Health Is About COMMUNITY And Choice

Hello Love!

In case you missed it, please do go read Part One of this post here.

Today let's dive into some solutions. How we can come to terms with the REALITY of what it takes to create a healthy individual and a healthy society, and how we can all participate in that creation.

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Society Isn't Set Up For Wide Spread Access To Health:

Societal structures aren’t set up to balance the reality that we are all different and have different needs. Society expects a base level of productivity/health normality and sees that anyone who doesn’t meet those standards as weak.

This is wrong.

This is out of alignment with truth.

We are not born equal.

We don’t have equal conditions.

We don’t have equal capacity.

We don’t have equal access.

There will NEVER be a society of people that ALL fit the very narrow parameters of our capitalist structure.

This is reality.

Until we adjust our views on this, we are going to have large groups of people who never have a hope of bettering their health - not because of anything they are choosing, but because society literally isn’t set up for them to do so.

We have to understand that again, fundamentally, at our core - all of us are doing whatever we have PROGRAMMED into our minds/bodies/souls is going to bring us the most amount of pleasure/safety/security. THAT is the REAL reason we are all doing what we’re doing with food/our bodies/our health. We are all doing the best we can with what we have, what we know, what we are emotionally/mentally capable of, what we can with our traumas and histories and inheritance. With our culture and surroundings. We.are.all.doing.the.best.we.can.

Even those who are doing EXTREME things with their health - fasting, sitting in ice buckets, taking perpetual plant medicine journeys, leaving all conventional methods for something radical - and are seeing negative results but continue to push forward are doing what they are as a way to try to escape pain. They are utilizing radical tools to try to counter the extreme sense of pain, fear and out of sync realities they have been facing their entire lives. There’s a deep desire for something DIFFERENT than what is, a rebellion from a society that hurts so much - and the body is the perfect vehicle by which to try to achieve this transcendence. It’s all a form of trying to find freedom from pain.

When people CAN do better, they do. Always. Because it leads to better outcomes for them.

When we can’t change even when it seems like we ‘should’ be able to (we have access, the help is there, what have you) we have a REASON. A trauma. A nervous system program. A biological addiction. Distraction or other things to prioritize. The list goes on. But always, always, always there’s a reason. No one is choosing to harm themselves when they ACTUALLY have a TRUE and AVAILABLE out.

Ever.

We Have A GOOD Reason For The Situations We're In/How We Are Handling What We're In:

If people aren’t doing it, they have a reason. We have to respect that.

People might be doing it and still not getting the results we expect and project onto them. We have to come to terms with that.

People might have histories and traumas and issues we have no awareness of.

People might be in a situation where they literally just don’t have what’s required to make a shift.

People might have pre-existing conditions that lead to their being sick literally no matter what they choose.

People are people in the context of a society and that society has a major impact on their capacity to make choices.

There are SO many reasons people are in the state of health they’re in - and NONE of them are coming down to laziness or just being willfully objective/obtuse.

In my opinion, as always, I think we would do well to really attempt to butt out of people’s health business unless we are directly invited to comment/offer advice. 

Let's Look In Before We Look Out: I think we would find that our world is much more harmonious, and we may be able to establish an *actual* body positivity movement if we were to take a moment to ask ourselves WHY we are wanting to project whatever we’re wanting to project onto the bodies we see around us (ah that self awareness muscle!) - considering what we may not know what we don’t know, that we may not see what we’re not seeing, and choosing to have compassion and curiosity for the other vs. assuming we know what’s going on with them. The projection of shame and guilt onto others may be something we are using as a defense mechanism against the shame and guilt we have about our ‘old selves’ because we still feel like our ill-health/lack of success was ‘our fault’ rather than seeing that WE were trained and harmed in ways. We project this shame onto others because their health issues represent to us that ‘out of control’ reality we don’t want to face. We WANT to believe others are sick BY CHOICE because that soothes the idea that they might not be, that they may be in pain they can’t control, which means WE MIGHT END UP IN PAIN WE CAN’T CONTROL and that is just too scary a reality to look at. So we simplify health to just a personal choice you either make or your don’t and judge everyone who’s not making it. It’s a way of protecting ourselves from the complexity of reality and again, we may do better to actually process that insecurity and existential dread instead.

Let's Make Ourselves Safe Before We Project Onto Others: I think we would do better to settle into our own skin and rather than having shame or guilt around our own health status/food choices/lifestyle choices, allowing OURSELVES to blame, shame and label ourselves as lazy/defective/not doing things right, settling into curiosity around our own histories, traumas, imprinting and state so that we can better understand that WE have a good reason for being where we are, doing what we are. To realize the guilt and shame stories are protective mechanisms that we are using to try to give ourselves a sense of control - if what’s hurting/wrong with us is OUR FAULT - we can fix it! If it’s a bigger, systemic, not so in our control issue - that’s worse. Many of us would rather believe our problems are all on us because at least that means there’s hope of fixing it some day. The bigger picture idea can be liberating from shame, but also overwhelming in terms of admitting how complex health and bodies and feeling good can be.

Let's Investigate Our Own Guilt And Shame: I know it’s hard, but the shame and guilt has to go. And the way we do this is by INVESTIGATING with an open heart as to WHY things are the way they are. Because whenever we do this, we will always, always find INNOCENCE and a REACTION/RESPONSE to what we’ve been through/what we’re going through. We will never find true laziness, malice, ‘just not trying hard enough.’ People don’t ‘just not try hard enough.’ We are WIRED for pleasure, we are WIRED for safety, we are WIRED for familiarity. This doesn’t mean we can’t change and grow - it just means that we aren’t ever intentionally sabotaging ourselves. We are working with our subconscious and conscious, our environment, our patterning, our lack of awareness and so on at ALL TIMES - doing what we are capable of in the moment to have the best outcome. That’s what’s behind all action. We may be incorrect about how to get the best outcome. We may be programmed and missing information - but never willfully doing something harmful.

We may then start to see where we have power to change our own lives, and where we can start to help shift systems of disempowerment and misunderstanding that are affecting all of us. A true body positivity movement is one based in looking for ways to run society that are founded in EQUITY - seeing that we aren’t all equal and never will be, and figuring out how to work systems around THAT, rather than trying to work PEOPLE into the SYSTEM. Its going to be about liberation from oppressive and exploitive systems. It’s going to be about greater access. Greater awareness. Greater safety and support on a community level. It’s going to be more humans loving themselves safe so that they can then start to create that safety in the world around them. 

Let's Realize Our Bodies Are Big Triggers And Respect That: Let’s all take a collective deep breath, step back, and realize again that our bodies are triggering. They reveal to us our frailty. Our lack of control. They easily have pain and suffering and this scares us. We project this fear of death and illness, pain and suffering we can’t control out onto those around us when we don’t know how to face it from within. We do the best we can with what we know, our programs, our current situation. We are DIFFERENT from one another and what works for one can’t really be applied to another. Not consistently so. We live in a culture not set up for community support and that is based on competition - this isn’t working for us. We will have to shift this if we want better health outcomes generally speaking. It’s not all about individual choice. Community is a huge part of this puzzle.

Bodies and health are complex. We want them to be simple and we want to feel like we have ultimate control - but we don’t. And that can be ok if we can learn to process it.

YES we have power.

Yes we can change.

Yes we can do better for ourselves.

But it’s not easy, and I don’t feel anyone should be judged for wherever they are on their path.

Oftentimes we simply have no idea what someone has been through and don’t have the information to make an accurate judgement call anyway.

The BEST thing to do is work on our own situation, with love, compassion and curiosity.

Change where we can.

Work with our nervous systems and patterning.

Work within the context of our environment.

Slowly as much as we can drop the judgements and know we are doing our best.

Then if there’s pain, investigate.

Slowly.

Take steps.

Little by little.

No race.

Just progress over time with love.

When/if someone asks for our help with their health, start with asking LOTS of questions rather than assuming we know what’s going on/what they should do. Get in their shoes. Get in their lives. Get into their histories and context. Then we may be able to offer something.

What do you think, can we make room for the existential fear bodies are ALWAYS going to trigger, and rather than projecting it or internalizing it as guilt and shame, can we explore it and see what we find?

<3