GERD / acid reflux

Some other things : fresh air seems very important, sometimes I hang my head out the window and breathe deeply and do the healing sounds with the fresh air, also fresh water helps the body remove toxins through the urine.

But, reflecting one night of intense pain, I was trying to remember how it all got started.

It was some ice-cream I stuffed in my face one night before bed that triggered it. And I always eat lots of cakes and chocolate. Why ? It’s simply emotional, anxiety, fear, and so on … the sugar puts it away for a few hours and I feel better.

And I recognize that that is what needs to change. Love is the cure, love for myself, the parts of myself, and for others and the world. So I started doing the Inner Smile Meditation, the whole CD which is long, and I think it is incredibly beneficial. After I do it I feel warm and glowing like a calm sun, in touch with life.

It is easy to talk about putting more love into your life, but how ? This is one way. It is more important than any other HT technique because they also can be used to mask the messages the body is telling you. To keep you holding on to a life that is hurting you.

It is a damn shame how humans have become. Everything is a war, people shout at their dogs, parents at their children, sometimes I watch the roads with these ‘people’ one to a car, brightly painted in pink or red, driving driving … where are they going ? Can anyone see how crazy it all is ? Inside the car they are daydreaming or listening to the radio, anything to not feel themselves. The whole life is about avoiding yourself.

And the more they don’t feel themselves, the more their activity becomes extreme, chocolate, violence, fear, it lets them feel something once again through their numbness.

I saw the doctor (GP), she said it is caused by “excess acid in the stomach”, take these pills.

I asked her, “if the pills reduce acid in the stomach won’t that affect the functioning of the stomach ?”. She said “no”.

I asked her, “what about the diet ?”. She said “don’t worry about the diet just no sugar or spicy foods”.

But … she is wrong. If you switch off the acid in your stomach of course it has knock on effects, your body is a complex organism you can’t just “switch something off”. And the obvious question is, okay there is acid pain, but why is it happening in the first place ?

And the answer is that the diet as a whole is wrong. And the lifestyle is wrong. She didn’t know anything about it, and looked angry that I even took an interest.

Doctors can kill you. That’s a shame, but it’s the truth. After 7 years of training she just becomes a front-person for the medical-corporations, and no longer able to think for herself. In our societies, when you look for help, often those people will hurt you worse. That is a very sad reality of our societies. Especially in the urban West.

I noticed how the media, news, movies and so on were triggering re-emergence of symptoms. I switched it all off. And I wonder if it is really possible to be healthy living in the urban West. Everything is so negative, everyone is at war. The food in the supermarkets, education, doctors. Everything is against you.

What’s the point ? I don’t think there is a point, last week I was looking at alternative communities, eco-villages, people who live remotely.

There is feeling that it is like giving up.

But really what is to be gained living in a city ?

I was watching some footage of the Paris attacks a few weeks ago, and in amongst the police with their sub-machine guns, black helmets, flashing blue lights and fluorescent jackets … there was this pigeon in the middle of the road. Just pecking at something as if nothing was happening, completely relaxed, doing his thing. Not noticing any of the incredible violence mankind was pouring out from all orifices.

The world is beautiful. If you can only see it.

Diet is a major component.

Many foods, such as fast foods, aren’t really foods. They are fake foods that damage the gut. Most conventional food in the US is this way as well, because it is saturated with pesticides and GMOs. These damage the lining of the gut terribly. Switch to organic, non-GMO foods and make your own meals instead of fast foods and restaurants. Get off of coffee and soft drinks. It can take awhile of eating better before the gut heals. Whether burgers, fries, pizza, ice cream, cookies, or whatever is your weakness, try to reduce to once per week as an indulgence rather than a daily diet source. While thin people do get GERD/acid reflux, there is a reason why overweight and obese people get this problem more. It’s because of what they are eating, and it is likely why they are overweight (ignoring the emotional component).

As to the non-dietary influences:

Stomach problems are often a function of an imbalanced earth element. Too much worry and anxiety. These churn away at the stomach in a destructive fashion.

This is aggravated by being ungrounded. While I’ve mentioned this before, it is worth mentioning again: symptoms of ungroundedness include a hyperactive mind–constantly thinking about all kinds of crazy scenarios, “lost in thought”, daydreaming about storylines, constant self-chatter and noise–as well as emotional instability–rapidly shifting from one emotion to another, being highly reactive.

Hyperactive mind with all its crazy storylines, transfers agitated energy down to the stomach. This fuels anxiety and worry.

Stress is a secondary component, because stress attacks and inflames the wood element. When the wood element flares up, it strikes the stomach (the earth element) in the controlling cycle.

So for non-dietary changes:
1. Do more grounding practices, e.g. Iron Shirt 1, Tai Chi 1
2. Exercises that help the wood element: brisk walking and Tai Chi
3. Lifestyle: try to alter daily habits/choices that unnecessarily create stress.

Sometimes, simply by becoming more grounded, you become more insulated from stress. Your body-mind simply perceives less situations as stressful because the hyperactive mind isn’t generating as many stories about what you experience in life.

Qi,
Steven

It could be the fault of the way that she is presenting it on the DVD.
The whole way in which you move in Tai Chi 1 should be such that you are always rooted to the ground with the foot that is not moving . . . this is the so-called “moving root” principle. A foot if it moves, is completely weightless and 100% of the weight is rooted to the earth with the other foot. When you practice Tai Chi in this way (as is done in Tai Chi 1), then regardless of the fact that you are moving, there is no point in time in which you are not strongly rooted to the ground. I.E. theoretically a person should be able to push you at an arbitrary time during the practice of the form and you don’t move or fall because of the strong ground connection.

Usually when I teach Tai Chi 1, I spend almost a whole day just teaching folks how to move and walk in Tai Chi properly before getting started with learning the form. Learning this rootedness is as important as the body mechanics of doing the form to receive optimal benefit. Otherwise your Tai Chi might look very graceful, but there’s no real substance.

S