It has been a while since we rang in the new year. With hopeful courage, healthy ideas, and resolutions, we embraced the new year.

Persistent patterns, addictions, changes in behavior, and lifestyle are high on the list around this period. Some are still on the right track, while for others, the resolutions have gone up in smoke, accompanied by the emotions of failure.
Because one part of us knows very well how things should be and what we should do and what would be better and healthier. But there seems to be another part that thinks differently about this. Have we also asked ourselves why these persistent patterns and the like exist? What if they are just symptoms? Then we are fighting our symptoms.

Under every behavior lies a feeling, and under every feeling, an unfulfilled need. When we work on this last mentioned layer, a symptom disappears on its own.

First, the basics: Are you getting enough sleep? Are you eating healthily? Do you have enough rest, fun, and activity in your life? Enough social contacts? Are your vitamins and minerals at the right level, and are you taking vitamin D in winter? Are you spending enough time outdoors, and are you getting enough sunlight? Especially vitamin D could do a lot for many, including depression and low energy during wintertime, in my experience. Thirty minutes of walking per day outdoors, preferably in nature, also works wonders.

This is actually the basics, but I hear many people struggling with weight by counting calories. What many do not know is that people with overweight are often qualitatively malnourished. When our nutrients are not balanced, we get cravings, and the food industry has responded extremely cleverly to this. We should actually count toxins and pay more attention to the right nutrients and enough protein.

Many people only eat filling instead of nourishing food. Filling often comes with toxins that our bodies cannot use, and it ends up being stored in body fluids, causing us to retain more fluids. When these people start dieting, they also lose a lot of fluid suddenly. Our brain also needs the right nutrition; otherwise, we cannot feel well. And refined sugar and additives throw our whole system, including the brain, off balance.

Too many toxins pollute our endocrine system, leading to many complaints. Skin problems, breathlessness, coughing, digestive problems, mood swings, depression, and many other symptoms accumulate, for which we often use medication. They suppress the symptoms, but our endocrine system becomes even more polluted. Taking small steps in the right direction is much more effective than wanting too much at once. Otherwise, we often find ourselves being thrown back in no time. This was only the unfulfilled need on the physical layer.

We also have the mental and emotional layers. Pay attention to what you think and believe. How many toxic thoughts or limiting beliefs occupy you? Which are then partly responsible for the lens through which you view yourself and the world. And ultimately, this affects your overall feeling and your life.

Any belief that is not in line with your deeper truth triggers a narrowing or depressing emotional response. If the belief is in line with your deeper truth, the emotional response will feel pleasant, spacious, and calm inside. So you can test yourself on everything that may be discarded; thus, we can clean up our mental and emotional layers. The Work by Byron Katie is extremely suitable for this. When applied correctly, you will see that it is not the reality you suffer from but your own thoughts and beliefs about reality. With this, we created our own prison. See it as a kind of fine-tuning of who you really are; now we are often still tuned to old beliefs and social conditioning, which can be very constricting.

Now we have covered the physical, emotional, and mental layers and come to the energetic layer, which is actually more fundamental.

It has many names: Qi, Shakti, Tao, Life force, Spirit, life energy, or whatever you want to call this cosmic force. It is the life stream that wants to flow through you but often hits a closed heart. Our heart and nervous system where many old impressions are stored that have not yet been expressed. It became too painful and too heavy, and we closed it or we live in dissociation. Not knowing that we have cut ourselves off from the life stream.

Until our heart is open again and the nervous system is back in balance, we fight against our own biology, and there will be forces and powers striving for this balance in the form of fight, flight, or Freeze tendencies. Distraction, anesthesia, suppression, or the need for kicks.

To free yourself from this, I recommend reading my previous article on the open heart and applying its exercise. But also the article on the autonomic nervous system, which will be online soon! If we do not remove the weeds at the root, they will keep growing back. And if we ourselves do not descend further than the symptom level, Dry January will remain Wet guaranteed, despite all good intentions. Or we are trading one problem for another.

Start dreaming again, what makes you happy? Or what used to make you happy? Do more of that in your life and don’t be too hard on yourself!!!! www.jelion.nl

For more information, Literature, and podcasts:

Richard de Leth, Byron Katie
The book: “Censorship: What You’re Not Allowed to Know About Your Health” by Gabor Lenkei.
The booklet: “Germanic Medicine, concise introduction by Dr. Med. Mag. Theol. Ryke Geerd Hamer”