If you want to know what a dysregulated nervous system feels like, stand in the path of on-coming traffic, have three cups of coffee or however much it takes to give you the spins, and then look at your page-long to-do list.

I can’t believe how fun the last twenty-two days have been. My life was good before I started this 93-day project, but it has been wonderful since. 

Balance can be harder than extreme behaviors. It’s easier in some ways to starve yourself than to feed yourself, but I’m learning to walk the middle path. You can overeat; you can undereat, and you can eat.

Today, when I went for acupuncture to address my right eye that tires more easily than my left eye, the acupuncturist placed a needle by my temple in the large intestine meridian. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the belief is that the health of the large intestine affects the eyes. 

There’s been a lot of talk about failure in the last few years. There are college courses on it, books written about it, Ted talks tedding about, and it’s all in a positive light. Failure, these days, in this light, is not a big F word. Failure means you are striving, that you are trying new things, that you are willing to put yourself out there and fall down. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking back from the beach with my friend Antonia, and we saw a guy walking into his house. That’s Frosty Hesson, Antonia said. He’s a legend. He’s one of the two guys the movie Chasing Mavericks is about. He’s surfed the monsters.

There are two things my nervous system can’t seem to tolerate: not having money and having money. 

In my next life, I’m going to study Traditional Chinese Medicine and I’m going to have a box of needles by my bed, by my reading chair, in my car, and I’m going to stick myself every chance I get. I will be perpetually lit up. 

I have spent so much of my life trying to be busy, for busyness was next to holiness in my family when I was growing up. There was always something else to do, some other box to check, another list to make, another accomplishment to achieve. 

The body keeps the score. The body knows what you really need, and it will try to wake you up so you can take care of the business that is solely yours in this life. The business of your soul. 

If you’ve been following me on Dr. Mark’s eating plan, and if you’re feeling strong and energetic in your body, but if your mind is starting to tell you that what you need most is alcohol or pizza or a hot fudge sundae made with Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream, start thinking about things you want to do but are afraid of doing.

If you get very still, you can feel your heart moving. You can hear it beating. 

Listen. That is your body telling you how much you are loved.