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Trauma, Accidents, & Big Macs
All the same to the body and mind.
Aaron Labajo
December 22, 2023
Big Macs are fu*king delicious.
When was the last time you felt great after eating one?
I had once recently and it was divine. Yet on my run later that day, I felt like I had dumbbells for feet. Even writing this is painful.
I’m not about to tell you to never eat a cheeseburger again.
Within the context of life, that cheeseburger is but a blip, which is what makes it dangerous. Multiple blips over the course of an entire life can lead to disaster.
To prevent disaster, you must consider small actions within the larger context of the body and mind.
“The only way to get real is to make a major shift into a healing lifestyle, one that isn’t chopped up into small temporary choices—even very healthy ones—but rises to the level where the whole system is cared for.”
The Bodymind: Part 2.
Welcome to Part 2.
In part 1, we talked about the unity of body and mind.
What we need now is a theory of the body and mind which we can use to help us navigate the world.
Luckily, there is already pre-existing research surrounding this topic.
Deepak Chopra is a doctor and author advocating for holistic health.
To be honest, he’s a controversial figure and at times considered pseudoscientific.
But, he’s also a pioneer of holistic, integrative approaches to health and wellness. His formulation of the body and mind is solid and rooted in scientific rigor.
We’re going to be borrowing Deepak Chopra’s term, which you see is the title of this series.
The Bodymind (Finally!)
I can bend my fingertips independently of my fingers.
Over the course of a 14 hour plane, I learned to use a muscle I never used in my life because I was bored.
In Deepak Chopra’s formulation of the bodymind, healing is just like that: a muscle we never learned to use.
First, some terminology:
The body refers to your physical body, including your hands, feet, head, etc.,
The mind refers to your mental, emotional, and spiritual faculties, not rooted.
The bodymind is the entity that is the union of the body and mind, encompassing both the physical and mental realm.
As you go about your daily life, you encounter disruptions that can adversely affect the health of your bodymind.
According to Dr. Chopra, the sequence goes like this:
Disruption > healing response > outcome
When your bodymind encounters a disruption, there is a healing response (or an attempt) which results in a certain outcome.
There is only one desired outcome:
Great health of bodymind.
You don’t direct control over the outcome.
But you can do something about the disruptions and the healing response.
Let’s dive into it.
How to Navigate Disruptions
“The real threat to healing comes from the daily interventions we make that have negative or unforeseen consequences; these are the raindrops that can eventually cause a flood.”
Notice how “disruption” has a pretty loose definition.
A disruption can be anything malignant, and it can exist in the physical realm, or the mental, such as:
A Big Mac
A traumatizing thought
Toxic relationships
Stubbing your toe
This means the physical can affect the mental, and the mental can affect the physical.
A Big Mac can affect your mood because you usually end up feeling guilty for eating it, and the traumatizing thought can make your body tense up.
There are two broad ways to control disruptions.
You can avoid or keep them out of your life.
Here are 4 examples of disruptions and how you can deal with them before they get into you:
Wendy’s Double Baconator: Have a grilled chicken sandwich instead.
Toxic people: Cut them out so they can never disrupt your life. again.
COVID-19: Wear a mask (or not, it’s your choice).
Negative thoughts: Meditate regularly so that you don’t get caught up by them when they arise.
However, some disruptions are unavoidable. What matters most is how you choose to deal with them. Let’s go over the healing response next.
The Healing Response
“[The concept of] immunity as a built-in response, which every medical student learns as basic knowledge, has a gaping flaw in it. To find the flaw, pause and simply take a deep breath. There’s the flaw, staring everyone in the face.
Breathing is an automatic, involuntary function, but you can step in and make it voluntary anytime you want. The same ability extends almost everywhere.”
The healing response can be broken down into two types of healing:
Automatic healing: when your immune system kicks in, sending white blood cells to kill of pathogens (invaders in your body like a virus)
Conscious healing: the state of mind and conscious faculties that aid in healing. This is the most overlooked aspect of healing and dealing with disruptions to the bodymind.
When all else is equal, some people deal with or prevent illness better than others is because they’ve been taught or unknowingly stumbled across the power of conscious healing.
For example, if a traumatizing thought were to cross your mind, you have two choices:
Learn from it and move on(conscious healing).
Descend into a poor state of mind, which adversely affects your bodymind.
Conscious healing encompasses decisions you make and frame of mind you choose to take on, like:
Genuinely wanting to get better
Optimism and hope that you will get better
Choosing to move forward with treatment
Choosing to lead an active and healthy lifestyle
Deciding that you want to live
You know how in some stories, some characters die because they “lost the will to live?”
Well, it’s real. And when you’re really sick, it can be the difference between life or death.
Many physicians have seen how two patients of similar ages and with the same diagnosis, degree of illness, and treatment program experience vastly different results. One of the few apparent differences is that one patient is pessimistic and the other optimistic.
Sickness is an extreme case, but as you’ll see next, your bodymind is already the default model your subconscious mind uses.
The 2 Disruptors: Bodymind in Action
The Toe Dilemma
Consider the following disruptions. As a parent, would you rather:
A) Stub your toe
B) Watch your child stub their toe
Stubbing your toe hurts. But you’re still going with choice A, even though choice B has zero effect on you physically. You’d rather stub your own toe 10,000 times before going with choice B. Why?
You’ve decided that the emotional pain of choice B is greater than the physical pain of choice A (and your newly acquired grudge for your couch).
In other words, you’re evaluating each disruption based on the overall effect it has on your bodymind.
Thus, your subconscious formulation of self is already predicated upon the unity of body and mind.
My Left Arm
2 years ago, I was involved in a nasty bicycling accident.
I was bombing way too fast down a hill, going at least 40 miles per hour.
One bump was all it took to send me flying.
I got lucky.
My helmet broke into four pieces, but my head was perfectly fine. No concussion.
Sure, I had some nasty scrapes and a scar going all the way up my left arm, but nothing substantial. Didn’t even break a bone.
But to this day, downhill doesn’t feel the same.
I get anxious from it.
Even though the event was physical and my body has healed, the adverse effect on my mind has prevailed.
—
Disruptions lie on a spectrum.
Some affect you more physically, some more mentally.
However, all disruptions have a measurable effect on your bodymind. The physical affects the mental and the mental affects the physical.
My bicycling mishap is an example of how a disruption that exists mainly in the physical can affect you mentally.
Choosing to stub your toe in place of your child is an example of how physical pain can be trivial to mental and emotional pain.
Your response to physical events are not limited to the immediate physical consequences but extend to the psychological realm as well.
The Superman
The cure of many diseases is unknown to physicians because they are ignorant of the whole. For the part can never be well unless the whole is well.
Here’s what I’m not saying: you can think yourself into healing your cancer (or maybe you can, Idk at this point).
If you’re stupid sick, go to the doctor.
This is not about discounting modern medicine, it’s about improving it.
It’s about fortifying bodymind, putting yourself in the best position to prevent cancer or win if you do get it.
There’s more.
If disruptions can be anything, that means with sound bodymind health, you fortify yourself against all disruptions. That means all diseases, all tragedies, all mental health issues, everything.
Think of it as hedging your bets in the best possible way.
“One of the important implications of this new unifying theory is to stop seeing chronic diseases as being fundamentally different from each other and to begin viewing them as diverse manifestations and expressions of similar underlying mechanisms, all of which are powerfully affected by the lifestyle choices we make every day—for better and for worse. ”
Epilogue
Before we end the Bodymind Duology, I thought it’d be worthwhile to take a step back for a moment.
At The Polymathletic, we’re not just trying to survive, we want to thrive in all aspects of life.
However, across all of these, there is one common denominator:
Your bodymind.
It is the singular vehicle with which you’ll go on to achieve lifelong excellence.
It would behoove you to treat it well.
See you in 2 weeks!
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