Optimally Living The Big Fish…Your Boundary Less Ness.

It is clear that we are just an advanced breed of primates on a minor planet orbiting around a very average star, in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. BUT, ever since the dawn of civilization people have craved for an understanding of the underlying order of the world. There ought to be something very special about the boundary conditions of the universe. And what can be more special than that there is no boundary? And there should be no boundary to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there is life, there is hope.

Human Boundarylessness —The Big Fish — Consciousness as Space ( Singularity ) Structure ( Quantum ) and Body ( Matter ).

• Life is what happens to you do while you’re busy making other plans, so I had a plan but life had other plans for me. This refers to the self-referral dynamics of pure consciousness and its expression into sound and form. That is, from the infinite ocean of consciousness an individual may become “THE BIG FISH” by, “witnessing the mechanics of one’s infinite awareness as the creative play on the unmanifest level of consciousness”.

Not knowing that all you are still concerned about holistic health or holistic living any guesses ?

Holistic is an approach to life, a system of addressing not just symptoms of an illness, but the person as a whole. Our body, spirit and mind are all interdependent, and when one suffers, they all suffer. Holistic health views a balance between all of our physical and nonphysical systems to be of the utmost importance in achieving optimal health.

The whole being is far greater than just the sum of its parts. Treat the whole person: mind, body and spirit.

• Though the term “holism” is actually relatively new, holistic health is a system of health care dating back thousands of years to the time of Hippocrates, about 2,500 years, and even earlier in China and India, about 5,000 years. Jan Christiaan Smuts coined the term in 1926, but it didn’t become widely used until the 1970’s.
• A holistic health practitioner looks at five areas of their clients life; physical, emotional, social, spiritual and mental. For example, if a client came to them with frequent headaches they would want to address things like stress levels, sleep habits, diet, fitness, and spiritual practices to develop a personalized plan so the client can work on creating balance and prevent the headaches from continuing to occur. The aim is to uncover and resolve underlying issues instead of just prescribing a medication to treat specific symptoms.
• Let’s take a look at some ways that we can easily inject some balance into the 5 aspects of health.

Physical Health

Generally when we think of health, the physical aspect is what comes to mind. This is because when we are out of balance in any of the 5 aspects of health, the symptoms tend to manifest physically. Physical symptoms are the easiest to track and are less abstract than symptoms that appear in the other 4 aspects of health.

There are a few really simple ways that we can support our physical health:

• Get 8 hours of quality sleep each night by creating a routine. Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time.
• Eat a diet that is high in plant-based foods, and if you do eat meat/dairy, aim for it to be organic/free range. Limit processed foods, sugar and hydrogenated oils as these are highly inflammatory and lead to chronic illness and dis-ease.
• Get your body moving for at least 30 minutes a day. What this physical activity looks like will be different for everyone, but do activities that you enjoy otherwise it will seem like a chore, and that is not at all what we are aiming for.
• If you smoke, try to quit and avoid excessive alcohol consumption.

Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food — Hippocrates

Emotional Health

Our emotional health is too often overlooked, and when left unchecked, can cause physical symptoms to manifest. We can support our emotional health in these ways:

• Seek out counselling or therapy when in need. A chat with a supportive friend or family member can also suffice when therapy is not an option.
• Practice mindfulness. Live in the moment more often.
• Practice self-care. It will look different for each of us, but most really like to take a nice hot bath with Epsom Salt and essential oils to just relax and get out of our head for a while. Just do something that you like to do, simply because you like doing it.
• Journal it out. Journaling holds many scientifically backed benefits and can drastically reduce stress and anxiety levels.

Social Health

At the time of writing this article, we are smack dab in the middle of a global pandemic, so this one is a little bit difficult, but science has shown that the people who are the most satisfied in life have deep connections with their family, friends and community members. Thankfully technology has provided us with ways to stay connected, but nothing can really replace in-person connections.

When social distancing conditions have eased up, some ways that you can support your social health are:

• Making time for in person connections like coffee with a friend, family dinners or whatever else you might like doing socially.
• Get involved with your local community. Volunteer at your kids’ school, church events, or local volunteer based organizations like the animal shelter.
• Do not hesitate to set your personal boundaries and remove negative and toxic people from your life. These people will drain you of your energy and deplete your social and emotional health. This is the perfect time to start cutting them out of your life since you can’t really go out and meet up with these people right now anyways.

Spiritual Health

Spiritual health is not necessarily running out and joining a church congregation and becoming religious. Instead, it is all about connection. How you connect with your own inner soul and the world around you.

A few ways to easily support your spiritual health are:

• Daily meditation practice. Even just a few minutes a day can have a profound effect on your spiritual health. If you have never meditated before, that’s totally OK. There are loads of guided meditations on platforms like YouTube. You may have to go through a few different guided meditations before you find one that you really like.
• Go outside and spend time in nature. If possible, stand barefoot in the grass and really connect with the earth.
• If you are religious, spend some time each day to practice your faith.
• Do some yoga. Yes, this overlaps with the physical health element, but focused conscientious movement that flows with your breath is a phenomenal way to connect and support your physical, spiritual and emotional health.

It’s no coincidence that four of the 6 letters of health are “heal”.

Mental Health

Our mental health very often crosses over into the aspects of spiritual and physical health. You might be asking at this point how mental health is separate from emotional health. The difference between the two is that our emotional health refers to our everyday emotional state and moods, but mental health actually refers to our cognitive abilities that ultimately affect how our brains function.

How you can support your mental health:

• Consume nutrient rich foods that are high in essential fatty acids like Omega 3 and 6 to help reduce inflammation and support brain health.
• Keep your mind active. Read a book, do some crossword puzzles, solve riddles, or learn something new.
• Avoid drugs and excessive alcohol consumption.
• Our brains are directly connected to our guts, so improving gut health will positively impact mental health. Read more about foods for brain and gut health in these articles.

Holistic health is more of a lifestyle than a system of medical care, and holds the philosophy that the individual person is responsible for their own health and healing. Though we can create a plan of goals, it is still up to us to execute it. The purpose of the holistic living plan is to educate the individual on recommended lifestyle changes and self-care options that promote overall well-being. These recommendations may include dietary changes, exercise, relationship and/or personal counselling, and alternative therapies that may also help the individual to return to a state of optimal health.

Some examples of alternative therapies that can be used alone of in conjunction with modern medicine are:

— acupuncture

— aromatherapy

— chiropractic

— meditation

— yoga

— reiki

— massage

• Though humans as a species are definitely seeing an increased lifespan, it is not always on a high quality level. Holistic health approaches take into account external and environmental factors that may be either supporting or impacting our health. We are more stressed, less active, eat a nutrient depleted diet that is high is additives, and are being exposed to countless pollutants through the air, water, cleaning products and personal hygiene products and all of these factors lead us to dis-ease.
• Quite often, modern day medicine struggles to determine a root cause of what is creating symptoms of chronic illness and some illnesses simply don’t respond to today’s pharmaceutical approaches. I am definitely not telling you not to see a doctor of Western Medicine, in my opinion they have a time and a place too.
• There have been many amazing advancements in Western medicine and it has saved a lot of lives. I avoid Western medicine as it tends to focus primarily “slapping a band-aid” on symptoms and not treat the person as a whole being.
• Pharmaceutical medication also often causes more residual symptoms than they tend to alleviate, which for me simply isn’t worth it. Our bodies are absolutely amazing when they are given what they need to operate optimally. Think about it in terms of a high performance sports car. If it is given economy grade gas and oil, eventually it is going to break down on you. That car, like our bodies, needs premium fuel to operate at high efficiency for long periods of time. Of course that car will need maintenance, but so do we.

Take care of your body and it will take care of you.

How to Live the Best Life Possible

• Let me caution you that holictic living does not happen by setting goals which means depriving yourself of greater possibilities ( THE BIG FISH ) since as stated above you are boundary less. If you want to lead a truly successful life, there is a better way to approach it, and there is a simple method towards this objective.
• There are two ways to address your life. One way is to set goals and go for them. What kind of goals will you set? Something that you are impressed with in the world, something that you have not yet done, something that is yet to be in your life. You are trying to be like someone else or do something that someone else is doing. Whatever goals you arrive at, they are all in some way within the limitations of what you already know, or maybe a little exaggerated versions thereof. Is it not tragic to spend a whole year trying to achieve what you already know? My intention is things that you do not know should happen to you. Things that you have never imagined should enter your life. Only then will your life be truly enriched. What is the point of only doing things that you already know?

If you become conscious, you will do your best.

• When it comes to financial or physical things that you want to achieve, maybe if it matters to you, you can set up such goals. Personally, I think even that is a waste of life. Suppose you have a million dollars and your goal is to have a billion dollars by the end of the year. If it doesn’t happen, it’s a good thing because you have lived in that hope. But if it happens, let’s say in January itself, then what will you do? You will want to make it ten billion dollars. There was a time when you could be happy with one dollar. Now for the same happiness, you need a million dollars. That’s called inflation. That’s not enhancement of life. Same inflation we create for almost everything and hence OPTMAL LIVING is essential.
• All that you do with life is create inflation. Inflation is neither good for the economy nor for your life. In physics, inflation means filling up something, like you inflate the tires of a car with air. But in economics, inflation means certain parameters go out of control. Now you are consciously causing inflation in your life — that is not an intelligent way to go about it. By setting time-bound goals, you may achieve a few things, but it will be of no consequence to the life that you are.
• Instead of setting goals for the whole year, just set this one thing: By the end of the day, you must be a little more joyful, a little more enhanced, a little better. This will not work as a goal — it is better to look at it in retrospect. Tomorrow evening, just check, “Am I a little better than yesterday?” Just look at these twenty-four hours — it will make you more conscious. This is not about you being joyful or peaceful. This is about you being conscious of as many aspects of your life as possible.

By the end of the day, you must be a little more joyful, a little more enhanced, a little better.

• You will do your best about whatever you are conscious of. Most of the nonsense happens because you are unconscious about so many things. All we need to do is to become conscious about everything — about our own nature, our mental states, our emotional states, our life, our physical situations, our financial situations, our ecological situations. If you become conscious, you will do your best. That’s all you need to do in life. But right now, you believe that unless you create a tension, you will not achieve anything. To get from where you are to where your goal is, you create a tension — it is like a rubber band effect. You try to keep moving from one place to another. From one level of social status to another. From one financial status to another. From one educational status to another. This is no different from how the caveman was, how hunters and gatherers were — “gather as much as you can.”
• In those days, they piled up bones, feathers, and the like. Now maybe you are thinking of stocks, shares, property, ma, woman, lover etc. Maybe you are thinking of conquering another nation. On a material level, it looks different, but fundamentally, it is the same rudimentary thought of accumulating things. All this accumulation would make sense, had you organized transport to take all these things with you when you die. Having your own furniture in Heaven or especially in Hell would be great. Otherwise, who knows — maybe they will give you this chair with a straight back that you don’t like, so taking your own sofa with you would be great.
• Anything that you gather, whether it is your knowledge, your wealth, your relationships, or whatever else, is only of value for the current transactions. If you keep it active, it will facilitate a few things for you. It has social consequence, but it has no life consequence. Instead of setting goals, it is best you find ways to nourish this life that you are. If you are nourishing this life, you only have to measure the growth. Suppose you plant a mango tree. If you set the goal that by the end of 2021, it must bear a thousand fruits, otherwise you will cut it down, all that will happen is you will cut the tree. The way to do it is to see how to nurture this tree in the best possible way, and to do that. Don’t worry about getting a thousand fruits. Whatever best can come out will come out of it. If you nourish it in a certain way, it may be more than you can imagine.

…life works best when you throw yourself into it, without bothering about what comes back.

• It is not good to set goals in any sphere of life, because you will only be doing something that you already know. Nothing completely new will happen in your life. I think that’s a tragedy. Your dreams coming true is no good. If what you could not even dare to dream of becomes a reality — that’s a fantastic life. Results will happen depending on how well you handle the process of life, as well as on the times and on where you are. Today you may put in a certain amount of effort, and you will earn a million dollars. A thousand years ago, someone ten times smarter than you put in a lot of effort, but still he only earned a small amount. But this comparison is not the point. The important thing is that for the times he lived in, he yielded the best he could. For the times you live in, are you yielding the best you can? That is the question.
• I know every management school is talking about setting goals. But goals are not set for themselves — they are set to drive other people. There are a lot of people who will never do their best — they are always under par. They are not conscious enough to understand that as a human being, you must do the best you can in your life. Otherwise, life will be wasted. For such people, you have to set goals. If you are a donkey, the less you do, the smarter you are, because there are no other possibilities for you beyond eating, reproducing, sleeping, hanging around, and dying one day. Because there are no possibilities, the less you do, the better. Too many people have adopted this donkey philosophy. They think if they do less and get more, they are doing well. In reality, they are just stupid. They are missing the whole possibility of life.
• Human life really happens if you throw yourself into everything. If you hold back, you will miss life. If you do not give yourself totally to what you are doing, you don’t deceive someone else –you only deceive yourself of life. Once, bad times came upon Shankaran Pillai. He was a construction laborer, doing menial work to earn a living. He had to carry twenty-five bricks on a board, take them up three floors, put them there, come back down again, and so on. But after some time, once the foreman was gone, Shankaran Pillai started carrying the same set of bricks up and down. People who were working with him watched this and said, “Hey, why are you bringing back the bricks?” “Well, the foreman is not looking, right?” “But now you are carrying the bricks both ways, you idiot! Otherwise, at least coming down, you would not have had to carry the load.”

It is not good to set goals in any sphere of life, because you will only be doing something that you already know.

• This is what happens if you try to do less — simple things will become burdensome in your life. People are having so much trouble just going to the office and doing nine-to-five work. They are not managing the company. They are not managing the government. It’s just a chunk of work that someone has given them, just for a living — how complicated they are making that! From that, they are getting high blood pressure and their heart is breaking. You must see the scenes that happen in families. Just two people living together — how complicated! Little children — how much suffering they cause! Only once in a way, they are a joy — the rest of the time, people suffer them immensely.
• Their work, their children, their spouses, their homes, their jobs, their driving — people suffer just about everything. This happens because they are not conscious enough to understand that life works best when you throw yourself into it, without bothering about what comes back. Life happens because of your involvement, not because of what you get. What are you going to do with what you get? The only sick pleasure you could have is if you compare yourself with someone else who has less than you. If you want to know and enjoy life, if you want to explore the full potential of this life, the only way is through absolute involvement. Let us see what will come out of it. If it is winter, nothing comes out of the earth. In springtime, with a little effort, a lot comes out. The same goes with life.

The biggest mistake people make is to be goal-oriented. If you set yourself the goal to get enlightened by 2021, you will be totally messed up by the end of the year. If you just do what you have to do, life will naturally flower.

May 2021 bring the Best to you.

Optimally Living The Big Fish…Your Boundary Less Ness. was originally published in Wellness As HealthCare 2.0 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.