I Learned These 3 Brutal Lessons About Health In My Career as a Wellness Practitioner  

After a 13-year career as a massage therapist and a personal trainer, it is difficult to surprise me with anything related to human beings (although, “human doings” seems more appropriate for today’s society). This career path is as interesting as it is fulfilling, to say the least. You meet all kinds of individuals, from all walks of life. With you they share, not only their physical bodies, but their thoughts, feelings, and histories. You have various conversations on many subjects, big and small. If you’re observant enough (and most wellness professionals are), you learn many useful lessons about health, human psychology, and people, which you can then apply to your own life.

Today, I’ll give you three, brutal lessons about health that I have personally learned by observing my patients life habits. These have sprouted the deepest roots of change in my own life. Why do I call them brutal? Because many people, myself included, underestimate the impact these things have on their wellbeing. So, read them, ponder them, and remember them as you get on with your daily grind.

Health Lesson 1:
Do not self-abandon your health and mental state, then expect to get it back later. That’s not how it works.

Ah, the good ol’ back burner. This lesson has probably been the most influential on how I lead my life today. It is one of those things that sneaks up on you gently and snowballs with time. It stems from a scenario I see time and time again. An older individual that has spent years being busy with everything but themselves, suffers from multiple health ailments and is now in a wind-sweeping rush to improve their health. Now, don’t get me wrong, anything is better than nothing! Your health can be improved at any age and any stage, but you cannot wipe away decades of neglect with a few massages and some red light therapy. I see them fighting this battle as they suffer from their conditions, and I always wish there was something more I could do.

The takeaway from such scenario is always the same – there are no shortcuts, it’s not all or nothing, there is no such thing as “one day”, there are just minute-by-minute checks and balances. Obviously, our health is hardly an appreciating asset. Like it or not, one day our health bill will be due, and any loans will have to be repaid. To avoid a hard reality check later, pay on that bill in small installments as time rolls by.

Health Lesson 2:
If you want to improve your health, you must hold yourself accountable. Excuses are easy, developing an inner coach is hard.

One thing I am personally convinced of is if you make the easy choices today, your life will be harder tomorrow. If you make hard choices today, your life will be easier tomorrow. This stands true for almost all things in life: finances, career, relationships, and, of course, your health. To save money for retirement you must have a budget and a savings plan. To be healthy in retirement you must have a self-care and health sustainability plan.

Making difficult choices when it is tempting not to eat well, not to save money, not to leave a bad relationship to make a comfortable one, comes down to discipline. How do you develop discipline? One effective way is to develop an internal coach that keeps you accountable! Pretend there’s a big burly guy yelling at you inside to get your sh-stuff together. Big changes and new habits are never going to be easy to build; not today, not tomorrow, not one day, not ever. If you’re waiting for the will to change, you’re waiting in vain.

Did I already mention that there are no shortcuts? Yup, none here either. You must be willing to say no to yourself to reach your goals. The kicker? The faster you learn this skill, the better off you are not making the mistake in lesson number one.

Health Lesson 3:
It is important to be extremely in-tune with your body and out of tune with people’s opinions.

This lesson is tough to follow for some individuals (me!). Many of us become so accustomed to living with pain, discomfort, and bad habits, we continuously push ourselves beyond the limits of our machine – the body. Athletes don’t rest in between training sessions even though their bodies are burned out, people with back pain continue to do what causes the pain in the first place, the chronically stressed push through the stress and assume that’s the way things are, and individuals who don’t eat well continue not eating well despite the feeling of constant, general malice. What’s more, is show me a person who says they haven’t done a variation of this in their own life, and I’ll show you someone highly disconnected from themselves.

In this circumstance, the only thing to do is develop an extremely in-tune, mind-body connection. Then, give your body and mind what it needs, when it needs it. This means you must start listening to your exhaustion, your depression, and your pain. It means that your must listen to yourself, first and foremost, even in the face of well-meaning advise by the nice essential oil salesman or your cousin or WebMD. . . Essentially, you must become your own best advocate and be able to discern what feels right and what doesn’t.

I suppose applying this last lesson about health to life is how we heed the warning of the first one. Though to do the last one, you must actually apply techniques and skills from the second one. So as it turns out, all these lessons have an important connection, like a house of cards.

For some final thoughts on this matter, I have a closing lesson. Lesson number four.

Learn from the experiences and mistakes of others so you can avoid repeating them yourself.

This lesson, my reader, was the goal of the article. To provide a few insightful thoughts so you, too, can avoid repeating the mistakes that others have shown us to be . . . well . . . mistakes.

Now, consider how these 3 lessons about health play out in your own life and answer this question . . .

What tough choices do you need to start making today?

FOLLOW MASSOLOGY WELLNESS ON INSTAGRAM @GETMASSOLOGY