Purpose, Expression, and the Meaning of Life

This post is mostly a free form of a thought flow. It is less of a logical succession of working through thoughts and more allowing the unfolding of what appears to be true. It is not so much about carving out beliefs as identifying ways of working with reality.

My own personal purpose can be stated as being the light. That can be taken biblically as modeling a positive character but I also like to take it a step further. From just “being the light” it becomes being the light of consciousness. I can begin to inquire, not only into myself but help others to do the same. Be the light which shines on the darkness of pain and suffering to illuminate dysfunctional patterns, be the light which guides you on your path to well-being.

Life seems to be a purpose of expression. Life is the expression of potentiality into actuality. This can be taken at a surface level of New Age self-expression that turns into selfishness. You may need to explore your self-expression, but can you actualize more potential in each moment, each cell, each relationship, each interaction. This to me seems to be the purpose of life, all that is expressing itself as all that is possible in each given moment.

Can you begin to express life at the deepest level, tease out the totality of allness from each drop of reality?

Resurrecting the Body: how the body recreates itself.

Resurrecting the body:

How the body recreates itself.

What are your views of your body? How often does it change? How can you influence those changes? Does your body grow old or do you just think it does? These are important questions to explore your concepts regarding these miraculous tools to navigate physical reality that we call a body. To begin to resurrect the body, we must examine our current views of the body and shed them for the ever expanding ideas regarding the human body.

A new paradigm

The body is often thought of as a solid object. It is considered to be hard to change and that it breaks down just like a machine because the parts “wear out”. What if this view was wrong? What if the human body was made of energy, light, and information? A state of constant change and flux is an accurate description of our bodies. They are always giving and receiving signals to change and adapt to internal and external information. To give you an idea of how often the body is changing, you get

-new red blood cells every 120 days

-new skeleton every 90 days

-new brain cells every 60 days

-a new bladder every 49 days

– a new liver and DNA cells every 45 days

-new skin and hair every 30 days

-new stomach lining every 5 days.

This happens regardless of what you do, but how well it changes and regenerates is based on the materials you give it and the blueprints you ask it to follow.

Materials

Giving your body the appropriate materials means giving it abundant nourishment and removing toxins. Human bodies, being highly adaptable, have developed certain tendencies to do better with a variation of diets. Certain ethnic groups do best with high protein diets, other mainly vegetarian, and some can do great on a high carbohydrate diet. There are simple tests online to confirm your metabolic type, which is a great first step in starting a truly nourishing diet. Beyond that, everyone can begin to reduce the number of processed foods, sugars, and other overly changed foods. A foundation diet for most metabolic types would consist of:

Vegetables: mix lots of various colors, have them at every feeding. Fruit is good too, just don’t overdo it (they don’t replace veggies!) Stick to berries, apples, oranges instead of bananas and grapes.

Wholesome fats: Avocados, nuts, fish/fish oil, coconut oil, raw butter/ghee, olives/olive oil. Eat them with meals, use them for cooking. It’s hard to over use these simple fats.

Protein: Fish, light meats, nuts, some protein powders.

Miscellaneous: Beans, rice (mix up varieties), quinoa, varieties of potatoes, lots of herbs and spices.

A sample dish may be ground turkey cooked in coconut oil with sautéed onions, peppers, tomatoes, spinach, with black beans. Season with sea salt, cumin, pepper, chili powder, and paprika. Serve over a bit of rice and lettuce. Add salsa if desired.

Things to avoid: Trans fat, most breads, pastas, refined corn products (corn is not a vegetable), high fructose corn syrup, added sugar, MSG, and many other refined foods.

Blueprints

The information your body uses to continually regenerate itself mostly stems from the DNA you express and your morphogenetic field. DNA is not fixed as most people think today, it is a neutral bit of data, which pieces of data get “read” depends on the choices you make. This creates a great reverberating support structure, you make good choices which influences the better bits of DNA to be expressed, which creates a healthier body, which makes you more able to make good choices. People don’t inherit a bad set of genes, which genes get expressed depends on your choices.

A morphogenetic field is a field of patterns that relate to a certain group of cells within the body. Heart cells have a certain pattern that create a functioning heart. These patterns are basically habits as they continually influence a regenerating heart. Which habits become part of the field depend upon your thoughts and behaviors.

It should become apparent now that you can heavily influence the blueprints that effect your body’s regeneration and which materials are used in carrying out those blueprints.

Your Plan to Resurrect Your Body

• Begin changing your eating habits to provide materials that allow for a glorious body.
• Start moving more. It doesn’t have to be an intense exercise regimen right away. Each extra movement not only burns calories and builds lean muscle, it also sends signals to your cells to express the most optimal DNA.
• Monitor your thoughts and words. “I’m just getting old,” or “my bad knee,” only reinforce those issues. Instead, bless your body or even better begin to silence that inner voice.
• Start a somatosensory awareness practice. Once a day, sit comfortably. Take a few slow breaths to relax. Starting at your toes, infuse each body region with awareness and relaxation. If pain, tension, or other issue comes up with a body region, begin to let it go. Ask, “Could I let this go?”, then repeat yes, yes, yes, yes. Over and over as you stop resisting the sensation. When you are ready, move on to the next region.
• Continue to read up on ideas regarding the new paradigm of the human body. Valuable resources include Bruce Lipton, Rupert Sheldrake, and Deepak Chopra.

Your body is in a constant state of flux and renewal, influenced by information from genes and the morphogenetic field, using materials that you feed it. These are all within your choice to Resurrect Your Body.

SomatoSensory Awareness

Mindbody integration, attuned to your body, a kinesthetic intelligence. These are all ways to refer to your level of somatosensory awareness. It is important for optimal well-being as research from Pert et al. shows that emotions are not just of the mind but have direct molecules and biochemical reactions all throughout the body. In addition to working with emotions, somatosensory awareness has been shown to have positive effects all throughout the nervous system by reducing stress, improving reaction times, revitalizing areas that have been neglected from awareness, increasing whole body coordination, and showing us where our body may need some physical attention. Beyond that, somatosensory awareness allows you to create a relationship with your body where you can literally ask it what it needs. When embarking on psychological or spiritual growth, somatosensory awareness can help to bring out issues that have gotten “trapped in the tissues” that need to be worked through before further unfoldment can take place.

There are two general ways  I recommend starting to work with somatosensory awareness:

1.) A sitting practice with a dedicated time (similar to vipassana body sweeping). Sitting comfortable, eyes closed. Take slow rhythmic breathes, allowing yourself to relax deeper and deeper with each exhale. Feel the exhale release through every pore of the body. Beginning at your toes, feel every toe. Feel the energy and sensation throughout your toes. Continuing to breathe slowly, move to your ankles, calves, knees, thighs, hips and pelvis, low back, abdomen, mid and upper back, chest, let your awareness drape over your shoulders, down your upper arms, over your elbows, forearms, wrists, thumbs and fingers, move it back to your shoulders, to your neck and throat, let it flow over the back of your head to your scalp, forehead and face. Feel your awareness as one pulse throughout the whole body. Any areas that were tight or contracted, bring your awareness there. Feel the pulse of that contraction. Feeling that energy, ask “Could I let this go?” Then just let it be. Continue to bring awareness to whatever areas come up as needed attention. Do this for 10-30 minutes once or twice everyday. Do this especially after an injury or during an illness.

2.) Casual use of somatosensory awareness helps to make it a part of your everyday consciousness. It’s especially useful during slow exercise such as jogging or stretching. It’s easily integrated into a yoga pose. It can also be done while driving, while seated, or during life’s bored moments.

 

As you infuse your body with more and more awareness it will begin to process through healing. In addition, reestablishing this connection allows you to make conscious changes to your body. You can begin to have a relationship with your body that is built on appreciation it besides just use and abuse.

 

Please email me with any questions or thoughts.

 

 

 

not intended as medical advice. 

 

 

Defying Nature

It is easy for us to fall into an unconscious over-use of man made chemicals in daily life. We scrub our teeth every day with fluoride filled tooth paste (DON’T SWALLOW the label reads), wash our hands with anti-bacterial soap or hand sanitizer, shove aluminum filled deodorant into our arm pits, and spray Lysol on our door knobs. To most people this seems natural and routine to everyday life, but the truth is that these chemicals begin to tally up within our bodies and create imbalances in all of nature.

Google Images

In this post, I will not go into great depth about why it isn’t the best idea to continue to over use some of these household products. Instead, I’d like to give you some quick ideas for reducing their use or even green alternatives.

1.) Tooth paste is often used twice per day, combining that with tap water and mouth wash, our mouths are sterilized more than enough to destroy the natural flora within that environment. To help balance the flora in the mouth a few things you can do is to reduce tooth paste use to one time per day and make the amount of tooth paste the size of half a lentil or less. You can also water down your mouth wash or find a non-alcohol version. Rinsing your mouth with plain water after meals helps to greatly reduce the need for extreme dental measures.

2.) Hand sanitizer and anti-bacterial soap have gone a long way to create poorly developed immune systems and super-bugs. I suggest these products only be used in the most extreme situations such as before surgery or after surgery. Most people would do better switching to plain soap and water and even just a good scrubbing under plain tap water. Most college microbiology courses do experiments demonstrating that scrubbing with plain water can be just as effective as hand sanitizer.

My son in the dirt, it wasn’t sterilized first.

 

 

What are some alternatives you use in your home?

 

This is not intended to be medical advice, merely an informative opinion.

 

Moving Your Brain

Many professions and recreational activities in general, are becoming less physical and more cognitive. This may seem like a great way to develop the brain, but in truth our brains need physical activity for optimal functioning.

“How movement effects your brain”

(Google Images)

A healthy moving joint and muscle sends a signal (called proprioception)to a part of the brain known as the cerebellum. The cerebellum’s job is usually thought to be movement and maintaining balance, but modern research has shown that it actually regulates the whole brain. The cerebellum keeps the brain in balance by keeping the different areas from being either over or under active.

The messages (proprioception) to the cerebellum act as nourishment, giving it what it needs to operate. In essence, exercise gives the cerebellum nourishment to regulate brain activity leading to better impulse control, more stable emotional states, improved learning, and more creativity.

A second way exercise effects the brain is through a natural growth stimulant called BDNF. This helps the brain to create new neurons and repair old ones. The more often and more intensely you exercise, the more BDNF your brain produces.

A major issue for your brain is that the messages can be decreased due to pain, decreased joint range of motion, and impaired movement patterns. A licensed professional, such as a Chiropractic Kinesiologist, can help you restore proper function and teach you exercises that can help increase brain health. If you are in need of some motivation to move, check this out.

-Martin C Hart, DC, NASM-CES

info@DrHartChiropractic.com

 

 

This information is not meant to diagnose, treat, or serve as medical advice, merely informative opinions.

Birthing and Back Labor

   A question that has come up of late is, ” I had horrible back labor with my last pregnancy, what can I do to handle it this time?” And there are some things available to help with back labor!

(Google Images)

Any mother can tell you that a typical birth has plenty of pain and stress without throwing in back labor. AmericanPregnancy.org defines back labor as increased back pain during the birthing process. Some of the more common causes for back labor include baby positioning and a prior history of low back pain, especially during the menstrual cycle. I would like to give you a few steps you can take to handle back labor during your birthing process.

Both baby positioning and low back pain have strong ties to the neuromusculoskeletal system. What this means is that these conditions can be assisted in being resolved with manual therapies such as chiropractic and kinesiology treatments.

 

(Google Images)

Muscle inhibition or over-activity, decreased joint mobility and alignment, ligament laxity or scarring, and even organ positioning can all affect the baby’s position. A bodyworker can help restore balance in these tissues to aid the baby in settling into a more comfortable position. Good news for low back pain suffers is that all these same concepts can be applied to you.

To assist with any pain during the labor, the mother can have someone apply a TENS unit to the low back (with the aid of a licensed professional). This may help alleviate back pain during the pregnancy, while being a safer option for the baby. It works by sending electric signals to the surface muscles, helping to block pain. This is also an effective way to keep from using harmful drugs during labor.

Some other things to keep in mind with the birthing process:
1.) Maintain biochemical balance (especially if you have low back pain or severe mood swings during menstrual cycle) by eating a low inflammatory diet (see www.deflame.org).

2.) Use gentle exercise throughout your pregnancy.

3.) Consider a mindbody therapy such as NET (http://www.netmindbody.com/for-patients/an-explanation-of-net) to help aid with the stress and pain of pregnancy.

Let me know if you have any questions in comments or info@DrHartChiropractic.com

This blog is informational only, it is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or a replacement for a visit with your licensed physician.