We live in a world of stress. It is all around us, in many forms. From birth we are bought up to be who our parents want us to be, they put upon us their desires, their conditionings and their beliefs. We go into the world wanting to please our parents, or at least get recognition from them. So we take up studies that are not close to our own hearts, and jobs that ‘run in the family’. Alternatively, we punish our parents by doing the opposite, by living unsavoury lifestyles – drinking too much, or getting ourselves into relationships that are not positive for us – not realising that we are only punishing ourselves.
So whatever lifestyle choices we make, we invariably end up with stressful lives. And quite frankly, in this day and age, it is difficult to life stress-free, unless one buys a log cabin in a forest somewhere and lives as close to nature as possible.
Even if we try hard to eat well, to drink enough water, to meditate and reduce our stressors, if we are living in the “real world” it is difficult to get by without the iPhone, the iPad, and the Apple Mac. And not only do we use these items for our work, we now use them for pleasure too.
Hours may be spent on video games, or surfing the net, or even more awfully, reading books from an electronic device, all of which play havoc with our bodies. There are now whole towns devoted to wi-fi, it is impossible to escape from it. All of these things, personal, familial, and environmental place great stress upon us, and worse of all, it is unseen. Add to it that most of us carry some emotional trauma from childhood, or have experienced trauma, either personally or professionally in our life, then this issue is further compounded. And stress causes the body to become dehydrated.
I have found that most people do not love themselves. They do not eat well, and they do not look after themselves properly. We become caught on a hamster wheel of doing, doing, doing, and there is not enough being, being being. How many people have bought a fruit juicer in an attempt at health, but do not use it because they don’t have time to make the juices and clean up after themselves? So it becomes easier to phone out for a take-away than to give ourselves what we need.
And this I think, makes our souls, our Higher Selves, very sad indeed and it provides us with a deep sense of the loss of our deepest selves, our Divine self. So we become lost to ourselves, and lost to the Universe, to the creator. And the effect of all this separation, is the need to do more, to have more, to feel like we are more, and that causes even more stress and therefore more dehydration, so we go for a glass or ten of wine, and maybe even take some recreational drugs, or take a dehydrating plane trip abroad…..
And then we get caught up in the vicious circle of anxiety, fear, depression, and separation, all of which cause more stress, which causes more dehydration, which in itself causes more anxiety and so on.
If we are not sufficiently hydrated, our lives become stagnant – because we become stagnant on the inside.
Our inner world, what goes on inside our minds and bodies is always mirrored on the outside. Not only do we become stagnant, but we become cold, acidic, fatigued and eventually depressed, diseased and disordered as the body becomes more and more toxic and the basic cellular functions which form the basis of vibrant health cease to occur efficiently.
As the body is always trying to look after us, if we are dehydrated, it coats our cell membranes with cholesterol, as a type of water-proofing exercise preventing further water loss from the cells. This fatty thickening around the cell membrane prevents the swop over of vital nutrients and chemicals (electrolytes) in the cell.
In a fully hydrated person, sodium and calcium become displaced at night-time by magnesium and potassium, which leave the cell again in the morning. This process should leave us feeling rejuvenated and refreshed. Because of poor hydration levels however, this process does not complete itself efficiently, leaving traces of sodium and calcium in the cell, which leaves us waking feeling worse than before we went to sleep! Left unchecked, dehydration can lead to ME, allergies, fibromyalgia, auto immune disorders and much worse.
Not only this, but the stresses of the day, and heavy emotional energy from our lives and childhoods remain trapped in our cellular memory, in our cells and therefore in our being-ness. We remain stuck in our “stuff” and unable to move forward. But the biggest shame in all this is that we lose our connection. We lose our sense of self, our sense of direction and our ability to receive our own guidance in life, because our cells are waterproofed not only from electrolytes, but also from the light of the universe.
In a fully hydrated person, negatively charged photons from the universe are attracted to the positive charge our cells and create around each cell little clouds of information – information of who we are, what is happening in our world and perhaps even what we are here to do, – and informs us at the deepest levels of our being. We need this exchange of information to be all that we can be, to be the fullest expression of ourselves and of course, to be well.
The Buddhists talk of meditation, of acceptance of what is, of being-ness, of trusting and serenity – all ways in fact to decrease our stress levels. From a purely spiritual perspective, how are we to become enlightened, if the light of the universe cannot enter our cells, our very being? And is it any wonder that the world is as it is, given the amount of stressed out, closed off, cold and dehydrated people on the planet?
In order for there to be peace and harmony on Earth, there has to be peace and harmony within ourselves, within our very cells. The inner reflects on the outer, always. We must be gentle with our bodies, give it the water and the nutrients that it needs, give it the succulent, water rich foods that it needs, and change our toxic, hectic lifestyles, in order for us to be….. who we be.