Mind over Body: How to find the kindness within

Is Mind over body possible?

Our body is our home or our abode. But finding the Boddhi in the abode, that is our enlightened self, is sometimes not as easy as we could hope for.

The kinder side of ourselves can run and hide when it is time for self-reflection and we often perceive ourselves as less than others do. We can be critical in our minds' eye to the detriment of our health and happiness.

Dove soap did a commercial in 2013 comparing the perspective that we have of ourselves with how others perceive us, to shed some light on how critical we can be of our self image. You can watch the video below. 

With such a high and plastic ideal of image in the modern world, we tend to focus on what we believe to be our negative qualities rather than to see ourselves as others actually do.

We compare ourselves to the Photoshop'd images of Instagram so much that this fixation can become our living reality. We can become shaped overtime by the power of our minds. But why talk so much about the mind if this blog is about the body? ​

In a world that is right now under heavy contemplation of life, death and health, the existential crisis that we are all facing is palpable. Fear, anxiety and greed have cut deep into the body politics of self and other, of us.

​Can we untangle the daily economy of distraction and indulgence from our collective immunity? 

Why are we so cruel to ourselves?

Our personal and collective intelligence is a live 3 way conversation between the body, the mind and one’s environment? When our wants betray our needs the whole conversation can suffer. 

The mind influences the body and the body influences the mind. We interact with our environment and it feeds back to us, and so on. To put our finger on the pulse of this conversation may help us to mind our bodies and spirit into healthy dimensions. 

But the pulse of most conversations can have different values for different people. For some being rich is more important than being wealthy. Many people have chosen the itch of the rich over the health of wealth and our planet, our bodies, have suffered. When the value of a thing has us sacrificing our ability to enjoy it we must question its validity. ​

For example, judgment has some value but do we know its limit? When we judge others we are often just setting up the the conditions to repeat this behavior on ourselves. A quality of mind and body interaction that our best social platforms are surely aware. "Feeling a bit down from spending hours a day judging others? Well, we have just the thing for you! Give us your money and we turn that pesky self doubt into a flurry of engagement from the most valuable of strangers". 

This is a broken window parable of sorts. A love and hate relationship with our drugs dealers of choice. 

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The magic of space

More and more we are becoming aware of how our lifestyle affects the planet but truly it is our lifestyle that is dependent on the planet and the planet is not very healthy right now. The planet is our body and we would be well minded to take better care of it, less we head towards premature death as a species. It's not doom and gloom either, it's hard science. 

​Mass species extinction and the degeneration of global ecosystems is real. Digging deep into the human condition will be a necessary aspect of preventing the worst. Our lifestyle at present are indeed a strange style of denial. We can see it, we just don't know how to stop it...yet?

Nature moves in mysterious ways but also not so mysterious. Biodiversity and complexity are consistent threads that run through the ecosystems of the world, literal echo systems with negative and positive feedback loops. Our body and the body of the planet often just need space to do the magic of healing.

In fact the natural tendency of life, if left to rest, is to increase in complexity and stability. Just look at the data on the planet's environmental response to the Covid19 pandemic.

With just a little space from our insatiable appetites for indulgence and distraction, global carbon emissions for 2020 are expected to fall by about 6%.

According to the International Energy Agency that is the equivalent to the entire energy production of India! What is this telling us?

​This is of coarse is temporary  consequence and our economies will continue to grow despite their general direction towards disaster. They may even, as we are warned, overcompensate in carbon production to offset our lagging economies of destruction. 

We have used our minds to, both personally and collectively, reinforce the wholesale delusion that we are incomplete.

We seek, search and purchase in the hopes of finding that fleeting flavor of completion. A style of mind that certainly will attain its completion, death, the more we exercise it. 

But how do we rest our insatiable appetites? How do we rest our search for the impossible flavor of completion, in products? How do we redefine an economy that suffers when we stop suffering?

​The global pandemic has been a wake up call for the whole world but just as any addict can attest, not every wake up call works. Addressing our climate issue must be a top ‘body’ priority.  ​I don't think hitting rock bottom is an option we should explore. 

Even our green movements, rather than release us from our addictions have been known to dig deeper into solutions that sometimes are just more manufactured demand, more conscious products. 

​It's been so lovely where I live to see people outside exploring nature and not the mall! You can see it on their faces, as if emerging from a week in bed with the flu, renewed again!

​Will we lose this to ‘fix’ the economies of the planet, only to become sick again? Do economies that undermine our future have any place in the present? 

Can technology save us?

Our whole world is built on this. A literal plastic economy of both self and other. OKM isn’t suggesting we tear it down but that we recognize the necessity of making the shift towards true cost economies. The third industrial revolution is certainly a video worth watching if you would like a glimpse into the coming needs and demands of our future economies.  With AI we may even hit an fourth industrial revolution before the planet finds out we are in the 3rd? Wild times! 

We have within us all the grand intelligence of nature but often, in our self defined intelligence, we deny the basic rules of the house. Our present civilization is platformed on a technology and set of lifestyle expectations that are perhaps unsustainable. In fact we know they are in their present material state. We will need more than hope if we are to innovate our way through the eye of this needle! 

​It is the hope of technology that we can, through innovation and collaborative action, come up with solutions that allow us to continue on with our positive modern directions.  We need truth and we need reconciliation. We need to act quick but also wisely. 

The world's biggest corporations are using the most sophisticate technology and AI to increase our chews per-second, and we would be naive to think we will slow this down if we don't act wisely and swiftly. Normal is not cool. 

Photo by Ioana Cristiana on Unsplash

But What is normal?

Understanding one's health requires an observation of the whole apparatus. We can’t just take the good and leave the bad, Our worst qualities come from somewhere and are shared around the world because they are our qualities.

In denial of this we create division in diversity, not respect and consequently, not a way forward. The feedback loops become negative ones and the system begins to putrefy and agitate.

And now is not the moment for quarrel but questioning. What is normal? Where shall we head in this opportunity to reconsider our global health? 

At OKM we are technological optimists in this regard. We have hope for the dangerous and beautiful tool of technology to innovate with true intelligence for a future beyond the next generation.

Our inheritance is both a burden and opportunity. From nature to nurture and beyond but we need to address our collective body dysmorphia before we will see past the lens of solution via photo-filter. 

Unrecognized, our selfish body image knows no boundaries and continues to collude with industries that do not have our interests in mind. We daily give penance to the very perpetrators of our future?

Our digital echo systems are broken and we draw energy from others rather than generating and sharing it. We can try to hide our garbage and our problems but their haunting will be real in the end.

​What is our biggest obstacle to health then? Can there be a simple answer? ​

Less is more? 

I asked my Mom while putting together these first blogs for OKM, “what have you found to be your greatest challenge in taking care of your body health” and she answered, “just doing it”.

It sort of makes Nike’s brand slogan almost a bit patronizing, as if that was the easy part. "Oh, they meant purchase. Just purchase!"

Our mind is inextricably linked to our bodies in a way that facilitates motivation or creates obstacles to it. 

I have found that it doesn’t take much to stay in shape and be healthy but that it often requires less. Less excess and more consistency. Our bodies and minds are attuned to the rhythm of our presence.

When we are stressed our mind seeks answers, reasons and solutions? It wanders endlessly to the past and the future to understand it’s pain and map a way out. And while our mind is busy imaging the past and the future, it indulges in the craving and aversion of its contents.  We end up losing the presence of our body and we hold in tension without knowing it.

​Our general state becomes one that is with constant subtle stress. A river of cortisol, our stress hormone, becomes a default chemical romance for many. Whether you are rich or poor, this is the mind of the body, the mind of the planet.

Personally

As I sit here and write this, I contemplate deeply my own health. I have worked hard to educate and maintain the health of my mind, body and spirit but also I have had my share of addictions and of arrogant spendings. I have seen my friends and family succumb to the same and overcome as well.  

Will our personal and collective economies of indulgence and denial roll on post covid? Why do we, for all our strengths, slip back into old habits? Slip back into dis-ease? 

There is of course a healthy amount of stress. The amount that drives us to be our best not at the expense of our health.  It pushes us to our limits and edges so that we can know what we are made of.

The name of this chemical romance is love. It is the antidote to stress but no one said love was easy. But what is love without action?

​What is a good idea if not shared? The more we can find ways to share our kindness, the more we will find a way forward within ourselves. 

This is no critique though, in the sense of just do it, it's easy! It's not! Navigating this complex world is a labyrinth of contradictions, mis-information and addiction.

But perhaps through the sharing of personal experiences, failures and success we can help each other to all get a little closer to that impossible flavor of completion; to that freedom without purchase. 

​Perhaps a new global platform focused on meditation, prayer and collective action could make it easier ;) ;) Perhaps One Kind Mind is onto something. 
​

True wealth and equality are within grasp. We are in the lap of abundance, we are in the lap of Mother Earth but we would be well minded to double down on our personal and collective health in this moment of global wake up call.

When we come together powerful things happen

​Jesse is the Co-founder and director of the ONE KIND MIND project.

"I believe in the human spirit to overcome and that we are one. Creating a beautiful future is within our grasp! Let's do it!"