500 miles to your next service. My car updates me when it is time to give it a little TLC. Car services are timed to make sure that the engines are running smoothly to minimise the risk of problems. Nowadays garages tend to check the car over at service time to anticipate any issues and review car fuel performance. Anyone with a new or fairly new car knows that this is a sensible thing to do.
I consider myself to be very lucky to afford the lease payments on my car. In the past I had older cars that had a service when I could afford them. Sometimes the cost of 2 or 3 services exceeded the cost of another older car, so I just ran it till it broke.
Computers have come down in value so much that most PC's are cheaper to replace than take to an engineer. Since I am self- employed, my time is now money. By the time I have tried to make it work, looked up fixes online, got frustrated with it and given in, I have lost a days work and I still haven't started to consider the engineers costs or the loss of time while the computer is away for repair . Best to order a replacement online and restore my data on to it quickly.
In common with many bits of equipment it is possible to simply put a new bit of kit in place of the broken car, computer, gadget or whatever. We live in a disposable world where replacement is common place .
But what happens when that broken piece of equipment is part of our bodies. Are our bodies now considered disposable too ? Or do we just think that illness will never happen us ? Maybe we believe that the NHS can fix anything. Advancements in medicine can leave us thinking that they already have a cure for everything that ails us. New heart - no problem! Replace my blood - sure ! New leg from genetic work ? - absolutely. What can't they do ?
Did you know that life insurance is relatively cheap ? And sickness insurance is very expensive ? It's because, statistically, we are much more likely to be chronically sick than we are to die. Death isnt expensive but living with an illness is !
A good friend of mine recently had an acute mental breakdown. Crisis team after crisis team were slow to respond and quick to tell her that they didn't feel that they could offer the kind of help she needed. It was the medical equivalent of having the wrong kind of wet leaves on a railway line. Wtf ? If you feel like you want to die you need immediate, comprehensive, compassionate help, not constant calls asking you to explain to sterile, note-taking strangers why your life has fallen apart. After much stress and many agonising days, my friend chose privately paid help which really worked. Despite having a compassionate doctor to hand out anti-depressants, the overall result was NHS failure.
One of my clients has random, wandering pains in her stomach. She is under investigation for cancer, bowel issues, circulation issues and anything else they can think of. She is in daily pain and coming close to the end of her tether. They have no idea what is wrong with her so she has been sent home with pain killers while they organise more tests. All these tests are at the end of long waiting lists. More pain. More painkillers.
In both these cases the women left their symptoms for a long time. They didn't want to make a fuss. No point in bothering people till it's really necessary ! Now they are left wondering if they have been forgotten or just ignored by the NHS system. Truth is, the NHS service is horribly overworked and under- funded. Staff are working longer and longer hours to be left dealing with illnesses that are advanced enough to require 4 times the attention that it would have done, had it been caught earlier.
As individuals we need to take responsibility for our own health. We need to respect the equipment (body and mind), that we have been given and stop abusing it to the point of breakdown.
Let's be clear. Sugar is bad for you. Many pre-processed foods have little or no nutritional value. Too much drinking, excess fried foods, microwaved anything, GMO, lack of exercise and too much stress will probably ensure that you spend a large portion of your life in a queue for some doctor to offer you a pill and tell you that the medical miracle you thought would solve your problems is not suitable for your particular type of illness.
So what is good for you ?. Living your life with a little joy !. Doing things that make your heart feel glad. Glad enough to radiate a smile that will fill a room. Finding happiness in family and/or friends. Doing things that make daily life easier for others. Truly listening when someone needs to talk. Getting some rest when you need it. Really tasting your food, savouring the flavours and appreciating their life giving qualities. Doing some stretching to free up your muscles. Breathing deeply and slowly. Sitting without a TV or radio or other outside noise and just "being". Having a lie in and waking later.
When you have done some of these things you might actually hear your inner voice telling you what you need to do to make it all feel better. That little voice is very intelligent. It knows you much better than you know yourself. Mine once told me to leave the house I was living in, the relationship that I was having and change my career. I dismissed this “voice” as sensationalist nonsense of the tabloid press variety. But 3 years later I had done all of those things. Who knew ? well me apparently ! The little voice is just like that computer in your car. If you listen it will tell you when you need some TLC or even when you need to make a big change in life. Listening to the inner voice is a key feature of mindfulness. To be aware of the needs of our body and our mind, is to be truly intelligent. So the next time you have a few minutes to yourself, listen to your body and see if it has something to say. You might well get a mental image of someone folding their arms and looking huffy while the voice says “oh ! get you ! after all this time ! you dont write, you dont call, yet you expect wisdom to just come flowing from me at the drop of a hat !”. or words to that effect. But even that is good news because you have started a dialogue with your inner self. And if you find yourself saying “I dont have time to talk to my inner voice”, then you should be very worried indeed because you are failing to pay attention to the only equipment (body) that you have been given.
Do you need a 500 mile service ?. you tell me !
#health, #mindfulness, #innervoice, #sattvicbliss