| But the answer is not just to slow down. The remedy for the instability of a non-stop lifestyle is not a life lived in slow motion. That brings its own set of problems and imbalances. The answer—and yes, it is far more easily said than done—is to more finely tune our capacity for modulation, developing a sensitivity and sensibility that lets us know when we need to slow down and also when we need to speed up or double down.
Underscoring this point, James Gordon’s description of the different types of meditation includes not only the commonly practiced contemplative forms where one sits quietly with eyes closed, but also “active meditation,” which, as he describes it, “could be just putting on fast music and dancing to it, or shaking your body first for five or ten minutes, and then allowing the body to dance—this puts energy into this depleted organism and helps break up the fixed patterns, the ‘stuckness’ that characterizes depression.”
Living in the Moment, Planning for the Future
As we seek to restore and maintain good health, there is no one method or practice that answers all needs for all people in all circumstances. As I tell my students fairly often, each patient has unique characteristics and all rules have exceptions. In evaluating what’s best for our patients, and ourselves, it’s important to draw on past experience, be open and attentive in the moment, and to carry with us a vision of the future we wish to create.
With that perspective in mind, the first question I’d ask you to consider is: what do you need to do right now to put things on a more even keel? The next step, even more important, is to ask yourself what you can do now (particularly if you are currently experiencing a stretch of relative health and balance) to nurture and strengthen yourself for life’s inevitable downturns. Like the old fable about the grasshopper and the ant, are you willing to use summer’s time of bounty to prepare for winter?
For example, if you are in your twenties or thirties (as are most of my students) and in reasonably good health, are you willing to improve your diet, exercise regularly and take up some form of meditation, even though many of the benefits you reap as a result may not manifest until decades from now? In other words, are you willing to practice prevention? The answer to that question—truly a big one—will serve perhaps better than any other to predict the future course of your life.
Daniel Redwood, DC, is Editor-in-Chief of Health Insights Today. |
