Friday, I met with my doctor to for a checkup. Earlier in the week, I had some blood drawn for cholesterol tests and the like. I’ve been diagnosed with Syndrome X for at least 6 years now. Syndrome X, also known as insulin resistance syndrome, involves low good cholesterol, high triglycerides, and outwardly manifests with trunk obesity, otherwise known as a beer gut. It’s an invitation to strokes and heart attacks later in life. Unfortunately for me, my triglyceride count keeps increasing every time I am tested. This time it’s over 700, 734 I believe.
My doctor is showing me my numbers and I notice that that count was higher than the last time I was tested. I ask him if that’s the highest he’s seen. He says no, he’s seen 10,000 and 12,000. Wow. Did the guy keel over the next day, I ask. “No, ” he says, “The guy didn’t have his heart attack for another five years.”
Okay.
So I’ve been walking around in a funk these last two days, just thinking about what I need to do to get this under control, not keel over from a heart attack any time soon. I got a subscription for some stuff the pharmacy says isn’t made anymore, so I get to wait until Monday. In the meantime, I’m thinking of the lifestyle and diet changes I need to make, radical (for me) changes.
The Western medicine part of all this has been taken care of, with the drug and the need for constant exercise. So I’m wondering what sort of Eastern medicine and teachings I can take advantage of. I figure I can work both sides of the medical coin. I have a high interest in meditation and already mostly practice that, but I had an interesting experience last year while getting a massage. Near the end of the session, during which the conversation drifted into some metaphysical territory, the masseuse asked me if I wanted my chakras balanced.
Now, I’m not a believer in a lot of the New Age canon, if you will, but neither am I a non-believer. Science has only reached so far into the depths of the universe and to suggest that anything science cannot prove doesn’t exist is rank foolishness, even with the danger of trying to prove a negative. It very well could be that, before I die in 40 years or so (longer if some medical genius reads Robert Sawyer or Peter Hamilton and decides body rejuvenation might just work if we just submitted to a month long regimen of acai berry enemas and gene therapy every 50 years or so), we find out that mitochondria communicate telepathically with each other or that unicorns existed but were hunted to extinction by Neanderthal man for the sexual enhancing properties of the poor creature’s horn. I guess what I’m saying is, if it floats your boat, good on yah. As Will Shakespeare once wrote, there’s more to the world than you know.
So, I said, sure why not, can’t hurt. I hear her take a few deep breaths and she proceeded to move her hands, palm down, slowly above my body a few inches, starting at my head. When she gets to my heart, an intense feeling of happiness overwhelms me. I am stunned by this. I’m already in a relaxed state from the massage and, despite what some of the more depraved among you might be thinking, she is no longer physically touching me. There is no external reason I should feel such a strong emotional surge as I did just then.
I left that session determined to find out as much as I could about chakras and the energy pathways of the body and since that experience last spring, I’ve done a bit of study on it, but not nearly enough, and now with this somewhat of a ‘Come to Jesus’ news from my doc, I’m determined to resume it in earnest.
Now, I consider myself a rational person who would rather use logic on a given problem than emotion, but one thing I’ve come to realize about this subject is that chakras aren’t something physical. There is no organ in your body that can be yanked out and pointed to as a sacral chakra, for example. These things are metaphors. They represent the whole of your being, they are the sum that is greater than your parts. They give your mind a place to concentrate on when you meditate, a point of focus.
That in itself is something to consider, these eastern ideas work on the body and the mind as if they are something that is greater than the individual bits of bone, bile, or tissue and as such, they cannot be separated into their constituent parts and worked on in isolation. For many of you, this is a ‘No, duh! Captain Obvious’ moment, but I’m just now turning my full attention to the matter of my mind, body and soul in a way I’ve not had to before, Forgive me for coming late to the party. I have cookies.
So, this is what I’ll be doing from now on. I need to fully understand what it is these pesky triglycerides do and how I can alter my diet in a way that will reduce them sufficiently such that I’m not a walking heart attack. I’ll be digging into the metaphysical and learning how to use those tools I find in that sphere to augment my diet and the drugs my doctor will prescribe. I will become an exercise fiend to reduce my trunk obesity. My body shape will change as a result and I will no longer lead with my stomach. It will be a frustrating and, at times, painful and sore journey. But if it means I can live until I’m 100, still conscious and continent (very important!), and be there for my family and friends, then it’s a journey worth taking.
The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
