Day 64 - Can Your Guts Get You Home?
A month from now will be the first day in three months I won’t write a daily blog post. I have that feeling I got when I hit 50: you better make the most of the time you have left.
I’m going back to my guts. I was listening to a Bulletproof Radio podcast yesterday where Dave Asprey talked with Dr. Barry Morguelan (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bulletproof-radio/id451295014?mt=2&i=1000409970240) who is one of the 12 remaining grand masters of a 5,000 year-old Chinese energy medicine tradition and who was also a UCLA surgeon for decades.
In order to become a grand master, Dr. Morguelan had to go through a series of tests. These are the kind of tests, apparently, that kill people. One test left Dr. Morguelan hanging from a cliff alone in the wilderness, and his task was to 1. survive and 2. find his way back home to where he was working with the masters in China. He talked about energy fields and using energy to know where you are and where to go.
Dave said he thought the power to locate ourselves in the world might come from our gut microbiota, and the two men talked about how this could be true, and as someone who is starting to believe that my guts took a big hit and have never recovered since I was born and who is starting to think that Leaky Gut should be the follow-up book to The Primal Wound, I listened.
Dr. Morguelan said to Dave that it was important to realize the gut microbiota were part of Dave, that they weren’t this outside force that was affecting his life. It wasn’t that the microbiota were helping Dave. It was Dave that was helping Dave.
This got me thinking. I have noticed that my stomach only makes sounds of digestion—gurgles—when I am getting acupuncture. When I eat, I often just feel a fullness, then a heaviness that tells me trouble is coming. The poop is about to shoot out. I don’t feel anything digesting. What if I think of my intestinal tract as something separate from me? What if my guts are playing dead because they’ve been abused (Hello, formula. Hello, sugar. Hello, bulimia. Hello, anxiety.) from day one and now, at 53 years old they are done operating in suboptimal conditions?. They are done with how I treat them.
They are ready for some love and attention. They are ready to be welcomed home. I just have to learn what this looks like.
What does all of this have to do with adoption? Well, Since I haven’t found a doctor who has been able to help, I’m going to act as one and research and proactive on myself and I’ll let you know what I discover. I’m just going to call myself Dr. Anne and figure this stuff out.
I’m going to call my practice I’m Not Shitting You.
See you tomorrow.
xoxo
As a bonus, lie down now and close your eyes and listen to this guided meditation. Put your hands on your belly and love your guts to life as you listen. https://youtu.be/2nlNSv3cEQs
