There comes a time in life when we find ourselves ill. Something as small as a cold can kill. Something as large as a 99% blockage in the main artery of the heart that causes multiple heart attacks can’t even take us down. In part one of A Phycological Journy through Recovery, I discussed Diabetes and using mind over matter to help yourself overcome the challenges you may face after such a diagnosis. I also compared Diabetes to an essential organ in the body to demonstrate the dire importance of keeping your body operating smoothly. Diabetes is not an organ of course, but actually a metabolic process failure that got kick-started based on our actions and what our DNA told our bodies to do in reaction. This is why thought is so important to the subject.

In this article I will continue further into the phycological journey through recovery and how our hearts play a key role in our decision making.

We often connect the heart to love. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why? Perhaps this is a subconscious clue we all carry that directs us to the best potential of ourselves and our existence.

Your heart is nearly at your center. It is second on the list of most essential organs in your body! It has a strong say in what you should or shouldn’t be doing with your time and thoughts. So, when it starts voicing up, we better listen. This is especially true if in the past, you have ever ignored what it was trying to tell you. No worries, we are nearly all guilty of the same, but it is time to take action and be honest with yourself.

You must be doing something right, despite your god given inclinations.

Thinking past our own personal and inner discrepancies is enabling. Finding answers allow for us to get past fears, allowing for new opportunities for fun and excitement, exhilaration, appreciation, respect and even love. When faced with challenges, solutions are found somewhere dormant in our DNA and present themselves as ideas and/or actions. This is our natural response. We find the sequence code to keep ourselves going and going and going, forever changing to match our environment and surroundings, yet remaining true to our nature all the while. Imagine, in binary, lots of ones and zeros, seemingly presenting themselves back and forth until they finally repeat their best-known cycle or sequence that it has evolved through continued consciousness as an adaptation technique equivocal to the humans’ natural instinct to find an answer to immortality. The cycle of longevity and existence is the reason evolution is a process that continually improves upon itself to strengthen its meaning. This is a cognitive and subconscious revolution of our abilities as a species and planet in whole that has not only to do with environmental factors such as climate and predators but the actual thought process itself. Our DNA’s ability to switch markers on and off is impeccable and important. Inconsievably, the link has never been made between this and the method of mind over matter. We have the ability to mentally materialize the best versions of ourselves.

The reason we do not all begin down a path to our natural best is another topic involving both hereditary and environmental factors. But equally, the reason we do not become our best versions of ourselves immediately from the womb is because of choice and excuse. We hold ourselves back from doing what we know is right because we learn to think of logical excuses.  The excuses pile up though causing an automatic stress related response in our bodies. This in turn raises your blood sugar and slowly convinces your heart to just stop giving a damn completely. Then you die.

Forming an excuse is a natural hereditary response, evolved from our fight-or-flight instincts; however, it has evolved to make cowards out of the weak and lazy. This works hand in hand with natural selection. This doesn’t have to happen, however. It is hardly ever necessary to truly stop at an excuse. To be happier, and to live longer in a healthier version of ourselves, we have to think past the excuse and often outside of the box.

You already know what you have to do to make things better. You know what you want to be happy. You know what you like. You’re uncertain of yourself. If that sounds like you, than you probably make excuses and you need to stop. They are killing you. Just do it. Find a way. Get it done. All you want is to be happy, so be happy. Make it happen. Stop thinking of excuses instead of solutions, because honestly, there is always an adapter for compatibility as time and thoughts move together. To become compatible, to find similarity between the facts of the battle in our mind, such as, “I love cake,” vs. {I have Diabetes}, you simply need to restate what you just said, but replacing {I have Diabetes} with {I love myself}. If you think of yourself with the same love that you think of for others, then you can clearly see how this method works. Imagine that you have a young nephew or niece and they have found out that they are diabetic. You’re attending an event with them, and they start reaching for a piece of cake. What do you do? Love compels us to tell them that they cannot eat the cake. Why then, would you ever allow yourself the cake?

You can likely live without cake, but could you imagine living without your spouse, children, grandchildren, siblings, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, or other loved ones? Do you ever sit around fantasizing about a day that you will never see or hear from them ever again, and does that make you happy? Likely not. You should regard yourself in the same manner. It is never supposed to be about what we have; we don’t need the cake. But when we make it about love, it is worth it. You love you, you know you, you can’t have the cake, so let yourself be happy instead of guilty. Excuses, such as {I like cake} too often just lead us to guilt. You can’t be your best or healthiest you if you’re feeling guilt. Around and around, you can argue in your head, never allowing yourself the cake, but growing trust in yourself. Hold that momentum so that the guilt, shame and fear that kept feeding you excuses and confusing your mind surrender to your good judgement.

Dedicate yourself to becoming balanced in this manner and fully aware of yourself in your surroundings. You are just as important as the smallest molecules necessary to create and sustain you. You have as big of an impact on this world as your ailment has had on you. Remember, it is small. You are larger and greater than it as a whole. Though it is tiny and comes in numbers, you are large and come with the power to control it. Your survival relies on you for not only longevity, but quality. Metaphorically as you vowed in marriage to another, you will love yourself always. This may present itself as a challenge, but the flurry of adrenaline will fade into the past like the lessons of tying our shoes; and as natural as it is for us to want to breathe, your body will teach you how to love it for all it has allowed for you in your lifetime. You’ll want to keep on living, even without the cake.  

Amanda Jackson

Feb 4, 2024

Want to read Part One of A Phycological Journy Through Recovery?
Click Here