My March Madness (or Why Health is a Series of Brackets)

Do I follow basketball? Nope.

But I do have a curious mind and I love a good metaphor.

One morning in the car last week, enjoying being in the passenger seat, I took a few deep breaths after getting us all out of the house. Because we have organized our life so that our work and 99 percent of our life happens within 20 square blocks (no small feat in the DC metro area)—I didn't have all that much time to relax and enjoy the calm before a day of collaborating with other holistic healers in the area and then meeting clients from my holistic health coaching practice. I gazed out the window, wondering how the pansies were surviving during this suddenly chilly day, when my attention came back to the radio.

NPR. Morning Edition. March Madness. An interview about picking brackets with a man who has studied humans and choice for 30 years.

Choice

Basically—the gist of what the guy said? If you asked us to choose the best of 68 college basketball teams, we will freeze with indecision. We get lost in: “The best? I have no idea! How do I pick? What if I'm wrong?! No... can't do it!”

But given a series of choices between the best of two teams? “Easy peasy! Lots of fun! I'll even throw money down for a chance to win the office pool!”

The result?

Exactly the same.

If you've ever picked teams during March Madness you know that it is just a series of choices as you go closer and closer to the top. Montana or Syracuse? Indiana or Temple? Kansas or Michigan? At the end of it all you have chosen the best of 68 college basketball teams, but you found ease and excitement while you did it because you were focused on the simple choice between the two (and maybe there is 500 bucks in the pool!).

Wellness Madness

All we really need to do is make one choice in each given moment of each given day. Yes, it's important to have goals that we are trying to reach or maintain. The key is to not let that ultimate goal, that seemingly insurmountable goal, freeze you into doing nothing right now.

All day long, hundreds of choices. Waking up irritated that the baby wants to eat breakfast at 5 a.m. or full of gratitude that I can watch the gorgeous pink sunrise? Hot water with lemon to cleanse and detoxify my body or coffee with cream and sugar? Allowing joy in only when I fit into those jeans or donating those jeans to the thrift store and allowing joy now?

[Wait for it… basketball metaphor continues…]

To reach the Final Four of health—eating unprocessed food, drinking lots of water, moving your body every day, and managing how you relate to stress—remember every moment is a choice, leading you to the big win.

Listen to full story about choice and picking brackets on NPR.