Stuff I learned...put into practice,and changed my life.
I'm going to start by releasing the first in a 3 series post, here today.
I've kept these writings from the light of day for a couple of years...not sure where they would end up.
Today, it hit me. There isn't a right time, or a right place for this information. It's not new. It's not mine(other than the way it is strung together), and its 'hopefully' been told to you, your whole life, in different ways.
As always, my job is just to nudge and remind you of what you came here knowing deep in your bones...
And with that sloppy introduction, I give you blog 1 of a 3 part wellness series. Take your health and life back...
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease of infirmity”- World Health Organizations definition of Health
The word health has evolved to mean more than just ‘disease free’ just as we, people, have evolved to have more stuff to incorporate into our lives. We aren’t living off the land and interacting with only animal and plant life anymore. We are living in stone and metal high-rises, catching the crossfire of technology waves and radiation, breathing in carbon emissions, and overworking and overfeeding our bodies. Health has instead become a fluttering state, such as happiness or sadness. Therefore, the way we ensure our health becomes a way of life, and dare I say, an act of revolution in modern society overcome by the desire to be more, have more, and know more.
An act of revolution because everything about a society desperate to be the most, have the most and become the best, cannot easily maintain proper balance and therefore achieve a constant state of health. Instead, most of us are deeply engulfed at any given moment into what most healers would consider the opposite of health; dis-ease.
Your body is governed by the mind which takes in both outside experiences and internal memories. For example, when you travel to a new location, your mind is actively inputting all sensory data and recording it like a video and tape recorder would. When you revisit that same location another time, instead of taking in all sensory input as if it was a new experience, it is instead going to scan its memory files and only look for changes it can identify, recording those. Exactly like your computer hard drive. What your brain then does with this stimulus is communicate to your bodily systems to either produce more of something or secrete or flush something out. Your body is always looking for balance or homeostasis as it’s called when referring to anatomy. Your body already does this, it’s not state you must try to maintain or that you need to think about or govern in any way. When you are in danger, your body reads this threat and releases adrenaline and cortisol, and you experience the fight or flight response. The proper levels of these chemicals being released at the instruction of your mind, allow your body to respond in the optimal way for survival; you will either fight for your life or run fast enough to get away from the threat.
How that is communicated from mind to body is through a unique and divinely intelligent system of neurons and synapses identified as the autonomic nervous system. This vast and complex system was properly developed and identified by the Greeks in the third century and observed and studied by the ayurvedic cultures prior to that. The ayurvedic cultures also observed what they called the Nadi’s, which is an even more complex and intricate system of pathways throughout the organ, muscular, and nervous systems combined. Acupuncturists address these Nadi’s by way of meridian mapping and acupoints; and engaging them with needles or rubbing.
Being that the meridian system, made up of acupoints with recorded electric pulse has been studied and proven to be a true and real system within the physical body, I will continue with the truth of humans having energetic components and therefore more than just a physical presence. This proven system has its basis in acupuncture, kinesiology, somatic massage therapy, and metaphysical science. And all those methods of healing are borrowed from Eastern influence by Western minds and scientists due to the fact that they have been used effectively for thousands of years without deep understanding or study. Understanding that the body has an energetic, wave component is essential to understanding how to properly care for our bodies in our current western society. This understanding takes me to what is assisting the West in becoming a culture of dis-ease and lack of health.
What your body was not prepared to have to try and balance around constantly was all the technological waves around you and in your pocket, your hands, your wrist, your glasses, earbuds, etc. These waves crash into your internal energetic waves, and cause a clash that results in hormones being released at incorrect times, hunger signals getting crossed with fight or flight signals, fear and anger crossing and becoming rage, stress replacing sleep, and do on an so forth. These clashes are what a healer and a true medicine person would call dis-ease, and what an m.d. might call the flu, or if it’s gone on a long time, cancer. Cancer is nothing more than cells that were able to duplicate at a faster rate than the body could handle. The cancer then becomes the thing that oversees the body, instead of the body being able to fight off its invader. And those cells were able to duplicate so fast because your mind wasn’t doing what it was designed to do which is identify threat and send out its army of hormones and immune defenses to heal itself. Your mind is bogged down with all it must do in a day.
You are keeping it so busy; it doesn’t have the proper down time to check in with its programs and refill its tanks properly. Sleep and uninterrupted relaxation are required for your body to take stock on its systems, and in our modern society, we just don’t get either nearly enough. Our cell phones and devices come to bed with us, we wake up to alarms shouting at us at a time we should still be sleeping, we clumsily and half hazardly shower, and put on clothes and drive our kids to school by a certain time, get to work at a certain time, leave to come home at a certain time, get the kids to soccer practice, bathe them, feed them, bathe and feed ourselves, zone out on the TV until we crash into our beds, sleep a couple hours and then get up and do it all again.
Most Americans live the same day repeatedly from ages 20-70, call it a life, have some regrets, and then die. Somewhere in between that time, you had a smart phone or device in your hands and face. Your brain is watching what you watch, experiencing what it believes its experiencing, and with all the graphics, vibrations, emotion inducing material, etc. it is utterly confused about how to maintain balance, homeostasis.
So, what is the answer? How do we regain control of our lives, grab our own health and well-being by the shirt collar, and make the changes to be healthy, happy, fulfilled and free of dis-ease and pain? Mindfulness practices. Using our body to experience things, not just watch a YouTube video about skydiving, but going skydiving. Listening to your body and finding out what it needs right now and how you can best feed it, is what we’ll be discussing in this space. We’ve got breathing exercises, grounding practices, yoga stretching, meditation techniques and ways to help you put down the smart device and be ok with not knowing your step count today, or not having to respond to that text right way, etc. all it takes is a desire to become or remain healthy, a curiosity to try new things, and a willingness to go easy on yourself.
“Each one of us can make a difference. Together, we make change.”
