What Truly Does a Body Good? (And No, It's Not Milk)

Clearly what one chooses to put into their body is going to impact how that body functions, feels, and responds to what life throws at them on a daily basis.  One’s diet IS important.  However, it’s not the only facet in determining the health of an individual.  In fact, if my mind is right, my frequency is vibrating at a high level, and my metabolism is working at an optimal level I find it doesn’t matter quite so much what my diet looks like.  Now I wouldn’t take it to extremes to test how far I can push my relative health based on diet, but one doesn’t have to be rigid and meticulous in one’s diet to allow the body to function at a high level. 

There are three things I would encourage everyone to consider when it comes to ingesting food. 

1.       Enjoy your food!  Engage all five senses while eating.  Really look at your food.  Notice the colors, the shapes, and textures of the food you are eating.  Appreciate the aroma that emanates from the food whether prepared (blend of foods and spices) or raw.  All food has a scent.  Be aware of it before and as you eat.  The easiest of the five senses for most of us to be aware of is the taste of the food we are eating.  However, I’m not sure how deeply we are generally engaging the taste sense.  To fully be present you need to limit the distractions.  It’s really hard to notice taste if you are eating in the car, if you are on your devices (computers, phones, ipads, TVs, etc.), or if you are working.  Really take the time to be present while you eat.  Be aware of the chewing process.  Is the food challenging to chew?  Is it soft?  Are you slurping soup?  How does the food feel in your mouth, on your tongue, between your teeth as you bite down? And the last, and generally least considered of the five senses, is the sense of hearing.  Listen to yourself eating.  What sound is being made when you take a bite?  And how about while you chew your food?  How about when you swallow your food?  Bringing one’s awareness to all the different things that are happening while one eats really engages the digestive system both in prepping the body to receive the nutrients from the food and for eliminating all that is not needed.  Enjoy your food!

2.       Don’t overeat!  Nothing bogs the digestive system down more than overeating.  Learn to stop eating when you are three quarters full.  I know, it’s easier said than done.  Especially when you are eating some sublime rich and decadent food that you just can’t imagine leaving any tasty little morsels behind. Generally we just blow past the getting full signs and happily venture into gluttony.  Yet you know pretty quickly when you have over done it.  You feel bloated.  You feel lethargic.  You feel tired.  Your body has now kicked into overdrive to try to compensate for an excess of food.  Your body must expend a great deal of energy to break down the food.  Energy that could be utilized in other areas is now being pulled into aiding the digestive system.  I know it’s oh-so-tempting to do so, but don’t overeat.

3.       Limit your sugar intake!  Sugar is a major stressor on the liver, the heart, the pancreas, and on the kidneys.  It also tends to be super addictive.  It adversely affects one’s mood, one’s brain function, and one’s ability to be centered and at peace.  It is harmful to one’s teeth, one’s energy levels, and it causes inflammation in the body (most noticeably in the joints).  Limiting one’s sugar intake will elevate one’s health exponentially. Just say no to sugar.

Beyond that which you can control from an ingesting standpoint there are many other ways to treat the body good.  Some are obvious and you have heard them suggested over and over again.  Like taking a walk after eating, getting exercise, drinking lots of water, etc.   There are other ways less talked about though.  Ways that can really help one feel their body existing in optimal health.  There are various methods designed to stimulate blood flow, move through blocks, and strengthen energy centers throughout the body.   Acupuncture, yoga, and certain meditation techniques (like Vipassana) are just a few examples.  

In short making good choices about the types of food you are eating and making the effort to do those things that help keep the mind and body supple will take you far in achieving your goal of optimal health while paving the way to realizing your optimal self.     

3 Strategies for Kicking the (Harmful) Habit

Have you ever felt you would like things to be different in your life?  Maybe you are tired of feeling stuck in a rut or stuck in a pattern of disharmony.  You are ready for change. Well in order to facilitate that change you need to make room in your life and mind for something new to be planted.  The three biggest things one can change to prepare for the new are harmful habitual mindsets, harmful habitual actions and harmful habitual words.  These three habit types can greatly limit the potential catalytic force of new empowering thought and strategies for change.

1. Harmful Habitual Mindsets:  What are harmful habitual mindsets?  Well, let me use a personal anecdote as an example.  I used to always have the emotion of anger be my default setting when things didn’t go my way.  There was no room for anything else. No room for understanding. No room for patience. No room for asking myself why this might not be going my way.  No room for other potential possibilities of thought or action. Then I was exposed to a Vipassana meditation technique in which one of its main premises is you can be exposed to stimuli and choose to react or not.  You can even choose a different way of experiencing a stimulus. With some practice I was able to shift away from anger being my default mindset when things didn’t go my way. It was quite liberating to discover I could break a habitual mindset and change it to something new.  Whatever mindset that you tend to wallow in or that lowers your vibration is a mindset that can be changed. Know this!    
   
   (Journaling activity: Take a moment to become aware of habitual mindsets you have which make you feel less than optimal. List five of them you would like to work on and get to it. )

2. Harmful Habitual Actions:  What are harmful habitual actions?  Well, maybe when you are sad you eat ice cream or chocolate.  Maybe when you are stressed you drink wine. Maybe when you are angry you lash out at loved ones. Or maybe when you are lonely you make poor decisions in intimacy.  We are creatures of habit. We tend to do things the way we have always done them. There is energy and force in habit. Resistance is experienced in attempting to do anything in a new way.  Even if there is a better way of being, doing and acting we generally stick to the way we know. This is the case across the board. In communication, in diet, in exercise, in sleep patterns, in the shows and movies we watch, and in the books we choose to read.  Our day to day lives are filled with habitual actions. 
   
   (Journaling activity: Take a moment to become aware of at least five actions you tend to take that are reactionary to a certain stimulus or actions you take that just generally make you feel less than optimal.  List them and next time choose differently. Again and again. See what happens.)

3. Harmful Habitual Words:  Habitual self-sabotage is not only found in mindsets and actions, but also in speech.  In the words we choose to communicate to self and others we are creating our foundation for the experiences and the relationships we draw into our lives.  It is important to become vigilant in monitoring the words we speak aloud and the words we think in our minds. Are there a lot of “shoulds” in your communication?  “I should really go to the gym.” “I should really do yoga.” “I should really change my diet.” Etc. “Shoulds” are not helpful. They lower your vibration. Either do or do not.  Try to avoid speaking “should”. Other vibration lowering words include…but, can’t, I don’t know, curse words, etc. Closely monitor your thoughts and speech for a few days and see how often these words come up in your speech.  
   
   (Journaling activity: Make a list of those words that come up with regularity for you in communication.  Become aware and make a change.)

It takes strong will power and persistence to replace an old habit with a new one.  Most of us don’t even bother until we bump up against something that makes us very uncomfortable.  Often times one’s diminishing health will be a wake-up call. Or maybe you have gained some weight and don’t look and feel comfortable in your own skin anymore.  Maybe you hit rock bottom with relationships and realize you keep cycling through the same disharmonious relationships over and over. The other person looks different but the themes and interactions are the same.  You say, “Enough all ready.” The level of discomfort reaches a level in which your will now has significant force. You are pushed internally to make some changes.

What if I told you that you have the ability to make changes right now without waiting for life to uncomfortably push you into making a different choice?   

Sustained consistency is the key.  There is a hurdle to jump in the beginning for sure.  You need to put some effort forth to overcome the natural resistance within, but as you do it more and more you build that force I spoke of earlier.  Then each time you choose the new habit you are creating it takes less and less effort to make it so. Eventually it becomes the new (consciously chosen) habit.  Other options no longer hold the same appeal. You have shifted your center. You have changed an aspect of self! 

The Fickle practitioner… who likes to do all the techniques… all at the same time

This topic has been part of a conversation that started in my house since I came up with the idea for this series. Both of us are dedicated meditation practitioners. Both of us started our meditation journeys in very different ways. And both of us are evolving in different ways but with common themes. So we have some varying opinions and thoughts to consider here. I'll be giving all of it to you here.....

The topic of technique is a little more difficult in that there are MANY techniques that will bring about the myriad of health benefits as well as results of quieting the mind and bringing peace. I’m not going to tell you what technique to go for. I believe it’s best if you select the technique that resonates the most with you (not because it resonates with your friend or partner). This means that you might need to do some research to find what suits you and what feels “right” for you.  The benefit of taking this time at the start is that you will be more prone to stick with it because it was selected consciously to align to your own needs and desires.

Why is that important?  Well, it will take time for you to become proficient with the technique and therefore it will take time for it to have the result that you desire. We talked about consistency last week, here, and consistency in practicing a technique is also important.

This is where I'd like to present some different perspectives. You can try these thoughts on and see how they feel. 

Casey just read a book by Osho, wherein Osho says to try each of the meditation practices in the book for three consecutive days. The belief here is that, if it’s the right one for you, if you are truly dedicated in the practice for three days, you’ll make a good amount of progress within only three days. On the other hand, if it’s not for you, you won’t and you’ll move on.

If you know who Osho is, you’ll understand why I feel very reluctant to go against his thoughts on that. And I do understand it intuitively. If the energy of the practice is an energetic fit for you, you’ll know it and it will have an impact. In three days.

However, I do want to point out that Casey has been practicing Goenka Vipassana for many years. His set point going into trying a new technique every three days is different from the set point of someone new to meditation entirely. And this is what I want to point out here.

Finding a technique that resonates and that can become the backbone of your meditation practice is important. In my opinion, once you are proficient in a technique, it becomes easier to try others and achieve results.

Why do I think this?

For most of us, accessing the realms of consciousness that are accessed via meditation is not part of our lives UNTIL we begin to meditate. It takes a certain level of proficiency and achievement in your meditation practice to get to the point that you are doing so on a consistent basis. This, again, in my opinion, is where we begin to access the tremendous benefits from a mind, body, spirit perspective of meditation. This is when we arise from our cushion feeling calmer, more centered, alert, and tapped in.

So, without an existing practice and existing proficiency in a technique, I believe that jumping from technique to technique is going to prolong this even further. If you have a specific goal or desired outcome of your practice, this could be detrimental.

The best way to master a technique is to make a commitment to yourself and work daily to master it. If you’ve already started your practice, you know that it is definitely a commitment. And mostly, the reason I see for people breaking their commitment is not seeing progress or feeling that they aren’t doing it right (I touched on this in the first post, here).

For those of you who have an on-again off-again relationship with meditation, next week we’ll talk about bringing Compassion into your practice, and why it’s a game changer. You might decide afterward to be on-again.

As I wrote this post, I realized that there are a couple of topics I haven’t really hit yet. So lucky us! There will be two bonus blog posts in this series:

• What about Guided Meditations?
• Why all the talk about meditation in the first place?!

Missed a post in this series? Check out the below links: 

• Misperceptions about Taming the Wild Mind Through Meditation
• Why "I meditate once or twice a month" doesn't cut it

Until next week, Happy Sitting!