After my heart attack, I knew I would be going through rehab to get back my physical strength, but little did I know that there was so much more to learn. Even after my official 12 week program, I was continually drawn back to my weekly support group meetings. What resonates in my heart today are three pearls of wisdom I heard from others with heart disease in my support group.
The first pearl of wisdom is: There is no round trip in life.
It’s a one-way ticket all the way. Recently there has been a discussion on Women Heart about “the other side.” It is an intriguing read about women who have flat lined. There are many accounts and books written about life after death. Religions profess about heaven and hell. Some religions believe that a soul reincarnates into another being. Many of us fear death. Some of us have dealt with our own demons and have written our wills or prepaid for our own funerals. But for me, I’d like to modify this pearl of wisdom to: My physical body has a one way ticket on this Earth.
The second pearl of wisdom is: Life is not a dress rehearsal.
I think back to the plays and ballet recitals of my youth. I would practice my lines until my mother got tired of hearing them or I’d stretch my legs against the wall until I could do a perfect split. I was so excited about my costumes too, trying them on when no one was looking and pretending that I was a professional performer. Then the big day would come. The preparations to that point took months, but the performance was over in an hour or two.
But in life, you don’t get to do “do overs.” All we get is today, this moment, to do the best that we can with whatever skills we have. Yet for most of my life, I regretted the past with lots of “Why did I…s” and feared the future with “What if …s”. I don’t think I’m alone in this either. As women we beat ourselves up and lose our self-esteem. Then hopefully one day we wake up and start living in the present, because that is all we have. Today. So live your life as if there is no tomorrow. Enjoy and celebrate each moment with gusto.
I’d like to think that I’ve saved the best pearl of wisdom for last: Is this worth dying for?
Slap me along side the head with this one. If you ever need to question the wisdom of choice, this is the question to remember. Every time I get annoyed about something and feel my blood pressure rise or my breath become shallow, I take a deep breath and remember this pearl. Negative emotions can dramatically affect someone with heart disease, so these days I try to stay as calm as possible.
This question works wonders when it comes to diet too. Every time I walk into Starbucks and read their chalkboard special drink of the day such as raspberry mocha with whipped cream or gaze into their glass display case filled with delicious looking chocolate delights, I now ask myself, “Is this worth dying for?” The answer is pretty easy: NO. Then it’s easy for me to order a grandé soy decaf latte or a venté herbal tea.
As humans, we are blessed and cursed with a free will. We can choose good or bad foods, and advertisers do a bang up business trying to persuade us to visit MacDonalds, Jack-in-the-Box, Wendy’s or any other junk food restaurant. I don’t see many commercials on television promoting tofu, fresh fruit or steamed veggies, do you? We hear on the news about the obesity problem in children and adults in the US. I am sure advertising all kinds of junk food contributed to the problem, yet, we all have a free will. We can choose what we put into our mouths.
Dieting is one of the hardest things to do in our society. Even when we “go on” a diet, we soon lose our willpower and “go off” it, sometimes with a vengeance. But since weight is a contributing factor to heart disease, we must have some restraint and pay attention to what we put into our mouths. If you are having a hard time keeping those pounds at bay, join me in my food and negative emotion mantra – “Is this worth dying for?”
What are your favorite pearls of wisdom?
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