Why can't I...?

People don't usually ask "Why can't I?"  We only ask ourselves that question.

What people say is "I can't because ___" fill in the blank.

Like yesterday.  I was talking to Bruce while he was getting ready for work. We don't talk much in the mornings because it's too distracting and he'll forget his wallet or something.

But yesterday I was talking to him because he told me something really scary about his blood pressure.  The silent killer.

When I think of high blood pressure I think of people who are old, or fat, or inactive. Not Bruce. He's none of those things. He's a perfectionist.

And his blood pressure is too high.

He's building us a house with his bare hands.  He's an engineer so it's being made perfectly.

I was talking to him while he was getting ready for work. I knew it was a bad time to talk but I was worried. So I told him he had to stop being such a perfectionist. He laughed and said, I can't. I've always been this way. I said, but nobody is perfect. You have to relax a little so your blood pressure won't be high.

He said you can't really change the way you are. And I said, you can change the way you think about things. No you can't.

I said, you sound like all the clients I work with who say they can't lose weight. Like they're different than everyone else.  He said I wasn't really making it better.  So I laughed.  We'll talk about it more this weekend.


For now I'll try and hide the salt. We only use the sea salt, but still.

We all have to change the way we think.  For most of my life I thought I couldn't wear sandals with the toe thong. There were thousands of cute shoes I was missing out on.  Then my friend who owns the Texas Lady Boutique said, Ida your feet aren't made any different than anybody else's. You have to start with just a few minutes at a time and get used to it.

That summer I got used to wearing thong sandals.  

I changed the way I think.

I'll try that with Bruce.  Do you need to change the way you think?