Recalibrating

I grew up in a household where healthy eating was paramount.  My grandfather kept 1/3 of an acre in organic garden before organic gardening even had a name.  My grandmother was always into vitamins and supplements, but when my father had a health crisis when I was 10, she went into overdrive researching how to restore his health. There's been a lot of research on creating health in the last two decades, but not so much when I was a kid. Unfortunately, no amount of healthy eating was going to undo a cigarette-smoking habit that started at 7 and persisted through countless health crises before claiming my father's life.

Along the way, however, Grandma infected me with the understanding that we can be in control of our health outcomes.  Since I was 10, I've been aware that what I ate made a difference.  Not unlike many young adults, I didn't always eat the way I should, but I knew the difference.  By the time I was 25, my failure to eat the way I knew I should resulted in me packing an unnecessary 15 pounds. I was pre-diabetic.

A doctor sat me down and had a long talk with me about my intentions.  He made it very clear that if I kept my weight in the normal- to slightly-below normal range, I would probably never develop diabetes.  But, with that formidable disease on both sides of my family, he said, I was almost destined to develop it if I continued to carry that extra weight.  That may have been my first real conversation with anyone about my intentions and the impact of making choices in alignment with them. To this day, whenever I put on a few pounds, I hear his words and take them off.

Back then we weren't talking about exercise so much, but my grandparents were farm people and moved a lot.  Granddad covered miles hunting and fishing, and lamented at 94 that he couldn't jump creeks like he used to. (Really!  We had that conversation.) They were very active.  Three of my four grandparents lived into their 90s.  My maternal grandfather/organic gardener died just short of 100. My paternal great-grandmother lived to 106.  My parents, who didn't make healthy lifestyle choice, both died in their 60s.

During my Midwestern trip last fall, I visited with two aunts--87 and 89--and the mother of a friend who is 94.  All are in amazing shape and truly inspirations.  Healthy lifestyle choices really make a difference.  But that is no surprise to me.

I've been coaching for 25 years, and a number of my Intentional Living Intensive executive and professional clients were totally inflexible and had trouble taking the long walks that were part of the three-day process. I asked clients to stop caffeine and alcohol a week before they came, but a few didn't think that was important.  Several went into serious withdrawal from caffeine; one complained of headaches for the first two days. Most of my clients were around 50, and I'd seen first hand the impact of their choices. About 20 years ago, before it even had a name, I declared that my encore career would be as a health and mobility coaching for older adults, many of whom lose their ability to move because they don't.

It is not uncommon for coaches to have a number of topic-specific credentials.  I have a dozen or so, among them social and emotional intelligence, influence styles, human-centered design, and 360 feedback for government executives.  As I have contemplated this season of reassessment, I've made a list of things to explore--seriously explore, not just think about.  Among them was health and wellness coaching.

Tomorrow I start a four-month program to get my certificate as a health coach for adults and seniors, euphemistically called "prime time coaching."  I spent several hours today doing readings and viewing background videos online.  This material feels like "home" to me.  I guess it should, I've been thinking about it for most of my life.

While most people who know me think I look and certainly act much younger than my years, and I have really made healthy eating  a major intention in my life, I have rounded the corners.  (Geez, that sweet tooth gets me every time.)  Nothing in this material has been anything I haven't known for decades, but having it presented in an organized fashion, I was reminded I could do better.

Since the New Year, I have kept my commitment for at least 15 minutes of exercise a day and most days worked up a minor sweat.  In fact, once I got moving most days I've gone at least 25 minutes and was up to 47 once. This evening I visited the gym in my building.  (With a gym at work and one in my apartment building, I really have had no excuse for not exercising.)  I've lived here for over three years, and I think this was the second visit. Not like running 7 miles a day and lifting weights three times a week, but developing, or redeveloping, a habit.  Baby steps.

Most important, between getting my exercise groove back and focusing on health issues, I have been recalibrating around my intentions to create a healthy life. No earthquakes here.  Just consciously pulling myself from good to better.

At the same time, I believe that my sorting project is spiritual recalibration.  Not unlike my physical recalibration, I think I've done pretty well in staying the course with my spiritual intentions, but I could do better.  Focusing my attention on my intentions will help me be very clear about what I am creating in my life and in the world.  The reason that started the process a month ago now seems less important than that I am doing a body, mind, and spirit recalibration, and that has got to be a good thing.

Slippery Slopes

Most of us...probably all of us...have at least one slippery slope in our lives with which we struggle.  A slippery slope is the door to an addiction for which opening inevitably leads us over a cliff.  I've known for a long time that sugar is a slippery slope for me.  As long as I don't touch it at all, I don't think about, but one grain sets off uncontrollable cravings for more. 

This afternoon I had a conversation with someone from a client group who talked about what a serious addiction sugar was.  We agreed that if there was a sugarholics anonymous, we would both be candidates for membership.  Particularly at this time of year, everywhere we looked a homemade goodie tempts us over the edge.  Alcohol and drugs are well known addictions, but there are many which are less known and about which we may never had thought.  For instance, I am sure housecleaning was one for my mother.  For some of my friends, the computer is a slippery slope.

Recently, I realized that my flat-screen TV had become another slippery slope for me.  When I realized it, I puzzled for some time: how did this happen to me?  When I was growing up, our viewing time was severely limited.  As a young adult, several years passed during which I didn't even own a set, and then when I did, I didn't have cable for at least two decades.  About two years ago, I was convinced to replace my big hunker ancient TV with a flat screen.  It is much more convenient for someone of my diminutive stature than the one that weighed more than I did, and being able to plug into my laptop and watch programs online is very cool.

I can really tell you some of the steps to my semi-addiction (most days about two hours, but weekends definitely more.)  When I needed to purchase an internet connection, cable was very little extra.  When I had cable, there were many more viewing options.  Then, when I had a bicycle accident about 18 months ago and couldn't move around a lot, viewing was effortless.  I was tired when I got home from work and it was an easy alternative to reading while keeping my foot propped up.  Following eye surgery, I needed to be still, and reading was difficult. TV was effortless.

While those things were happening, I developed relationships with some of those people.  The weekly visits were like having old friends come to visit. John Stewart, John Oliver, and Stephen Colbert were funny dinner companions at the end of often humorless days.  How I got hooked is about as easy to figure out as identifying a drug addict's gateway drug.  However, taking a close look at the slippery slope really surprised me.

I've gained 10 pounds in the last year.  Why?  Instead of going to walk or workout after work, John and Stephen seduced me, and once the tube was on, that's where I stayed. Pounds weren't all that I'd been accumulating.  I went out a few months ago and bought another book shelf to hold all the books that I'd purchased but not read.  Instead of reading, which takes a little effort, I could be totally passive with the TV.  Turning on the power to that flat-screened seductress is my slippery slope: I know the instant it happens, the likelihood of skipping exercise and reading increases dramatically.

When I coach people trying to change habits, I encourage them to "scratch the record" on the behavior.  For those who aren't old enough to know what that means, in the days of vinyl records (and before that, tin, wax, and shellac) if something scratched the record, hence forth and ever more, when that record was played when the needle got to the scratch it would jump--over and over and over.  When a record is scratched, the scratch cannot be ignored. 

Metaphorically, scratching a record on a habit is something similar.  We identify something to help us avoid the slippery slope or at least stop it before going over the edge.  During the December sugar season at work, I skip the open houses or go late enough that the goodies are gone.  I walk the long way to the printer so I don't have to walk by the table of sweets. 

At home, I skip the glass of red wine that I enjoy with dinner but I know reduces my will power, will almost certainly lead to dessert, and continue to trigger sugar cravings all evening.  Having iced tea instead keeps me from going over the edge...most of the time.  Walking to a Metro stop that is farther away than the one around the corner ensures that I will get my exercise before I get home and turn on the TV.  The minute that John Stewart finishes interviewing his guest, if I turn off the TV, I am more likely to do something more energizing.  This evening I called a friend, I'm writing this blog before bedtime, and I will probably even have time to read for a bit before falling to sleep.

Recognizing slippery slopes and scratching the record on them is essential to living with intention.  When I identify new behaviors that help me live the life I want to live instead of one borne of habit, I am laying the groundwork for intention.  If I can stop the things that stand in my way of living my life, nothing can stop me from creating it.