How many warning signs did you get?

How many warning signs did you get?

Ever wonder why you didn’t know something would happen to you? Did it take you by surprise and catch you off guard? Maybe you assumed or believed it was an unexpected event or outcome with no way for you to have known?

What if that isn’t true?

What if you got many warning signs and signals but didn’t pick up on them? Signs that something was about to happen, to manifest in your life. Yet, you didn’t connect the dots that would connect the warning signs and signals to the eventual outcome.

In other words, you could not associate one idea with another and connect the salient features or big picture.

I realize this idea that you could have known may be challenging to accept, especially in the more severe issues in life, such as a health diagnosis.

However, for the moment, let’s put that belief aside and open our minds to another possibility. The possibility that we could have known or at least had a clue.

Let me use an example, or two, to shine a light on this idea. 

A friend of mine shared with me her recent upsetting health diagnosis. It was worse than she expected, and she was reeling from it. On her way home from the doctor’s appointment, she did what she often did when upset – she stopped and got her favorite pizza. A behavior she knew did not support the path she needed to take with this diagnosis.

She then shared how the next day, with her new resolve to eat more healthy, she decided to buy a “healthy” version of pizza, as advertised in the store’s promotional. However, that pizza was not available in the store, and in fact, the manager said he’d never heard of it.

She then asked to have a discount on another pizza equal to the other offered, to which they agreed. So, what did she do? She decided to buy one that was not a good choice for her new diet regime. As she waited for the pizza, it hit her – “What am I doing? How many warning signs do I need to receive the message that pizza is not a good choice for me!”

How many times had she gotten other messages to go in another direction?

We both found this humorous that it took a pizza to get her attention. However, I could relate since I, too, had experienced guidance many times in my lifetime to go another direction. Which, for whatever reason, I ignored or simply didn’t comprehend the seriousness of it.

I realized this when I got diagnosed with breast cancer. At first, it seemed surreal and out of the blue. How was it possible I had cancer? Yet, I came to accept how many warning signs I had gotten throughout my life. And, how many times I didn’t take heed to that warning.

Like the painful gut issues I had in my early 20’s, which at times the pain was so great I would have to lay down on the floor no matter where I was. Eventually, this escalated until I had emergency gall bladder surgery in my 50’s.

And the decades of migraine headaches that began when I was in my teens. These debilitating migraines continued well into my late 40s, escalating to the point that they were daily.

What did these messages all have in common? They were warning signs and messages from my body asking me to listen – to please take heed and make significant changes in my lifestyle. Or the health challenges would escalate.

Which they did.

Did I do this to myself on purpose? Of course not. 

However, I had many moments where I did recognize that I needed to change my diet, reduce stress, get better sleep, release past hurts, and let go of people, places, and circumstances that did not support a healthy life.

But, what could this mean for you? Or, for any of us, for that matter?

It simply means if we wish to do so, it can be helpful to pay attention to those warning signs, messages, and signals. They are important and yet, can be subtle, not obvious, have hidden meanings that don’t make sense, are humorous, or downright “in your face!”

The message could be on a billboard or the side of a panel truck on the highway. It could be spoken by another, on television, in a magazine, or book you are reading. Or as apparent as a stomach ache after you eat something your body does not like.

Those messages and warning signs can appear in the oddest, most unusual places. Maybe even as a pizza!