Your Garden As Path To Better Health
I worked for a big company for many years. It was stressful and I finally decided to quit and start a consulting business out of my home. It was great at first. I liked waking up when I wanted, working when I felt like it, and I loved being able to take a day off if I needed to do something important. After a few months though, I noticed I had put on several pounds. I was not overly concerned. I told myself I would start a workout routine after my business was settled.
Well, in two years I managed to gain fifty pounds. Instead of making time to work out, I poured all my energy into my business. The business was doing great, but I was falling apart. Instead of making my own schedule, my schedule was controlling me. I was fat, stressed, tired and running out of motivation to stay in business. I knew it was time to do something drastic.
As a last resort, I decided I needed to join a gym. The commitment to the gym contract and the money I had to pay would force me to follow through. In fact, the more expensive the gym, the more guilty I would feel if I skipped a workout.
Well, I kept putting it off. I just could not drag myself down there. Then, one really stressful day, I made a pot of coffee and went out on the back porch to get some space. It was such a pretty day, and I started getting really upset that everything was so out of whack and I never even got to spend time outside anymore. The negative thinking was not helping with my stress, so I grabbed a book from the side table to distract myself. It a gardening book.
I was completely in love with the idea of gardening and had been since I was a kid. I loved everything about it, from digging in the soil to harvesting. I had a huge collection of gardening books and a file cabinet full of articles. It was all for the day that I would finally have time to get a garden of my own.
That's when it hit me. Why force myself to go to the gym when I could get a workout doing something I always wanted to do? All that money I was about to spend to motivate myself with guilt could be used instead to by garden supplies. I could motivate myself with something rewarding! No treadmills or bikes, no ugly rooms filled with other sweaty, stressed people. At that moment I realized I a garden could help me live longer and also be happier.
So I went for it. And though I won't be getting into skinny jeans any time soon, I have lost some weight. But even better, I found an effective way to manage my stress while realizing a dream. There is nothing more soothing and satisfying to me than to take a basket outside and fill it with fresh vegetables from my garden. On a hectic day it is so easy to give myself permission to shut the door to my home office and go out in the garden for a half hour to recharge. When I crave a snack I graze in my garden or treat myself with a gardening article. My garden taught me being healthy is not just about weight. It's about finding out how to be happy.
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