My truck, the one my wife drives when I take her vehicle to work, had the audacity to have a flat tire the other day. The thing has been causing issues lately and a flat was the least of the worries. But still, a flat will leave you high and dry in a second, whereas the missing muffler and loose front end are long-term issues that one plans to get fixed someday. Tomorrow is a great time to spend thousands of dollars on an old pickup truck.
The issue here is that this flat came as no surprise. I knew those tires were bad and I should have been proactive instead of reactive. As I was at work, my good wife had to call the neighbor to come blow some air into it (I think that’s the mechanical term for it) so she could hobble it to the tire shop.
Do not worry, I apologized to her for the flat fiasco. She has forgiven me. I think.
Anyway. This got me thinking about myself, about you. Are we taking care of our future selves? Are we engaged in practices today that will reap rewards and benefits tomorrow? Do we practice prevention or tend to go with reaction?
I’m talking about something more than what people call self-care or me time, which often means taking a little time off, resting, taking a break. In other words, getting off the busy stress freeway and doing what we enjoy and find relaxing. Self-care does not take an effort per se, in the sense that it is simply a rest, a net negative pursuit. Oh yes, we do have to say no thanks, not today, sorry, I’m booked, busy, or boondoggled. We may have to decline that call, put off that email until tomorrow, reply later. But overall self-care leans a little more towards inactivity and rest than action and movement (notwithstanding self-care for some involves throwing lures at fish or walking up tall mountains, both of which requires effort – please bear with me here).
I’m talking about self-maintenance and that takes an effort: a deliberate effort that often requires commitment, dedication, and even self-surrender. Self-maintenance should always be considered and carried out from a holistic standpoint. Using the PERMS outline (PERMS = Physical, Emotional, Relational, Mental, Spiritual) can be helpful for this.
Physical. Preventing future physical breakdown is not easy in a society and culture where ease, enjoyment, and comfort are key ingredients. Experience, observation, and decades of research tell us that wholesome nutritional intake and bodily exercise pay dividends in the long run. A daily brisk walk or run, lifting weights, or doing some push-ups reap rewards. Eating non-processed foods, avoiding high carbohydrate meals, and focusing on whole and fresh go a long way in preventing the number one killers of our day. Dr. Robert Lustig perhaps says it best: Good food is medicine. Bad food requires medicine.
“Good food is medicine. Bad food requires medicine.” Dr. Robert Lustig
Yearly labs are as important as routine maintenance on your vehicle. Have your doctor check a fasting insulin level, an A1C, a comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP) and a complete blood count (CBC). Add thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), B12, and Vitamin D levels. These are all simple and inexpensive tests and contribute to sounding an early warning if something is off.
Emotional. Our emotional and mental health are intricately connected. However, there are some subtle differences, and it may be helpful to delineate those briefly. Emotional health centers on how we cope and deal with our emotions while mental health is about the workings of the mind and brain. Good levels of emotional health often run parallel to good relationships. Heartache can be prevented if we learn to recognize and appreciate our emotions, where they stem from, and how to reconcile, accommodate, and accept them. Self-maintenance comes in learning to express ourselves and talking things through instead of bottling it up, avoiding, or ignoring it. Become vulnerable and share your heart and soul with honesty and authenticity.
Relational. There is a direct connection between relationships and our emotional health. Those suffering from personality disorders such as narcissism and borderline personality disorder primarily have problems relating to themselves and others. The underlying cause here is emotional dysfunction, often based in past trauma.
Maintaining relationships comes down to communication. Learning to actively listen to others is the most important. Practice looking people in the eye and learn to give empowering feedback; do not listen to respond but rather listen to understand not only their words, but their heart. Ask them questions, show interest. Be kind. Strive to foster authentic and heartfelt connections with your spouse, your children, and your friends. Generosity is powerful. Gratitude is crucial. Build and maintain bridges. If possible, stay in relationship even if you feel like running. And don’t forget: the way to be happy is to make others happy.
The way to happiness is through making others happy.
Mental. Mental health, as alluded to above, centers around the brain as an organ and the workings of the mind and includes our thoughts, moods, and behaviors. Depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and eating disorders are examples of mental illnesses, although many of these cross over into the physical and emotional realms. Prevention here may not be a part of the picture as some mental health issues are genetic, some are organic, and others may be caused by our upbringing and childhood environment, including our time in utero. We may not always prevent but we can put practices in place to maintain our mental health.
Not surprisingly, diet and exercise play a bigger part in mental health than we may imagine, even in organic mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, for example. Sometimes the brain benefits from being retrained. Gratitude therapy is an example of this. Other brain-retraining/Principle 4:8 programs such as NSR and DNRS*, are remarkably effective ways of strengthening positive neuronal pathways and healing limbic system impairment. Medication is sometimes required. However, in most mental health challenges it is much more beneficial to isolate and address the underlying cause than to rely on medications that treat surface symptoms only.
And, not surprisingly, our mental health is often tied closely to our spiritual health.
Final point: please remember that you are not your mental illness. There is a difference between suffering from something and being something. Reminding ourselves of this plays an important maintenance and preventative role and will save much heartache in the future.
Spiritual. Our soul requires daily maintenance. We all know this. We neglect spiritual self-maintenance at our eternal peril. Prayer, meditation, maintaining knowledge and insight through reading the Word of God is all a part of self-maintenance. Connect with God and your church family. Push into Jesus, the One who came to save our eternal souls, came to heal the brokenhearted, came to bind up our wounds. Learn to recognize hurt and then authentically forgive. Acceptance, surrender, forgiveness, contentment, and thankfulness are crucial to spiritual health and affect all other aspects of PERMS.
*****
In the beginning we briefly mentioned self-care in relation to self-maintenance. In the end, maintaining our PERMS health is the best we can do for ourselves; it is true self-care that serves others besides ourselves. It may look different than spa days and a nice restaurant meal. It is not a sleep-in or a getaway. Those things certainly have their place but maintaining ourselves at a deeper level ultimately leaves us feeling much better about ourselves, others, and the world around us.
And now I need to get my pickup to the mechanic.
BF
*NSR = Nervous System Rewire; DNRS = Dynamic Neural Retraining System
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