Life Well Lived
If I thought 2022 started off strongly, then 2023 is proving to follow suit.
I’ve spent the last few months sharing the importance of self-awareness for making health changes, and that conversation has led me to follow my own advice. I’ve spent the last month in a state of quiet as often as possible. (I have a three year old at home who has solidly settled in the season of Why?)
I’m working really hard to not push past my body’s call for more rest, less stimulation, and actions that are in alignment with what matters most to me.
I’m trying to take an honest look at what’s not working in life, so I can begin to take steps toward change. It’s so easy to take to the Internet to search for those steps. There are endless options for inspiration, how-tos, and formulas to fix whatever’s not working in your life – be it your health, your daily routine, your business….
At this point I sound like a broken record, but I think it bears repeating: There are more voices than ever vying for our attention with quick-fix promises and simple solutions. I know I need a constant reminder.
I lost my dad when I was twenty one to a massive heart attack. He walked into a store to get a Coke before work and dropped to the ground before he could get back into his car – my first car, which was actually a truck. A hunter green Ford F150 that he bought me for my sixteenth birthday. He drove the same tiny little Honda around the mountainous terrain of Anchorage, Alaska up until I left for college. Then, he started driving the Ford. He was the quiet type (much like me) who put his family’s needs before his own, and I deeply regret not having the opportunity to form a relationship with him now.
Anyway, he likely died within seconds of his heart attack. The widowmaker, they call it. What a name. His death is one of the defining events that shaped what I refer to as my spiritual pivot – and I’m not just talking about a faith-type pivot. It woke me up to the tragedy, not necessarily of death – we’re all headed there eventually – but of untapped potential and vitality in life. He was only 48 years old when he died.
The night of his death, I sat on the charcoal-colored couch of my apartment, mostly in shock, but also with a keen understanding I can still feel in my body to this day. I had a choice to make: I could be a victim of his death or I could let it shape my life into something better.
It wasn’t an overnight transformation and things got worse before they got better. But, I was committed to live life differently – to make the most of the days that I have and that he didn’t get.
A life well lived.
This brings me back to self-awareness.
Throughout my entire life my dad repeated the same phrase over and over again: Lindsey, stay within yourself. This was his way of encouraging me to not get caught up in external matters or too focused on other people; to go with my gut, so to speak. To follow my intuition.
Of course I’m yammering about the importance of self-awareness. It’s the most significant message that shaped my life and time with my dad.
To me, this is the beauty of letting self-awareness define your goals and actions – be they in health or in life.
A life well lived is unique to everyone. Only you can identify what this looks like on a daily basis. Not the trending doctor or the “it” influencer on Instagram. You get to define what matters most to you – the values and passions that shape your goals in life.
Self-awareness is the start of self-improvement. You can’t make meaningful changes in your life without first taking an honest look at yourself and your life. You have to quiet down and pay attention – no doubt a challenge in today’s noisy, fast-paced world.
As I work to create more quiet in my own corner of the world, spending more time off line and in the tangible tasks of my days, this passage from Susan Wise Bauer’s book The Well-Educated Mind has grounded me in my efforts:
Technology can do a great deal to make information gathering easier, but it can do little to simplify the gathering of wisdom. Information washes over us like a sea, and recedes without leaving its traces behind. Wrestling with truth…is a time-consuming process that marks us forever.
It’s a reminder to me of the pitfalls of leaning on Google. Of the disservice to a reader of quippy, short sentences because “we all have short attention spans.” Of perpetuating the tendency to skim over words instead of settling in to really, truly take in knowledge that serves and shapes for a lifetime.
It has felt good – really good – to take a break from scrolling and skimming. I’ve been reading more books, listening to my functional nutrition lectures, and making quiet, but big decisions with my family about the direction of our lives…
…a direction of our definition of a life well lived.
Cheers,
Lindsey
