“When I was your age, I had to walk to school through the snow, barefoot. And it was uphill both ways.”
How many of us heard those words, or something similar, growing up? In other words, life is hard, so suck it up.
Perhaps that is why, when I was twenty-two, I was walking through the snow with bronchial pneumonia, to get to a bus that would take me to work. I just thought that’s what adults do. We ignore our ailments and suppress our pain. We “suck it up,” and do what is expected of us. Only now, I am beginning to believe I listened to the wrong voices in my life.
As I’ve shared before, my “work through the pain” mentality landed me in the hospital at twenty-six. I had become so good at ignoring my health, that my body had to double me over in pain to get my attention. It wasn’t until then, that I first began to actually care for my physical self. It changed my life.
But now that I am better at paying attention to myself, I have begun to wonder if I’ve become too good. That I am listening to every voicetelling me to stop, go back, or don’t even think about it—when not all the voices are good.
For example, this morning when my alarm went off, I didn’t feel great. I wasn’t sick. I hadn’t even slept badly. It was just one of those mornings where, for a good half hour after getting out of bed, all you want to do is get back under the covers. Then as I ate breakfast, I realized, it was workout day.
Immediately, all of these reasons why I didn’t have to work out, flooded my brain. I even told myself it wouldn’t be a big deal if I skipped it. Then, remembering all the things that exercise gives me (energy, mental clarity, etc.), I got dressed and worked out. And you know what?
I felt so good after. I had more energy than I did before I worked out, and I was ready to get to work. If I had listened to all the voices telling me not to workout, I would have been in that funk for a good part of the morning, if not my entire day.
These voices are pretty good at what they do. They speak to all my insecurities, fears, and even laziness
Now, if those voices were just there to tell me not to exercise, I wouldn’t have much to write about. Only, these same voices work against me all the time. They tell me it would be more fun to watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory on TV, rather than read the book promising to help grow my business. They’re there, telling me to quit, when I have something computer-y to do to my website that I don’t know anything about. And they tell me, I don’t have what it takes to build an online business. That I should just give up and go back to retail.
These voices are pretty good at what they do. They speak to all my insecurities, fears, and even laziness. But they do so in a way that seems to make sense. They invite me to do what is tried and tested, what is safer, and what everyone else expects.
But as an adult, I am learning that the successful grown-up is not the one who listens to these voices. They are not the martyr or victim who ignores their body or their heart. The whole, healthy adult is the one who learns to listen to the voices that will best serve their health, their calling, and their community.
The whole, healthy adult is the one who learns to listen to the voices that will best serve their health, their calling, and their community.
It is my guess that you too have voices inside giving you bad advice. Perhaps they’re telling you to work yourself to the bone. Or maybe they’re filling you with doubts, telling you to quit, or even more simply, inviting you to stay on the couch. To not do anything too scary, risky, or just plain uncomfortable. Only, the world needs you and me to stop listening, and instead do the things we know we’ve been made to do.
What voices are telling you to do what is comfortable?
What voices are telling you to quit?
What ways can you ignore them?
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Photo by Geert Pieters on Unsplash
