Awakening our bodies

It struck me that almost everyone I talk to mentions their struggles in maintaining their wellness nowadays. Most people do understand that the typical modern diet has significant health risks associated with it (as its’ high in fats, sugars and salt, amongst other issues), and that they need to exercise and reduce their stress . With varying levels of energy and awareness, they all try to have good health habits. Of course, younger people in general have more vitality, so they may get away with a poorer lifestyle for some time. However, for most of us, by the time we get into our thirties our bad habits start to catch up with us (or even overtake us!). We now begin to feel the effects of our unwise choices. Even more importantly, several significant health risks associated with a poor diet and lifestyle take decades to fully develop, most in ways we remain unaware of. For example, diabetes or heart disease may not be apparent in our lives until our forties or fifties, but by then sometimes irreparable damage has occurred.

A few years back one of my son’s friends filmed a documentary called "May I be Frank", which follows the course of a San Francisco man (Frank) healing himself through a raw food diet. He undergoes a radical transformation in his health as a result of this process. For many of us, the idea of a raw foods diet to heal ourselves seems pretty radical! But we’ve often gotten so far from a healthy lifestyle, at times we must take what appears to be drastic measures to return to health. Besides a raw foods diet, other approaches (such as fasting or a very low fat diet like Dean Ornishes) can also aid the body in its’ recovery from imbalance. These also take a lot of effort, as they require changes that put us at odds with mainstream society, but smaller incremental shifts (such as reducing eating junk food or red meats) may not be enough to bring about any meaningful improvement in health. As a personal example, I’ve always received a great deal of benefit from various types and periods of fasting, but it takes time and commitment to do this.

Equally as important, this film illustrates the ability of our bodies to heal given the opportunity. In Awareness Works, this marvelous healing energy is labeled as ‘the intelligence beyond the me’, recognizing that most of our bodily functions occur beyond our will or capacity to manage them. Frank became healthy because he lived in a way that supported this inner intelligence, allowing his body to return to balance and vitality. One of the benefits of these intensive healing programs involves the immediate feedback that we receive about the condition of our bodies. Initially, we may find ourselves feeling pretty terrible as we change our diet and lifestyle, but with some time we will soon find that our body ‘awakens’ with increased vitality, energy and ease. We just start to ‘feel’ much better! While some of these longer term lifestyle changes may prove challenging in our environment, we will have the daily reinforcement of a healthy body to remind us what direction to take. As we awaken the ‘intelligence beyond the me’ in each one of us, it can guide us on our path to wellness.