for Thought – Document what I read, watched, heard, or did that made me think?
• Feelings – Mood tracking is a common element for many journalers, a simple, often graphic rather than written, check-in of overall mood and or feelings on a given day.
• F(ph)oto – 2023 is year 11 for me of taking a photo a day to document my life.  Some days I think quite a bit about this daily image.  Other days, not so much.  Some days I am keenly aware of why I took a particular photo.  Other days I have no clue as to what drew me to that subject.  In both cases, something within sparked that creative process and sitting with that something is of vital importance as my daily photos are not entities unto themselves but rather an extension of my lifelong daily journaling practice.

To help me keep track of all of this in one place, so that I can keep it concise and see the “big picture” at a glance, I ordered this Wellness Journal,

I looked at several similar options and decided that for right now, this one will provide the structure and information that I most need.   It contains room for six months of daily entries as well as monthly check-ins.   I’ll see how this new discipline goes.  Since it is so late in the month, I contemplated waiting until the first of February to begin logging information, but I am ready now so I’m going to go for it starting on Sunday January 22.  We’ll see how it goes.

I’d love to hear about habits and disciplines that you practice to help you strive for balance and wholeness and live fully.  Please share them in the comments.

My hope is that wherever we find ourselves on the path each day, that there is always something, even if very small, that makes us feel healthy, happy and whole.