# 53 - Picturing Good Health

We did a pretty interesting group exercise at the Efrat Women's Health Center last week.
Alizah Shapiro, our social worker, rolled out two body outlines. They looked straight out of a crime scene.
Actually, Alizah was the model for these two outlines, traced by her five and eight year olds. We were supposed to fill in the outlines. Body #1 was a "healthy body". We had to include everything we thought had to do with a healthy body.
* A big smile
* A calm head
* Strong arms
* A happy heart
* Healthy food in her mouth
* Sneakers on her feet that like to exercise.
We even drew weights in one of her hands for the exercise we know she does, and a pillow near her head for the good night's sleep she gets.
The unhealthy body  had a hammer banging at her head for all the headaches she has, a big mouth that intakes too much unhealthy food, a stomach that's plagued with indigestion and all kinds of ills, dry hands, bad knees, and a couch for her couch potato status.
It's easy to see which figure we'd rather be. The goal is to PICTURE good health and then to do everything we should to attain the good health that we picture.
We are what we picture, I guess. And we'd better start picturing all good things.
I recently was lucky enough to celebrate my anniversary, B"H. My wonderful husband got me a card whose cover sported a young happy in love couple. I bought my husband a card that sported an older happy in love couple. It was clear that my husband looked at us as young, and I was shocked that I seemed to look at us as old.
Well, I'm ditching that card, and buying a new one. I am going to picture us as young and vibrant, and, of course, in love and happy.
The way we think about ourselves impacts how we feel about ourselves, and influences how we go forward to change things for the better.
And I'm going to work very hard on picturing myself as that Healthy Body with a happy smile, a happy heart, and a happy healthy everything else.