Category: Wellness

RETHINKING LONGEVITY

Longevity, including the number of years we live and the quality of that life, is so precious.  Persons of all ages benefit from nourishing their wellness to increase longevity.  Every human being is a healer; a gift to the planet and to others.  Each soul has wisdom and work to share.  By shifting our narrative and embracing wholesome practices, we can live in great health past 100 years of age. 

By Alexander Diaz, LAc, FMP

As people get older, their bodies suffer illness and debility.  This makes life feel less worth living.  Then, the people become less motivated, causing a shifting narrative towards fatalism.  This is a slippery slope to a vicious cycle. 

But the illness and debility are not necessary.  All too often, people accept the suffering of their bodies as a basic effect of time.  Their language and story supports such victimhood.  While in reality, those people could enter superb vitality, and within the span of 1 year of hard work, experience a sense of health, happiness and peace that they never felt before. 

Healing takes discipline.  Each individual has his or her own specific path to health.  The common factor amongst all people is effort. 

We must stride forward into wellness.  We must create a plan to get well and implement that plan.  We must play and laugh and enjoy while we do it.  And if you put in the work, life gets better than you could ever have imagined. 

At some point in each person’s upbringing, he or she adopts a narrative about the amount of suffering that is, ‘right,’ to experience.  If the family home is violent in speech or deed, if the child is surrounded by dysfunction and hurt in school and activities, if the lineage of grandparents went through war or crisis, the person will expect a high amount of suffering. 

As we live in a very abundant and safe world, most of that person’s suffering will be internal; either in self-created sabotage and strife at work or with loved ones, or in patterns of ill-health that seem to perpetuate themselves forever. 

So the most important step in creating longevity, in having a vital, healthy, long life, is to deconstruct your subconscious’ agreement about how much suffering you should be enduring.  Consciously, we are hard-pressed to agree that we should be sick or in pain or unloved.  But the subconscious has signed up for this suffering before our current, adult consciousness was even properly formed. 

There is some foundational work to do.  As we shift our beliefs, we write our reality.  Actually making the steps to improve health is easy, once we decide we are worthy of wellness and love. 

So how can we access this worthiness, this self-love, this acceptance of the miracle of each moment that makes living longer and better into a MUST-DO Goal?

The simplest way is by deciding to serve others.  We must be healthy and well for as long as we can, so that we can help other beings.  Sometimes, it is easier to rationalize caring for ourselves if we view ourselves as vehicles of benefit.  Since the other beings are suffering, we ourselves must be strong and well to aid them.

If you struggle to care about others, its largely because you felt and still feel that others never cared about you.  But the real existence of every person is dependent on a million nourishing factors and events; every bite of food, breath of air, drink of water, night of sleep sheltered from the elements is because of the LIFE of other beings.  However conscious those beings were of wanting to specifically gift to you, they did provide those gifts, and you are alive. 

If you take the leap to let yourself be loved, you can branch out to loving relationships, and witness how others give to you and love you.  If you enter a state of peace, through meditation, you can remember the times you were held, fed and cared for.  Then you can help others. 

Another valuable way to rationalize self-love and self care is to seek your own existential nature through spiritual practice.  Whatever the particular path, spiritual and religious attainments commonly lead to the recognition of self as divine and worthy.

Let me just say that each and every person is worthy of health and love.  No matter what you have done, what crimes you committed, what people you slept with under ignominious communication, what ways you have used your time, YOU ARE WORTHY OF LOVE AND HEALTH.

Simply by the nature of existence, all beings deserve safety, freedom, nourishment, and a chance to unfold towards divinity.

As you believe, so you achieve. 

To achieve wellness and longevity, we have discovered some valuable jewels of knowledge.  When applied, this knowledge actively increases life-span and health span. 

HEALTHY DIET:  Eating right is so important to good health.  For this I recommend an appropriately tailored Paleo diet, rich in all essential nutrients, and sourced organically from sustainable farms and the wild. 

GOOD COMMUNITY:  The Blue Zone studies found definitive evidence that longevity is correlated with healthy and loving community.  Having a group of best friends and feeling supported is essential to human wellness.  In creating good community, the most important thing is to take 100% personal responsibility for your gifts and offerings to others, without expecting direct or immediate renumeration.  Friendship is all about giving.  As judgments of others arise, witness whether the characteristics you are judging actually cause suffering to you or to other people, or if they simply cause suffering within the individual you are judging.  If you can recognize and actualize your own safety, you can have compassion for the quality you had judged.  Perhaps you can even lovingly and appropriately help the person.  By releasing judgments and feeling safe, you can continually and increasingly open your heart to people, despite their humanity. 

PEACEFUL LIFESTYLE:  Every person has a different degree of financial empowerment and resource.  Not everyone is able to work less, have shorter commutes, enjoy their livelihood, and take vacations.  We have children and parents and partners to care for.  But every individual can optimize the levels of tranquility, leisure, balance, and reflection within their life-circumstances.  This effort is essential to longevity.  Meanwhile we often find surprising opportunities to level up in job, lifestyle, and leisure, once we heal our beliefs about our own worthiness and take steps towards real healing.  You can inhabit your dreams and live the life you choose.  Doing so is essential to total wellness.  [Check out my chapter: Breaking out of The Cubicle, in “The Path of Man,”] 

https://www.amazon.com/Path-Man-How-Be-Hero/dp/1530734495/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496868539&sr=8-1&keywords=Alexander+Diaz+the+path

GOOD SURROUNDINGS:  Feng Shui does not just apply to what corner of your house you put the bed in.  It applies to what spots on the planet you place yourself and your family.  In truth, many cities and other spaces are quite toxic, and foreshorten longevity.  When at all possible, relocate yourself to places with fresh air and clean water, with access to organic food.  When you get there, do your best to participate in nourishing and improving those places.  Relocating is not easy for all people.  But if you want to prioritize longevity and wellness, you have to be in a clean environment.  You must also clean up your own house-hold because molds and other pollutants are being found to be super dangerous to human health.

NATURE CONNECTION:  Human beings are wild animals.  We evolved in nature, not in buildings or cars.  The more connected we are with nature, the healthier we become.  This could include gardening, hiking, swimming, camping, or simply witnessing the living presence of plants and animals.  As your health improves, your energy and resilience to the elements will rise, making it more comfortable to be outside.  This is a great upward spiral.  The deepest beauty and most poignant miracles occur in natural places while in connection with the all.

GONG FU PRACTICE IN RIGHT BALANCE:  It is so important to find the right practices for yourself.  They should be not too much or too little.  They should vary and have different styles of training (strong weights, intermittent cardio, whole range of human motion), and leave you feeling good.  I view my practices as wonderful opportunities and I feel so grateful to have the time and energy to do them.  I used to view them as chores to accomplish.  Ideally you should feel a sense of excitement and play about embodying your physicality and moving with purpose and pleasure. 

MAKING THE STEPS TO HEAL AT ANY AGE:  First you must identify the sources of suffering:  perhaps your body is well but you are suffering mentally, because you cannot trust your spouse.  Perhaps your back is in such severe pain, it creates a dis-incentive to walking.  Perhaps your menses causes such discomfort, you spend the rest of the month recovering.  When you find the causes of your suffering, you can act steadily and smartly to heal them.  If you can get to a place where you are not suffering physically, and you have your basic needs met, you can embrace the process of healing your mental suffering.  There are books, practices, and professional assistance for every class of suffering.  Its just a matter of actively pursuing them and knowing you’re working on it. 

RETHINKING THE PARADIGM:  Even as we deconstruct the consumer meme of youth and valuing ourselves as only hyper fit, hyper sexual beings, and embrace the pure merit and value of self and others simply due to our existence, we have a larger memetic shift to contend with:  Namely, what are we actually doing on this planet?  Are we here to enjoy pleasure, to consume, to tacitly witness and support the changing of our climate until it is unfit for human habitation? 

Unfortunately this is the dominant paradigm.  Not only does that paradigm threaten all life on earth.  It threatens the ability of each individual to merit his or her own life.  Those individuals are then hamstrung in their abilities to benefit other beings. 

So in the path of nourishing individual longevity, it is vital to look at the greater narrative about temporary human existence on planet earth.  I posit that we are here in celebration, in divinity, in joy and purpose.  We are here to experience the fear of hunger, wet, cold, and illness, and to transcend that fear, returning to the divine source of trust, peace, service, and sharing that is the birthright of all beings. 

Yes, our individual life is temporary.  But the wholeness of all life is infinite.  Instead of being so attached to our personal existence that we suffer and fail to aid others, we must give infinite gratitude to our lives and the phenomena that existed before us to create that possibility.  We must laugh and play and think and work for this planet and for all beings. 

Here is the deal:  The planet is ready to provide you with incredibly powerful medicine, clean air, fresh water, rich food, ample fuel, and everything you need to thrive.  You need not feel guilty about embracing that abundance!

Embrace it, and become the best person you can be.  We humans are the most conscious and powerful animals alive today and we can steward and protect all other species!

Dying early and suffering unnecessarily do not benefit anyone or anything.  Living long and well and continuing to make steps towards enlightenment and planetary sustainability DO create a HUGE benefit. 

So do your work, re-frame your paradigm, and take conscious action to heal yourself and end the suffering of others. 

With advances in modern medicine and adherence to ancient knowledge, humans in the developed world are looking at a possible lifespan well exceeding 100 years.  What will we do with all this time?  Who are we and how do we most deeply wish to participate?  What does a sustainable and abundant planet look like, and how does human society support this? 

Here’s wishing everyone 100 years of wellness, and the power to make a healthy world that supports the full life-span of all creatures. 

TAYATA OM BEKANDZE BEKANDZE MAHA BEKANDZE

RADZA SAMUNGATE BODDHISVAHA

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD

Every so often I feel the need to synthesize and understand the chaos that is unfolding in our global society.  As a father, I feel that it behooves me to be aware of the world situation, and make good decisions to help my family and community thrive within this shifting context.  Although the common narrative bespeaks a grim and uncertain future, there are many beacons of hope.  And while the U.S.A. continues to make poor choices in its foreign and domestic policies, an alliance of global actors are moving towards a new hegemony, wherein whole planetary wellness is a top priority.

By Alexander Diaz, LAc, FMP

Global wealth is growing.  Populations are sharply on the rise.  Hundreds of millions of people are attaining middle class lifestyles, and millions of people are becoming millionaires.  Meanwhile, abject poverty rules the lives of more than two billion persons, much of which is an unnecessary externality of wealth disparity and poor planning and distribution.

Since 9/11/2001, the U.S. has engaged in two major foreign wars, and sent soldiers and air-strikes to many other conflicts.  Instead of combating militant islamists, this policy has ignited a brushfire of jihad that crosses international borders with impunity.  Moderately stable nations such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya have become failed states, and breeding grounds for the genesis of trauma.  This trauma cycles out in infinite spirals, exacerbating ethnic, religious and political tensions and creating vast humanitarian crises. 

All war defies the containment of artificial borders.  Just as the war in Vietnam spread its horror to Lao, Cambodia and China, the Iraq war laid the foundation for the emergence of ISIS, and the war in Syria.  Similarly, as the U.S.’ ousting of the Taliban from Afghanistan temporarily ‘liberated,’ the Afghan people, neighboring Pakistan became host to Taliban forces, who are now rapidly re-taking Afghanistan, despite the opposition of the unmotivated military of the Afghan state.

Refugee crises engendered by such conflicts make waves into Europe and east Asia.  As millions seek asylum and safety, wealthier and more stable nations such as Germany, France, England, Turkey, etc are trending towards nationalist and ethnically xenophobic political policies, largely in order to maintain national identity and the fiscal sustainability of the state.

As such, formerly liberal nations are taking increasingly racist and hateful stances.   

This global trend is also rising in the United States.  The millions of deportees sent away by the Obama administration are now being followed by millions more.  Civil liberties and the protections of the constitution are eroded, with full public mandate and little protest or even awareness.  This propaganda-supported xenophobia is a convenient fiction used by many historic rulers to hide the true motives of the state.

In effect, we now witness the full expression of wealth disparity, resource exploitation and the dismantling of public welfare.  Democratically socialist measures hard won by our ancestors are dismissed with full congressional and judiciary fiat, in favor of corporate welfare bordering on the realm of facism.  The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. 

The United States is quickly waning as a world power.  China is rising to displace it, and China is not alone.  Outside of the U.S., nation after nation comes to understand the risks and dangers of following the U.S. program.  The hypocrisy and illegitimacy of our actions has alienated the alliance of nations.  All of those nations now look to the future and understand the futility of working with the U.S. and its foreign policy arms: The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

With its position in the world, its universities, its resources, its media, its markets, its personnel, and its military, the United States could have chosen to write a truly benevolent global future.  But the actions of our foreign and domestic policies were never in keeping with the moral agenda stated and often used to rationalize our sordid works. 

We could be living in a world of clean energy, peace, and the rule of international law and morality.  But instead, we live in a destabilized world, where economic and environmental collapse seem imminent.  This profound misfortune, however, is not written in stone, nor is it impossible to reverse. 

Indeed, a vital, peaceful, and prosperous world is not only possible, it is probable and likely.  Though we are unaware of it due to the poor reporting of our media, there is now a global renaissance of sustainable thought and direct action.  Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations, Corporations, and individual and community actors are all moving towards a common source of ecological stewardship.

A vast association of nations is forming through the auspices of humble diplomacy and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.  The One Belt One Road initiative is linking China to Central Asia, Southern Asia, Southeast Asia, Russia, Korea, Japan, and Oceania.  The arteries of trade, power, rail, and commodities reach directly to Western Europe and Eastern Africa.  Railheads traverse the African Continent to the wealthy up and coming nations of Western Africa, and a vast canal project in Nicaragua offers access through the middle of the western Hemisphere. 

These nations, who are coming to include even staunch U.S, allies like the United Kingdom and Australia, are gradually and rapidly dissociating themselves from dependence on trade in U.S. dollars, U.S. foreign aid, U.S. military occupation, World Bank loans and the like, in favor of a gold-backed currency, the Chinese RMB.  They are receiving billions of dollars in investment for infrastructure, education, public health, and the basis for a globalized trade that brings actual benefit to their populaces. 

Within this rapid growth are certain inexorable trends that take root in the center [China] and are becoming quickly adopted in the periphery.  Among these are green technology, ethical morality in government, sound fiscal planning, non-violent foreign policy, stable trade relations, an increasing liberalization and democratization of the social commons, and the search for happiness. 

While China is currently a user of Coal and Nuclear energy, Chinese policy is to invest in vast green energy infrastructure.  As pilot projects succeed and provide data, they are then repeated at lightning speed, a prerogative of authoritarian rule that is pragmatic in its decision making.  Within a short span of years, China will mirror and then surpass the green policies, urban and hydrologic planning of the most advanced nations such as Singapore and Sweden.  Chinese authorities are aware that such environmental initiatives go hand in hand with wealth, public prosperity, and as such, the continued mandate of the people to maintain party leadership.

With wealth comes the ability to invest in sustainable infrastructure.  While the U.S. chose and chooses to instead denude its environment, infrastructure and people, China heads an alliance that takes the opposite tack.  As they do so, they produce millions of brilliant minds who are enabled and supported to create even more sustainable growth.  As nations mature and prosper under the new trade agreements and arteries of physical and intellectual interchange, they have positive incentives to model this sustainable growth for their own wellness.

This shift comes never too soon:  The actual material and environmental problems of the world are grave.  Unfortunately, the current moral leadership of global public policy has destroyed its own credibility through war, exploitation, and abhorrent foreign diplomacy.  We can only hope that emerging nations can quickly de-colonize their cultural mindsets, reducing and eliminating the supremacy of American thinking and policy.

For Americans, this time is a particularly depressing era:  We have borne witness to decades of immoral demagoguery and paid taxes towards war crimes and genocide.  The current president is the worst of a lineage of puppets, whose strings were pulled by an immature and egoistic elite having no understanding or concern for the environment or common weal. 

Thus, we as Americans need to release ourselves from the fear-anger-hopelessness cycle of being spectators and commentators to our own incestuous internal dialogue.  It is not important that the U.S. be a moral leader or have ultimate power.  It never was a moral leader: this was a convenient fiction used to delude us to the true purpose of our policies: the enrichment of the few. 

The sooner that we as Americans can relinquish this false narrative of the erstwhile moral supremacy of our nation and the grief-laden tragedy of its demise, the sooner we can make cogent action for the global future. 

That action need not be turned towards Washington; the leaders of the state will do as they please, and continue their evil works, invasions, and economic exploitations.  But on the local level, we can make huge differences. 

Locally, we can thrive.  We can honor our landscape, pressure our state, county and city leaders, and take care of ourselves and each other.  We need every American to be healthy, and freed of the shackles of prescription drugs, mood enhancers, addictive foods and substances, false beliefs, and poverty.  As we emerge into full health and personal power, we can decide how best to serve in the world. 

And amidst this healing journey, which is itself experiencing a quiet renaissance that goes unreported by our media, is a potent and timely task: We must convert dollar wealth, i.e. electronic savings and cash money, into real wealth, i.e. property, education, the means of production, and personal wellness. 

This task is so important because we are already witnessing rapid inflation and a decrease in the value of the dollar.  As such it is imperative that we act now to secure the best possible sustainable future for ourselves, even as our leaders fail to chart a course towards sanity.

While I grow my practice of Chinese Medicine, earning more money and healing others, I plow that money back into the soil of my family’s health and wealth position.  We now seek to own property in the most sustainable place we have found, Hawaii.  We purchase naturopathic treatments, massages, herbal medicines and wholesome experiences that grow our unity and spiritual alignment.  We move decisively towards a micro-future of wellness that we hope best supports the macro-future of global sustainability.  And we release ourselves from the drama of American Politics, and look to the greater trends in the world for solace. 

We rest assured that millions of human beings are striding towards peace and sustainability.  It is now our task as Americans to learn how to humble ourselves, and join the alliance of global actors motivated to heal the problems of our world, and create a better future for our Children’s Children.