What beats your heart without you having to think about it?
What digests your food without you having to think about it?
What creates a baby in a woman's body without her having to think about it?
There is an extreme intelligence all around and within us, and yet most of us have been conditioned to believe that if it can't be weighed and measured or if it didn't come from a book or someone with a bunch of letters past their name then it isn't real.
Using an iceberg as the analogy, what we are typically conscious of is only just the tip protruding out of the water -- maybe only 3-5% of its entirety. The rest is submerged and we're unconscious of it, but that doesn't mean it's not there.
We've become so conditioned to seek external sources of information that we've lost touch with the intelligence that is already within each of us. In my experience, no book, study, gadget, lab test, doctor, or expert is ever going to be able to know you better than you have the capacity to know you. Yes, all of these things can be very helpful as a starting point, but ultimately they must point you back to yourself.
Learning how to pay attention to the information that your body-mind is constantly giving you is, in my opinion, one of the most valuable skills you can develop. The more you become aware of what's going on in your body, mind, and emotions on a moment to moment basis, the more you're able to pinpoint the root cause of your challenges and successes and the more you're able to consciously choose the experience you want to have.
Highly developed monks and yogi masters have shown us over and over again that the human body is capable of much more than we give it credit for. These individuals have been able to change their body temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate at will. They've even been shown to stop and restart their heart at will.
This isn't some special ability that only a select few people possess. This is a skill that can be learned and practiced like anything else. And it all starts with paying attention to the subtle energy and information that you're constantly being presented with and that fundamentally is YOU.
One of the easiest ways to start this practice is to begin a regular meditation practice and pay closer attention to what happens when you eat different foods. How do you feel immediately after eating a certain food? How do you feel a couple hours after? A couple days? What symptoms (bloating, runny nose, itchy skin, scratchy throat, headache) can you trace back to the kinds of foods you're eating on a regular basis? What does it feel like when you don't eat those foods?
Once you beginning learning that skill you can then do the same practice in all other areas of your life -- like your relationships, your profession, your mind and emotions, etc.
I invite you to go check out my latest IG Live video where I break this concept down even further.
I hope this helps.
All is well,
With love,
Nathan