Honor Thy Spacesuit, Part One: Feeling Tired?

Today, we will discuss what it means to take care of your body from an objective perspective, rather than through what our senses and conditioning are telling us. This is the basis of and idea behind my approach, and how I view my ‘Space suit’, which does not refer to ‘outer space’, since they generally don’t fare very well without yet another suit. Instead, ‘space suit’ refers to the body you inhabit, distinguishing the physical aspect of your being from your mind and spirit, which all deserve their own separate and very different types of love and care.

Viewing it from this perspective is not meant to cause waves or question anyone’s beliefs but is the simplest way to view the body as a whole, to isolate issues, address its needs, and assess how well you have been caring for it. Without getting overly technical about it, we often refer to our bodies as machines in ads of all kinds, with phrases like ‘feed the machine’ and ‘burning clean’ commonly used as metaphors. The only thing that separates the body from being an actual machine is in its lack of design, a term referred to as ‘natural selection’.

The main difference between design and natural selection is not in the mechanical complexities, since those are not all that different, but with the user interface. Unlike artificial intelligence that has a command interface somewhere, your mind does this in subtle ways that can be difficult to recognize, especially after learning to dismiss those prompts, like hunger pains, lack of energy, and trouble sleeping…or blaming everything on genetics. This is called conditioning and not any one person’s or type of person’s fault, but the result of trying to keep up with the demands of an increasingly demanding existence.

Machines and technological advances have taken over some of the most dangerous tasks, or at least some of the most dangerous aspects of them but replaced the thing that kept us from enjoying more of our time as adults, time that we could have otherwise used for physical activity in the form of play or creation. Think about how many people would have preferred this to working 10-15 hours a day two hundred years ago, which our ancestors still found time for on the weekends. These days, most of us are too tired, stressed out, or finicky to consistently maintain any kind of regular activity that requires us to engage our bodies in for extended periods of time.

Add unhealthy beliefs that further quiet, dismiss, or override what our bodies are trying to tell us, and we find ourselves struggling to meet even the minimum demands of our daily lives. See why “Honoring thy Spacesuit’ makes sense and negates all of that, forcing us to look at our health from a more objective perspective?

This series will focus on various aspects of our health and what mechanisms work within your body to alert you, in its constant attempt to maintain homeostasis, what those subtle messages look and feel like, as well as what to do…especially after the messages become increasingly less subtle. A good example, and one of the most common, is the feeling of being tired…so this is where we will start!

It has become the norm these days to wake up and skip breakfast. We head to work and grab that beloved cup of coffee, possibly even accepting a snack from a co-worker as the morning goes on…or something else conveniently placed in our paths throughout the day. The caffeine has blocked the receptors meant to recognize and notify you when your body is depleted and is asking you for more. Ignoring or suppressing these, especially in an effort to lose or maintain your weight, is not respecting your body or your health, and only results in compounding damage that worsens over.

Since most of us do at least have some excess fat to burn off, many believe that the ‘diuretic’ part of its designation is doing us a favor, in reality it’s doing a lot more damage than one might easily recognize! Why? Because those nutrients you are missing out on cannot simply be replaced by supplements, unless you know exactly what you’re doing and are getting at least a good portion of them from natural sources, which are necessary in assuring the appropriate chemical processes are allowed to perform, which often lead to a chain of other chemical processes that are necessary to keep our bodies working the way they are meant to.

Now let’s talk for a moment about the makers of these. I have no doubt the creators are (or started out as) people who understand nutrition and work hard to fill as many of those gaps as possible, but you would have to keep a cupboard full of them to meet all your needs on a regular basis. But let’s be honest about the fact that greed and profits do not generally take your health into consideration, so they are unnecessarily expensive, which most people cannot afford.

The simplest answer is just to have some berries and raw veggies handy to snack on throughout the day, but at $3.50 to $8.00 a flat, those aren’t much cheaper! This is why eating healthy can be a challenge, even for those who recognize this and hear those subtle messages throughout the day, because again…people are greedy! The best way to get around this is to select a handful of your favorite fruits and vegetables, purchase seeds and pots, or dig a garden, build beds, however you can or would prefer to garden!

Urban gardening can be a simple answer to this and can offer a little extra physical activity too! Whatever budget or amount of space you are working with is perfect too, start small or go all-out...any amount of progress toward your goal is still progress! What do you mean you can’t have berry bushes growing like house plants? Okay, maybe it isn’t practical for everyone, but you really can have a garden inside, just save yourself the headache and read about how to do it and have a plan before you start! Another great option is going straight to your local farmers, who would love to sell direct to consumers but are usually forced to sell to grocery chains, who screw them over because they too have overhead costs.

To find places where you can buy the freshest fruits and vegetables for much less, check out https://eatlocalfirst.org, where you can search your local farms, many of which are also full of wines, ciders, lavender, u-pick vegetables, honey, and other tasty treats! Each year, we head up to a local event put on by local growers, where you can earn a free reusable keepsake bag for checking out all the participating vendors. We have found a couple of favorite spots and enjoyed some pretty spectacular views along the way, one of which I shared below, of a day spent with my family enjoying the afternoon out at the local farms!

Ultimately, the idea is to listen carefully to what your body is saying. Feeling tired is but one message, imagine all the subtle messages your body is sending to you that our routines and conditioning have taught us to ignore or misinterpret. Over extended periods of time, we can easily become neglectful of our bodies and its needs, creating a secondary set of symptoms that can get trickier to treat. Save yourself the hassle off having to off-set an imbalance with having to work extra hard to set it right...or even worse, losing some aspect of your quality of living!

Lastly, find joy wherever you can, having fun and feeling a sense of purpose is basically the same thing as the elixir of life, just take a look at some statistics related to people that focus more on being a bit selfish in choosing joy over fear, stress, and responsibility. While health statistics might demonstrate a healthier existence, balance is the sweetest spot of all and can assure you live a healthy, responsible, productive, joyful, and fun existence! Sharing it with others feeds another need we all have for acceptance as well, plus it increases the odds of success in changing habits. So grab a partner, friend, or family member if you have one who enjoys the same things you do, if not...this would be a great opportunity to find someone else who wishes they had a like-minded companion in their journey.

I challenge anyone reading this, to sit and consider your health and body for a few moments. Are there any subtle messages that you have been ignoring or haven't explored? Feeling tired is a good indicator of a number of things that could be going on and should never be ignored or dismissed as something simpler when you know you could be taking better care of it. My challenge is a simple way to access your 'user interface' through quiet contemplation. In essence, this is what meditation is, though there are a number of ways to do this and areas to explore...starting with why you are feeling tired, which is an easy way to get started!

Next, we will get more into some of those subtle messages, what they mean, how you can better learn to hear them, and ideas on ways you can honor your space suit!