(Secretos de salud) Good health comes from living in the now. No health at all exists anywhere but right now at this moment…or if it does, we cannot use it! Disease is 100% dependent on our absence from the perfect present. Want, longing, fear, daño, anger, resentment, guilt…these are functions of some other time that rob of us health in the present.
The happiest person in the world is the healthiest person in the world, and there is only one definition of the happiest person in the world: he who is totally delighted with exactly who and what he is right now. The happiest person takes joy from living in the now. He lives in balance right now. There is no future, no past, no anticipation in this definition. There is only action in the present, with which he is totally at peace and in which he has complete mobility and balance. Being happy in the present is a choice, but one we have forgotten how to make. Having energy that is stuck and does not flow prevents living in the now and precedes disease. This occurs when the moment is lost, tension rises, we look to the past or watch the future. When the consciousness is out of the moment, the energy of the body will to some extent fail to function in that moment. The ability to choose to be well is a natural function of humans and is not mysterious. En lugar, humans do this very easily…but only when they are in the present. When a human takes himself out of the present, this ability to be well is lost to some or all degrees.
We become overwhelmed sometimes by the threat of something, and this can force us to look for a better time, to regret a bad decision or to look in some way or form outside ourselves. When we look outside ourselves, we are looking for a solution to the fact that we cannot live with ourselves as we are right now. If we can conquer this, sin embargo, we shall find the power to go get whatever it is we want, to have health now and later and always. Here we shall explore some tools for this purpose:
*Create a wellness plan. The wellness plan is a key item for getting into the now. Most people set goals, or have goals unofficially which represent some future “them” which they are not. This is a gross error. Indeed, this obsession with what we are not is as valid as any theory about deteriorating health today. The more we are obsessed with what we are not, the more quickly our health deteriorates. Whether this occurs by cause or by effect remains an opinion at the moment, but the association is indisputable.
The one purpose of a wellness plan is to create a pocket of your “ideal you” right now in the life you are living at the moment. You will write goals for your wellness plan, si, but they are very specific goals on two counts:
1. They are things you imagine to be part of the ideal you living your perfect life.
2. They are things you both can and will do right now, this instant, and feel great about.
The wellness plan should include items in each aspect of life: social, intellectual, spiritual, crecimiento personal, físico, dieta, relational, professional, emocional, etc. It could include relaxation, meditación, spinal hygiene, time with children, contributing to the community, ejercicio, and so forth.
This plan should be in baby steps, things you can and will easily do right now. Some effort is required, por supuesto, pero right now start doing it. Do not include anything you think you are unlikely to do or unlikely to feel good about doing. Write your plan. Live it. Live your future now. If what you perceive as your future remains forever in the future, it will never be now.
* Eat more or only raw food. It has been observed that food is also symbolism. Raw foodists affirm that one of the empowering elements of eating raw is that it brings you into the moment, ahora mismo. Symbolically, raw food is alive right now, in the moment you eat it. Any other option is dead now. It is what used to be. It is not alive in the moment and suggests strongly to the mind that survival is to be had some other place but in the present.
This is disaster. How can one ever get to any desired destination on purpose without plotting a path leading from where one already is? What good is a path from somewhere else where you are not? Herein lies ALL frustration incurred in attempting to gain health, wealth, success or happiness of any kind.
* Consider your leisure time. Stop watching dysfunctional television and bad news that skews the world to be something far worse than it is. Ninety percent of the inhabitants of the planet had a pretty good day today and will tomorrow and the next day…eso es, unless they watch the news and get high blood pressure and anger about what they cannot control and are completely out of their present moment and lose all power to live life as it is now.
Spend your leisure time doing REAL things, like swimming, playing at a park, hacer deporte, playing with your children, walking in the park with your spouse, looking at the stars or the sunset, working on a fun project, etc. Stop seeking extreme experiences at movies and amusement parks and with drugs, stimulating foods, environments and alcohol, which will take you out of the moment– out of the now.
* Focus on your circle of influence. This idea was first suggested by Stephen Covey in Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. The idea is that in each of our lives there are two domains, or circles. One is our circle of influence. This is where we have actual direct influence or power. It is filled with how we act, think and believe, and with our influence over those people and things that honor our guidance and are therefore directly influenced by us.
The other circle, a much larger circle, is the circle of concern. This is filled with things over which we have no direct influence, control or power, but about which we may be concerned. This may include the wars abroad, corruption in the White House, an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, etc. Ahora, if we live on the Gulf Coast, we might help clean up the oil, which would be in our circle of influence, but just worrying about what others do and what happens around us over which we have no direct control is all in the circle of concern. Do something or never mind it. DO NOT sit around reveling in dramatic horrors which lie outside your circle of influence.
We have to be in the now to exercise any of our personal power. We take control of our circle of influence by focusing our action and getting involved for a good cause and creating benefit with the power we have. There our power shall grow as we grow into the NOW where all of the power we wished we had sits quietly waiting for us to arrive. This includes the power to be healthy. Focus on what you have power over and do not be distracted or misled into a focus on what you have no power over.
* Eat. Detener. Eat. Detener. So often I see people downing great hands full of supplements and spending thousands of dollars several times per year, going to palm readers, buying special diet programs and exercise programs and playing the lottery. The idea here is that one is searching for power outside the self to take over control of your life. It is wishing for someone to fix you, take away your problems, solve the issues of your life and put it in simple form that you can down and be done with it once and for all.
I am not anti-supplement at all. I use them and encourage the use of them, but I am wholly against using them to replace self-control and stewardship that you have given over in your own life. For those who are dying (literalmente) to give up their power, there lie in wait many willing to take it.
One habit that I have found is very powerful in helping individuals to get into the NOW and help them to start acting intentionally for the good of their health is the eat, stop, eat, stop program. This is so simple that it might be overlooked as unimportant, but it is far from that.
Most people eat for stimulation. They actually are using eating to help them avoid facing the glorious now. The now can look overwhelming and painful sometimes. However glorious it truly is, it gets avoided for fear of pain. Eating for an escape cannot be made into a healthy program, no matter what foods are chosen.
Por lo tanto, we have a simple habit to add that is a cure, believe it or not, for that destructive eating pattern. This habit is based on the very real physiological phenomenon of digestion. When you eat, that food goes through phases of digestion. Each phase is calculated by the body with innate intelligence far beyond the smartest panel of scientists. Each phase, if allowed to continue without interruption, will prepare the food for digestion, break down the food, make it available to the body, and eliminate the unusable portion.
The stomach secretes and moves, the gall bladder and pancreas secrete into the bottom of the stomach, the small intestine secretes and moves and mixes the food, nutrients are carried away and then preparation is made for elimination, all in a process which is seamless. Where this process breaks down is when, before the early parts of digestion have occurred, more food is stuffed in when you think a nibble here and a snack there won’t hurt!
The early processes of digestion are fully interrupted in their course when more food is put in, even a nibble (I tell my clients not to even chew their fingernails) before the process is done. This process may take from 45 minutos (with ripe, raw fruit) a 3 o 4 horas (for a badly combined meal with starch, protein and processed food). Only when it is done should ANY more food be eaten. Entonces, no matter the size of the meal, nothing more should be eaten until the early processing of that food is complete. Eat. Detener. Eat. Detener.
These tools each work in kind to help get and keep your focus in the NOW. Use them well and they will, I promise, serve you well.