Raise your hand 🙋🏽♀️🙋🏽♂️ if you have one of the following:
COVID-Gut
COVID-Butt
COVID-Thighs
COVID....
Ahh hell just raise your hand. I can't be the only one. I really thought I'd be more productive during this pandemic toward my fitness goals but sadly I have not. Uber Eats, Door Dash, and Bite Squad have in no way helped me. Fast food got faster and I didn't even have to drive to go get it. 😯 Now how lazy is that? Lord help us all. Why does grease taste so good? Stop drooling over the picture below. Calories, grease, heart disease. Oh my! 😲
Anyway...it's ok. I am NOT going to beat myself up over it and I don't want you to either. What we can do though, is find ways to get started with a FOCUSED habit of living healthier lives.
This Focus Your Health blog will cover many ways to get you focused on living your best life through physical fitness, mental, and spiritual health particularly for African American families. If you didn't know, there are significant disparities in healthcare when it comes to Black families, especially mental health. Some things are beyond our control, meaning the system in which we must live. I mean look how differently America treated the crack cocaine addiction versus the opioid addiction. Lock 'em up and treat one as criminals, treat the other as mental health patients.
Admittedly though, we are an ethnicity who thinks it's taboo to speak to a therapist. And I quote, "That's that White people stuff!" Sad...but true. This is how most of us think. For one, we don't want to talk about our issues, especially to people who don't look like us. And two, most of us can't afford it! That's the bigger issue. More on that at a later date.
So let's work on the things we can control. This blog will give you ways to create daily habits that will lead to huge victories over time. Let's start with this:
✅ Spiritual Health
We have to protect and improve our mental at all costs and that starts with our Spiritual Health. Spirituality is defined so differently between people. To some, it's our connection to a higher power. To others, it's our connection to our Ancestors. Then there are those of us who feel it's our connection to nature.
I tend to believe it's all three. I hear God, I'm grateful for what I've learned from my Ancestors, and I feel both most when in nature. I definitely believe there is something greater than ourselves that guides us through life, cautioning us when we're about to jack stuff up and affirming us when we're on the right path. Y'all have to decide what spirituality means to you. What's important is how we use it to benefit our health and ultimately benefit those around us.
Spirituality gives our lives a deeper meaning and a sense of purpose. It lowers depression and has been known to affect your physical health as well. Here are 5 simple ways to get started:
Thank God/the Ancestors/your higher power...whomever, for giving you another opportunity to get it right. What is it? Life. Everyday you wake up is another chance to do something different. Be thankful for that.
Read spiritual books/text daily. Try to apply what you read to your everyday life. I like to do this first thing in the morning, before I get out of bed. It just sets my day off right and I can always tell when I haven't. I use the Bible App by YouVersion and the Daily Word.
Post scriptures or affirmations all around the house where you'll see them most. Post things that will remind you of how awesome you are, how much God/the ancestors/your high power is looking out for you and that as long as there is breath in your body you can keep going.
Journal your thoughts. I admit that this is not an easy one for me. I used to write all the time but now there's so much on my mind that I actually find it hard to get it all on paper. I found this awesome journal that has starter sentences to help you get your thoughts on paper. You can find it here at regalrealness.com,
Find time during the day to sit in meditation. At some point, you need to clear mind. If you're not used to meditating try using apps and websites like Calm to get you started.
There are so many ways for us to Focus Our Health. This was just a snippet to kick off your spiritual health journey. I think that's a good place to start but we're going to have to 🎶dig a little deeper🎶 (in my Princess Tiana's voice). Check back periodically for more ways to Focus Your Health and I'll have ways to keep your mental and physical health in check with all this craziness going on in the world. See y'all soon!
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