FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®️: 'HEALTHY' CAN FEEL HEAVY
I have to admit, my friend, that 'healthy' is not one of my favorite words. Do I want to live in good health? Of course, I do! After all, health is one of my top values for 2024.
But I think the word 'healthy' comes loaded with preconceived notions and unrealistic images. I think it causes many women anxiety and even fear.
Keep listening to hear a few more of my thoughts about this and how I encourage you to work around your history with the word 'healthy'.
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I'm Karli Newman, and you're listening to FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®️, a podcast for women in midlife and beyond who want to feel connected, hopeful, confident, and more satisfied with life than ever before.
I show up here each week to help you deepen your awareness and gain knowledge to expand into the powerful and resilient woman you are.
It is one of my greatest joys to help you foster a positive mindset and encourage you to explore the endless possibilities on the FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®️.
I invite you to sign up for my feel-good emails and visit my website, flipsideofmidlife.com, where you'll find all the ways I help women in midlife and beyond. I'm launching my ELEVATE membership soon, and you can peruse my coaching programs, virtual workshops, private retreats, and wellness events in Phoenix.
Wherever you are on your journey, there's a space for you to tap into my positive vibes, knowledge, and experience. I promise to help you discover, learn, and grow so you can live a positive life where the possibilities are endless.
As a woman in midlife and beyond, you've been inundated for years with fad diets, unrealistic beauty standards that somehow got correlated with health, crazy workout trends, and marketing tactics that make companies a lot of money from all of it.
Maybe you were raised and compared to a version of 'healthy' that never suited you. If so you may have spent years viewing yourself as 'unhealthy'. Perhaps this is still a very challenging topic for you.
In this stage of life, 'healthy' is shifting more than it has since you were in puberty. Hormonal changes are wreaking havoc on your body and mind, and even your doctors aren't talking about it.
As you look forward, ‘healthy’ becomes more involved than you may have experienced to this point. There's so much to think about and plan for as you age.
Because of all of this, the word ‘healthy’ can feel really heavy. That's why I'm here to help you think in terms of a wellness lifestyle instead.
Yes, health is an important part of a wellness lifestyle, but this is a more holistic point of view. Because wellness isn't only what your doctor tells you to do or how often you hit the gym or the date of your last period.
Wellness includes all areas of your life. I like to reference the Eight Dimensions of Wellness when thinking about my wellness lifestyle, and I encourage you to do the same. The eight dimensions are physical, emotional, spiritual, social, intellectual, occupational, environmental, and financial.
A wellness lifestyle is your whole life. And it's different for each of us. You get to decide what it looks and feels like for you. That's one of my favorite things about creating a wellness lifestyle.
Today, I'm here with three key decisions to help you create your wellness lifestyle, but let's start with a few prompts first. Grab your journal, notebook, or your favorite app, and if you aren't in a space to take down some notes right now, listen through to the end, you'll know what to expect. I'll put a time marker in the show notes and transcript for you so you can land right back here when you're ready, and to keep it easy, I'll put the prompts in those same places, too.
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Here are the prompts that will help you as you make your three key decisions, a little further into the episode.
Number one.
How do you define wellness? This is where you get to write your own personal definition.
Number two. What does a lifestyle of wellness look like in each of the Eight Dimensions of Wellness for you? Again, those eight dimensions are physical, emotional, spiritual, social, intellectual, occupational, environmental, and financial.
Third prompt.
Why is it important for you to create a lifestyle of wellness? List, all of the reasons you want to live this way.
And prompt number four. What possibilities do you see emerging when you foster your wellness lifestyle? How might you change? How might your life change?
Once you've made it through these prompts and you've been able to do some quality thinking, use your notes for the following three key decisions.
The first key decision is to decide to create whole life wellness in the way that works best for you.
Pull inspiration from others, sure. But this decision is about you. And it won't always look the same either. The way that works best for you now will evolve as you learn and grow and move through your life. This first key decision is as much about believing that you are the expert on you, which you most definitely are, as it is about remaining flexible and honoring your needs and feelings as time goes on.
The second key decision is to decide to foster a positive growth mindset. This may be a big change for you. Your lifestyle of wellness will most likely require a desire to learn and an openness to change.
You may want more knowledge in certain areas. You will probably have to step outside of your current comfort zone to fulfill your possibilities. A positive growth mindset allows you to believe in your ability to change and boost your curiosity to continue learning and growing.
The third key decision is to decide to take action. Remember this, my friend. Taking a step will always move you further forward than thinking about taking a step.
You know why you want to create a wellness lifestyle. You've written it down. You are committed to developing and maintaining a positive growth mindset. This third decision is where you make it a reality.
When you get overwhelmed or are experiencing information overload, take the smallest step you can think of. Then take another one. The momentum will build.
This is your journey, my friend. You call the shots. But that doesn't mean you have to go it alone. As you notice struggles and obstacles that keep you from your defined wellness lifestyle, seek help.
It might be from someone like me who's an expert in whole-life wellness. It could be from a friend or a family member who can act as an accountability partner for you. It might be from the practitioners in your healthcare circle. It also could be from a social group you find for women in midlife and beyond. There are so many resources out there, my friend.
Let's recap. First, I'm not a big fan of the word 'healthy'. Maybe you feel the same.
Think about building a lifestyle of wellness instead of getting and being 'healthy'.
You can refer to the eight dimensions of wellness as you define and create your wellness lifestyle. Doing so fosters wellness in all areas of your life, or as I call it whole-life wellness. Those eight dimensions are physical, emotional, spiritual, social, intellectual, occupational, environmental, and financial.
Your wellness lifestyle is unique to you. You get to define what it looks and feels like.
After answering the prompts, you have three key decisions to make.
The first decision is to create whole-life wellness in the way that works best for you. The second is to foster a positive growth mindset. And the third decision is to take action.
Last, remember you are not on this journey alone. Like the rest of midlife and beyond creating a wellness lifestyle is better when we do it with others.
Thanks for listening to FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®️. I'd love to hear from you. What got you thinking during this episode?
Email me at karli@flipsideofmidlife.com, or if you're listening on Spotify, use your mobile app to respond to my Q and A and poll questions.
Wherever you listen, it's helpful if you hit the button to follow, subscribe, rate, or write a review. When you do, you help other women in midlife and beyond find this podcast. Consider me forever grateful if you recommend FLIPSIDE OF MIDLIFE®️ to your friends.
Find me here, same time, same place, next week, my friend!
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