Let Go and Be Free Podcast: Episode 36 (Live a Healthy Life)

Do you want to live a healthy life?

Where to start?

In this episode, I talk about the challenges of living a healthy life and talk about the first two steps:

  • Step 1: Embrace all of who you are.

  • Step 2: Keep a growth mindset.

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I’m not a medical expert. If you need help, please reach out to a medical professional.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Let Go and Be Free podcast. A podcast for those who grew up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family. I'm your host, Ron Vitale, author of The let go and be free 100 daily reflections for adult children of alcoholics series. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to visit, let go and be free.com. And with that, let's get on with the show. Hello, and welcome to this week's show, live a healthy life that is the topic that I will be going through today. And it's something that I thought would be helpful as we get closer to going into the rest of the holiday season.

Hopefully, by the time this is out, this will be right after Thanksgiving American holiday. And for those of you who do not celebrate, I expect you're preparing for the end of the year celebrations in New Years, you know, the next month? And there's a lot to think about a lot to think about as we can you continue to emerge out from the pandemic.

You know, as we think through how have our lives changed in the last two years, as we think about for those of us that live in America, the political violence that we've seen on the rise.

There's been, you know, misinformation, disinformation, there's been hate, there's been anger, there's been fighting, there's been shootings there. I mean, the list just goes on and on and on. And you might think, well, what can I do you know, one person? What can I do to make certain that I live a happy, healthy life? How do you make certain that your family, your kids can live a healthy life? You know, what are you going to do? How do you pull this all together? It's not something that's easy to do. And I also think it's not something that we're taught, you know, it's not something that we we deal with on a regular basis. And I wanted to take that time now to focus on what exactly does it mean, to live a healthy life? And how can we do that? What what are the skills that we need? What are the tools that we need?

To break this down in something that can be actionable can be helpful, can be something that you can use something that you can share with others? I don't want this to be, you know, I guess, like, abstract and oh, yes, we're all can be happy and healthy. You know, people are gonna ask, well, how, how do we do that? How do we do that on a daily basis. And so just to take things apart, let's, you know, kind of back up a little bit.

And there is a lot that's happening in the world, you know, no matter what, wherever you are, you know, there's issues of inequality, there is inflation, there's a war in Ukraine, there's wars in other parts of the world. I'm gonna focus, you know, in one aspect that I can because I live in America, and for those of you that are international, I know that some of what I'm sharing, you know, obviously the global issue with inflation, with the challenges of the war, and what that's meaning for energy costs that are rippling throughout the country, the struggles and challenges with coming out of China, because their COVID Free policy, and how that affects, you know, shipping and manufacturing and challenges that they have in trying to keep up with producing product and keep keeping moving their economy moving forward.

All of these things act as a rippling effect. And, you know, it's something that layer upon layer of these challenges are taking place. And as an individual, when a wave comes across us, and we might say, well, you know, there's been hurricanes in, you know, in the US and powerful storms, and there's inflation, when are we going to get a break? Some of this stuff is outside of our control. We can't, you know, control the forces of nature. It's not something that we can we can say, well, there's this storm coming our way. We're just gonna wave one and make it go away.

There are people 10s of 1000s of people that I've been greatly affected by some massive storms. I mean, just in the US, it's, you know, almost mid November and we have had a hurricane that hit the state of Florida, I think it actually was a tropical storm by the time it reached the shores of Florida, but still in this late in the season, we still, you know, have a home that's being washed into, you know, the the sea when you when you see the local news, and people are dealing with flooding and powerful winds, and in fact that storm is going to affect, you know, the part of the country where I live later today. And I say these things, because it's not just one thing.

We you know, it's not as though we grew up in an alcoholic, dysfunctional family. And that's the only thing that we're dealing with. It's unfortunately, the placement and time of the world of what we're we're all dealing with, having come out of, you know, COVID pandemic, and the struggles, and is there going to be another wave this winter, there's flu, there's RSV. There's other diseases, there's, there's all these competing factors of stress, anxiety, and fear, and worry that are at this low level. And then sometimes they rise to a high level within each of our lives, and how we deal with those challenges. How we handle them on a day to day basis is different for each of us. Because we were all different people.

In my part of the world, and what I'm, you know, going through, it's the challenge of I grew up a certain way, learn certain things, you know, in that dysfunctional family and communication style, and struggle to not repeat those dysfunctional behaviors. We've talked about that. What do you do? How do you live this, you know, healthy life, if you feel like you're burdened by how you grew up, and now you have this, and you're trying to figure out how to move forward? Or you have a family, and you're trying to figure out how do I raise my kids in a healthy way? How do I not pass on to them? The crap, pardon my French, the crap that I had to deal with when I was a kid? Or if you're older? How do I have these remaining years in my life, be stable, be set, become? How can I mean, find love, be loved, know what love is, and find happiness and live in a healthy way? I think first, I've always believed it's necessary to own and understand your own story. And what does that mean?

Each of us have had a unique upbringing, we have similarities, that's probably why you're listening to this podcast, because of like, go and be free the you know how to overcome dysfunctional upbringing from your family or struggling with those who had problems with alcoholism or addiction.

There's a similarity there. But our stories are different. Was it your uncle or your mother or your father or whatever the story is, you have that story. And it's part of the quintessential part of who you are. It is something that is like, within you, that is part of you, that is in your very fiber, and being and it's not something that you can ignore. It's not something that you can just shake off. It's not even something necessarily that you can grow out of, because it is who you are. And I want to want to say that. Because to me, the foundational level of living a healthy life is accepting and understanding who you are, and being happy with that. That might seem a little weird.

But it's if we're trying to change ourselves, if we're trying to live up to expectations that are beyond, you know, what we're able to reach, if we think we could do better if we think that we're broken if we think that we're not right. If we think that something damaged us when we were young, and we will always be this crooked, broken person. That's not going to help us live a healthy life. What does is coming to terms with who we are and accepting ourselves at a very basic level, saying, I'm happy with who I am.

To where do we want to change things do we want to grow, yes, yes, that's, that's why we're here. That's what we're trying to do. But we're not going to try to excise or remove part of our personality part of who we are. We're embracing it, we're loving it. And from there, that's where the growth comes in. It's a mindset difference. It's, it's the difference between, I'm accepting who I am. And then I'm going to grow beyond that. And I want to grow day by day. And I, over time, grow into a different person. But I'm still quintessentially me holding those conflicting thoughts in one's mind. And then on the other side, the thought of, I'm not right, these people did these things to me, I will always be damaged, I'm unlovable, I'm stuck. I can't get out of this mess that I'm in. Do you see the difference between the two, to live a healthy life?

I believe, and again, this is my personal belief is that it's an it's essential that we embrace ourselves. And we love ourselves. And you might say, well, great, that's wonderful. How the hell do I do that?

This is where the toolkit and skills come into play. And this is where I get frustrated, because I don't believe that the modern educational system, or just any type of system, teaches us the skills that we need to be healthy. For example, I grew up, you know, and we were told, eat, you know, from the four major food groups. And that's great. But we were never given any instruction on how to deal with stress, or anxiety, or Wari, or any of the things that so many, millions 10s of millions of us struggle with on a day to day basis.

And, you know, you might think, well, that's not, you know, that's not the school system to teach you those things. Well, if you don't learn it at home, because you grew up in an alcoholic and dysfunctional family, if you go to school, and the only thing that schools teaching you is how to memorize things that you're not going to need later in life. What the hell's the purpose of everything? Why are we doing all this?

And the more cynical part of me says, Well, you know, I had a history professor in college had said, school system is only meant to teach you how to be a good citizen, because we need workers. And the workers need to keep capitalistic society moving forward. And I thought that was a really cynical, bent, you know, on things, which is like, Oh, wow, yeah, that's pretty, it's pretty dark. If you think about that. School system isn't meant to teach us how to be better people. It's meant to teach us, you know, the ABCs and one, two threes, so that we can use those skills and become workers and go through a rat race. That's what this, this professor was basically teaching us.

And I can see that, you know, I can I can see that perspective. So if we're not going to learn in school, if we're not going to learn, you know, healthy behavior from the home, then where do we go? And you might say, Well, I'm XYZ age, I'm in my 30s, I'm in my 20s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s, whatever you are, you might look at this and say, well, it's too late for me. I should have learned this before. And I'm here to say it's not too late.

We can take things and break it down, piece by piece, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second. And that might seem strange. But again, the basic, fundamental level of step one is saying, You know what? Yes. I'm going to accept myself as I am today. Give yourself a hug, and say, I'm going on this journey, the active, conscious decision to change to move forward by accepting who we are that almost paradoxical thought of I like and love who I am. But I want to grow and I want to move forward. And I want to see what doors may open for me is a transformative and powerful decision and step process within the brain.

I like to think of this and I know this example may not be something that is, is understandable in a way that on a personal level, so I'll give two examples. Example one, this is personal for me. I grew up my entire life thinking I am who I am. This is where I am. And friend of mine said, Well, you know, why don't you come run a marathon? And I could, I was struggling to barely do a 5k, which is like 3.1 Miles struggled. And I'm like, I can't do that. And they're like, Yeah, we did. You could do it, too. I'm like, No, I can't, I can't do that. My body just can't do that. That's something for Olympic heroes and super people, I am not that person. And over time, over the course of two years, I slowly trained my body. And I was able to run run three, three marathons in my life, were they super fast? No, they were slow. They were like, I think my fastest was five hours and eight minutes, which is extremely slow. But I did it.

And I look at that, and realize that in my brain, there was a limit. And the limit was because I am this person. And these are the things that I'm used to, I can't go beyond that. It just is not possible. But when you remove those chains within your head, and say, I don't know, maybe I can do that. Let me try. That's where possibility lies. That's where living a healthy life become something that isn't a chore. I apologize, my computer just said, it's going to restart. So I think I better tell that not to do that.

What you want to do is with your body and with your mind, if it's something that you think that you can't do, then you're limited by that. You were you're you're trapped in a box of a prison of your own making. If you look at life, with the perspective of I grew up a certain way, I was taught certain things, I haven't had opportunities because of that, and you blame the past, then you're stuck in the present, and you're going to be stuck in the future. It's a mindset, the the mind and the power of the mind, is the first thing that we need to understand and overcome.

If we limit ourselves because we don't believe that we're good enough, we're lovable, we're powerful enough, we don't have agency, we blame others, we're stuck. And that's something that I can't tell you how to overcome that. And what I mean by that is, I can't tell you is I can list all these things out. If if you're not willing to take that step. I can't take that step for you. Nobody can. So the example of the marathon, that's, you know, something that on a personal level, a more universal, let's say, example, is there are times when all of us struggle with a problem. It could be anything, it could be losing a job, it could be a death, it could be anything. Divorce, it could be, you know, just getting older, how we deal with that change is setting us up for what our future person future us will be.

If we're locked in limited, I am who I am.

And that's it.

But if we take the opportunity to step beyond that, and say, I love who I am, yes, there are, you know, I want to grow in areas. I want to learn how to do different things, I want to communicate better. I want to have a better set of skills. And if we actively work on that, day by day, the neural pathways within our brain are going to change. If we always think we're a failure, we're not going to make it. Woe is me. The blame, you know is on other people.

It's a mess. You're not going to move forward. But if we look at it as well, this is what happened to me. I'm going to accept it. A lot of bad stuff happened.

How do I move forward? What are the opportunities? What are the doors that can be opened? Do you see the difference of an open life and a closed life? A closed life is a loop. It's a broken tape, it traps us the power and the darkness of the past and the voices of our fear. hold us back and keep us in a situation where it's safe. Because if we were to speak the truth, in the sense that we're afraid, we feel anxious, or worried, we're not sure where to go.

There, there are scary things to share with people. Or worse, you might share. And you might be in a relationship or have family members that don't care and want to keep things the status quo, because that's what everybody accepts. But if you want to live a healthy life, the finding what that healthy is for you, and then how to get there. That's a lot of work.

That's not a bad thing. But it's the reality. And so, first level is the mindset, acceptance, who you are, and where you want to go, setting a goal for yourself. And you might say, well, I don't even know what the goal is, I don't even know what healthy is. That's where the journey begins. It's understanding, you know, just just as a kid, as you're growing up, do you like spicy food? Do you like to exercise? Do you like this toy or that toy? Do you like to be treated a certain way? Do you like to treat others a certain way? How do you communicate, it's it's the whole journey of development, and understanding in human interaction, that doesn't just stop. You know, after we're no longer kids, it's opening the door in your brain and saying, however long we live, we have an opportunity. And we can continue to have a growth mindset. Or we can say, well, I'm an adult now. And I'm stuck in my ways.

And if that's the case, then I guess the question that you have to ask yourself is, are you happy with that?

Do you feel like you're living that healthy life? If the answer is no, then the good aspect is, when I say good, the good news is that you can move forward.

And we've talked about this, everybody's journey is different. Some people decide they want to go to therapy and start this journey. Some people decide they want to go to adult children of alcoholics meetings. And that's the journey where they want to start. Some want to start journal writing, or reading self help books.

The point here that I'm making is the open growth mindset allows us to encounter other ideas, other ways of living, other people's experiences that we can learn from, and then apply to our own life. And think about that for a second.

When we're open to growth, and we're open to looking and seeing what else is around the world. Instead of being in a locked mindset. In a I don't want to see I have blinders on. I want to go to work on a come home, I'm going to watch stuff on TV. And then I'm going to go to bed and get up and do it again and again and again. And then one day I'm going to magically retire and be happy. Really.

Each day is an opportunity and how we embrace that day is up to us. So growth mindset, I have a thirst for knowledge. I love to read, I love to learn. I love to just that's just how my brain processes, you know, living, I want to continually to grow and to apply that to my life. Do I get stuck in ruts? Do I go back into old behavior patterns when under stress? In an argument, yes. But when I recognize those things, then I have to come to terms with okay, what have I learned? How do I apply this? And how do I get myself out of this situation to grow and move forward?

That's whole part of this growth mindset and living a healthy life. It's step two: Are you getting into that understanding of is this healthy for me? Is it true? No matter what situation we're going through in life, once we have that I love myself, I want to go move forward and I want to grow, then applying it by us using the lens, in the various experiences we have. If, for example, some friends were to say, let's go out, and we're gonna go out drinking, and we're gonna stay out late, and you feel tired, and maybe you have a busy day tomorrow. And you will say, Is it healthy for me? And the answer comes back, no, then you could say, You know what, I'm going to pass on this, I don't feel like going.

And that can be used in any circumstance, those that question in your head, maybe you have an adult, child. And when I say adult, I mean, a child that's over 18 years old. And they're asking you for something, and you feel like you're being taken advantage of, is it true? And then you'd have to say, you know, I can't do this to help you.

Or maybe you have an alcoholic parent, someone who's struggling with alcoholism, and they want you to go to the store and buy some alcohol for them and bring them that and maybe you just don't feel comfortable with it. Is it true? Is it good for you? Is it something that if you were to do that, that would be healthy for you? Yes or no. And these questions that you ask as you go through life, it's going to take time, and we're going to fall, and we're going to make mistakes. And then we get back up again, and figure out as over time, what is and what isn't healthy for us. Some of the basics that yes, we did learn in school, you know, eating the fruit, for basic food groups, getting a good night's sleep, exercising, like, there are things that we did learn that we can apply to living a healthy life. But living a healthy life is complicated. It's not just simply what we do with our body. It's also what we do with our mind, and are spirit.

And what I mean by that is the mental aspect of when we encounter a problem on how we solve it, how we deal with it, do we fall into the dysfunctional behavior patterns that we may have learned? And growing up with alcoholism and addiction and dysfunction in a family? It could be flight, problem comes, you run from it, or fight, you yell, scream, you get upset? Or maybe you ignore it? How do we deal with these problems.

And in living a healthy life, it means coming to terms with dealing with financial troubles, the death of a loved one, challenges at work challenges within your marriage challenges with your children, an argument you've had with a friend, or the bigger picture, we started with this, you know, podcast? How did each of us get through the quarantine of, you know, COVID times? And what does that really mean to all of us? After it? We just pretend that everything is over and everything is fine? Well, how did that affect us? You know, do we still feel weird? When we go out in public? Do we feel different? How do we process that?

And then with the challenges of, you know, financial, unless you're independently wealthy, you're probably going through a challenging time looking at the bills and saying, Wow, the cost of this is gone up X percent.

How do I deal with that? And that's the, the struggle of all this is it's it's not a simple thing. It's not a you know, here's a 10 list thing, I could give you a couple of numbers of these are the paths, you know, to kind of move forward. But then the beauty of this is the journey that you're on is different than the journey that I'm on. Something that works for me, writing, listening to certain types of music, giving myself time to kind of disconnect from the world and do maybe gardening work or cleaning around the house something that allows my brain to kind of reset that as I physically use my hands to deal with clutter or clean or make something grow. Let's put something in the ground to grow or trim something back. So gardening next spring, that helps me, as well as things such as like reading and learning. And just processing that and bringing that in and saying, Wow, have learned this wonderful thing. I didn't know this before. This is something that I can embrace something that I love something that lights me up and gives me this energy to be able to just have this power and say, Wow, I have opportunity. There's something I didn't know.

And when I think back to that young, five year old me, you know, the divorce that was going around in my family, the whispered talks of, you know, the bad things that my father had done, when he think of all that. I just remember feeling trapped, and lost, and afraid, and unsure of what the right thing to do was, I was a kid, I did not see how I could escape that. I didn't even understand the full ramifications of what was happening all around me. I can only Intuit what I thought was happening.

And it wasn't until I was older, you know that my mom shared stories with me. And I was appalled when I heard a lot of these stories. And then as I grew, I had to make a decision. Did I want to grow up the same way? And emulate the same behaviors that I saw as a kid? Or did I want to take a different path? And it wasn't a one time decision? It wasn't a well, I have decided to do this and wow, golly, gee, I'm so much better now. It's not how life is. Each time we come with a challenge. We're asked that question within ourselves. And then we need to make a choice. And we're going to make mistakes. And we're going to fall. And I think that is the really powerful aspect of this journey. When we do fall, the question is, will we get up? And do we still want to live a healthy life?

Think about that for a second. Doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter where you are in the world.

All that matters, is what are you going to do today? And how are you going to move forward? I've always taken solace in understanding the stories of those that had such difficult lives beyond what I'm dealing with. You know, when you when you hear about Holocaust survivors, those that were in prison for decades, wrongly, and how they were able to overcome that and survive such horrible situations. What can we take from that? And how do we apply that in our own journey in our own struggles? So I do hope that this first step, the how do I live a healthy life?

Just to be able to discuss that helps you put in a perspective of now where do I want to go?

What do I want to do next?

That's where the beauty and the light and the love stretches out before us.

It's a lifelong journey. It's not a, Oh, I did these five things. And I graduated, and I'm done up getting my cap and gown and I'm on out the door. Like, that's how our society tends to treat us like you have learned everything you can get. Now go get a job and work until the day you die. I mean, that's typically how things are at least in America.

Whereas this journey is different. It's fun. It's also challenging, but it can be fun of learning the healthy things that you can do that give you joy.

Think about that. Do you like to hear live music? Do you like to go for a walk? Do you like to make a meal? What do you like to do and how does that fall into a healthy life for you?

So I'm going to stop there because I feel like I could probably go on for hours and hours. But as I've recorded this I think you know there are other discussions on this topic that you know we can have and I will save this for another time. Looking at the recording, it's already over 34 minutes. So I think that's, that's a good amount for all of us to kind of digest. So we can, you know, put that into play the foundational level? Are you able to accept all of who you are and embrace it? Your darkness, your light, your challenges, your quirks, whatever you're struggling with? Can you embrace it? And then, if that is a yes, then going on the journey.

Is this healthy for me? Is this good for me as you're moving forward, and having the open mindset to be able to learn, to grow, to love to thrive. So I hope that this episode has been helpful for you. And if you've enjoyed it, please visit letgoandbefree.com.

I gotta just be honest, getting to the end of the year. And, you know, looking at the finances for keeping this podcast going, we've got to paying subscribers, and thank you, for each of you that have done that. What I'm looking for now is trying to save the money to be able to pay for the hosting fees to keep the podcast going through 2023. Currently, I spend, it's not a lot of money, it's a 30 thing. It's like 30 bucks a month that I'm spending on the services for hosting.

But I'm not making $30 a month to be able to pay for the cost. So if you're willing to become a paying subscriber on substack, I appreciate that, and $5 a month, or if you're willing to purchase one of the books, those proceeds, I take the money, and I put it back into this podcast. You know, that's what I want to be able to continue to do, to share this message to help others to get the word out to give people hope.

And I'm being honest, in that I'm not asking for 1000s I'm asking for a small amount of money to keep this podcast going. So I do hope that you know, you can help in these challenging times. I understand it's not easy, but thank you.

I hope again, that this episode has been helpful for you, and that each of us have learned something new about ourselves. And then we could take that and build on that as we move forward through the rest of our day. And tomorrow. And again and the day after the day after.

Thank you and be well.

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