Intake
Why do we eat? Why do we learn? Why do we seek friendships? Why do we possibly seek spiritual endeavors? Why do we do many things in our lifetime?
We do this to create energy. Food gives us energy, friendships share energy, and spiritual endeavors allow us to experience energy. Everything that we do involves some form of energy that either enhances us or depletes us.
We eat to create physical and mental energy to support our bodies while we traipse around this beautiful planet called Earth. We eat to form our blood that flows through these bodies and nurtures and supports all our organs and cells and systems as they perform their various functions as well as rebuilding themselves.
We learn to grow and deepen our experience of our life. We develop relationships with others and ourselves to move through life, hopefully with support and love. We can explore spirituality to experience something more than the mundane, to stretch our limits.
We hope that we take in “really good stuff” to nurture our body, mind, and soul. Energetic vibrations come in many shades. We hope our choices in life support and nourish our growth in an uplifting way.
We may enjoy dining on a crisp, dark green, succulent kale leaf that nourishes our us with many vitamins and minerals that our body goes gaga over and then our brain functions much clearer, our digestion might be happier, and so on … Or we may enjoy that greasy, tangy, spicy hot wing (most likely at least a dozen) smothered in creamy blue cheese dressing, with a stick of celery and a carrot for good measure; that we washed down with that cool, crisp, refreshing beer that nourished our experience of that football game … yet our body is sluggish and feels a little beat up … like it had been the one tackled, and our brain is a little foggy because our digestive system is like … on strike. If our diet is basically good and we partake in an indulgence every now and then our body is most likely going to do its thing and work on returning to homeostasis. However, if our diet is the Super Bowl every Sunday, and the Orange Bowl every Saturday, and we make sure not to forget Monday Night football, and then there is Thursday Night football, and Friday Night Lights … well then Tuesday and Wednesday is not enough time for our body to handle all those hot wings, pizza, nachos, cheesesteaks, hoagies, and beer and soda and so on….
We may have relationships that are full of laughter, love, and support with clear communication and thoughtfulness. These encourage and provide us with a sense of security to move through life. We may have relationships that involve fighting, control and manipulation, and oneside-idness. The latter seek to show us how to turn a weakness in our self into a strength.
Spiritually we may learn and grow and experience wondrous moments but we could also experience that other side of spirituality, which would provide a serious, hit to the soul. Both the wondrous and the challenging are opportunities for great growth.
When our relationships are harmonious, our spiritual experiences uplifting, and our diet supports our physicality we can walk through life in a healthy state. We have a love of life and we enjoy life. We are not wishing for the “good ole days” or “pining for the future” … cause “now” is great. We experience the Truth of the present moment with richness. The present moment may not necessarily be a trip to Disney Land but we are able to handle the karma put in front of us with equanimity.
Accumulation
Our bodies eliminate excessive experiences, nutrients, toxins, and wastes through respiration, perspiration, blinking, bowel movements, urination, physical activity, mental discharge, feelings and emotional expression, sexual activity, menstruation, childbirth, and lactation. An occasional indulgence of an intake will normally be discharged through one of the avenues stated previously. However, if our intake is on the extreme ends of Yin and Yang for an extended period of time we will experience abnormal discharge. Changing ones diet to better reflect healthy choices and/or getting bodywork such as Shiatsu, Yoga, Chiropractic, or Acupuncture can also trigger elimination of accumulation which can then lead to the Menken effect.
Excess that is not discharged through the normal avenues will appear as storage in the following
- Stores in cavities – ears, nose, sinus, lungs, reproductive, etc
- Stores in the fat/inactive places – buttocks, breasts, etc
- Stores in the active places – heart, kidney, lungs, arteries, etc
- Develops into cysts and tumors
Discharge
When our intake exceeds the body’s capacity to eliminate through its normal avenues we are out of balance. In our body’s effort to return to homeostasis it will seek to rid itself of accumulation via abnormal (excessive) discharge.
Abnormal discharge may take the form of fever, headaches, sore throats, coughing, sneezing, watery eyes, nasal discharge, flu-like symptoms, diarrhea, skin rashes, pimples, moles, warts, bunions, calluses, shivering, fatigue, chills, vomiting, abnormal vaginal discharge, cystic type symptoms, body odor, aches and pains, cramps, etc. If quality of intake continues to not be supportive of the body, blood and lymph quality decline which leads to the resistance of infection being compromised.