You Are A Magnificent, Once-In-Human-History Phenomenon

So why aren’t you treating yourself that way?

Did you know that one million new cells are created every second in the early stages of fetal development? The entire magic of you—who you are, what you will become—starts with just two single cells and expands exponentially.

In other words, you formed with the energy to create and continually recreate. It’s a magnificent magic you can’t even see, one that is in all of us.

How mind-blowing is that?

You are the most valuable possession you have. Without your body, your mind, and your energy NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. Yet, most of us live our lives asleep, on autopilot, and totally disconnected from the sacred magic of who we are as human beings. If we’re disconnected from that sacred magic, how can we possibly protect it?

How often do you get lost in the mundane stuff of lower-level consciousness? How much of your life is spent worried about what other people are saying and doing, thinking about what they have that you don’t, comparing your life to theirs and theirs to yours? How much time do you spend chasing things the world has taught you to want, without assessing whether or not you actually do?

When was the last time you treated yourself with the holy sacredness that you deserve?

You make choices each day that either move you towards health or hold you back from it, that either move you into a space of mindfulness or deny you access to that higher-level consciousness. In those moments, which choices do you make?

Each of those choices has consequences, and there are immense consequences to making poor choices for your health: physiological and psychological consequences, social and emotional consequences, financial and professional consequences. There are consequences that could hinder, harm, or even end your life.

The good news (and there’s always good news) is that you will reap massive returns if you invest in your health and well-being—if, as you go about your life engaging in behaviors and making choices, you remember the magnificence of what went into making you a human being.

Not convinced? Let’s look at what humans are currently doing to ourselves:

Before covid-19, many of the leading causes of death in the United States were largely preventable, and predominantly due to behavior: Heart disease, cancer, accidents or unintentional injuries, chronic lower respiratory diseases, diabetes, nephritis, and intentional self-harm or suicide. I’m not saying everyone who has tragically suffered any of the above made poor choices that led them there, but chronic diseases and conditions such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and arthritis are among the most common, costly, and preventable of all health problems.

Health risk behaviors are unhealthy behaviors you can change: Right here, right now.

Four of the most common health risk behaviors—lack of exercise or physical activity, poor nutrition, tobacco use, and drinking too much alcohol—cause much of the illness, suffering, and early death related to chronic diseases and conditions.

Plus, chronic disease and health risk behaviors cost us more than just our lives—there are dollar amounts behind each of these illnesses and the individual patients they kill every year. Those numbers are staggering.

For example,

• As of 2019, 90% of the nation’s $3.3 trillion in annual health care expenditures were for people with chronic and mental health conditions.
• Heart disease and stroke cost our health care system $199 billion per year and an additional $131 billion in lost job productivity.
• As of 2019, diabetes cost the US health care system and American employers $237 billion every year.
• In 2010, excessive alcohol use cost the US economy $249 billion, or $2.05 a drink. About 40% of these costs were paid by federal, state, and local governments.

This is real. This is what is happening right now in the United States, every single day.

But why?

Would it surprise you to learn that the health risk behaviors causing such costly health conditions and chronic disease are directly linked to our inability to address our suffering in healthy, healing, compassionate ways? Whenever we attempt to address suffering from a place of ego—to alleviate suffering with anything outside of ourselves—we only do ourselves greater harm.

In other words, we don’t offer ourselves the presence and mindfulness we deserve.

We’re uncomfortable in the silence our bodies and minds so desperately need.

We deal with our emotions by breaking down our bodies, destroying our health, and dismantling the awesomeness of our divine creation.

Rather than face suffering by doing things to build ourselves up, we tear ourselves down and feed the financial burden of our poor self-care—all in the name of suffering we don’t know how to handle.

We don’t shut up and sit.

Take a moment to let that settle.

Then, remind yourself that you matter.

You, right now, just as you are—you matter.

Once you become mindful of the choices you make, the behaviors you invest in, and which choices and behaviors you need to let go of, unlimited freedom opens itself up to you. This doesn’t mean that life can’t be interesting and fun—have that extra glass of wine, buy those designer shoes, think that less-than-charitable thought about your coworker (just don’t tell them.) But do so mindfully, with your own wellbeing in mind.

You were created with the same magic and mystery as every other human being on the planet. You come from the exact same divine intelligence of the universe as everyone else. You are intrinsically connected to those you share this planet with. We’re all linked, the same, and yet uniquely different.

You deserve to show up for yourself.

You deserve to shut up and sit.

The only question now is: When will you begin?