Yesterday I was accused of pushing my new "diet" (we'll talk about that word later) onto people around me. No, wait, I believe the word was "hounding" and not pushing. Nonetheless, this upset me more than I wish to put down here (let's just say that I went to bed angry AND woke up angry AND I'm still pretty ticked-off). I love my family. I love my friends. Now, when I discover new things that just might keep us all alive longer and healthier, I try to make this information available to those that I love. Heck, no use in me hanging around if no one else will be here with me, right? So, ya, maybe I do come across to them as "hounding", "pushing", "nagging", etc. but, is that what I'm doing really? No lies, I do get excited about learning something new. Could my loved ones mistake my excitement as trying to coerce them into eating healthier or to just do things my way? I contemplated this today on the way to my weight-lifting session with my trainer.
Then I started thinking that, on top of all the reading and studying that I do about nutrition and eating habits, I've been watching all the seasons of "The Biggest Loser", back-to-back. I've seen those MRIs on there that show how the fatty tissue congests all the internal organs and pushes them into unnatural positions. I know that bad nutrition and obesity are behind the number one cause of death here in the United States. I get it. But I want everyone near-and-dear to me to also realize it. By-the-way, if you don't know, according to the CDC's 2007 Mortality report, the leading cause of death here is heart disease. Number two is cancer, which I've read some wonderful stories that people completely REVERSED and eliminated cancer by changing their diets to vegan (haven't really looked for research studies on it yet but maybe that's something for next week). But am I "preachy" about it? Am I like a church minister trying to convert a bunch of sinners and knowing it's a hopeless situation, I still keep thumping that bible? Hmmm, maybe.
Well, that drive this morning, paired up with the adrenaline of a near collision, made me think about this in particular: Why do I feel like I need to "fix" everyone around me? To make them healthier? To get them to feel good? Then, it dawned on me - the underlying reason for my, I guess you can call it, obsession with "healing" people. I thought about my life and then it came to me.
Growing up, I had been very close to my godmother/great aunt. When I was 9-10 years old, she had been diagnosed with incurable cancer. She told me, as I perched on her lap and she sat in her favorite rocking chair, that she was very, very sick and that she was going to die. I hugged her and told her "no", that she wouldn't die because I was going to grow up to be a doctor and I would fix her. She laughed a little and said she wished she could wait but she wasn't going to be able to but that she wanted me to still be a doctor and find the cure for cancer. I promised her.
As the months slipped past, I watched that lively woman deteriorate before my eyes as she endured horrible bouts of chemotherapy. I watched as she got sicker and sicker, her hair falling out in clumps and her trying to hide it with a kerchief tied around her head. I remember her having to be kept at the hospital one time and I wasn't allowed to go see her, then she came home - I watched over her and witnessed her fitful sleep with full-out hallucinations from the drugs they were giving her to dull her pain. And, I felt helpless, completely and utterly helpless. Eventually, the pain bled through the drug's power and she was taken again to the hospital, kissing us and telling us "good-bye", looking at us as they backed out of the garage as if she KNEW
she'd never come back and...she never did. I now believe that's why I "push" healthier eating habits because it is the one thing I can control.
See? This isn't just about my adventures with foods and ways of eating healthier. Sometimes my own little psychological self-evaluations may cause someone else to also think about why they do something. Honestly, I never want to see another loved one suffer like that if it can be prevented at all. But, I'm also still hurt that these people I call "loved ones" would turn on me so quickly and easily when I hadn't been hurting them (in fact, they went out of their way to make sure I was suffering their verbal "comical" abuse). It's just so much easier to NOT care...maybe this was to show me where my behavior comes from and to stop fixing everyone else and focus just on me?? I think I can handle that :D
Oh and about the word "diet" - I abhor that word's connotation! Let me just state this once and for all --- my veganism is not a "diet" it is a healthy way of life and it's a choice - it's MY choice because I don't want to wind up at the end of my life having to be hooked up to machines or having to take a boatload of drugs just to keep going. Choose it or don't but don't roll your eyes when I ask waiters about ingredients in my food, got it? Good!
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