We
desperately need a new model for the care and maintenance of the
human bodymind. Not only for ourself, but for our tribe. Our
Illness-Care industry is reeling from mismanagement,
undernourishment and neglect, and we're lurching toward the edge of
an aged-care precipice.
Boffins
are constantly exhorting people to change to illness-preventing
lifestyles. But urging people, especially young ones, to practise
moderate exercise, to abstain from alcohol and tobacco and harder
drugs, to adopt a sensible diet, thought awareness and stress
management isn't grabbing a huge following. Parents are farming out
their responsibilities to their kids to the extent that a scary
number of teens are mentally and emotionally wild-carded before they
get to 18. It's not a pretty picture, and the medium- and long-term
prognosis is even worse. We're seemingly heading for a social train-wreck.
Why?
It's not for lack of information. I think it's lack of Motivation. A
positive lifestyle requires that you balance and tend your physical,
mental, emotional and spiritual growth, day in and day out for
decades if you want to ensure the full benefit of health. But the
consequences of our choices, whatever they are, may not show up for
decades yet. We always pay for early inattention and mistakes by a decline that generally
doesn't show overt symptoms until around late middle age. It's hard
to persuade anyone, including yourself, to discipline yourself and do something proactive today
in order to reap a reward twenty or thirty years from now.
So
what would it take to improve your motivation to get off your arse and do something in your own intelligent best interests? I can find only one
answer: reinvent how you think about your human body/mind. Your
attitude to your self is mirrored in the way you treat everyone and
everything "else". For people to shift their behaviour toward self-care and
heightened well-being, we don't need just compliance with standard
prevention; we need compassion and kindness. There also has to be a drop in our predilection to drugs
and surgery as shortcut approaches to relieving suffering.
Over
the course of history, there have been four major models of the body:
1)
The body as a collection of Nature's basic elements (the medieval
conception of the four humours is an example).
2)
The body as the temple of the soul.
3)
The body as an expression of the life force (the Chinese concept of
Chi
is
an example).
4)
The body as a machine.
Depending
on which model your personal culture accepts, you tend to approach
illness and wellness in different ways. A doctor might advise a
patient to undergo surgery or chemotherapy, pray to God as opposed to
taking a pill, strengthening his Chi, making merit, or correcting
imbalances in chakras. Each of these approaches has a lot to
recommend it. But none on its own holds a way out of the dead-end
we've got ourselves into.
In
a Western-cultured place like Australia, the body-as-machine model
has prevailed for a long time thanks to the reductionist methods of
science. Machines are repaired by specialist mechanics who tinker
with its defective parts, and that's basically what doctors do in
their practices.
But it's obvious that your body isn't a machine.
Your body is alive, for one thing. For another, exercise makes it
stronger, whereas a machine, if used more often, begins to wear out.
Your body/mind is a bio-organism that is inseparable from other parts
of the same bio-organism. It can heal itself. It's a self-organising
and self-regulating process. It also has access to intuition, a
connection to the context of things going on at a deeper level – a
quality not available to machines.
Yet
the biggest flaw in the machine model of medicine, as I see it, is
its rejection of the mind-body-spirit connection. I don't think
that's spiritual chauvinism; I think embracing it in a curriculum
would make training too long and complicated to churn out fixit
graduates at the rate we need them. Medicos in training do learn a
bit about psychosomatic disorders, but there's an implication that
they're the result of the patient's imagination, and best left to
shrinks (ie. more specialists).
This
situation hasn't changed much in medical school, sad to say, but a
surge in alternative and integrated medicine has brought the
mind-body connection a little more out into the open, particularly in
areas of Australia where there exists a supportive general culture of
awakening consciousness.
This development of medicine is so important
that a fourth model of the body is being formulated as we speak: an
Integrated Model.
In
this Integrated model of medicine, every cell is regarded as
intelligent. The body holds and works interdependently through a
constant stream of information that reaches every cell.
Ego
is another matter. It ignores these cosmic conversations, makes up
laws of its own and stories to support them. Self-centred ego/mind
interferes and spends far too much time sending energy in directions
opposite to the natural flow. Ego IS the problem.
Homeostasis
- a state of dynamic balance - represents health. Inflammation, as
yet not fully understood, represents the state of imbalance,
separation and cross-purposes, leading to many if not most diseases.
A person's habits, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviour are the key to
well-being, since messages from any bunch of cells, especially the
brain, affect the whole body. The brain plays a critical role in the
feedback loops that maintain homeostasis, yet at every level, down to
the expression of your genes, feedback repeats the same pattern of
input and output. To put it bluntly – positive input promotes
well-being; negative input impairs well-being.
The
advantages of an Integrated model for the body/mind can be summarised in a few key
points:
-
Self-care becomes the primary care, not reliance on drugs and
surgery from a doctor.
-
Beliefs and attitudes assume the same status as physical input, such
as food and exercise.
-
Genetic consequences of lifestyle habits is now proven, extending
our perception of the benefits of positive lifestyle changes. What
we eat in our teens will genetically affect our babies a few years later.
-
As you cultivate the role of Awareness in your moment-to-moment
life, positive lifestyle changes won't need years to show benefits;
you'll notice differences immediately.
-
Most chronic disorders become preventable through routine
maintenance of the whole system. This includes heart disease,
diabetes and probably the vast majority of cancers.
-
Mind-oriented practices like meditation improve well-being
throughout the system, all the way down to the genetic level.
There
is abundant and mounting evidence that all of these things are true,
which means that an Integrated Model has reality on its side, more so
than the old standalone machine model.
I
referred a moment ago to your body/mind as a process. That was very
deliberate. Your body is a concentration of processes, things and
no-things coming together into be-ing: your body is not a thing.
Well-being depends on finding your flow, in terms of a relaxed but
aware mental state, a steady upbeat mood about your life, following
the natural rhythm of rest and activity, nourishing ingestion of food
and drink and excretion of wastes, taking realistic, practical steps
to reduce stress, respecting the need for a good night's sleep,
avoiding toxins, stimulating your body's natural defence systems, and
relying on your body's innate intelligence.
It's
the last point about realising that your body knows best what's going
on with you, tells you what's happening (if you'll only listen), and
has a good plan in place for restoring natural balance, that will
radically change your behaviour. Your own basic attitude, and one you
should impart to your children in everything you say and do, should
be a reliance on the intelligence, awareness and knowing that is
innate in every cell. There is no separation between you and the
universe. Energy and thought (as distinct from “thoughts”) are in
continuous interaction 24/7. No-one and no thing is an island.
Instead
of seeing the body as a machine that, like a new car, must
deteriorate over time, we should see it as a system that learns,
adapts, and improves over time. In short, we need to let the body
take care of us, for that is what it's actually doing, if we will
only let it.
Here's
a ridiculous question. Have you never considered sitting or lying
down quietly with your body, asking its advice and noting
carefully the sensations it sends you?
To
me, that is less ridiculous than going to see an almost complete
stranger and asking him to “give you something”. No body knows
you better than your own body.
The
one thing this amazingly self-sufficient system of yours needs from
you is better attention and input.
Behold
a few things that constitute better input:
-
Being self-aware.
-
Practising whatever connects you to contentment with what-is.
-
Being more relaxed and accepting.
-
A strong self-esteem, a sense of worthwhile-ness.
-
Being of service to others, giving.
-
Showing generosity of spirit.
-
Loving, nurturing, supportive, challenging relationships.
-
Any activity that makes you feel light in mind and body.
-
Taking time to play, and having a playful attitude.
-
Not stressing out other people.
-
Devoting yourself to projects that have real meaning and purpose for
you.
-
Expanding your awareness and experience. Growing and maturing from
the inside.
-
Being comfortable with your inner world.
-
Working through negative emotions like anger, envy, and fear.
-
Self-acceptance.
-
Reverence for Nature.
-
Connection with a higher power, whatever that may be for you.
As
you can see, almost none of this is advice will you hear in a
doctor's office, and you sure won't find it in any of the waiting
room reading material.
This
new way of regarding body/mind goes far beyond standard prevention,
which is based mostly on reducing risks. Of course it's good to avoid
risks, but thinking in terms of what can go wrong feeds fear, and
fear is a very primitive and clumsy motivator over the long run.
Becoming
happier and more fulfilled day by day is a much better motivator, and
not bad as a protection against terminal despair. Upgrade your
conception of the body to include everything that is mentally,
psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually fulfilling.
Look
after your body/mind. It's your best means of eavesdropping on God.
What
do you think?
PS. My thanks to Dr. Deepak Chopra for his inspiration.
