WHAT IF MY BODY IS BRILLIANT?

Excerpts from THE WAY FORWARD

Living Well Locally is a vision built around the wisdom of self-care and personal wellness . . . and how this changes everything from personal to planetary.

The Way Forward with Alec Zeck is another substack searching for how we humans can design a better future. In a February 2023 post, Zeck reprints an exceptional piece of work from one of his subscribers entitled, “What If My Body is Brilliant?”

Be forewarned, the excerpts reprinted here require an adjustment in our thinking about what sickness is - something we will address in future posts on the many faces of medicine, self-care, and the process of personal healing.

Excerpts from “What If My Body is Brilliant?” :

• What if my body is brilliant, and everything it does is part of a strategy to survive and thrive? What if every incomprehensibly intricate process my body attempts is simply its best path forward given whatever resources and roadblocks are present at the moment?

• Given that billions of my cells purposefully die each day to (brilliantly) allow for constant growth and adaptation and physical injuries, stress, and exposure to toxins (… what if this) result(s) in additional cellular death, where does all of this waste go if I’m not removing it as quickly as I’m producing it?

• What happens inside my body when it holds too much waste for longer than it should? Does this stagnant “swamp” of waste damage neighboring healthy tissue, producing a snowball effect of more and more cellular death as waste continues to pile up? What strategies might my body use to get out of this vicious cycle?

• What if my body only recognizes natural substances and gets confused by synthetic or highly-processed things commonly consumed and absorbed (such as artificial flavors and colors, vegetable and seed oils, and microplastics)? How does my body deal with these substances when they too are part of the “swamp?”

• Given that bacteria in my gut are critically important in the process of breaking down the dead cells of food that I consume, and bacteria have been discovered throughout all parts of the healthy human body, might bacteria also be helpful in breaking down my own dead cell waste as well?

• What if the concept of “good” bacteria and “bad” bacteria is fundamentally wrong? What if all bacteria are simply organisms designed to do one job: eat dead tissue, breaking it into smaller parts which can more readily be eliminated and returned to the earth as part of the circle of life?

• Given that bacteria produce their own wastes in the process of metabolizing dead cells, what if bacteria are only problematic for my body when they produce too much waste as a result of being given a buffet of dead substances to consume?

• What if bacteria and other microbes are the convenient scapegoat for the true underlying problem: excessive cell death, as caused by a variety of factors? Metaphorically, what if bacteria don’t cause the fire, but instead proliferate as nature’s attempt to put the fire out?

• What strategies might my body use to remove the combination of dead cell debris, microbial wastes, and synthetic substances if I’m burdened with too many of them all at once? What if I’m not adequately hydrating and my bowel movements are infrequent? What if I’m not exercising enough to sweat out wastes? What are the next steps my brilliant body might take to clean the “swamp?”

• What if diarrhea and vomiting are strategies my body uses to remove wastes? What if excessive phlegm and a runny nose is another? What if the symptoms we commonly refer to as being “sick” are actually just the necessary steps of healing?

• What if taking medications designed to end the symptoms of “sickness” actually prevents my body from healing? What if antibiotics kill my bacteria, which stops them from breaking down unwanted substances, which in turn terminates my natural cleansing process? If my body is unable to remove excess wastes via these (albeit unpleasant) symptoms, does it have no choice but to store them deeper?

• If symptoms aren’t the problem, but instead are the solution to something which previously occurred, what if all of modern medicine’s efforts are misguided? What if the dramatic increase in chronic ailments over the last century is at least partially due to advancements in suppressing short-term symptoms? If my body is perpetually pushing wastes deeper, am I simply trading acute diseases for chronic ones, creating more severe outcomes as I kick the proverbial can further down the road?

• What if the concept of specific diseases is wrong? What if the root cause of ALL disease is the same, but the symptoms are different depending on an impossibly nuanced history of the individual? Does this explain how positive results have been observed when treating many types of supposedly-distinct diseases with simple water fasting protocols?

• What if the cure for every disease is simply to remove excess wastes and any other impediments, allowing our brilliant bodies to heal naturally? What if that takes drastically longer for some people than others, depending on their unique history and lifestyle habits? With so many variables, how could this idea ever be proven or disproven via clinical trials?

• What if my mind is the most powerful part of my body, and yet another variable? As frequently demonstrated by placebo- controlled studies, thoughts are capable of producing physiological effects. What happens to my body if I’m constantly thinking negative thoughts and harboring unprocessed negative emotions?

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We agree, the body is brilliant . . . and capable of self-healing when cared for well. This is the base on which Living Well Locally rests.