Meditation Day 5 – 0 | Day 14 + 86 more to go. 86 + 29 = 115
What do you let in, and what do you keep out? Our bodies are designed to interact with our environments in every level. We don’t, nor can we take in everything. We should only let in what is good. Is it digestible and absorbable? We don’t mistake cardboard for pizza and sand for grits. We do not mistake inanimate objects for food that could breaks our teeth and our necks to swell.
Yet we over consume digital content, junk food, work and people. With overconsumption, the body stops sending us signals to auto-regulate because the signal continues to be ignored, and body becomes saturated with whatever there is too much of and stops sending us signals. Shuts down a part of itself from dystrophy. Enter inflammation, body’s natural defense against imbalance and foreign objects.
I am guilty of all of the above. Doom scrolling. Eating too much. Working way too long and taking too long to say goodbye to places and people.
It’s not until I stopped eating bread for a while I found gluten intolerance.
It’s not until I stopped working, taking 5 months off of work, to see that I was filling every waking moment with work and colleagues.
It’s not until someone left me or broke up with me, to see how much happier I am without them.
The space is what we need to see what we cannot see. Take away the stimulation, the feedback mechanism of addiction to the familiar and predictable.
To do so, we need space to create a momentary disconnect. Easier said than done.
Did you know that our intestines are covered by the thinnest number of cells, and is more permeable than you think? Designed to absorb and let nutrients in. Some of us let too much in, even the bad. Like gluten for me, which triggers the body to fight back, causing inflammation. Bloating, gas. Causing discomfort, the body letting me know that this isn’t okay. Stop the intake. Because I have always eaten gluten, I thought everyone felt this way. Eating is uncomfortable. Everyone bloats. Wrong again. Lately, I notice myself more wrong than right. Meaning, I’m seeing better and growing stronger.
It’s like how I used to think that everyone couldn’t breathe through their nose. Until I opted for surgery to straighten the left nostril and corrected the deviated septum. Only after hearing a friend talk about her husband doing the surgery. On my first trip to the ENT, the doctor asks if I have any sinus issues. “No”, I say. He says my face looks inflamed. He talks me through the surgery and very quick recovery time, after checking out the CAT scan, taken at the hospital across the road. I am not sure, fundamentally believing that our bodies are meant to be not cut open.
“How about a simulation”, he suggests steroid injection to mimic the benefits of a surgery. Why not, I say.
The injection changes my life. What I don’t know, I don’t even know to ask the question. I am on a call with my little sister. “Did you lose weight?” No is my answer. I see my reflection in the mirror, and my face has shrunk. I have been living with constant sinus inflammation, that I got used to the congestion and blocking.
No more clearing the back of the throat, expelling the thick mucus. No more sneeze every morning for half hour. No more having to stop kissing in the middle, to breathe, feeling extreme discomfort with mucus building inside. It was debilitating, but because of the continued discomfort and having gotten used to the status quo, I had accepted things as they were. Forgetting that we always have a choice to get better.
And so, I opted in to correct my nose. After, to hold it in place, I had rolled plastic tubes up my nostrils, feeling the oxygen filling my body, marveling at the miracle of keeping my mouth closed to let all the air I need inside of me.
And so, not everything our mamas gave us is optimal. We need help not just from friends and family, but doctors and medications developed over the years. Benefit from technological evolution. Move away from the misperceived good old days, my tendency to see the good in everyone and everything. The other side of my double edge sword of everlasting optimism.
People say my voice has changed. My face, I noticed changing. Just a bit more air into my left nostrils has fundamentally changed how I look and sound.
The space in between my nostrils, by its opening, has exponentially improved the quality of my life.
Now, I wonder. What spaces are blocked? Who and what am I letting in that disrupts that space, to let the oxygen in?
Optimus: Best
Prime: Prime number is a whole number greater than 1 with only two factors – itself and 1. A prime number cannot be divided by any other positive integer without leaving a remainder, decimal or fraction.
So to be Optimus Prime is to be wholly indivisible and individual. To be Optimus means shifting and transforming to step into our power. Into our prime.
“At the heart of every legend, there is truth: a few brave souls unite to save the world. We can be heroes in our own lives, every one of us, if we only have the courage to try.” – Optimus Prime
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