Over the years I have talked and written about lots of different necessary nutrients for health as well as anti-nutrients that destroy our health - lots of "do this and don't do that" type of advice.  Last weekend I remembered something so basic and fundamental that I often forget it myself.

Last weekend was Labor Day.  Historically I have always figured that Labor Day meant that we should be laboring.  I have always worked Labor Day, but this year I took it off.  It was kind of a whim.  Susie asked me a few weeks ago (like she does every year in hopes of a different answer) "Are we taking Labor Day off?"  Just to be a brat I said "Sure, why not!"  I think she is in hopes that some day I will wake up and be a normal person - not likely.

Someone sent me a Labor Day e-mail card about resting from your labors on this holiday and I clicked into the human need for ease.  Most cultures have ease well instituted into their normal routines.  The American culture does not.

Ease is not recreation.  It is not entertainment.  Ease is not visiting with friends and family.  It is not movies or a good book or anything that engages the mind or emotions. These are all good things, but they are not ease.  Ease is a time in which you let your mind, emotions, and body relax into a state of stillness and openness with life.  Ease is quiet time, a time without stimulation, a time of quiet presence with now without any need to do anything but appreciate the now.

Ease is not the same thing as prayer, meditation, visualization, or similar type activities.  There is no goal to ease except simply feeling ease.  It is more like sitting back and simply watching the sun set.  Ease is a time for letting your mind, emotions, and body to just let go.  Ease is the state that brings things back into balance and harmony.  Ease is a place without ego needs or wants - a place to simply be, right here and right now. Sitting on the beach and watching the waves roll in is a good place to slip into ease.

My expression of that place of ease last weekend looked like a lazy float down the American River in my kayak.  Rivers are good places to find ease.  The easy flow of the water helps me feel the ease in life.  I was out early before the commercial raft rental places were open so I had the river to myself.  In the three hours I floated down the river I think I saw only two or three other boats/rafts on the river.

The trick is to let go of the "I wants" and just go with the flow.  Other than a few seconds of "I want to stay upright and dry" while going over the rapids, I let the river dictate my life for a few hours.  It is like letting yourself become the lens of a movie camera, simply observing what is without thought or feeling other than appreciation of what is.  This is the balancing state - appreciation of what is.

So why am I calling this state a nutrient?  A nutrient is something we need in our life that supports and sustains us in our journey.  Whether we are conscious of it or not, we are like trash collectors in our lives.  Day in and day out we are constantly picking up trash - feelings of want, need, desire, things to do, places to be, goals, fears, expectations, and so on.  This stuff piles up and up in our subconscious and weighs us down.  It is stressful to carry all this stuff around every day. 

Ease is the feeling and the moment when we set it all down and let it go for a bit.  Let go of the expectations from our selves just as much as the expectations of others.  Let go of the beliefs in all the things we think will make us ok or better and just be ok in this moment.  Let go of the desires for a better tomorrow and just be in the glory of this day and this moment.  Let go of the feelings of lack and fill yourself with the abundance of presence in this moment.  Let go.

Ease is a vital nutrient.  It rebuilds us and revitalizes us.  It centers us and allows us to reenter life with new purpose and perspective without ever having thought about anything.  The choice to put down the burden of the emotional and mental trash for a bit is the permission to see life without having to own that burden of stuff.  Normally we never see life because we have so much head trash in the way.

Life is not good or bad, it just is.  Our attitudes about "what is" create our experience of life.  Ease melts those attitudes. 

I like ease.  Ease is what I try to model in my office.  I stand in the feeling place that each person's symptoms are neither good nor bad, but simply acknowledge that they are present.  I stand in acknowledgement that the person does not like the symptoms and wants them gone, but that does not make the symptom bad - just unwanted.  I do not go to battle with the symptoms, but only look for how and where to bring more ease to the body, more harmony.  My job is to bring ease to the body.

This means I don't have to "fix" anything, because I can see that the body is not broken, simply expressing tension about something.  This is important because a broken body that needs fixing can not be trusted.  If we do not trust our bodies, we do not listen to what they say.  If we do not listen, we can not take proper care of our body.  It is far too complex for anyone anywhere to figure out.  No one knows what is right for our body moment to moment. 

The rest of our life is the same way.  Life is far too complex for us to ever "figure it out".  Our attempts to do so only frustrate us and make us sick.  We don't need to figure life out.  We need to learn to simply listen to our heart - our inner soul if you will and let it guide us into understanding of who we are and how we want to stand in relation to life in each moment.

Ease puts us into contact with our heart.  In the heart all things are one.  All things are part of the same dance.  We are part of that dance.  From the higher overview perspective of our heart we can feel how we want to participate with the dance of life around us in a way that supports our expression of our inner feelings of what is right for us.  This makes us strong and it makes us happy. 

Trying to be what the world seems to want of us or trying to make the world be the way we want is a fools game.  It is painful and tears us down.  Our job is to be our inner truth.  It is never life's job to be what we think we want it to be.  It has its own inner truth to live.  Understanding this creates ease.  Respect ourselves and respect all life.  This is ease.

Find time each day to fill yourself with the nutrient of ease.  It is probably the greatest health promoting thing you can do in your life. 

Good Journey,
David     
   

 

 

New Tai Chi Classes

Wow, our first set of Tai Chi classes ended on August 31st.  The time flew by and I look forward to seeing many of you again as we start up the next series of classes on Monday, September 19th.

I observed progress in every student, and was pleased to hear that they could see the progress in themselves too.  Some of the comments that I heard were, "my balance is better", "I couldn't stand on one leg before I started the class", "I notice that I have more movement in my life now", "I enjoy the practice of tai chi", "I notice that I am standing up straighter, shoulders back and looking straight ahead when I walk, instead of hunching my shoulders and looking down", "I love it, I am having fun."

 
I enjoyed meeting each of you, and sharing in your achievements!

Tai chi has many health benefits and can be practiced by everyone.  I invite others to join in and try a tai chi class.

Classes will be held on Mondays 2:30 - 3:30, 4:30 - 5:30, and 5:30 - 6:30.  Thursday mornings 10:00 - 11:00 and 11:00 - 12:00.  

 

Kathy Villegas

 

 

 

 

Get Your Health Action Plan Outline

Here  CLICK HERE

  

Health Challenge # 4:  Stop buying any products with sugar as one of the first seven ingredients.

     Sugar hides in products under many names like high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup solids, rice syrup, sucrose, fructose, maltose, dextrose, lactose, glucose, fruit juice concentrate, honey, molasses, cane sugar, turbinado sugar, invert sugar, date sugar, modified food starch, disaccharides, polysaccharides, and many others.  The idea is not to be afraid of sugar, but to recognize that it is designed to be used like salt or spices - as a flavoring agent, not as a main food ingredient.  Sugar is not dangerous in small quantities.  It is the excess that creates the danger - anything in excess can kill us, even water.

 

     If you missed any of the previous health challenges -

 

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How to increase your happiness even when you are depressed

     Over years of research social scientists have found that simply practicing positive activities consistently work to improve long term mood and happiness.  Performing acts of kindness, counting ones blessings, and practicing optimism are more powerful than the many drugs currently used for treating depression.  Such drugs show up in testing as having no better effect than placebos.  Yet simple positive activities reverse apathy and increase the pleasure/reward circuits in the brain.  They cost nothing to do and yet are more effective than the billions of dollars spent each year on psych meds.

     Similar research has found that having positive goals and maintaining positive connection with family, friends, and like-minded people equally builds happiness.  This may sound overly obvious to those of us non-scientist types, but the importance of doing such studies is to connect the dots for all the unhappy/depressed folks out there that seem to have forgotten (or never tried) the obvious.  

 

Restoring Happiness

 

Goals 

 

 

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"Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy - because we will always want to have something else or something more."

- Brother David Steindl-Rast

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About Dr. DeLapp

Dr. DeLapp has been a philosopher, non-force Chiropractor, medical intuitive, and health innovator for over 30 years.  He began experimenting with  medical intuition in 1972 while studying physics at UC Davis.  In addition to physics he designed and completed an individual major in the philosophy and psychology of education.  Shortly after he choose to pursue a career in the only truly health oriented profession available at that time, Chiropractic.  He graduated with honors in 1981 with his doctorate and opened a private practice. 
Since that time he has continued his research into the effects of consciousness and learning on health. 
He developed the Biomagnetic Retraining system for correcting movement abnormalities. 
Since 1991 he has focused on developing a powerful system for uncovering and assisting the mind-body connection in health and personal growth.  The in-depth coaching, guided by the subconscious direction from the body, is called Heartflow and the simpler mind-body retraining for health and unfoldment he has named Gracework.  Both are available at Fair Oaks Health.

Dr David DeLapp DC
Chiropractor

Ellen Flowers FGM
Spiritual Life Coach

 

Vita-Mix