Your Body Is Amazing!

You are the recipient of the most incredible piece of engineering ever! This body you inhabit is the result of eons of genetic engineering through the creative processes of Nature. You possess what has evolved over countless generations to be a perfect machine for survival in the natural world. The problem is that the natural world we were so beautifully adapted for no longer exists in our day-to-day lives. At best we visit on the weekend or vacation. The result is a host of modern ailments that would be foreign to our Earth-dwelling ancestors. Rampant obesity, high blood pressure, type two diabetes, hyperactivity, depression, anxiety disorders, the list goes on and on. We have changed the world we live in so rapidly and to such a degree that we are no longer physically adapted to survive in it. Imagine explaining to your progenitor of 8000 BCE the necessity of a gym membership!

The planet we now inhabit, the modern lives we have constructed for ourselves, are not in alignment with our organism. Contrast a starlit night on the savanna, gathered with your clan around a protective and warming fire to sitting in a concrete box stories above the ground surrounded by ambient noise, light, pollution and EMFs, drowned out by the ever-present drone and glare of electronics. Even if there is someone else in the room, how often do you engage? When is the last time you communicated about something vital while maintaining eye contact?

So how do we survive with a first century body in a twenty-first century world?  The greatest tool we have, Nature's greatest gift to mankind, is our incredibly massive, malleable brain.  It is a double-edged sword however.   Left to it's own devices, it tends to overlearn.  This is best illustrated with an example.  Let's compare a big-brained human response to that of a more rudimentary organism.  A deer is singled out from the herd and pursued as a meal.  The simple brain  immediately responds sending out signals to the rest of the system.  Eyes dilate to see better, blood flow is diverted from non-essential organs,  heart rate and respiration increase rushing oxygenated blood to the limbs.  All the resources are dumped into one immediate task, survival.   Then suddenly, the predator gives up the chase.  It can only afford to expend so much energy in the pursuit of more energy (food).   (This is a model we could learn from, but that's a  topic for another day).  After a prance and a shake to discharge excess energy remaining in the body, the deer settles back into the herd and gradually resumes placidly grazing.  There's no need for therapy or medication, no need to process the experience.

Now consider a human in the same scenario.  Would you be able to shake off the experience of being chased, your very existence in jeopardy, and calmly go back to what you had been doing?  The difference is not in the experience, but in our reaction  to it.  We have the same inital reaction as the deer because we still possess the same rudimentary parts of the brain that prompt the survival reflexes.  But in addition to this basic brain we have a highly evolved cortex, the "higher brain".  Left to it's own devices, our over-sized brains overthink everything.  We  dwell on the experience, discuss it, relive it in our memories over and over until we summon up the feelings again.  Then we think about those feelings, our reactions to those feelings and then we react to those thoughts and feelings.  Or we try to rationalize, minimize or deny it.  Either  we perpetuate the initial occurrence until it is ingrained into our neural pathways, or we suppress it.  In the latter case, the energy becomes literally trapped within our bodies to surface later in the form of physical pain or illness.  In both cases, what results is tension and stress.  These are the mechanisms by which stress results in 80% of all disease.
 
The good news is our exquisitely flexible and powerful brain.  Take the placebo effect for example. With nothing more than a suggestion and a faith in it, your body can heal itself.  And then there is mental rehearsal. Given a physical task to perform, say completing an obstacle course, by simply repeating and rehearsing the sequence of steps and movements in your mind, you can improve your physical performance. Professional and Olympic athletes know and take advantage of this incredibly synergistic mind-body connection.  What does this say about the body, and about the mind? For beginners, it says that what you think, what you believe, what you have faith in, matters. A lot! It says that the body has resources to repair itself that we have not begun to understand.  It becomes the responsibility of each individual to use the greatest tool, Nature's greatest gift, our massive and endlessly malleable brain intentionally. 

 Left to it's own devices the brain can amplify and perpetuate stress, anxiety and dis-ease.  But used with purpose and intention, it is a miraculous tool to not only survive but thrive in this ever-accelerating life.  Choose with intention and purpose the thoughts that you allow to take up residence in your brain.  Bring attention and awareness to your emotions and responses as they arise. 

In addition,  most of us have a lifetime of brain patterns to rewire and trapped energy to unload.  This can be accomplished by committing to a consistent program of healing.  The value of an integrated approach is increasingly being recognized, even by the medical establishment.  And there are a  so many modalities to choose from!  (Not just reiki and reflexology, although these are excellent options! ;-))  I am currently working on my own healing with massage, myofascial release and breathwork therapies.  Investigate the options, check in with your body and see what resonates.  You have only one body for this lifetime, use it wisely!




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