Finding Our Way: Towards Healthy Living

A few years ago some friends and I planned an overnight hiking/camping trip in Lancaster County. One friend and I had to arrive late and planned to meet up with our friends who had already completed the hike and had set up camp. We arrived with a few hours of remaining daylight. 

We were given basic instructions to follow the “orange” markings and were told that if we followed the path we would eventually find our group. With our heavy packs full of supplies, we started off towards our friends. Or so we thought…

We walked half a mile down a hill when suddenly the orange markings began to disappear; we corrected our steps back up the steep hill, relieved to find the orange markings. After another 20 minutes or so in another direction, the orange markings began to disappear again. Finally, we began to find our way and we were excited to see an opening directly ahead of us. As we approached the opening our sense of peace turned to dread as we realized we were approaching the parking lot where we had arrived 2 hours earlier. We were exhausted, our backs were hurting from the extra 50-pound packs, the sun was setting, and we were no closer to finding our friends than we were 2 hours earlier.

We were lost. In a sense we knew where we were, in fact we were exactly where we had started, but we had no idea how to get where we were going.  We knew we didn’t want to be where we were, we knew there was a destination for us somewhere in the woods, but even if we could ask someone for help, we couldn’t have told them where we were going!

 I share this personal story because I believe that this is often a person’s experience when they come in for counseling. People come for help when they’re feeling “lost” or when they’re certain that their current circumstances need to change, but so often they are unsure of where they want to go or what needs to change. People will state, “I just don’t want to be anxious anymore,” or “I don’t want to be depressed.” While these are fair statements and certainly understandable, the first step in developing a goal is to think less about what you don’t want and to think more about what you do want.

With a little help and some insight from their counselors, individuals are usually able to figure out where it is they want to go. They’re able to imagine the healthy alternative to their current situation and then, with eyes fixed on that goal, they can begin to move towards that goal one step at a time.

Perhaps you’re at a point where you’re lost but you don’t even know it. Perhaps you know you’re “lost” but you’re unsure of what direction to start moving. While the end goal is going to be different for everyone, we always want to be moving in a direction that will help us to reach a healthy alternative to our current situation. But what does it mean to be healthy? What does a healthy individual look like?

Over the next few months I will be exploring various aspects of a “healthy” person. I will be offering pieces of research and resources that can aid you in developing healthy goals and a clear direction. It is my desire that as we explore these topics you will find this blog to be a compass that continually points you in the direction that you need to go. As Socrates states, 

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new”

We all get lost from time to time; let's figure out where we're going, fix our eyes on our destination, and start moving forward. 

Up-coming Blog: "Vulnerability In Relationships" 

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