Blue Zones: Aging in a climate hostile to aging

I have had conversations of late that leave me a little less than disturbed.  Recently turning 32 years old, it is weird to hear people responding with ahhhh and ohhhhh, like I am drying up, wrinkling, and turning grey at the same time right in front of their eyes.  People, 32 is not old!  I am not old!

Our culture has a whacked out sense of age, how we age, and how old is old.  I am pretty sure that 32 is not old in any other culture except in America.  America, who idolizes youth and despises their elders.  America who allows the young, the beautiful, and talented to run our country instead of the wise, wrinkled, and greyed. 

Now this is not a political post nor is it meant to demean anyone, but I remember even as Obama was elected the comments of how beautiful his family is, like the beauty of the Presidential family was something to place our hat on, something to be proud of, something to show the rest of the world that America has it together, you better watch out world because America has a beautiful Presidential family.

Weird.  What is weirder is the concept that most Americans have about aging.  Aches, pains, fatigue, joint problems, medications, losing memory and function, have all become accepted norms of aging.  Leave it to the young and beautiful to run our country because at the ripe old age of 50 years old, it’s all down hill.

I am being a little bit sardonic in my humor and attitude, but we need to shake up our approach to aging as the mentality and ideas of aging impact our health as much as our lifestyles.

Our concept of aging will in fact impact the process of aging.  Symptoms that people simply accept will develop into lifestyle onset diseases.  If a symptom is accepted, it grows and morphs into something even more terrible.  Something that started as a headache, turns into a migraine, turns into a brain tumor.  If, through paying attention to my symptoms, to my body, soul, and emotions, I reject and fight a symptom it will not develop. 

For example, I recently had aches and pains in my hand, similar to the beginning symptoms of arthritis.  Well, I did not simply roll over and accept the symptoms like something was “happening to me.”  I rejected the symptoms.  I simply said, “I don’t have arthritis.”  I rejected all negative emotions, negative thoughts, I forgave those I needed to forgive and broke off unforgiveness and bitterness.

A couple of days of fighting, of my hand not wanting to open and close as it normally would, and the symptoms completely left.  My hand is completely normal.

If I would have reacted to my hand and the symptoms as if something was actively happening to me and that I was a passive recipient of a certain disease (namely arthritis), well I could have developed arthritis. 

If it had not left through forgiveness, speech, and attitude, I would have looked at my diet and changed my diet.  I would have been proactive to find the solution or the root to the problem.

We can all do this in regards to our health.  We can all be actively engaged and proactive in our health.  We can learn what we need to learn about our health, our bodies, and our food.

We can change our perceptions about aging through studying cultures who age well and who even love and embrace the process of aging.

I can truly say that I enjoy being 30 years old more than I enjoyed being 20.  At 20, I had no idea who I was, what I was doing, or what was important to me.  Over a decade later, I know who I am, I know what I want to do with my life, and I am actively engaged in the pursuit of my passions.  It is exciting and exhilarating.  I am glad that I am not 20 years old anymore.  I feel this progression and I think that I am going to like turning 40.  I am going to like seeing my life unfold and come together the way that it needs to.  It is an exciting journey to take. 

In the next few weeks, I am going to talk us through this aging process and help us to embrace and engage in the aging process with grace, joy, and understanding.  Hopefully, we will find a new approach that embraces the process of aging and avoids the typical American pitfalls of aging. 

Addiction to being busy: Living the American Dream

Just recently I have been thinking about how many times people greet me by saying, “How have you been lately?  Keeping busy?”  Like keeping busy is the goal and when we are “keeping busy” we automatically have a good, full life. 

I am not sure that my goal is to “keep busy.”  Busy doing what?  Busy building someone else’s dream or building my own dream?  Busy working for money or working for passion?

I guess I don’t mind being busy when I feel fruitful, when I feel like my life is making a difference.  If I am busy and my life counts, like really counts, that is okay.  But I would rather be not busy at all than waste my time and my energy on something that is not worthwhile. 

I would rather not fill my calendar with social obligations or with shopping for unnecessary items or working for someone who is more like a slave driver than a compassionate human being.

When I visit South Africa, I find that the biggest clash of culture comes from the difference in how we view time.  People in South Africa view time very different than people in America.

In South Africa, they know their neighbors.  They actually find time in their schedules to visit their neighbors and know the names of each and every one of them.  They make time night after night to visit friends, family, and neighbors.  In fact, it is hard to find a South African spending time alone.  It just doesn’t happen very often.

It is always a huge transition for me leaving America and going to South Africa.  It is a huge transition coming back.  And I have to say that I like the transition going better than the transition coming back.

I find it hard to fight against the stream of life in America that seems to pull you into a flow, into a place of striving and fighting to achieve and accomplish something huge.  And you forget what you are striving for because you are just too busy to even think.  You are too busy to dream, to imagine, and to plan your life on purpose. 

So life just continues to happen and before you know it, your kids are high school age and about to graduate.  Or you have spent so many years just keeping busy that all of a sudden you are retiring, or you are sick, or you are not where you imagined you would be as a young child.

In America, we are addicted to being busy.  We need to realize and understand how and why we are trying to fill emotional or spiritual voids with business and how to slow down, reflect, process, and heal if we need to.  Healing doesn’t come in a to-go box or a drive-thru window; rather, healing comes when we pursue truth, wholeness, honesty, and integrity. 

The first step to breaking any addiction is to admit that you are addicted to being busy.  The next step is to surrender, surrender your schedule, your time, and your life to God so that He can order your steps and plan your schedule.  You may find yourself more satisfied and fruitful in all that you do instead of frazzled, confused, and pulled in so many directions.

Let’s break the addiction to being busy together and fight against the cultural norm to define our lives based on busyness. 

Anti-aging

When I started to have a cycle every month after getting to the root of my diagnosis of PCOS, I had intense cramping and PMS.   I was looking for answers and solutions for my health.

My friend who worked as a massage therapist introduced me to a supplement that contained growth factors.  I was excited because I knew that if I really was able to gain access to stem cells, my body could heal in profound ways.

When I first began my health journey, I read a wonderful book about health at the cellular level.  This is when everything came together in my mind of what my pursuit of health was going to look like.  The book spoke about emotional and mental health contributing to the health of our cells as well as minimizing toxins as another key to cellular health.

Our body has a good chance at healing before the age of 21 years old because our body has access to stem cells as we are growing and developing.  When we turn 21 years old, however, our body no longer has access to stem cells.  At this point, our body becomes very dependent on the nutrients, oxygen, positive attitude and thinking that we are able to produce and give. 

This is why some people age slow and some people age fast.  It is dependent on the lifestyle that you build throughout your life.  You are either building a healthy, life-giving atmosphere in your body, or you are feeding toxicity and damage to your cells. 

Thankfully, with all the advances in technology and our scientific understanding of the body and the world around us, we are gaining great strides in the opportunities for health.  In one area specifically, the introduction of growth factors, we have a wonderful option to give our body growth factors which act like signal molecules to direct stem cell activity. 

Fibroblast growth factor is one specific growth factor that is beneficial and helpful in reversing and reducing the appearance of aging in the body.  Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) is present in a woman when she is pregnant.  FGF directs stem cell activity in the womb and continues to direct the activity through all stages of life. 

When I reintroduced FGF into my nutritional protocol, the results were beyond phenomenal.  My hormones began to balance out and throughout the process of 9 months; my body was healing and balancing to the point where I have virtually no PMS or cramping symptoms.  Also, my cortisol levels significantly reduced and my serotonin increased to the proper levels.

I am so encouraged by how my own body has healed and I have seen significant results in the lives of my clients.  One of my clients had a severe autoimmune disease and was taking painkillers 3 times per day to manage the pain.  Through the process of 3-4 months, she was able to safely reduce her medications and had no pain without pain medications for the first time in 5 years.   This is the power of FGF and giving the body access to dormant stem cells.

If you would like to read more about FGF and how it can help with your health, check out my website:  http://www.yourgreenumbrella.com/antiaging.php

Next time, we will be talking about the “Addiction to being busy:  Living the American Dream.” 

I would love to hear your thoughts about what we have talked about so far!

Meg!

Thyroid health

Before I found out that I had PCOS, I had blood work drawn to test my thyroid.  Thyroid conditions run in my family and I thought that it could be the answer to some of my health concerns.

My thyroid test came back “normal.”  And I was left with no answers and no solutions, again. 

I have since learned that blood work from the standard Western Medical approach looks for disease states.  If you don’t have a disease, you are considered “normal.”  Further, every year, the normal range changes based on the blood work of everyone who was tested the previous year. 

This makes blood work inaccurate to measuring optimal and functional levels.  There are doctors (mainly natural doctors) who test for optimal or functional levels for blood work.  A lot of us simply are not aware of alternative options for our health, or we assume that it is “normal” to feel tired all the time or to age the way that we age in America. 

I am protesting that notion.  The notion that with aging, I will feel tired all the time, have joint pain, forget things, and generally feel like I am a mess.  I will not accept that because I know that there are real solutions to my health needs. 

Nutritional testing is a great way to find the imbalances in your body and the nutrients that are missing to help the body heal.  When I have clients come and visit, nutritional testing eliminates the guesswork and helps me to find the root to their imbalances.

For example, if I have a client come to see me about low energy, there are many reasons why their energy could be low.  They could be lacking B-vitamins, hydrochloric acid, or Molybdenum to help with detox.  Or they could have adrenal fatigue or symptoms of hypothyroidism.  In fact, all these things could be going on at the same time (and typically does). 

The body and a holistic approach can become very complicated.  Thyroid health and hypothyroidism have individual roots to dysfunction.  For example, if the gut does not have the proper balance of bad bacteria and good bacteria (gut flora) your body may struggle to convert T4 to T3 (useable form of thyroid hormone).  Also, if your liver is overburdened with too many toxins, your body may not be able to convert T4 to T3 in the liver as it normally would. 

If I would have known this when I was 16, I think that it would have made a big difference on how I approached the PCOS diagnosis and possible thyroid symptoms.  It wasn’t until I was 25 years old that I became aware of alternative health options.  And this is when my quest for optimal health began.

I am so thankful for all the people who have helped me along the way because it has not been an easy journey.  I remember spending hours in the kitchen, teaching myself how to cook for the first time.  I remember having to use a recipe for every single thing that I made (including eggs) because I did not know the difference between cinnamon and cayenne.  I also remember hearing snide comments or jokes about what I was eating  (not that I cared that much because what they were eating looked completely disgusting while my food was like gourmet). 

However, in the past few years, it has become so worth it.  Completely worth every dollar, every hour, and every frustration.  I finally have a cycle that would be considered “normal.”  I don’t have extreme levels of pain or PMS every time I have my cycle.  And this was the last part of my health journey to be resolved.

After starting my cycle in Africa, I learned that having a cycle was not always the most comfortable or amazing thing in the world.  I also learned how out of balance my hormones were after so many years of not having a normal cycle.

I began to take a supplement that contains Fibroblast Growth Factor.  Growth Factors are amazing because they act like a signal molecule to stimulate stem cells to heal and repair at the cellular level.  Health is built at the cellular level and you are as healthy as your cells are.  You can feed the good health of your cells through nutrients, oxygen, positive emotions and thought processes, minimizing toxins, etc….Or you can gain access to new dormant stem cells through growth factors.  (you can learn more about growth factors on my website:  http://www.yourgreenumbrella.com/antiaging.php)

Through the process of adding growth factors to my healing process, my health has dramatically improved in the last year.  I began to have an amazing healing response that my body began throughout taking growth factors.  I will talk more about this in the blogs to come.

I hope that it is helpful to hear someone else’s health journey to encourage you!  I want to help people have hope for their health because I know it is possible to heal and to feel well all the time!

Africa: The Answer

I arrived in Africa and ran out of my supplements quickly.  After the first 2 months, I wasn’t doing anything in the physical realm to support my healing. 

I was working @ an orphanage and a high school for at-risk youth.  I loved the work and it shifted and expanded my heart to want to help vulnerable youth and babies who had been abandoned. 

During my time in South Africa, I noticed an increasing amount of guilt and condemnation in my thinking and emotions.  I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was going on but over time, the weight of guilt became heavier and heavier. 

I never felt like I was doing enough.  I saw the needs around me and it was overwhelming and beyond comprehension.  I did not know how the need was ever going to be met.  It felt like the black hole of never-ending need and vulnerability surrounding me continuously.  I felt completely helpless for the first time in my life.  The little that I could do every day seemed like a drop in the deep ocean of need in each child’s little broken life. 

I became very attached to a little toddler who had no father and a mother with HIV.  She also had HIV.  She was in the orphanage, sick, and with no family to intervene.  I felt such pain and hurt for her.  I spent a lot of time with this little baby.  But it never felt like enough. 

And at the high school, it would even be worse.  One of the older kids was a child solider and had came to South Africa for refuge from a war torn nation.  He had seen death and had even been forced to kill as a child soldier.  Another young man had grown up with no father and his mother was a prostitute in their home growing up.

I loved these kids so much.  I never felt so much love for anyone in my life.  But it never felt like enough.

One day, I did a Google search on the word “condemnation.”  Now, I am not the type to Google everything every day to find information.  I am cautious at best with Google search because I know that there are a lot of half-truths and blatant lies on the Internet.  But this time I felt the need to Google.

To my surprise, a Pastor by the name of Joseph Prince came up in my Google search of condemnation.  He explained in detail the Biblical stance of grace and freedom from condemnation.   

The biggest concept that spoke to me was the concept of the “gift of righteousness.”  I had never seen that term in the Bible before this day.  Biblically, the gift of righteousness is what Jesus gives a believer who turns to the Lord.  Jesus lived the perfect life that I cannot live.  Every mistake that I ever made can be redeemed and does not disqualify me from my calling.

This was revolutionary to me.  I had never understood grace.  Until this moment.  I realized that I was off the hook.  That God was actually not expecting me to solve the world’s problems.  I realized that I was actually not the answer to the well being of these children.    God was and it was already completed in Christ.

I realized that all of my life, I was trying so hard to fulfill a role that I felt I had to play.  I was in a constant state of performing for everyone and internally battling the feelings of not being enough and not doing enough.  Or worse, I was not going to fulfill my calling.

That day, I felt the weight of guilt and condemnation lift off of me and for the first time in my life, I felt free.  I felt free from not doing enough, not being enough, and not changing the world.  I finally felt like I was okay.   Jesus not only paid the price for my sins on the cross, He lived the perfect life that I could not live and fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law.  The law or commandments were the tutor to bring me to Christ.  It was Christ who had fulfilled every law and commandment that was set forth in the Bible.  It was my job to receive this gift and allow it to set me free from condemnation and not measuring up to my conscience or conviction of what is right and wrong.   

My whole life, my internal dialogue was about beating myself up for saying something the wrong way to someone.  Or, I should have done this instead of that.  Or, I can’t believe that I messed that up.  It was always an internal dialogue of not being enough, not accomplishing enough, and generally messing up every social and professional interaction that I have ever had. 

But in that moment, I felt so free. 

The next day, I went to work feeling light and happy.  Loving the kids was enough and was what I could do.   God would just have to do the rest.  That was a cool feeling.

After the first few hours of being at work, I had my cycle for the first time in 8 months.  It was also that first time I had my cycle without oral contraceptives, which increased my estrogen levels so that I could have a cycle. 

I was healed.  And the root was completely different than I had thought.  It was an emotional/spiritual root.  After that first period, I had my cycle every month, without any synthetic, or natural aid.

This was the first major shift in my endocrine health and in my health in general.  The fears of not being able to have children completely dissolved.  I knew that I was going to have awesome babies and easy pregnancies.

And having a cycle was the tip of the iceberg because the feelings of joy, peace, and freedom stayed.  I was free, more free than I ever thought possible. 

If you can believe it, there is more to my story.  I would say without reservation, however, that this was the pinnacle of my healing and the most profound shift in my life that affected my body, my soul, and my spirit in the deepest and most meaningful way.  Grace was real and I found grace in a person:  Jesus Christ.  I no longer had to live up to religious standards or rules, I had life and He filled me continuously with the life of God.  Forgiveness was a fountain that never stopped flowing in me and through me.  It was always available.