What If Our Worth And Greatest Contribution To Our planet Is As A Healthy Cell?

In last month’s blog post, I shared a method for clearing fear, tension, and trauma from our bodies. In today’s post, I am sharing another tool to help us heal embodied stories. I begin with an insight I had many years ago:
 

I am to the planet as a cell is to my body. There are healthy cells and unhealthy cells, and a battle for supremacy is ongoing between them.

All the cells in my body collectively form the physical me. It’s clear that if most of my cells are healthy, I will generally be healthy. 

This is also true for you and all the other 8+ billion of us. The health of our Mother Earth depends on the sum of the cells that make up Earth’s body. And surely, this would also extend to all our other Earth relations, such as trees, plants, animals, insects, mountains, waters, fields, valleys, and so on.

Are we mainly healthy cells supporting our planet’s health? 

If we find that Mother Earth is unwell, what actions can we take to help her heal? One important step is to aim to be the healthiest cells we can be, right? 

What if our worth and our greatest contribution to our planet is as a healthy cell? 

What does it mean to be a healthy cell, both in supporting our well-being and that of Earth?

We need to see health from different perspectives: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, because these are all connected.

To support the health of Mother Earth and ourselves, it is very beneficial to eat locally grown, organic foods whenever possible. Locally sourced foods help us adapt to our region, as Mother Earth provides different types of food in various areas to promote harmony. This is especially true for wild foods. Two programs I studied highlighted that wild food is a thousand times more potent than cultivated food. 

To illustrate this, in the 1980s, I travelled home to eastern Canada from a six-week macrobiotic study in Switzerland with freshly harvested bags of wild dandelion and wild nettle greens. It is common when crossing several time zones to experience jet lag, but on that occasion, for a few days, I didn’t even want to be back in Toronto or with my husband. When my macrobiotic friend learned this, she said, “Go to my backyard and harvest dandelions there.” I did so, and within a few hours, I was fully back—physically and emotionally. Locally grown, and especially wild foods, are potent!

Foods grown in the tropics are meant to help people cool down. The farther we live from the tropics, especially during colder months, the more we benefit from eating foods that help us stay warm, like root vegetables and slow-cooked soups and stews. There is also an environmental benefit. Eating mostly regionally grown foods reduces the environmental impact of shipping food over long distances, and the food is often fresher when it doesn’t need to wait in storage.

Eating organically grown foods whenever possible is a no-brainer for me. I don’t want toxic sprays to taint the food I eat, nor do I want our Earth to be poisoned with these harmful toxins designed to kill healthy insects. These insects are also cells on Mother Earth’s body and part of her ecosystem. What’s good for Mother Earth is good for us.

Clearly, physical activity and fresh air are essential for maintaining health. We need clean air to breathe, and staying strong is important. By connecting with nature, we can observe how everything functions together in  harmony for the benefit of all.

Could it be that we, too, could live our lives in ways that benefit all?

Do you realize how much your thoughts, opinions and beliefs affect your overall well-being?

Emotional and mental health are obviously interconnected. In 2009, while attending a spiritual conference in Joshua Tree, California, I remember the head of the Shambhala Buddhist tradition saying, “We live in a culture of self-loathing.” That caught me off guard. I knew I struggled with self-loathing, but I thought it was just my personal issue.

Did you know that negative thinking can lead to mental health issues? After my twin brother took his own life in 2002, I went through emotional turmoil. My thoughts were like this: “I should have known. Why wasn’t I in touch with him more? I could have helped him. I should have helped him. If only I had…,” etc. I kept blaming myself for weeks. Then, I received a spiritual message: “If you continue in this vein, you will create a mental illness in yourself that you won’t be able to recover from.” I immediately withdrew those thoughts.

Becoming aware of the programming we put in place with our thoughts provides us with a choice point. We inherited this culture of self-and-other-deprecation. It is not our fault. We believed that the assessments others made of us and the ones we made of ourselves were true. We believed the assessments made of others were also true. What if none are true?

Sadly, this programming lives in our bodies. I wrote about this in my last blog post, which you can read here.

Feel the Feelings, Drop the Story.

I now provide another method to help release negative beliefs stored in the body. This can be done anywhere at any time. I call this: Feel the Feelings, Drop the Story.

When you notice negative thoughts that bring sadness, lack, anger, or fear, pause and look for the accompanying bodily discomfort. Put your awareness on the sensations in your body and stay with them. Let go of the story or judgments. The sensations may feel quite intense at first. As you release the thoughts and remain aware of the sensations, the discomfort in your body gradually decreases. When the sensations disappear, likely within 30 to 90 seconds, you will have healed a little bit of the embodied dis-ease. 

If you practise this each time the story and accompanying sensations arise, you can eventually heal these embodied negative beliefs. Remember, don’t replace the story with something new; heal the old beliefs. What remains is possibility or openness, rather than the conclusions and limitations created by your negative thoughts. You begin to unveil the authentic, loving you.

Our spiritual health is vital. We are connected to all there is through the spiritual realm. The more we let go of negative beliefs about ourselves and others, the deeper our connection to the vast field of Love that created and surrounds us. Nothing and no one exists outside of it, yet we often behave as if we are separate. It is only our beliefs and stories that cause this separation. The more we connect with Love, the more clearly we embody our love-essence and move toward fulfilling our soul’s purpose. We become our true selves, discovering and sharing our joy.

We may be an eye cell, a heart cell, a skin cell, part of Earth’s digestive tract, or whatever else. Whichever is the case, the health of our planet depends on us being healthy cells.  If we keep ourselves healthy and pay attention to what compels us, what we are drawn to and passionate about, we will provide the service to Mother Earth that we are meant to do, and we contribute to her health and well-being. 

I'll write more about our spiritual health in future.

As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

Cultivating a Deeper Connection With Our Bodies

As our world presents us with increasingly complex challenges, let us explore a deeper relationship with our bodies and their connection to our lives.

Is it a fluke where in our body we injure ourselves or have aches and pains? Is there anything we can do to address this before it worsens? 

Many years ago, while practicing yoga, I realized that there is a relationship between the flexibility in my body and the flexibility in my life–or the lack thereof, as the case may be!

Here’s another clue: One of my offerings is to lead shamanic drum journeys to help people discover what lies at the core of their illness, lostness, or dis-ease. A friend from Louisiana was visiting, and she asked me to lead a drum journey for her. She had a recent diagnosis of early-stage dementia. During the journey, she was shown painful memories from her youth that she had been trying to forget. Clearly, there is a relationship between dementia and wanting to forget certain things.

Painful events leave their marks, not just in our emotions, but also in our bodies.

More and more studies and disciplines are shedding light on this phenomenon and offering different approaches to healing. 

I learned an approach in the early 1980’s through a program called "Body-Mind Clearing," based on an ancient Indigenous practice. The Indigenous group were known as fearless warriors because they worked to clear each other’s fear, tension, and trauma after their battles, so that the next day they could go into their next battle fearlessly. 

We may not have battles in the same way these warriors did, but it seems we can’t avoid battle scars from just living our lives. However, there is no need for us to carry these scars for years. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we knew how to clear these battle scars promptly? It would be like a daily rebirth.

I’ll share an easily accessible approach that you can try at home.

What Body-Mind Clearing teaches is that we injure ourselves or develop pain or aches in the parts of our body where we hold fear, tension, or trauma. By way of a theoretical example, if you and I were walking together, and both of us slipped on a sheet of ice, I might injure myself in a different area of my body than you, depending on where we each hold fear, tension or trauma. 

In that system, each body part is a metaphor for the different types of fear, tension or trauma we may hold:

• We hold fear of guilt in our neck.

• Fearing we are inadequate with responsibility is held in our shoulders.

• Fearing that we lack ability is held in our backs.

• Our legs hold issues with support. The backs of our legs hold support issues from the past. The front of our legs holds support issues for where we are headed. 

• Our knees have to do with fear issues around delegation.

• Our ankles hold fears that cause us to hesitate.

Could we avoid more serious illness if we cleared our “battle scars” as we went along in life? Wouldn’t it be helpful if we remembered and applied the wisdom of the ancient ones?

How can we potentially clear these issues?

Here is the Body-Mind Clearing method for clearing affected areas of the body. Ideally, we would have a buddy to help us (for some parts of our bodies, it may be required, depending on how accessible the sore spot is). Sometimes, sore spots are only accessed through touch. Whether you're working on your own body or a buddy is helping you, both the patient and the practitioner have jobs to do.

Here are the steps.

1. The first step is for the patient to identify the metaphorical issue held in their body. For this, refer to the points above for guidance. If the points above don’t feel applicable, or if the affected area of the body isn’t listed above, see if you can figure out what the body part is telling you. Louise Hay has an internationally bestselling book with a wide range of suggestions and helpful tips. It is titled, “You Can Heal Your Life,” and is available as a free PDF download.

You can try asking the affected body part with a type of prayer conversation:

1. Always begin by thanking the affected body part.

2. Explain to this body part how you feel about it being sore/injured.

3. Ask the affected area to show you what it wants you to understand about this and what guidance it has for you, so you don’t repeat the pattern.

4. Listen & write down what comes to you.

5. Say thank you!

6. To the best of your ability, do what your body part suggests.

Here’s an example of a prayer conversation with a body part:

Dear (address your body part), thank you for (what the gifts are that this body part has offered to you). I’m sorry that you are swollen and sore (or whatever the case may be). I love and appreciate you, and I am ready to resolve this pain/ache/tension/whatever. Please show me what I need to understand so I can begin clearing this and resolving this pain/discomfort. Thank you.

1. Once you have a sense of the issue, develop an affirmation tailored to support that body part’s health. For example, if your shoulder is holding the issue, choose an affirmation that suits you regarding responsibility.

As a side note, I am not generally a fan of affirmations, but these are targeted to the relevant area of our body and seem to work.

1. You are now ready for the three-part therapy. The person experiencing pain (the patient) lies on a yoga mat or blanket, with a pillow as needed for comfort. The supporting person (practitioner) identifies the sore spot on the other person by gently pressing into the affected area and asking for feedback on the location of the ‘hot spot’. For example, “Do you feel sensation here?” Once a hot spot is determined, there are three simultaneous moves:

• The practitioner gently presses a finger, thumb, or elbow into the sore spot only until the patient feels slight discomfort. Hold there until the patient says it is okay to go a little deeper; i.e. when the pain goes away at that level. At times, the practitioner will naturally go deeper as the tension held in that spot releases.

• While this is happening, the patient slowly moves the affected muscle, pausing slightly between each extension and relaxation, and continues to repeat their affirmation. For example, shrugging the shoulders and relaxing.

• When the practitioner feels a release in the muscle or tendon, they apply slightly more pressure. Always check with the patient to make sure you are not going too deeply. The sensation should never be too much. Continue in this way, gradually increasing the pressure, until the pain or discomfort is gone. 

Every small step you take towards understanding your body is a powerful act of self-love.

I wish you blessings with this connection and relationship with your body!