7 Obstacles That Stop Change Toward Whole Health

Just last week, I sat in one of the tranquil rooms at the Longevity Healthcare Center in San Luis Obispo, California, talking with owners Dr’s Pete and Sandy Muran about their mission in partnering with patients on the fairly new concept in the western medical community of addressing the “whole” person in the doctor’s office throughout the healing process – the body, the mind, and the spirit.

Being one of their patients healing from chronic Lyme disease, as well as a contributing writer for the emotional and spiritual health aspect on the Longevity website, I intimately know that educating their clients to embrace the whole health perspective is their passion. We’d had a brief discussion around some of the obstacles that stop people from making the lifestyle changes that would drive them forward with their desire for a vibrant life. Sandy said she asks clients to imagine what the results of their healing process looked like – some didn’t know.

Inhaling the soothing, warm aromas of lavender and cherry sage outside the front entrance as I left our meeting, ideas quickly began surfacing for my next article.

I rummaged through the files of my mind’s education, past observations, consultations, and most importantly – personal experiences in relationships with family and friends. I’ve come up with my top 7 obstacles that stop us in our tracts from making change toward a balanced healthy lifestyle:

1. Vision/Dream – Goal

If we don’t visualize or imagine what our goal is and what that would look and feel like, we haven’t begun. We must hold a dream, make a solid decision about pursuing it – think it, speak it, draw it, write it, sing it, dance it – whatever it takes to make it sacred. When we do this one step, we are engaging a powerful inner momentum that’s waiting to be manifest, one step at a time.

There has to be a hunger, a great desire, behind any realistic goal we could envision to create lasting change. There is a reason we want something. We ask ourselves, “Why do I want this?” “Do I really want this?” “How would this change my world?”

Knowing where we want to go is essential. Create a roadmap to the goal. It’s a journey of change! We all have to take a detour on a back road at times because unknown setbacks happen in life – those bumps in the road – but we get back onto the highway of our destination. Hold the dream. Hold the vision. Go with the flow toward the goal.

2. Action – Practice

We can talk about our dreams and our goals, and we can read all the books to educate ourselves, but if we don’t take action – if we don’t implement what we learn and incorporate what we want into a lifestyle – we’re only pipe dreaming.

When the action of ongoing practice starts to subside, we’re either no longer motivated to believe in what the dream once represented in our life, or we stopped because we lack the self-confidence and discipline to continue.

To truly want something, but not invest the time to change our lifestyle, reveals a lack of courage, plus it’s got to create some awful inner conflict. It takes two to three weeks of practice for something to become a habit.

Take on the mantle of excellence instead of perfection. Striving for excellence is simply doing the best we individually can do, and being honest with ourselves is our guiding light.

3. Support – Values

The people in our life – who do we work and socialize with? Does our social and physical environment support our dreams and goals? Look around, and check whether the garden of our life needs weeding out. We may need to distance ourselves, create boundaries, or eliminate the problem all together, hopefully in a compassionate way. Counseling with a holistic approach may be needed. Hanging onto people, places and things that continually bring us down is one of the fastest routes to lifestyle change failure.

Ask, “Who motivates me.” “Who are my best role models? “Who celebrates my successes?” “Who loves me for who I am?”

Beautiful, loving spiritual values and spiritual practice provide an immoveable foundation of support, strength, sense of purpose and meaning, joy, faith, and courage. A lack of inner spiritual compass tends to result in feelings of isolation detached from a guided purpose and suppression of natural intuition. Ask, “What values do I hold sacred?”

4. Fear

Become conscious of resistance to our dream. Resistance is that negative mind talk and restless behavior that the small ego or shadow side our ourselves (from past fear-based patterns of negative programming) wants to place in our way to sabotage us and take away our focus from what our Higher Self really wants. One remedy to bypass that mind game is to consciously create a new game. We ask, “What would happen if I didn’t listen to the small ego and really did what I want to do?”

We discover what we’re really made of when we consciously say NO to the worn out echo of that bothersome negative voice. When we become successful at transcending our fears, we gain a precious treasure we’ve uncovered from the depths of a courageous spirit. No one can ever take that away from us!

5. Impatience

Most lifestyle changes don’t happen overnight. We can change and focus our minds instantly, but we can forget about finding the magic pill that eliminates any work on our behalf. Notice the desire to speed up or force something – nip it in the bud of conscious awareness.

Taking on too much is also overwhelming, stressful, and usually creates setbacks. Lasting lifestyle change happen one step at a time. Loosen up. Go with the flow – we can still maintain focus. Ask, “What am I afraid of losing control of?” “How would it feel to allow myself to wait without worry?” “How would it feel to ask for help?”

6. Perspective/Gratitude

Lack of positive perspective creates a distorted picture of our journey with change that wears down our convictions. Look up and see the overall picture of where we’ve come in the process. Celebrate the tiny gains as well as the more obvious ones. Ask, “What has changed since last month?”

How we view the journey is as important as how we walk it. The destination is nice, but expressing gratitude every day for something is pure spiritual medicine. And it’s a joyful thing, bringing recognition that the world is indeed abundant and good. We find there is much more to be grateful for than there is to be troubled about.

7. Play

Too much work and no play create a weary, dull, colorless, life. Regular times of fun for the joy and adventure of it is our fountain of youth. Lifestyle change can also be fun if only we need a sense of humor to laugh at ourselves. Laugh and play with the journey. It’s in our nature to be a child at heart. When the spirit of the child lives within us, not much can dampen our trust in the mystery of life.


Affirmation for this month – Goals

I am energized with the knowledge that the Divine guides and encourages me to take right action in whatever I aspire to do, today. Forming the objectives of my heart’s desire becomes a brilliant reality.


Live in beauty and be well - Triza Schultz

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