Maintaining the Mature Body Part IV:
The Power of Intention

How we think and feel about our health becomes increasingly more important as we mature. This effect is most dramatically seen in geriatric medicine where the twelve month mortality following the death of a spouse or a fractured hip is 50% and 25%, respectively, according to research conducted by the University of Helsinki and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. In other words, the older you get the more important your attitude. But one’s attitude is often less than fully conscious. For example, most people when asked, “How much do you want to live?” typically answer “A 100% of course,” yet upon closer examination it is obvious that their commitment to life is something less. Why else would they over-eat, spend so much time in front of the television and indulge in lifestyle choices that they know are not healthy? Alas, we are complex creatures and what we say is not always what we do.

But there’s great value in being honest because it is in the cracks and fissures of one’s being that disease takes root. This insight came to me in a most personal way one day when I pulled into my parking space at work and didn’t want to get out of the car. This was a distinctly odd feeling because I love my work. Having practiced meditation for many years, I just sat there in the parking lot feeling my reluctance. Within a few moments I was waist-deep in a familiar anger towards insurance companies and their unethical business practices. So I continued sitting there with my anger and that’s when the big insight hit. I realized that I could get out of my car, put down my head and go to work, as though nothing had happened; but, if I did, this would mark the beginning of my sickness. Even if it took another twenty years to develop a fatal tumor or heart attack, the sickness would have begun that very moment when I turned my back on my inner wisdom and quietly tore a rent in the fabric of my being. Getting out of the car, it was clear what I had to do. It was in 2001 that I dropped all of my insurance contracts which did more to insure my health than any health insurance policy I could have possibly bought.

The point is to get clear about what supports your health and what doesn’t. This is not so much a matter of thinking or gathering more information. It is a matter of being honest with yourself and looking deep within to find the courage to follow your inner wisdom.

Here are some things you can do to promote your sound health:

• Write down a list of what kinds of physical activities you want to be able to do in your seventies, eighties, and nineties.
• Next to this write another list of the things you can do now to achieve your goals.
• Start doing them!

As Bob Dylan so eloquently put it,  “He not busy being born is busy dying.”