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I know we all live in a culture of "more is better." At various points of my life I've been tempted by that siren song. (I am a former Cardio King after all.) And yet the last few decades have affirmed a very different truth for myself and for others I've observed.
Because of the work I do, I meet a lot of people who are motivated to live a healthier life. It's one of the things I love most about what I do in fact. And, yet, as a result I also see the full spectrum of behavior around "healthy" action.
Unfortunately, I watched people exercise their way into illness, ironically incapacitating themselves (or at least impairing their weight loss or fitness progress) because they couldn't respect their bodies' need for recovery. I've even seen others move from healthy eating into destructive orthorexic obsession. I've seen professional ambition consume people's lives, and anxious parenting undermine the capacity for joy.
We reward and esteem those who relentlessly pursue self-improvement, but when does relentless become dysfunctionally desperate? It's a sad image when what we think we want (or should want) ends up unraveling our chance for genuine balance and well-being.
Think of the times you've pushed yourself passed your limits in ways that ended up acting against your own best interest. You know—those times you've told yourself that you don't "deserve" a treat, a break, etc., only to have that abstention come back to bite you. When have you denied yourself reasonable limits for the sake of "more is better"? When have you refused limits that would've given you needed sleep, solitude, rest, ease, peace, pleasure or sanity?
Think about the messages that play for you as you make decisions. What virtues are you attempting to uphold in your life, and when do you feel unnecessarily or excessively bound by them? When have you genuinely restricted your enjoyment of life because you can't find any comfortable compromise in your principles?
Where has dedication become desperation, commitment become compulsion?
Maybe it's in trying to be the perfect parent/partner/child/friend that we frequently wear ourselves out. Maybe we're caught in a cycle of unwarranted restriction in our food choices that's sucking any and all pleasure out of eating. Perhaps we routinely overdo it at the gym or have a hard time justifying relaxing because we always feel we can fit in "one more" walk or should be getting in "one more" set or "one more" hour of activity—only to continually wear ourselves out or leave no opportunity for other more restful and fulfilling activities. Maybe it's finishing "one more" thing at work even though we know it will mean once again forgoing time with our families or time for ourselves. Perhaps it's even never knowing when to stop obsessively reading about health and just trust we know what we're doing.
Comment: To learn more about how perfectionism negatively impacts our health and well-being, listen to SOTT's radio interview with Dr. Aleta Edwards. Dr. Edwards is the author of the best-selling book Fear of the Abyss: Healing the Wounds of Shame and Perfectionism.
In short, our lives become victims to the visions we have for them.
What would your life look like if you lived by the rhythm you genuinely feel best serves your mental and physical health? How many of us even know what that rhythm looks like? Do we have a sense of our ideal balance in life? Maybe we should spend as much time discerning our ideal limits as we do planning for our infinite expansion and self-improvement...
They say with age comes experience, and the fact is I've come to a finer and more honest awareness of my own human propensity toward excessive control. (Most of us, truth be told, have this in some sense or to some degree.) My resolve has indeed helped me achieve a great deal in life, but my ability to intuit natural limits has actually allowed me to enjoy my life and all I have.
The people I see who push themselves too far have excessive vision without a sense of proportion. It's what happens, I think, when we abandon our self-attunement in the pursuit of principles. Frankly, when we refuse to have patience for ourselves and our process, it's an act of self-sabotage (if not self-aggression).
I don't say this lightly. We all deserve optimum well-being, but I'd also argue we can best attain it (and maintain it) when we foster a sense of informed intuition about our needs—balancing those admirable principles and ambitious goals with instinctual self-care. I've heard a friend describe it as living lightly, and that sounds about right.
Comment: Dr. Gabor Maté goes into an extensive study on what happens to people when they refuse to say no when they need to: in short, their body says "no" for them through illness and breaking down. Whether a person is pushing themselves too hard or feeling outside pressure to push past their limits and boundaries, eventually the body will say no. Pushing oneself to excel is certainly a good thing overall, but one must respect one's own limits and boundaries and find balance in their lives and their pursuits. For more information: