A systems view of biological health
This work is licensed under
CC BY-SA 4.0
: also see my full Copyright statement.
There are six simple principles that you need to know :
-
Whatever you focus on or place your attention on (either automatically/unthinkingly or consciously) will get bigger – via sensory and neurological feedback loops. The most powerful feedback loops come about from attending to sensations in the body (interoception).
-
You have a certain degree of choice as to where you put your attention – so you do not have to allow the noisiest information channel to call you all the time. Information channels include all the internal and extarnal senses, and your emotions and thoughts.
-
You also have a certain amount of choice as to the mental emotional state that you experience. Emotions cannot be "made up", but if they happen, you can potentially choose how much priority to give them, and most importantly, how much Meaning to give them.
-
"OK" flags can be set by deliberately being interested in somatic feelings associated with the mental-emotional range Curiosity / Gratitude / Appreciation, and interoceptive sensations of "comfortably alive". The more "OK" flags are set, the less priority the "danger" ones will have (allowing for reality also being safe-enough in the present moment!).
-
Your body is a friend, and as a friend, it needs certain attention to cultivate that friendship. This friendship is cultivated by being interested in the body (i.e. feeling
what it feels like inside) and having some compassion for the body.
-
There is a specific time frame that ensures the messages reach deeply enough into the body. It takes about 40 seconds of uninterrupted genuine curiosity (see #4 above) to tell the body that it is safe,
and then another couple of minutes to allow the body to process that new information. i.e. the body determines safety about 100 times more slowly than your mind. A feeling of safety that creates a long-term shift in your metabolism arises from the body, not the mind.
