The first step in being healthy in body and mind is to become aware of what effect your choices create and examining why you make those choices.  Because underneath the choice, even if it isn’t one that serves you, there is usually a legitimate need you are trying to meet.  And once you can identify the underlying need, you can begin to explore other ways of meeting it that doesn’t have a negative impact.   To do this, it is ideal to step outside of the critic and judge and simply try to understand from a neutral perspective what you need.

I had a client who recently went through this process.  My client, Jill (named changed), has been trying to lose weight without success.  In looking at her eating patterns, the time that she has the greatest challenge is at night after a long day of work.  Her habit is to snack in the evening, often fluctuating between sweet and salty foods.  She saw the snacking as the problem and was trying to cut out the snacking without success and then feeling like a failure for not being able to be strong enough.  The effect of this habitual choice was that she was continuing to gain weight and this was not desirable for her.

For Jill, the first new awareness was that snacking was the outlet but not the need.  To change the pattern, she first needed to identify what she was trying to give herself with the food.  As we went below the surface with a few simple questions, she realized that she ate as a stress outlet, as a way of letting go from her detail-oriented job, as a way of rewarding herself for getting through another day.  These were all legitimate needs and taking away the outlet to fulfill them without using something else was not working.

Once you understand the real reason you are making certain choices, you can find healthier ways to satisfy your legitimate needs.  This is step two.  For Jill, she began experimenting with other ways to let go and reward herself.  One was to have a regularly weekly date with her spouse, usually on Friday after the long week.  Another was to read which relaxed her and didn’t have a snacking habit associated with it.  The list of possibilities is unlimited and she’s trying out several to see which give her the greatest satisfaction.

Now let’s talk countermeasures.   A countermeasure is an action or series of steps that helps counter the imbalanced action or less-than-desirable side effect from your choice.  Sometimes even knowing a certain action isn’t the healthiest way to meet your need, you still choose it.  And as long as you do this consciously and know how to diffuse the negative impact with countermeasures, occasional choices are okay and won’t lead to crisis points. 

I’ll use an example of mine from just last night.  I don’t drink alcohol because even small amounts make my body feel bad.  Maybe it’s a reaction to sugar.  I’m not sure of the why but I am very clear on what it does!  I also don’t have a need to use alcohol to feel comfortable in social settings or need to do it just because others are.  Therefore, I am perfectly content not drinking.

But every once in awhile I make a choice to have a drink and last night while listening to Irish music with my family at Trinity Pub in Milwaukee I chose to have a Nutty Irishman Coffee (decaf of course since I also don’t drink coffee and with my high energy definitely don’t need the caffeine).  Knowing my body’s reactions to alcohol, I took the proper preventative steps such as eating first and drinking several glasses of water to counter the dehydrating aspects of the drink.  Upon reaching home, I even took some Ayurvedic herbs that help digest sugars and chewed some fennel seeds to settle my stomach.  All of that helped – yet my stomach was still upset, I had a slight headache, and didn’t sleep well.  So this morning I followed up with a nice bowl of immune boosting hot cereal, a clementine, and cup of chamomile green tea. 

I am feeling better.  My countermeasures helped decrease the severity of what I would have felt.  But the drink only gave me a slight amount of satisfaction because I discovered what I really had been craving was the creaminess of coffee with cream and not the sweet of the alcohol.  And the side effects and amount of effort to counteract them weren’t worth the level of satisfaction I got from that choice. 

Armed with my latest knowledge, next time I’ll know to just choose the coffee with whipped cream and skip the alcohol.  This is step four: use each experience whether good or bad to help your future choices.

Whatever choices you make each day, making them with greater awareness and building on the experiences that come out of the choices will help you make choices more consistently that do serve you.  And if you have any stories of you journey with choices, feel free to share.