5 things you love that don’t love you back

I talk to my clients daily about what they love. The things we love drive us to achieve, grow, transform and connect to the world. Often those things are their kids, their pets, their new projects, their friends. But then they also love cookies, shoes, jeans, credit cards, ipads, and other inanimate objects that seem to hold our hearts in their tight grip.

When you LOVE something, it better LOVE you back, and it better  improve your well being, self awareness, and growth. Why? Because life is too short, and love comes with a price tag. How many times did you date someone who was destructive for you? ”But I love him, mom!” – yeah, right!

Here are the top 5 things I see people LOVE, that don’t LOVE them back. Am I guilty of loving these at some point in my life? You bet. But I also have the choice to connect with them differently, and choose to use them or let them go, instead of  ”loving” them. I keep love for my husband, family and friends, those other things can stay or go.

HIGH HEELS

Yes, they make you look sexy. They even make me look sexy. In fact I take a pair of high heels to my foot workshops to show people how much taller and skinnier I look. Then I tell them tall + skinny is not as valuable to me as healthy and we move on. High heels end up shifting 60- 90% of your weight to the front of your foot, contributing to bunions, hammer toes, plantar fasciitis, and a host of low leg, knee, hip and low back issues. If you LOVE your high heels and you claim they are comfortable, know your sensation of ”normal” has long changed and you need to take measures to restore your foot and low leg muscles to their natural length. That may not only save you from foot and other body part problems, but will also allow you to walk gracefully the way you were created to walk.  Trust me, there are some minimal shoes you can learn to ”love” once you find what a healthy foot feels like.

TIGHT JEANS

When we were teenagers, my cousin was really into tight jeans. She would lay flat on her back and suck in her belly so she would be able to zip up those one size too small skinny mini jeans. If you have any digestive or reproductive issues, or have been suffering from unexplainable low back and hip pain know that your tight jeans may be the culprit. Not being able to relax your abdomen means suboptimal breathing patterns, digestive distress and oftentimes even high stress levels. Once you start walking in them the mechanics of how your legs open to allow for optimal gait also change. There’s hip pain and low back pain, ladies. This one applies less to the men, since they rarely go for the super skinny jeans, but I hear there is important equipment in men’s pants that cannot be compressed too close to the body either. Just sayin’.

SUGAR

Oh where do I begin? I am not much into candy but I can eat fruit (which has sugar, yes?) almost exclusively if you put me on an all fruit diet. I would be as happy as one of those Jamaican fruit eating bats. But then I really like cheesecake and creme brulee, and white chocolate with coconut. Anything coconut. Coconut manna jumps on my spoon. Jars of that crack-like stuff disappear from our pantry within days. And then the brain fog comes, and the crankiness, and the sweet cravings, not to mention extra fat around my belly. I’ve found my peace, having some fruit every day and enjoying a dessert every couple of weeks, but if you feel like a cupcake is bossing you around or your type 2 diabetes is here to stay, it’s time to stop saying you ”LOVE” them.

YOUR SMART PHONE

I read somewhere that more and more people use their smartphones even when they are on the toilet. The number of people I see in restaurants eating dinner ”together” while on their personal devices is growing daily. While I agree life is easier when you can google the meaning of  ”charcuterie” before you let the waiter convince you to order some, there is no valid reason why face to face human communication should be replaced with the cold, if sleek face of an iPhone. Reading your phone in bed is also not the smartest idea, since the type of light coming from a phone can very well mess up the hormonal rhythms that ensure quality sleep. I suggest you take a phone break every few days, when you take a walk, or spend half a day leaving your phone behind. Remember the days of landlines? No one is that important that they need to be reached everywhere and every minute. Take a step back from being bullied by applications and sucked into people’s Facebook pages. Your phone is here to serve you, not to offer you a quality relationship.

YOUR COUCH

Even if you are not a couch potato your couch does nothing to help you live a long healthy life. Unless you’ve been living under a rock that’s under another rock you probably know sitting is highly correlated with all cause mortality. You can read more here if you need an extra kick to get off your couch. Many of the people I see with hip and low back pain tend to sit there a lot at night while relaxing or watching TV. The biomechanical drama here is that there is no way to even get close to a proper pelvic position to sit in a couch – most people end up tucking their tailbone under – a common source of pelvic floor pain, erectile dysfunction, digestive and reproductive issues and a host of other unmentionable down there conditions. Instead of spending all your time sitting (office, car, restaurant, dinner table, doing homework), how about giving your hips a break by stretching on the floor while watching your favorite TV show? Or just assuming one of the many postures our ancestors pre-tested and pre-approved for us?

What are your ”LOVE” relationships and how well do they serve you? Let us know in the comments below!

p.s. Featured image from Sid Avery’s Book ”The art of the Hollywood snapshot”