Cellular Management – Part 2

In ‘Cellular Management – Part 1,’ we looked at health as an outcome and how changes in our health status can occur over time as the body renews and rebuilds itself – more or less successfully – from the inside out. We saw how ‘ease’ in our body creates the physiological conditions for rest and recovery, allowing the parasympathetic nerve system to run the show, carrying out the process of cellular replacement efficiently and effectively below our awareness.

We also looked at how stress can impact these essential operations, activating the sympathetic nerve system and diverting valuable energetic resources away from maintaining and improving the body’s internal organizational structure. We saw how, in a chronic sympathetic nerve system activation mode and pattern, we can become exhausted and disconnected from our body.  We discussed that when living in this state of sustained ‘dis-ease,’ we are bathed in the chemistry of stress, which can interfere with the real work of the body, potentially impacting our future health and immunity as much of the important work is put ‘on-hold.’ We concluded with the promise of some direction on how to influence this process and consciously manage our cells more effectively.

Here, we explore some of the powerful options that are available to create a better physiological environment for our cells to build our future health.

There is a ‘you’ that exists before what happens in the world and what happens in your body. For many, the experience of this has been obscured and forgotten as our awareness is hijacked by thought and the story of our life. Living in the mind, disconnected from our body (and reality), the connection to who we are, what we’re made of and what we’re here to do has generally been neglected by the modern age. With so many distractions and so much overwhelm, bouncing from stimulus to reaction and back again, we can see how we might actually come to believe that someone else is in charge.

Nevertheless, as we navigate the circumstances of our life, our ability to steer our experience and direct our attention by choosing our focus remains one of our most powerful allies. Being a good cell boss means deciding that ‘the buck stops here’ and finding the courage to bring more of who we really are to the game. Only the individual has the power to create change at this level in the system. Our influence over the energetic tone that is broadcast from our consciousness, over our nerve system and into the structure of our body, is a powerful access to – and major determinant of – the moment to moment experience of our life and also the internal environment in which cellular replacement and the continual renewal of the body is taking place.

Our ability to interact with our self at this level can significantly impact the quality of the underlying structure and internal organization of the body. This provides us with an extremely powerful access to the conditions in which the individual cells and larger organizational groupings of the body (tissues, organs and systems) are growing and rebuilt. It does take practice to bring and focus our presence in the experience of our body and life. When we are successful, health is automatic and grows naturally from the inside out because the physiological environment is favourable. Health is what we harvest when we sow the seeds of connection, cultivating and infusing the soil of our body’s cellular matrix with the vibration (and chemistry) of love and freedom.

So at some point, we’re called to make some decisions regarding the energetic tone of how we ‘do’ our self, intentionally directing our focus to create our conscious experience. Although not always easy, these choices are simple, interrelated and repeat over and over again in life. Two potentially life changing and health building decisions that we can make are:

1. the choice to remain present and stay connected; and
2. the choice of how to direct our energy by choosing our focus.

Consistent, high-quality executive cellular management decisions over time can increase ‘health profits’ and generate future ‘health dividends’.

Our ability to feel fully all of what’s happening – both within us and around us – is a powerful and comprehensive solution. As energy and information (including bacteria and viruses) are delivered to us in the experience of our life, we are presented with the opportunity to grow and evolve. Our ability to make use of this incoming data and respond efficiently and effectively is contingent on our ability to experience the energy and information through feeling in our body. The challenge is to not fall into a ‘this shouldn’t be happening to me,’ ‘it’s not fair,’ ‘it’s their fault,’ stuck-in-the-past perspective when we don’t like the feeling of how things are registering within us. There is an important distinction between what’s physically happening in time and space and the feeling we have about it. Some of the greatest challenges arise when we start to feel like we’re not good enough, strong enough or smart enough, or that there isn’t enough time, energy or money to do what we think we want to do in life.

Typically, we’re not well practised at feeling ‘bad’ so the tendency is to disconnect. The cost of disconnection is that we lose the feeling. A real challenge is that when we disconnect and lose the feeling, it’s not specific to the stuff we want to avoid; it also includes the good stuff that registers through the same channels (through feeling in our body). So when we pull the plug on feeling the tough stuff, we’re also disconnecting from the potentially great stuff as well. Not only can this cost us the enjoyment of our life, in the end our health may also suffer.

Feeling in the body is a very efficient way to process our life experience and does not require that we ‘figure it out’ and spend time thinking about what happened or what might happen. It’s okay, authentic and ‘healthy’ to just feel bad sometimes. It can be an invaluable skill in the repertoire of movements that generate our life (and health). If we can be better at feeling ‘bad,’ we wouldn’t have to waste our time avoiding certain feelings. Efficient and effective suffering is often what is called for and our capacity to feel the full intensity of what’s happening, actually means less time feeling ‘bad,’ freeing up more resources (especially time and energy) for the experience of everything else that is possible for our life.

Practically, if we disconnect from the ‘ucky,’ ‘icky’ stuff, we might lose the opportunity to discover how to move with ‘IT.’ ‘IT,’ being any type of feeling, from a physical pain or sensation in the body, to an emotion or any other type of energetic experience. Distinct from a thought, the feeling is not meant to be understood, rather it is to be experienced and accepted ‘as is’; it is to be felt. So, if we aren’t moving with ‘IT,’ our body (and spine) tends to lock up and our experience of internal freedom is diminished. ‘IT’ doesn’t clear and instead lingers, disturbing the peace. Staying connected allows us to be guided to what is needed by the feeling. The experience of the feeling becomes an access point to learning and to the wisdom that is available. A person may need to scream, take a ‘time-out,’ or go for a run. Feeling our way through the contraction can help us return to peace and to the love and freedom that we have inside. It’s also one of the ways that we can come to know our higher self and create the conditions for more health in our future body.

It is a decision – and therefore in the bigger picture a commitment – to stay present and feel how what’s happening in our life is registering in our body.

Our ability to create a healthier future for ourselves and the planet starts with our willingness to feel and our ability to experience MORE in our body.

Once we are able to remain present and more fully feel the experience of our circumstances in our body, everything changes. Instantly, there is a different energy, new possibility and more power. More often than not, staying connected to the feeling is enough to get us through to the other side. Ever heard the phrase, ‘breathe through it’? Knowing what this really means and how to apply it real-time – in the moments that demand nothing more and nothing less – may be one of the most valuable life skills we can acquire. However, depending on how much of this has been happening (or not happening) over the course of our life, it may not feel like ‘it’s all good’ yet.

A lifetime of disconnection from the body can rarely be undone in a few moments. Sometimes when the stars align, we get ‘lucky’ and have a peak experience that can remind us of what is possible. More generally, it takes time working with and in the body to guide it back to a baseline where the feeling is predominantly ‘good’. So depending on where we find our self on the path of life, there may be some challenging sensations which extend over longer periods of time. When this is the case it can be natural and also appropriate to experience the feeling of anger and frustration at times. Depending on what’s been happening inside, it may even be frightening.

This is where choosing a focus becomes key: what are we actually connected to?

It is possible to remember what it’s like to feel ‘good,’ but it may be necessary to reformat and clear the harddrive. Over time, as we focus on surviving and solving the problems in our life and in the world, our database (our memory) of body experience and feeling can become overpopulated with the kinds of things that we might not want or like to feel. The standard of our experience may drop as we become accustomed to running an operating system that is cluttered with unresolved wounds and trauma from the past. How much room is left for ‘awesome’ when so much space and so many resources are being consumed by other stuff? Choosing our focus directs our experience of the moment and determines what gets saved in the archives. Building a rich and easily accessible database of ‘awesome’ starts with consciously and intentionally choosing a more constructive focus in the face of the present moment’s adversity.

Amongst the challenging and even painful sensations there is something calling us forward. We can learn to focus our attention on the space that is opening and resourcefulness within (learn to find and pay attention to the space inside by watching our Spinal Connection 1 video). Even if it is only the smallest part of our self, it can still provide a point of experience that moves the other ‘stuff’ into the background, giving the body a chance to start catching up and building more health. When we choose this focus for our attention, it grows and when nurtured over time, can help us to heal and create a new trajectory for our future body and health.

If you’re still alive, you have what it takes. Our focus can carry us forward through time as the body reorganizes and comes into alignment with the energetic, fluid and spacious blueprint of who we are. Asking the question ‘How do I feel about “X”?’ can be a major pitfall in how we have been conditioned to experience our life, potentially neutralizing some of the very powerful aspects of who we are. A much better question is ‘How can I feel about something?’, or better yet ‘How do I want to feel about something?,’ which takes things in an entirely different direction.

Asking ‘how do I want to feel about something?,’ can serve to redirect our focus and engage us in the process of creating a better experience for ourselves and others.  ‘How do I feel about something?’ is more likely to take us into the thinking mind and back into the past to analyze what happened, retriggering all the stuff that’s already locked and loaded into memory. This can lead us to relive what we already know for a different reason and create the same energetic result (and therefore, at best, the same level of health) that we already have. Alternatively, asking ‘how do I want to feel about this?’ engages our future self in the process, places the focus on where we want to take things and gets us moving forward.

Can you feel ‘good’ about something ‘bad’? What part of yourself would you have to be connected with to feel stable and safe in a moment of provocation or in the violation of expectation? What would it look like to breathe and move freely after or during a time of adversity?

There is a focus that creates more space in the circumstances of our life. Our ability to remember who we want to be and choose a more constructive focus in the face of the present moment’s challenge can start with simply wanting more. How can we focus our attention so we want to treat our self – and our cells – with all the loving kindness that shows up when holding a baby? Only we have the power to exercise that choice in our mind and body.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if, in the metaphor of the boss (see Cellular Management, Part 1), there had been a different approach? What if the boss had not been screaming in a panic to all of their team but instead had focused on what would keep them peacefully engaged and energized? How would that have impacted their ability to respond to ‘whatever’ down the road?

It is possible to manage our cells more effectively by engaging in a different type of conversation and interaction with our body. Our willingness to stay connected and experience more feeling in our body, can position us more effectively and help us gain access to new possibilities and more power. Our ability to feel more, directly impacts the resources available for our life and cells, helping us to learn and grow, efficiently processing and moving with our life experience.  Stepping into a new conscious focus can steer our experience more constructively and feed the process of building health as cellular replacement occurs below our awareness. The decision to focus and intentionally direct our energy on what takes us forward, actively builds our database of feelings and generates new results for our life experience.  If we can learn to trust the feeling and love our cells, we can create more for our future self and our future health.