Does consciousness have a weight?

I want to have a glance, to bring a topic of the mundane — weight, weight gain/loss — into a wider range of view for a moment. Let’s begin by asking the obvious, “does consciousness have a weight?” Specifically, in physical space does it have a weight. Do those who carry more awareness, a wider experience base also carry a wider girth? more weight? Where and how is it getting stored? In the mental body?, the emotional body?, the physical body? Is it burdensome to know, to directly experience what consensus yet is not? How heavy is this for you? What is your service, what are its extents? – some of us feel to go to far greater lengths for the greater good.

Now there are of course many reasons for one’s size, shape and physical state. Many of those in consciousness circles, predisposed to this aptitude have explored this sometimes to great length. I am just pointing to the fact that this >> a broader awareness and experience base << is another, distinct reason unto itself. And may even be found to lay at the basis for what has been happening a lifetime. As we know, we get ‘activated’ to awaken, often a good deal down the life line. Much lay in the subconscious until this point.

The tendency to live large

My mom has been known to say that I, and I quote, “came out of the womb eating”. In my baby book, under “favorite foods” it simply says “everything”. I have, since birth – evidently – had the tendency to carry myself slightly heavy. In the younger years it was never a great deal of weight but I did have the proclivity. My dad put me on my first diet as a result at a ripe old 6 years of age. I was about 5 pounds overweight. I lost 11 pounds on that diet. My knobby knees stuck out of legs I surely thought to be way too thin. It was the 1970’s, though, and everything was about being as thin as possible. I, however, had the tendency to work against this. The weight came back on, I was a growing girl, but the idea of dieting had now become a thing. It grew into my first real addiction. — losing the weight was easy, gaining the weight was easy. It was fun.

Using my body as a source of entertainment, as something to do because there was nothing else to do, probably wasn’t the smartest idea.. But, none-the-less, I engaged in it wholeheartedly. I did not, in actuality, have much of a sense of body through these years. None of this was about the body. I hadn’t truly acknowledged it yet. No…this was about me, about energy ( emotions ), perception, how I felt about fitting in. It was a battle. And in this battle an array, no…a barrage of additional addictive aptitudes came in to play. For there are many ways to lose weight. Substances are quite helpful, caffeine, nicotine, other such drugs of choice. As well as many perceivable reasons to lose weight. To ‘attract’ someone, for instance. Etc.. The natural course of all this. My 20’s were a whirlwind of ALL this and more.

Raising up the down low

When we first begin exploring a theme there is a tendency to be awkward with it, our novice, or rookie hands reaching out unwisely to whatever seems the closest – we are just having fun . . The good news about the superficial, and superficial fun is that it gets old pretty fast. Consciousness is like this, if it is not learning, growing, it begins experiencing decay. In such an instance there is something in us which involuntarily, vigorously springs forth. A fight for life instinct embedded deep within the DNA bursts into action. Now there are many possibilities for which way one will choose to grow, but in this instance I chose goodness. I chose to see that I loved this whole pattern relative to weight. 

I loved every little bit of the process associated with losing ( and gaining the ) weight : I loved sports, exercise, going to the gym. I loved learning how to cook and prepare foods. I loved how I felt eating healthier, fresh, real foods. How I felt when not over-burdening my system. I even loved playing with the new kinds of clothes I could wear. And wearing them out. I come from the desert, where it is HOT, so two-piece swim suits and sunning out at the lake or by the pool fell to the far more enjoyable end of the spectrum. I loved, equally, the process associated with the gain : eating out, dinner parties, socializing, social drinking, meeting people. The more gregarious end of the spectrum. 

I chose also to acknowledge that I had become hooked on this thing. That it lay at the basis of all my additionally acquired addictions. I did not do much more with the awareness than this at this time. I am in my 30’s and yet to reach that fated day at 36 years of age when finally realizing that I am adult. But I am aware now through this decade that I am addicted to my activity. Gaining and losing weight. Repeatedly. Almost rhythmically. As if on cue.

Life theme, food and feeding people

It may not sound as such, but a great deal of progress is made through the last decade. 

By my 40’s I am beginning to see a life theme I have chosen for myself : food and feeding people. It began about the same time I begin to be put on my first diet, my parents have divorced, we are living with dad, he has a pretty solid profession as an attorney and city court judge. We kids have to begin picking up a bit of the slack, picking up chores.

It somehow becomes one of my jobs to make sure everyone gets up in the morning and has breakfast before heading to school. I begin learning to cook at this age ( age 6 ). In jr. high I pick up a job in the cafeteria, getting others their breakfasts.  When I begin the care working I am responsible not just for all meals for my charges, but all manner of diets, for high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, etc.. Later, when living in Los Angeles I begin a project for feeding ( clothing, wound care ) for the growing multitudes of homeless. I am seeing the pattern and life theme. I know. It is one of my jobs in this life to feed people.

All diets work, but are they sustainable?

So on to diets.

What I have learned is that all diets work, they are designed to work – but are they sustainable?.. Is the way we are eating to lose ( or gain ) weight something we can continue for the rest of our days? If the answer to this question is no, the diet is not sustainable and therefore our gain and/or loss will also not be sustainable. The “yoyo” will be birthed.

Both gaining and loosing weight is hard on the body. Doing it once is one thing, doing it regularly or repeatedly is another. In time the created strain will show up in the body. The action will be paid for somewhere. With me it has been hardest on my heart. The blow is not without its recompense.

The way we eat, itself, is as important an area to look at as our reasons, aptitudes and tendencies toward being over-and-under what we feel is an ideal weight for ourself. It tells us why, and/or why we are and/or are not maintaining what we feel is this ideal weight.

So let’s take a look at it. – let’s look at :

• How soon in the day we begin eating, how soon we stop eating before bed
• What foods we begin our day with, how we time our meals, how we food combine
• How much of the food we eat creates acid ash in the body, how much creates alkaline ash
• Hydration, is our body absorbing fluids, releasing waste through excess fluids
• The atmosphere we create in which to eat, are we sitting quietly, on the run?..
• The inner organs of the body, are they functioning?, to par?
• What do we need to work on?

Do you want to heal or lose weight?

You may have noticed I have not mentioned anything about calories.. the more typical ‘diet’ focus. This is because my own focus has shifted. Now in my 50’s it is no longer a matter of losing and/or gaining weight. It is a matter of healing. Through the decades I have learned I can lose weight on ANY diet, but very few diets are actually healing to the body. I wish I had realized this sooner than I did. That there was an option, a choice sitting right there all along, next to the choice to lose weight / diet. That healing was that option. Dieting, in our more conventional sense of the word is entirely superficial. I see this now, having thoroughly moved through the theme in real-time. 

So at this point in our long and winding journey through this subject, let me ask—Do you want to HEAL or lose weight?

Do you have your answer?….Good.  ( next question.

Where is your fear?

Are you more afraid of being thin or being fat?

I am….or,  let me say “have been” waaay more afraid of being thin than being fat…. I have never felt comfortable in my skin being skinny. It is not me, it does not feel right. I have often said to people I like to carry myself 10-15 pounds heavy. But this is not entirely accurate. It is not 10-15 pounds heavy to me ( to me this is “just right” . . It is only to consensus norms, that it perceptually rests on the heavy-side-of-norm. There are many reasons I have identified for feeling this way. 

Some are lifetimes in which food was scarce, some lifetimes in which I starved. Some of what I feel is from having a highly male soul-template. Some is from the warrior-heavy personality complex inside me. Some from the equally monk/monastic-heavy component *which works from the ‘meager’ end of the spectrum including with foods. I am a warrior-monk persona again in this lifetime as well, but more-so in terms of the energetic that fuels my life forward than having the role of an actual monk or warrior. 

This said, there are aspects of this persona-template which I have and do actualize in the current life which makes it fall more to the ideal side of the equation to emphasize my weight, more-so than my appearance. For one, there were to be no children born of these limbs in this life, for another, inherently related – celibacy. Which at a certain juncture in my life, more than 20 years ago I found to be an important and necessary action to utilize. 

So – yes – I have been decidedly more afraid of being thin, than being fat.

Realizing this we can move forward.

Where do you store your weight?

If you are finding it challenging to answer the above question yourself, the answer may lay in where you have chosen to store your excess weight(/toxins). Did you know?.. a good deal of the excess weight we carry in our contemporary times is not necessarily fat but TOXINS. Here is an interesting fact. Toxins that the body does not recognize and cannot eliminate are encapsulated by the body in lipids, cholesterol – ( fat ) – and stored. The body chooses where to store these encapsulated toxins, which over time calcify and become what we call ‘stones’, kidney stones, liver stones, gallbladder stones, etc., – in either 1 ) the inner organs of the body, or 2 ) the fat cells. If it is your body’s tendency to store this “excess” in the organs, you may indeed be someone more afraid of being fat. If the body more readily stores them on the outside, in the fat cells, then vice versa, the fear may center more around being thin.

The two sides; the two main fluid systems of the body

In physical space there are always the equal-and-opposite counterparts that make up a whole. In the body these two ‘sides’ or systems are 1 ) your blood, or veinous system, and 2 ) the lymph, or lymphatic system. Your blood, or veinous system is like your kitchen ( thank you Dr. Morse for the overview and analogy ) – it FEEDS you, it feeds every cell in the body. The lymphatic system is like your bathroom, it sees to all your cellular WASTE. The one side *the blood side is alkaline, the blood must stay just to the alkaline side of chemistry, at around a 7.4 pH, even a minor fluctuation in this means body death. The other side, the lymph is where all the acids, toxins, cellular waste go to be eliminated. With this said, let’s go on to food ash.

Alkaline Ash, Acid Ash

In the same way our blood must stay slightly to the alkaline side of the alkaline/acid equation, we must also.. Staying slightly to the alkaline side of this chemistry is what it means to be “healthy”. Weight, although associated has way less to do with the matter. Everything you eat, or do or interact with for that matter creates either an acid ash or an alkaline ash in the body. It is less a matter of whether the food itself, the activity itself, the element itself is acid or alkaline, and more a matter of whether it creates an acid or alkaline ash in our body when we combine with it. Lemons for instance are an acid fruit, but in the body lemons create a highly alkaline ash. Lemons therefore are alkalizing. Which is why people put them in their water at meals, to aid digestion and elimination. Alkalies push acids out. I will give another example. The COLD is alkaline.. this is why in winter weather we are said to get “colds”, watery eyes, runny noses, coughs, this is the alkaline nature of the cold pushing all the excess, accumulated acids out. All relationships, inter-actions between ourselves and an ‘other’ fall to either the acid or alkaline ash forming side. 

When we have a look at what we are combining with, food and fluid-wise, the main thing we want to look at is how much of what is going in is forming alkaline ash – how much of what is going in is forming acid ash. This will tell us with immediacy, exactly what is in need of change.

A closing note

For many of us who tend to hold ourselves, by our own standard too thin or too heavy, as we begin to bring attention into healing relative to the foods we are consuming, into the alkaline and acid forming nature of these foods and making changes that actualize the healing process – weight will surely begin to come off and/or on. It is important to not sprint out there into this too fast. It is the most important thing in the world to go out gradually. Giving yourself the time you need, giving the body and the body systems and system cells the time they need to make their alterations in a way that benefits the singular system as a whole. Critical observation during this process is the crest jewel. Processing what you observe along the way is what invokes actual change, sustainable change and allows you in conclusion to be of ever greater Service. For there are always those, not only ahead of where we are in our own unfolding but those on the wave behind us. Know that the slower and more gentle, more gradual the change in weight occurs, the more sustainable, less harmful, and less likely it is to fall back on/off. 

Aim well, Explorers, go in there and get it just right. 

Have fun. Heal. Enjoy the process.

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