There are three types of stress—physical, chemical, and emotional. By the same means, there are three types of balance—physical, chemical, and emotional. Since all three of these elements are connected to the vessel of the body, my experience as a healthcare provider for more than 30 years has been that if you are able to get two out of three imbalances back into balance, the third one typically comes around.

If you can assist your body into more chemical and emotional balance, it will be more prone to return back into physical balance. As the body moves into more physical and chemical balance, it’s most likely going to recalibrate your emotional balance. By making the right choices again and again, if you can condition your body into more physical and emotional balance, it will certainly be more chemically balanced. When all three are in balance, we call this homeostasis, or health. The problem is, often times in our hectic, modern lives, it seems it’s much easier to get out of balance than to get into balance.

When we’re not paying attention to our inner world, it’s easy to get lulled into the same familiar, stressful feelings identified with our past self. Living in the emotions of the past will only bring about more of the same results in the future. When we navigate through life on autopilot operating by the same unconscious programs, feelings, or stressors (doubt, fatigue, resignation, resentment, suffering and so on), our familiar environment reaffirms these same feelings. This is how we get stuck in our same familiar lives.

So how does one break out of this cycle of thinking, feeling, and doing the same things over and over? It all begins by making different choices. Whether it’s waking up and meditating rather than staying in bed, changing what we eat, or starting an exercise routine, as we make new and better choices, we help our body, mind, and spirit come back to balance. You have to start somewhere. Let’s look at the example of changing our diet by cutting out sugar, alcohol, or caffeine. As our body begins to change its chemical state from better food choices, this naturally leads to a change in our emotional state.

At first though, you will likely experience cravings—your body will fight you because it has been chemically and emotionally conditioned by past choices. If we are not alert during this process, our body, which has been conditioned to be the mind, drives us to return to the same familiar stimuli and patterns so that it can feel the same way it has been feeling for the last several years. This is the body clinging to the past.

If you resist the cravings, the temptations, the voices, and the body’s urges long enough, you can begin to take back control of your body and its unconscious drivers. Every time you overcome those cravings and the voices that tell you to make decisions that are not ultimately loving to you, you are exerting your conscious will over your body and conquering an aspect of yourself. This success gives you the confidence and motivation to tackle the next thing. Before you know it, you are no longer fearful or reluctant to make new and different choices. Instead, you embrace them, and each time you do this you become more satisfied with yourself and your choices.

When we feel better about ourselves, we are more likely to see possibility where we could not before. As you continue to make decisions that positively serve your wellbeing, you begin to create a new internal state.

This is just one more step towards recalibrating your body back to a state of homeostasis, or health. In a state of homeostasis, there is more energy available to create a new and better future because the body is no longer working so hard to move back into balance. This freed up energy allows for a virtuous cycle of choices that ultimately creates new and healthier behaviors. These behaviors lead to healthier feelings, which will likely lead you to new experiences—and now that you are more chemically balanced and emotionally balanced, you become more physically balanced—and the cycle continues on.

So the next time you feel stuck in your life, remember new beginnings start with new choices. What is one small thing you can begin to change today that will have a positive impact on your life? Stick with it and see where it leads you! Now you are in the unknown, and that’s where the magic happens.