Balancing out life can be a time consuming effort that needs our daily attention in order for balance to become our center and our home. Many habits must be shed and many new habits created. Its a constant flow of change and evolving, we never stop growing.

The thought and effort that gets put into yourself is what ultimately ends up reaping rewards. That seed that you planted in your mind, that thought, that idea, whether good or bad , if nurtured properly will grow and will eventually begin to bear fruit. Whether your fruit is good or bad really depends on both the environment that the seed was planted in and how you nurture it in that environment. The seed is used in many books to describe thoughts and ideas, in order to help you get a picture of the growth process and to understand that its all the same. The cycle of life, the cycle of growth and also the reality of death. Nothing that is alive can live forever there is always a time limit for life.

I do believe that as we create our reality through the thoughts and ideas that we nurture and grow we have to understand that nothing is forever, and that everything has an expiry date. So if your thoughts and ideas are not growing and evolving then they surely are dying a slow death. In order for your ideas to survive the harsh reality of this world you have to make difficult decisions. Like what stays and what goes, or who stays and who goes. What is helping and what is hurting the process. What ideas get to live and which ones have to die off and become a memory. What is important to you and what is not. What to focus on and what to ignore.

It’s a harsh reality, but its reality nonetheless. Even in biblical days, they speak of God pruning the tree in order for it to bear fruit. The analogy of the tree and life and its roots are a strong one, which is why mankind keeps turning to it to explain, but in reality pruning is violent and painful. Cutting off the bad parts to promote growth of good parts. We have 2 rosebushes at home, and without regular pruning those 2 babies get really unhappy and stop flowering. We have to prune them in order for them to live.

I’m going to stop harping on about plants and trees now because I think you get the idea. I know I got it the first time I heard it, but it didn’t really sink in until later on in my life. When I was ready to understand the full reality of having to cut out the bad habits in my life in order to help me grow as a person. Like eating junk, that has got to go if I am going to be healthy in general. I have to embrace good habits to nurture myself and my body. The reason I have gone through so many ups and downs in mental health, in body weight, in feeling excited about life in general is because of my habits. I can now sit back assess my own life and say that when I exercised, hiked and went jogging regularly I was healthiest, I had the most energy and I was generally more enthusiastic about life that when I am not. When I do not exercise at all , I get low very easily, I am less productive and its really difficult to get the day started. Because I have done both and seen the results of both I can tell you that there is no better feeling that your heart pumping because of a good exercise session, oxygen is flowing through your body, your mind is alert, your body is ready for anything and its how I reach my best and most productive place as a person.

Now that I get to compare both, I get to choose which is better for myself. It’s not because someone told me that I must exercise anymore, its now because when I did it, I felt much better and achieved more than when I don’t. Nobody wants to feel sick or sluggish, nobody wants to be lazy an unproductive. I really just think that their mental health needs some tender loving care in order to help their minds clear the fog so that those people too can see the light and the benefits of moving their bodies. I don’t declare to be perfect, I’ve gained back all my weight in the last 10 months and am sitting at a whopping 94 kg’s. Its nobody’s fault but my own, because I let the negative narrative in my mind stop me from a part of life that I love and that actually makes me happy, that is hiking and nature, beach walks and just general walks and or jogging out in nature. I always go back to it, its not something that I have to force because once I’m in nature I am in my happy place. I find myself drawn to beach walks more lately than I did earlier in the year.

So what what it all comes down to for me is a matter of life or death. What will I allow to live in my mind and what will I leave to die. What habits must be shed and which ones get to be nurtured. Only I can make those choices, only I have the power to give life to new habits in my life and remove the old. It’s up to me in the end, what I do with the breath I have been given each day, with the chance at the life that I have been allotted, when many did not wake up this morning. I may not be perfect, but nobody really is, but I am here, I have another day in me and I declare through the grace of God that this day will be a day filled with good, with growth, with change for the better, with some movement aka exercise and I will use it to the best of my ability to be wholeheartedly the best version of myself that I know how to be. That once I know better I will do better and I will not allow the opinions of others to deviate me from my path.

That’s me for today good people, what about you? What needs to be pruned in your life? What is bad for you but you keep holding onto it with dear life even though it doesn’t serve you anymore. I challenge you to loosen the grip and keep telling yourself why you need to let it go until you have the will to do just that. Whatever that bad habit may be, a person, a job, an eating habit, lack of movement, too much tv or even isolation. Whatever it is, identify it tell it that its days are numbered and then when you are ready to let go of it then you absolutely must let that thing go. I must warn you that you will grieve for it, you will want it back, but you have to keep reminding yourself on a daily basis why you stopped in the first place, why you identified it as bad and how it was negatively impacting your life. It’s the only way. It’s hard work, it takes strength and determination, but if I can do it, then so can you. The key for me is that when I make mistakes, I’m not too hard on myself anymore. I allow myself mistakes now, which is something that I had to learn how to do. Laughing at myself and making mistakes was just not allowed in my past, but I realised that I had to let that into my life and I had to allow joy to enter my heart. It wasn’t easy, but it sure was worth it.

Let joy into your heart, let air into your lungs, laugh so much that it hurts, let good people into your space and then, enjoy the ride, hold the memory dear and let that moments happiness carry you through the next challenge. Because nothin is forever, good things will end, bad things will come, bad things will end, and good things will come again, nothing lasts forever and it will do you good to remember that while you are living your best life.

Love and light

Tammy