You Can't Force Your "Ah-Ha" Moment

How many times do you have to tell your kids to pay attention while they’re driving before they listen?

As many times as it takes them to learn for themselves.

We had the discussions with our daughter about careful driving.  We paid extra to get her “defensive driving” courses, and drove with her many, many, more hours than required.  We showed her movies and examples of kids who were dead because they were not paying attention while driving.  The only thing that made her change her driving habits was hitting another car while she wasn’t paying attention.

It’s the same with our eating and exercise habits.

We go along eating the wrong things, smoking the wrong things,and sitting on the couch (or in front of the computer!) too long every day, not really thinking about exercising our minds as well….until we get hit.  Hit with cancer, hit with diabetes, hit with high blood pressure or have a heart attack.

Then we listen.  Then we “wake up” and pay attention.

Then we become very interested in the latest vitamin supplement or the nearest Pilates class or the labels on the food in our pantry, and you realize what you’ve been missing.  You say “why didn’t I do this sooner?”

My “brick in the head” was when I was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer.  I thought I was living a healthy life, but when I examined it closer, I discovered there was room for improvement:

• eating organic foods instead of pesticides
• Exercising 4-5 days a week instead of 2
• eliminating all parabens from my cosmetic routine
• eliminating high fructose corn syrup from my diet
• adding extra vitamin D for future cancer prevention
• including at least 20 minutes of meditation daily
• trying to smile more

and other things……

What was your “ah-ha” moment?