Day 354 of 365 - Changing the Story
One of the things that has captured my interest and excited me over this past year of listening to interview after interview with people in newly emerging approaches to health and vitality is how I'm beginning to hear similar messages from a variety of sources. It is fascinating to see a convergence of understanding from people from widely variant backgrounds, whether it be the areas of addiction, psychiatry, neurology, nutrition, fitness, yoga, life coaching, meditation, or body-mind medicine approaches.
This makes me hopeful that, as a collective, we are starting to wake up to the possibility that we have more influence over our health and environments which influence it, than we perhaps previously thought. Science, and the ability to relatively easily measure physiological impacts of change now, is bridging the gap between what used to be considered as merely anecdotal story telling or random remissions from various kinds of health issues.
One of the persistently hot button arenas is that of mental health issues. Because it affects our sense of personal safety and our way of being in the world, I understand how readers may feel irritated by commentary which may challenge the status quo approach, or their own experience of the kind of support needed for living and functioning in the world.
It is becoming widespread knowledge, that as a culture here in North America, we have become an over medicated society, with even very young children now, in large percentages, being on prescribed drugs to control their mood and behavior. If that's not an indicator that something is askew in how we are living in our world, I don't know what is.
In my explorations these last several years, and more so in these past twelve months, it has been very encouraging to learn of practitioners offering alternative choices for relief of the pain and suffering of mental and emotional distress. Yes, these usually involve significant lifestyle and dietary changes, but effects can be startling and profound.
To go back to the notion of readiness for change, alluded to in a previous post, I came across another potent explanation today which marries scientific evidence with behavior. Hopefully I can convey it in a way that makes sense. When we feel defensive about someone challenging our habits, lifestyle choices and health care choices, it is because we feel protected by those which we have made. We believe that our selected course of action what is helping us to adequately function in the world. This fuels our ability to make excuses about why we just cannot implement something different.
If we look a little deeper, science can show us what is happening at the level of our brain. As has been discussed in other posts in the past, we make survival decisions from the more primitive part of our brain, typically the amygdala response, and more thoughtful decisions from the pre-frontal cortex, the more evolved part of our brain. Interestingly, things like our lifestyle and diet impact the neurochemistry in those areas, which has a direct link to our mood and response, via inflammation, as one example.
When some life event or learning opportunity prompts us to adopt some changes which calm inflammatory responses, the brain then feels safer to question more about long standing patterns. We feel less threatened about other suggestions being made. We may become more willing to consider how we are reacting to and interacting with the world around us. It then becomes empowering, albeit a bit scary, to realize that we can question the status quo and make different, yet responsible choices about how to live life and manage our suffering.
It's like getting a new prescription for glasses. We can see more clearly what the dominant narrative of society has been telling us and decide for ourselves whether that story fits for our life, or whether it is one we'd rather re-write for ourselves in another way. It's an act of loving kindness toward ourselves to do an honest inventory of our habits and behaviors and to ask for help in changing the story. It's a gradual journey which we each undertake in our own way and timing that is right for us.
This makes me hopeful that, as a collective, we are starting to wake up to the possibility that we have more influence over our health and environments which influence it, than we perhaps previously thought. Science, and the ability to relatively easily measure physiological impacts of change now, is bridging the gap between what used to be considered as merely anecdotal story telling or random remissions from various kinds of health issues.
One of the persistently hot button arenas is that of mental health issues. Because it affects our sense of personal safety and our way of being in the world, I understand how readers may feel irritated by commentary which may challenge the status quo approach, or their own experience of the kind of support needed for living and functioning in the world.
It is becoming widespread knowledge, that as a culture here in North America, we have become an over medicated society, with even very young children now, in large percentages, being on prescribed drugs to control their mood and behavior. If that's not an indicator that something is askew in how we are living in our world, I don't know what is.
In my explorations these last several years, and more so in these past twelve months, it has been very encouraging to learn of practitioners offering alternative choices for relief of the pain and suffering of mental and emotional distress. Yes, these usually involve significant lifestyle and dietary changes, but effects can be startling and profound.
To go back to the notion of readiness for change, alluded to in a previous post, I came across another potent explanation today which marries scientific evidence with behavior. Hopefully I can convey it in a way that makes sense. When we feel defensive about someone challenging our habits, lifestyle choices and health care choices, it is because we feel protected by those which we have made. We believe that our selected course of action what is helping us to adequately function in the world. This fuels our ability to make excuses about why we just cannot implement something different.
If we look a little deeper, science can show us what is happening at the level of our brain. As has been discussed in other posts in the past, we make survival decisions from the more primitive part of our brain, typically the amygdala response, and more thoughtful decisions from the pre-frontal cortex, the more evolved part of our brain. Interestingly, things like our lifestyle and diet impact the neurochemistry in those areas, which has a direct link to our mood and response, via inflammation, as one example.
When some life event or learning opportunity prompts us to adopt some changes which calm inflammatory responses, the brain then feels safer to question more about long standing patterns. We feel less threatened about other suggestions being made. We may become more willing to consider how we are reacting to and interacting with the world around us. It then becomes empowering, albeit a bit scary, to realize that we can question the status quo and make different, yet responsible choices about how to live life and manage our suffering.
It's like getting a new prescription for glasses. We can see more clearly what the dominant narrative of society has been telling us and decide for ourselves whether that story fits for our life, or whether it is one we'd rather re-write for ourselves in another way. It's an act of loving kindness toward ourselves to do an honest inventory of our habits and behaviors and to ask for help in changing the story. It's a gradual journey which we each undertake in our own way and timing that is right for us.
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