Someone asked me a question a few days ago; What can I do each day that would make my life better that I am not presently doing?  It could be as little as ten minutes a day if that is what is called for, but some form of consistent effort so that in a year there is no doubt in my mind that my life would be vastly better for this activity.  What would it be?  The answer came quickly and with impact.  The answer; to invest time each day contemplating, reading, writing, generally taking action to improve my health. 

 

From the sound of this blog you may think that this is a normal part of my day, and it was, but it is a habit I have forgotten over the last several years.  I have taken my health for granted.  In fact I spend at least ten minutes each day thinking about the opposite.  I all too often give into fear that Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) might get worse.  Whether you believe in the yes machine of a universe presented in the book the ‘Secret’ or the more academic argument presented in a previous post that our expectations filter our perceptions, it makes no difference.  That which we focus on will increase and become our reality.  If I am honest with myself I have to admit that my focus has been on things going wrong not going right.  Since I have been focusing on things falling apart perhaps it is inevitable that they have.

 

So how did I get here?  Having MCS has put me outside of my comfort zone.  I was chronically ‘uncomfortable’ for many, many years.  When I got better, I became complacent.   Like most of us I am good at being comfortable.  I am discovering that one of my biggest pitfalls in recovery from MCS is not taking further action to strengthen my health once I am already relatively healthy.  I have ‘rested on my laurels’, I have coasted.  Of course as the saying goes, you can only coast downhill.  And since every system in the universe tends to go from an organized to a disorganized state over time, if we are not growing we are dying.  I have forgotten to grow as far as MCS is concerned.

 

What can I change?  The first thing is to spend mental energy each day contemplating how my health has improved, is improving and how it is only going to get better.  Not the opposite.  Now this may be easier for me at the moment; I am not doing well, I am outside of my comfort zone.  Putting forth tremendous mental, emotional, financial and physical effort to get my health back is something I am good at.  The goal has always been to get my health back, but what will I do when I have reached this goal?  Do I go back to eating poorly, or will I consciously eat better?  Will I continue to not exercise or will I start running and walking?  Will I continue with vitamins and other supplements to support health or will I just give into spending my money on something else that appears more important at the moment?  In short will I keep my health in conscious focus or will I again fall asleep?   Perhaps today I can start setting habits that will carry over to when I start feeling truly better.

 

So, what are these habits?  Hmmm… I’m actually finding it a little difficult to come up with this.  There is some part of me that really does not want to look at moving past a comfortable complacency, at least as far as health is concerned.  If I am honest with myself I am quite scared of taking any risk with moving forward once I feel good.  After all the years of being lost in a MCS purgatory I want to hold on to feeling MCS free at all costs.  One of my favorite tools to accomplish this is living in denial that things have to change.  I must remember that things become worn-out and need replacing, situations must change over time, nothing remains the same forever. 

 

I have demonstrated the ability to take risk several times but even the thought of moving forward once I am doing well is now causing me anxiety.  What is up with this?  The truth is that change has caused me extreme hardship in the past, at least as far as MCS is concerned.  If something is disrupted then an MCS reaction can occur and MSC reactions hurt, even if they are relatively short lived.  But the other side of this is that change has given me the opportunity to receive some wonderful gifts;  new places to live, new people to meet, great material gain, personal and professional growth.  My life is as good as it is today because of change. 

 

Moving forward requires forward movement.  I can’t just sit back, and hope for the best while I watch TV on the computer.  Life is meant to be full of active participation.  So before I can really talk about actively building my health let me talk about the theory of complacency known as the Comfort Zone…