The Mind-"Booty" Connection
December 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Lately, there has been a lot of discussion about the mind-body connection. Of course, this discussion has been going on for thousands of years; and the new consensus matches the old — there really is no “connection” — the mind and body are the same. The body is simply the visible repository for those things we hold in our mind; the body is the physical representation, or reflection of, the mind.
In a way, though, I still say they are connected simply because of this obvious RELATIONSHIP — which, to me, implies “Connection.” At any rate, the shape of your body — and the size of your booty — is intimately related to the shape of your mind and thoughts. If your mind is cluttered with old junk-thoughts, so will your body and life be cluttered with old junk. Keep your mind, body, and life fresh; change your mind often.
Here’s how the mind-”booty” connection works:
Your brain stores memories of all the things your body has experienced; and it is believed that your DNA stores memories of anything that IT has ever experienced — all the way back to the beginning of humanity. Now, your DNA hasn’t experienced everything everyone else’s DNA has experienced; but all DNA is “Original” and has been added to over the ages. Your DNA is in the middle of each of your cells; and it has never seen the light of day — no living DNA has. SO, your cells have lifetimes of “cellular memory” stored in them; and your brain and body has one-lifetime of memory stored in it — even if you can’t access or recall it easily.
It is with these memories that we form the filters of perception through which we see ourselves and the world in which we live. Any new experience is quickly compared to the old experiences stored in your memory; and a decision is made about your safety, or survivability, based on those past experiences and outcomes. For example, when you hear a loud “Boom!” and see a bright FLASH, your memory may tell you that you have seen and heard an explosion. Depending on where you live, your response could range from, “What was that?!” to “Oh no! They’re coming again and this time we’re going to die!” Explosions mean many different things to many different people.
If it was the 4th of July, and the explosion and flash was up in the sky, at night, during a festival, your memory banks — the stuff you “know” — will likely tell you that the purpose of the explosion is to entertain you rather than destroy you; but if you live in an active war zone, the nature and purpose of the “fireworks” is much more ominous. Your filters of perception, in other words, help your brain determine if your body is safe, or in jeopardy of non-existence. This is an “On-Off” or “Yes-No” decision; and if the verdict is “Possible danger,” your Stress Response is activated — much like we call the fire department when are in certain kinds of physical danger.
When you sense stimulus that matches a past experience in which things went badly, or could have gone badly for you, the “packet” of sensory information is delivered to a part of the brain that compares and decides if you are indeed in danger. If there is the slightest chance that you are, a signal is sent from a part of your mid-brain activating what many people call, “the Fight-or-Flight” mechanism (stress response). Technically, this chain of events is often referred to as the HPA-axis, because the “danger-signal” is sent to the Hypothalamus, which triggers the Pituitary gland to release a hormone called ACTH, which then acts on the Adrenal cortex, causing the release of stress hormones — such as adrenaline and cortisol. Hypothalamus — Pituitary — Adrenals (HPA).
More simply, researchers look at the overall “domino-effect” as it goes from: Psyche (Mind), to Brain (Nervous System), to Body — hence, “Mind-Body Connection.” Yes, there are many “little pieces” to this system; but the bottom line is that you are either in a state of stress, or you are not. And, in either case, it is your thoughts — your perceptions of things — that cause what your body experiences. (And then, we judge those “feelings” and sensations; but that’s another story…)
Stress hormones are great when you are really in danger; but they are not so great when you are exposed to them for prolonged periods of time. Chronic stress — constant, long-term stress — is related to practically every known medical problem; and it is the cause of most unwanted, or excess, weight and body fat. Stress hormones increase your heart rate, respirations, blood-pressure, anxiety, and cause blood to be directed away from your vital organs and into your arms and legs. Stress hormones also cause oxygenated blood to be forced from your brain’s “reasoning centers,” in the front, to its “survival centers” in the hind-brain. When you are stressed, in other words, you are literally “dumber” than you are when you are relaxed.
The stress response also shuts down your Immune system, Reproductive system, and Digestive system; as they are not considered to be vital in a life-threatening emergency. Unfortunately, our perceptions have made it so that most people consider everyday events, such as noise, bills, relationship difficulties, etc, as threats; and even if they don’t do this consciously, their subconscious thoughts often trigger the stress response for them. Most people know when they are stressed. Most people don’t, however, understand this process or what it is doing to them. If they did, they’d surely spend more time learning how to manage their stress by better managing their thoughts.
How does stress make you fat?
Stress causes you to produce and store fat for many practical reasons. The way the body makes fat is really quite simple. First, you perceive your life; then you judge it as a threat — or inconvenience that has threatened your peace, or status quo. As your stress response is activated, your digestion is slowed, or stopped; this causes such things as: Indigestion; IBS; Crone’s disease; Diarrhea; Constipation; Gas; Acid-reflux; and other gastrointestinal problems. Since you aren’t digesting, processing, and eliminating food; you must hold on to it (kind of like the thoughts you are holding on to…).
As part of this process, your body produces Cortisol to help convert the food you are holding on to into fat for storage. Fat is a part of our stress response because: 1. We can’t leave the food in our digestive tract for prolonged periods of time; and 2. Fat provides many practical advantages for a person in stress (under attack, in danger, etc…). If you are chronically stressed — often angry, sad, depressed, grieving, worried, anxious, afraid, etc. — it doesn’t matter what you eat — or how much you eat — your body will try to protect you.
It may surprise you, but food doesn’t make you fat. Of course, fat is made out of food; but so is every other cell in your body. It is your body that decides — based on your thoughts and perceptions — what to do with the food you eat. Food, like every cell in your body, is simply combinations of elements — Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, and Oxygen, mostly. When you eat steak, for instance, it doesn’t stay intact and migrate to your biceps; and when you eat ice cream, it doesn’t stay intact and migrate to your hips. Your body breaks these things down and uses the raw materials to build whatever you need. Cows are made of muscle (meat); but they eat only grass. And they produce milk (cheese, butter, ice cream, etc…) without drinking milk. Where do cows get all the fat? They make it out of grass and water; and you can do that, too, if you are stressed.
Stay tuned…
Shedding pounds by shedding thoughts
December 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Your body is simply an extension and reflection of your mind. That statement took less than three-seconds to read, but could take lifetimes to fully understand. Nonetheless, it is a fact; and it is a fact that you would do well to try and understand. Of course, you don’t have to; but it will make your life happier and more rewarding if you do. Books and books — including the Bible — have tried to teach and explain this fact; but it is still up to each individual to come to understand it and apply it in their own lives.
The good news is that there is no time limit; so don’t get in a hurry and don’t be anxious about outcomes — or your current situation. Take your time and relax. Be patient with yourself, and be good to yourself as you try to understand how your body is created and re-created on a daily basis — actually moment-by-moment — to reflect the status of your mind. When things disappear from your mind, there is nothing to keep the physical reflection in place; and, in time, it will fall away on its own.
You see, the more old, stagnant thinking you hold onto — fears, worries, resentments, etc… — the more you are holding onto in every area of your life. There is what appears to be an exception to this, but it really isn’t. Some people who hold onto old grudges, etc, seem to waste away rather than put on the pounds. But the metaphor holds true: If you let your thoughts eat away at you, your body will be eaten away by your thoughts. These folks simply process those thoughts differently. Overweight people “stuff” their old thoughts and emotions, and “hold onto them” for some sort of protection, security, or identity. On the other hand, people who waste away don’t suppress the thoughts they are holding onto; they chew on them — and their minds chew back.
You can e-mail me your “Yeah, buts” and “What abouts” later; but for now, if you haven’t figured this weight thing out yet, don’t simply assume I am wrong, crazy, stupid, etc, because I am saying something different. What you are looking for is something different, is it not? A different body, perhaps — or a different life? I promise you there is a book coming that will give you more foundation; but, right now, I’m just trying to give you the FIX. If you’ve read any other posts on this blog, you have read all the applicable quotes — from a variety of authorities — over and over. I kind of beat the “As a man thinketh…” thing into the ground; but, if you are overweight, I bet that’s what you think. And I bet you think about your weight a lot — and in a not-so-positive light. And so it is done unto you…
There are two basic things you should understand about fat: 1. It is not bad, it’s your friend and protector; and 2. Food doesn’t make fat, and it doesn’t make you fat — your mind does. And it does for very good reasons — mostly. For starters, understand that your body makes fat, and without it you’d die in any of a number of ways — depending on your circumstances. That’s the main reason your body makes fat — to protect you from dying. Thanks to our DNA, our fearful, stressed-out, overweight ancestors were even able to pass some of these tendencies down the line; but the underlying reason is, nonetheless, the same — protection. So, even if you blame your weight on your genes, you’ll be happy to know that those “codes” are pre-programmed tendencies — a sort of default setting, if you will — and they can be overridden — or rewritten. Even when you were dealt a bad hand, in other words, you can discard and draw again. You can even choose which card you will draw — if you are able to adequately understand the first sentence of this post, that is.
There are also two basic ways your body decides to manufacture fat. The original process begins with a perceived threat, or a reason the body needs protection. The reasons are usually pretty simple: Starvation, Climate, Falls/Impacts/Trauma, and Attack. That pretty much covers the threats on this planet — and fat protects us from all of these things in a variety of ways. Brilliant! We’ll talk about some of those ways and reasons later; for now, on to the other way fat is created — it is “copied.” Indeed, it is done unto you as you “thinketh;” and, even after you have lost your reason for needing protection, you may still have an image in your mind of you with too much weight. Focusing on your weight, listening to others comment on your body, staring into the mirror with any emotion other than love, and talking negatively about your weight or body, are just some of the ways we re-create fat we no longer need.
So, your body is a masterpiece — a work of art. It was created from an idea — according to a plan. Now that you have an image, however, you can continuously change by copying what you see and adding to it. This is not unlike drawing a picture and making a photocopy of it — then drawing new elements on the copy. Of course, you can add to the original, as well; and where the body is concerned, that is indeed what you are always doing — adding to the original. Even if you are “photocopying” fat, or ideas about being fat, the copies are being used to change the original. How? Because being fat, seeing yourself as fat, thinking you’re fat, or worrying about your weight, are all enough to stress you out. When the body is under stress (fear of attack, starvation, injury, or the elements, for instance) it naturally slows or stops digestion and releases the stress hormone cortisol to convert undigested food into fat which will keep us warm, pad our bones and organs, give us reserve energy, and make us look bigger, or unattractive, to anyone who may want to act aggressively towards us. Stress is stress; and even if you are just stressed about your weight, the stress response is still on. And when you are in the stress response, you are producing fat.
So, there is really just the original reasons for making fat; but our culture and our ways of judging ourselves have just added to the list of things we need protection from — like judgment and rejection, for instance. It is an unfortunate truth that the judgment and rejection is usually coming from ourselves — as the result of our thoughts. We can change this as easily as changing our minds. Even when the judgment and rejection comes from an outside source, it is still our choice whether or not we dwell on such things — and whether we “spin” things in a positive direction, or a negative one. “Sticks and stones,” as they say; your judgments can’t hurt me if I don’t really care about them. And I don’t; and neither should you. Let go of all judgment — even the judgment that there are judgmental people in the world. Seriously, that’s their problem. There are worse things to be than overweight; and being harsh and judgmental is certainly on that list. If being afraid causes fat, just imagine what the acid of anger and hatred do to people. You don’t really have to imagine, by the way; just find someone who’s been that way a while and look at the reflection of their mind.
If you can let go and free your mind of excess baggage, you will free your body of excess baggage. Release all that no longer serves you; release all that you are no longer enjoying. Any time you think a thought that makes you unhappy in any way (angry, afraid, worried, mournful, sad, etc…) use your powerful mind to choose a different thought — one that makes you happy. It is just like changing the television channel with a remote control; channel surf in your mind for a happy thought — and then stay there. Continue to affirm what you want, regardless of what you see in the mirror. Time doesn’t stop; and change is continuous. We shape change — gradually and instantly — with our thoughts. And we can even change our perception of outcomes and situations: “I guess that wasn’t so bad after all…”
You have to do this for yourself; you have to take control of the thoughts you choose. I promise you the thoughts the television provides you with are not helping; start choosing your own thoughts. Stop picking up magazines in the check-out lines, stop watching and reading bad news, and remove yourself from commercial programming; all of these things are specifically designed to make you discontent and stressed-out. If you have to write down a list of good thoughts and memorize them, then do it. But if you want your outer world to change, your inner world must change first.
So far, I have been speaking of thoughts and fat in a very physical, clinical context – about the very tangible relationship between your thoughts and your body. But what about prayer? Can you pray to lose weight and have it magically disappear. Read The Belief Formula. You cannot pray without thinking; the physiological effects of thought are just part of the way your desires are made real and your prayers are answered. The simple fact is that you just have to wake-up to the fact that your thoughts create your experience — including your experience of self — and you first have to change your thoughts to change your experience.
Below is a brief (9:11) video excerpt from the movie, “What the Bleep.” There is some discussion about the very real, immediate, and observable (thanks to modern science) relationship between your thoughts and your health; but the part you’ll want to watch is at about the five-minute point. If you haven’t seen this movie, the woman in this scene has been struggling with depression (and taking medication) since she caught her husband cheating on her. In this scene, what I would say is pretty typical female mirror-self-talk comes to a boiling point before she “gets it.” The point where she stops hating herself and falls in love with herself is what you are looking for in your own life. It will probably look different for you, but you want this moment of enlightenment, or realization. As you watch this clip, realize that we are all essentially the same; and although it looks quick and easy on-screen, this moment came after much struggle and soul-searching.
There will be more on this subject later…
Enjoy the video!
***The clip I was going to put here was really only a 5-minute clip; but I couldn’t make it work. So, I found this 9-minute clip on YouTube — and it won’t upload right now, either… At any rate, it gives a good graphic representation of one of the core issues discussed here, so try this link to view the video: Enlightenment in the Mirror
Or, simply go to YouTube.com and search this video title (copy and paste this title in the search box):
What the bleep do we know? Down the rabbit hole. part 12
I’ll get the player up here as soon as possible…
