After a year or so in therapy, my therapist recommended I start taking an antidepressant. It was Elavil, an older one that “has proven itself,” she said. “It works especially well for people like you, that have underlying low-level anxiety.” I started crying uncontrollably. I felt like…I had failed. I was 25, and was trying and trying and trying to get better – through food, through supplements, through talk therapy, through meditation. You name it. But I obviously hadn’t gotten anywhere. At least according to my therapist. Dealing with depression makes a person desperate for relief. Or even dealing with constant anxiety, which is what I had. I just thought this is the way it would always be. This was the way it always had been.

I’ve spent a good chunk of my life focused on my belly. I’ve looked at it from the front, fully bare in the mirror, and then quickly switched my body to look at it from the side. And then the front again. Followed by how it looked in clothing from the front. And side. And not in a good way. I’d be happy with it the mornings after I refrained from eating late the night before, or when I was doing a cleanse, or had been throwing up the entirety of my insides from a stomach bug (insanity, no?). I’d be terrified of it when I had just consumed a 5-course meal and was wearing a form-fitting shirt that earlier that day (pre-breakfast) had seemed to look sexy. And then, on the eve of my 30th, I decided I was done.

Change…life is full of it. Changes we choose and changes we don’t. Changes we feel happy about and changes we would rather live without. One of the areas of life that people are frequently inspired to make change is around health, and for good reason. It turns out that our health habits (eating, drinking, smoking, exercise, and even our spiritual practices) account for at least 50% of how healthy we are, more than environment and genetics combined. Fantastic, right? This means that if we can make changes in these areas, we can actually have an incredible impact on how we feel. Why then is it so hard for us to cut out the sugar, ditch the cigarettes, start that yoga practice or consistently commit to a jog in the park?