I was reading an article about a unique florist in CountryHome magazine and a quote from the florist, Lucy, really stood out to me and surprised me with how it also rings true in curating a healthy lifestyle. The article says:
"Lucy is attracting many others by eschewing the notion of perfection in favor of untamed beauty. 'We live in a fast-paced, gilded, and sometimes hollow aspirational world,' she says. 'I wanted to encourage the reader to look for beauty and wonder in the familiar, to elevate the ordinary to extraordinary...I lean toward choosing blooms and vines that give a feeling that they've had the most incredible party overnight.'"
From all the health related posts I've seen on social media to the 16 years of experience of working with NuSpecies clients, and from all the conversations I've had in my own life about health with family, friends, and health professionals, my frustrations with this topic are perfectly categorized by Lucy's statement about design.
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Fast paced
People have forgotten that the ultimate goal for our health is to get results that are defined by meaningful change in how our bodies are functioning and last long-term.
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Instead we're focused on the quick fix or even worse, on the products that are being advertised as a silver bullet, even if it's not true.
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Gilded
Metaphorically speaking, this is describing our distraction by social media health influencers and well-packaged supplements that appear shiny, high quality, and fancy with their polished exterior, even if what is beneath is low quality and useless.
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The complex and layered aspects of our health and our unique experiences in life have been glossed over and simplified to the most superficial representations of "health" - fit bodies (usually of people in their 20's) in well-designed spandex, doing an acrobatic yoga pose on the side of a cliff. What does this have to do with your health? How is this helping you deal with where you are right now?
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Or maybe you've seen fancy looking vitamins supplements bottled in clear glass with clear capsules inside using visually appealing design tactics to create the guise of a quality nutritional product. We know that light is damaging to vitamins, so how are these products high quality and effective?
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All that glitters isn't gold.
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Hollow Aspirations
Have you double checked the story you've been telling yourself about your health recently? Have you given some critical thought to the health goals you've set for yourself?
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I ask you this because you may be making at least one of two major mistakes without knowing it.
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Hollow Aspiration #1: You're still trying to achieve a health goal that is based on your life and your body from 10 years ago. Every 5-10 years there's opportunity for great change in the circumstances of your life that impact your health and in how your body functions at any given age.
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It's important that before you set a goal, you have evidence backing up why that goal is a priority and why it's achievable at this time. This evidence can include things like: your recent labs and scans, your current symptoms, your actual diet and lifestyle documented in a log for food and habits, and your current medical treatment.Â
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Hollow Aspiration #2:Â Your basing your health goals and related action steps on the standards of others. This is very common these days due to influencers on social media. You get a very curated look into someone's "gilded" life and you believe that if you do what they do, you'll get the same result. This can be seriously harmful to your health and mental wellbeing, but at the very least it's likely a complete waste of time and money. We get swept away in the beautiful images posted by these people and our brains are easily fooled into thinking this person must know more than you and must know better than you.
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Let me tell you right now - no one on the internet knows what will work for you and what you can achieve better than you do!
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So what do we aspire to? Well, in my opinion, the rest of Lucy's words make a good guide.
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Untamed beauty: When it comes to my supplements (NuSpecies of course), I prefer to choose products with minimal processing, that are as close to untamed nature as possible. The results are precisely because we're letting nature be what it is and not twisting it into the most marketable form.
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To look for beauty and wonder in the familiar: Most of what I need to know to make the healthiest choices is already in my life. The wisdom is in the symptoms my body presents when it's not feeling its best. The most powerful nutritional support on a daily basis will come from eating and supplementing with plants. We don't need extravagant trips, and fancy products, and social media influencers to access the profound knowledge that lives in the Earth beneath our feet and inside our bodies.
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Elevate the ordinary to extraordinary: Once we stop looking outside ourselves and our natural habitat to find the answers, we can use all the ordinary resources we already have access to to take actions that will elevate our health from ordinary to extraordinary.
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To have the most incredible party: When you let go of the oppressive expectations created by health influencers on social media and ditch the health goals that are based only on achieving a sexy body or some arbitrary beauty standard that doesn't care about who you are as an individual, you can finally relax and actually enjoy taking care of yourself! You may even learn to celebrate yourself for where you are right now. I think that's the only way to make this one short life we have the most incredible party.
We're so grateful to have you as part of our mission to help people live longer and better and we'll continue to do all that we can to help you too.
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