When I realized I would not be able to play a game I love with my daughter I knew in my heart and soul it was time for change, real change!
I needed to take a different path.
I love to play baseball. I’ve played all my life. In my younger years I played competitively and was actually pretty good. I pitched and played the infield. Over the years, as I transitioned from competitive ball to slow pitch, I shifted from shortstop and second base to third base. Longer throws to first base and more strain on the shoulder and arm.
It got to the point that throwing was very painful. I had sustained an injury to my shoulder, or so I had thought. The truth was really much more than that. Eventually, as life and work got busier, I played less and less and threw less and less until I just stopped. The pain diminished. Every spring I would toss the ball around and it would flare up so I would stop, again. My shoulder problems persisted and were bad enough to stop the activity and be frustrating but not bad enough to really do something about it. As time passed it just slipped away.
Then the dilemma. I was asked to come out and play slow pitch as a sub. I said no. I said no to doing something I love and framed the story as my poor shoulder could not handle it. It hurt giving up on a passion in my life. After a bit of self sympathy I simply carried on. Then it happened again, and again. Each time reminding me of what I was giving up leaving me feeling down and upset that I could not play. It ate away at who I am at the very core. Each time reinforcing a life of “that’s just the way it is” victimization.
It was not until trying to play catch with my young daughter and feeling the pain… again that the frustration of merely enduring life became painful enough to really do something about it. I could not bear the thought of my daughter growing up with her dad unable to play with her. I want to play catch with her. Simple as that. Deeper though was that I want to fully participate in all aspects of her living a full life, of me living a full life and this was one limiting factor. For me there was much more but this was the trigger. This was a wake up call for me to real sustainable change.
It’s gotta start somewhere. All too often your trigger, your wake up call, is not powerful enough or does not feel important enough. You end up sliding back into your old pattern of life until the next time.
Each of us must awaken to the need to change before any real, long lasting change can take place. I know this. I teach this. It is the first principle of my 7 Principles of Thriving Health. Even so, I am as vulnerable as you to the influences on me in my life and the gradual development of patterns and habits that lead me down a gradual path to a “train wreck” with my health and my resulting inability to do the things I love and be the way I want to be.
It’s frustrating, depressing, sometimes agonizing but it also shifts to being somewhat annoying, then tolerable, then it goes unnoticed until it simply is. Normal. My normal, your normal leaving us enduring life instead of really embracing and living the life we want to live; the one we deserve to live.
Today I begin to share with you one path, my path, of achieving and living with Thriving Health. I share the beginning of a shift towards a new normal, one that delivers a desired form of lifestyle.
Does my story resonate thus far?
What pains (emotional and physical) and frustrations are you enduring in your life that you have come to frame as “that’s just the way it now is”?
What is the story you tell yourself limiting taking any action and firmly entrenching it as the way it is?
Awaken to this and you too can create a new normal.
Stay tuned as I continue to share my path and each step with you. Next I will introduce the common themes we all need to awaken to that hold us back from the Thriving Health we desire. I am sure at least one of them will have played a part of your life at some point, maybe even all of them.
Remember…
“Life is meant to be embraced, enjoyed and fully lived, not merely endured!”
To your health,
Brent
Be an advocate of Thriving Health. Forward this to anyone you feel would appreciate receiving this message. Thanks for your support. I appreciate it.
Beginning with a degree in exercise science and kinesiology, Brent Haydey has evolved over thirty years as an entrepreneur; building four businesses, and as a health, executive, and life coach.