Psst, Your Cells Are Listening to You

Everything about you is happening at the cellular level. Your digestion, the movement of your muscles, the elimination of wastes, the clean-up of microbes and rogue cells, and so on to your entire health. These cells coordinate with other cells and work together as organs (stomach, heart, lungs, skin etc), and your organs work together as systems (respitory, nervous, digestive etc) all to serve YOU and give you what you want.

But it all begins at the cellular level. And here’s the thing: all these little guys (cells) are listening to you, all 75 trillion or so of them! They listen to what you think, feel, and say. And whether you think this is a crazy notion or not, it’s true. Just think about how your body reacts when you feel very angry or when you are elated. Those are two extreme examples that you can identify and feel. But the truth is your body is responding all day long to all your thoughts, most of the time with you being completely unaware. Now before you get worried, here’s the good news. Life is a marathon, not a sprint, so you have time to change your thinking patterns.

Instead of feeling worried, feel empowered! When your thinking supports your physical body, you are on your way to attaining a high level of health. So how can you make this work for you?

Be Kind

Be kind to yourself at every moment you can. Treat yourself how you would treat the person you love most in this world. When you mess up, give yourself kindness. When you remember past mistakes, give yourself kindness. When you worry about the future, give yourself kind encouragement. Just. Be. Kind.

Mantra: “I love you ________you name_________.” “You are so very good.”

Be Understanding

Be less judgmental of yourself (and others because it is a habit – if you’re judging others you’ll slip back into judging yourself). Instead of judging, seek to understand and give compassion for your challenges. We live in a world of

Man Up!
Buck Up!
Suck It Up!
Toughen Up!

This way of living is not necessary, certainly not in the volume that we demand it of ourselves and others. Instead try

Soften Up! (only the truly strong can be soft)

(The truth is all of us ARE soft on the inside. That softness and suppleness is a condition associated with health. Too much “hardness” in our thinking can produce hardness in our tissues.)

When you find yourself being judgmental, ask yourself why things are that way, why they happened. Look for the understandable explanations. Understand, learn and move forward, all with kindness.

Mantra: “I understand.” “I love you.” “I see you’re doing your best and learning.” “I am not my mistakes. I am compassion and love.”

Solutions Thinking

Anytime you notice yourself identifying a problem, complete the other have of problem-finding which is: identifying the solution. Sometimes the solution will involve changing your course or fixing something, but other times the solution will be changing you, changing your perspective. This could be releasing a desire, letting go of past issues, allowing little things to NOT be problems. Ask yourself “If I don’t get X, can/will I still be OK?”

Dampen the Flame

Sometimes a problem is real and there’s not much we can do about it, but we can choose to dial down our response to it. Deep breathing is very helpful. Getting some physical energy out with a walk or some other exercise is also good. And mindfulness meditation or simply mindfulness focus in whatever experience you are in can help a lot too. I like the mantra “right here, right now, I am ok.” (Mantras/affirmations work best when repeated many many times. When you do that, really do it, you’ll see how powerfully they work!)

Self-Support

Whether you call it cheerleading or self-coaching, think about what it is you’d like to tell your body. What thoughts would give it strength, confidence, and joy? Write those down and find ways to think and say them daily.

Sometimes when we are ill we have the notion that our body has betrayed us. Consider for a moment the other way around. Disease is a message from our bodies that something is out of sync, that something needs to be cleaned up, that something needs to change. Sometimes this means diet, sometimes exercise, maybe removing toxic burdens, but usually we can always give our thinking a tune-up which will help our body.

Mantra: “Dear dear body, I love what you do. I thank you for your skillful work. I promise to listen to you and make changes to care for you. I send and share my joy with you all day!”

Set Up Reminders

It’s good to set up reminders to keep on track and make this a good habit. Some ideas:

Journaling about your thoughts, both the ones you’re having and the ones you’d like to have.
Physical reminders such as a string bracelet, a necklace, a ring, a rubber band, etc that will remind you of this new habit.
Alarm reminders. Perhaps a couple times a day you have an alarm set to refresh your mind to this habit.
Signs. Where ever it will be helpful, post some type of sign or symbol that helps you to remember to be kind to yourself and to tell your cells what a good job they are doing, to thank them, and to encourage them letting them know that all is well and they have the freedom to carry on with their work joyfully!