Sometimes when my digestion starts to act up, I have to take a look at the things I am telling myself internally and not necessarily the food I am eating.  When my internal critic speaks up (and sometimes it can be really loud), I know that my whole body goes into a stress response, my gut cramps, digestion shuts down, and my ability to digest food and my life diminishes.

Meals that I could digest fine when my thoughts are kind and peaceful are suddenly not assimilating as well.  Our body reacts and responds to the words and the statements we are creating internally.  So if we are telling ourselves harsh words, putting ourselves down, judging ourselves, we are digesting those thoughts and those words along with the food we are eating. 

Often I talk about what digests and assimilates well in terms of food, but for a moment think about how the word hate would digest in your body.  Or what about the word ugly.  How would the statement I am not good enough digest in your system?  I know that even as I am typing these specific words I can feel my body tense up. 

When we think loving thoughts, let go of expectations, and just show up as we are in the moment, our body will go into a relaxation response and your ability to assimilate your food and your experiences will increase.  I know that I have had moments where I made a conscious decision to shift my internal thoughts to ones of love and appreciation for myself and then heard my stomach gurgle.  I took that as a thank you from my gut.  Thank you for feeding me love, thank you for nourishing me with appreciation, thank you for these thoughts so I can do my job properly.

I would love to hear from you!  Have you noticed a difference in your body's ability to function when your thoughts are positive?  Have you experienced your digestion change when you under a lot of stress and thinking stressful thoughts? 

The stomach lining changes over about every 5 days, your taste buds change every two weeks, every day you shed over a million skin cells, the uterine wall for a woman sheds every month.  We are constantly changing and from day to day we are never living in the same body.  How will you begin the process of coming into relationship with your body and your gut for who they are and what they need today?

Letting go of control has probably been my greatest challenge in life.  My head, at times, can definitely rule my heart.  This often gets in the way of how I truly feel or what I want on an emotional level.  When new situations enter into my life I can accept them at first, and then immediately afterward my brain kicks in and the mental spinning initiates.  Do I really think I can rationalize, analyze, and understand life?  Yet I find so often that for many people the monkey mind can get in the way of the emotional body.  How often has something wonderful come in to your life and then immediately afterward you tried to self sabotage it or explain it away or made yourself believe you didn't deserve it?

I see this so often, not only within myself but in others.  Life can be colored by fear, and mainly fear of letting go of control.  Life is unexpected and yet at every turn we try and make expectations so we can try and foresee the future to feel some sense of groundedness in our life and existence.  I like to understand, to comprehend every tiny little thing in my life.  I've been like this since I was a kid (no wonder I've gotten into psychology now).  I want to understand on a collective whole why we do the things we do and why I act the way I do and how different people ultimately bring out different sides of me.

Letting go of control in our own lives is never easy and then we throw in relationships.  We're in relationship with ourselves, with others, with our family, with a significant other.  All these relationships constantly throw curve balls into whatever plans we make and any sense of control we try and set up in our lives.  And every tiny little thing around us is constantly being digested in your system.  We are digesting out atmosphere, our relationships, our emotions; everything going on externally and internally is being processed through our body.  So when we are in the act of eating, we are not just eating food, we are also consuming our life.  Pretty intense to think that with every mouthful of food you are chewing, swallowing, putrefying, and churning through your existence.

Letting go of control can help us return to the larger perspective of life.  We really have no control over what happens in our life and no control over our digestive tract.  When we begin to relax into reality our whole system can come out of fight or flight mode and our parasympathetic system can kick in as we settle, relax, and our entire system (especially our digestive tract) can begin to run smoothly again.  Meditation has definitely been something that has helped me to achieve this state of being.  Truly coming into the present moment is about getting out of the thoughts in your head and coming back to description of now.  Noticing your posture, your sit bones on whatever your sitting on, the sounds around you, the smells.

As we draw ourselves back down into our bodies, we can begin to see the larger perspective and picture of life.  We can find the humor in our dramatic movies that we play screen by screen in our head.  I find that when I finally reach that point, it is hard to feel anxious about the thoughts in my head because I can begin to see them not as reality, but a dramatic movie that I should pull up some popcorn and watch and then tell me friends about this awful or hilariously funny movie I just saw haha....Once we can find the humor in our own life, it can became our aid to deal with the difficulties of letting go of control in life.  As I have reclaimed my own humor in my life, I have seen the affects of being able to laugh at my humanness.  What helps you to let go and how have you used or can use humor to be your side kick?