We are chemical beings and chemicals regulate everything in our lives (an overly simplistic statement that works for this article). Our bodies are capable of producing all the chemicals necessary to be happy, healthy, creative, motivated, and more. If these claims are true, and they are, why aren’t we all those things? Why are so many of us unhappy, anxious, depressed, unhealthy, unmotivated, and stuck in our current life situation? A simple answer is that we are addicted to the chemicals (neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, hormones) necessary to produce negative and unhappy lives. We are emotionally conditioned to look outside of ourselves for fulfillment, happiness, satisfaction, love, etc. We are exposed to a constant diet of emotions/feelings caused by news(?), entertainment(?), and advertising, designed to keep us addicted to our familiar, disempowering states of being. If you’re tired of where you are in life, or with your life, you’ll need to turn off your network’s broadcast TV. Just that simple/difficult (?) act will improve the quality of your in-house produced chemicals.
If you have ever wondered why change is so difficult and slow, all you need to do is look at the behavior, beliefs, and emotional response patterns in your life. Most of them have been there for a long time, leading us to do, think and respond in the same way that we learned from environmental events and people in the past. We tend to respond the same way over and over again, even though those patterns don’t produce the results we really want or need. Most of us know that we are disempowered by stress, fear, anxiety, judgment, envy, anger, etc. Each of these emotions/beliefs/thoughts produces chemicals that cause us to respond in consistent and predictable ways. We are familiar with our specific chemicals or sets of chemicals because they initiate us into the addictive cycle of feeling how we think and thinking how we feel. Each of these chemical producing thoughts can make you sick, cause debilitating beliefs/behaviors and keep you a dependent consumer on what “they” are selling, both in products and rhetoric.
You can learn to change, to control your thoughts and beliefs (chemicals), but change will take focused practice. Learn how to change the way you feel, think and respond, to start developing true empowerment and creativity.
I’ll leave the chemicals from the inside out for now, because volumes have been and will be written on the subject. I encourage you to discover much more. Now, let’s move on to our environmental chemicals and there are so many of us who live in a virtual chemical soup of drinking water, hot tubs, insecticides, drugs, herbicides, industrial pollution, etc. Each of these chemicals affects us and our world.
A few years ago, I saw a disturbing image of a Gulf War soldier holding his little girl, who was born without arms. I realize the strength that can be developed in people and the wonderful loving relationships that can be part of deep challenges. I was moved by the image and was reminded of a document I presented to my fellow directors of the head injury clinic I was working with. One of our clients was prescribed a specific medication and my job was to let everyone who worked in the clinic know how dangerous it/was. Most hadn’t heard of him and those who knew him thought the latest was different (it isn’t). It is the same drug that caused over 10,000 profound birth defects in the late 1950s through 1961. Do some research, the makers/sellers of this drug are making millions of $$$, the tampering doctors are working their magic , yet the photos and stories of the victims of the (chemical) thing are there, screaming at you to pay attention. This drug is available in our environment now and I wonder if that soldier in Golf War was exposed to a set of chemicals that responded in his body like that terrible chemical/drug.
In 2011, a large retailer in northwest Montana sold more than 2,000 containers of the most popular brand of herbicide, and within a 100-mile radius there are at least 20 other retailers selling the same specific brand of herbicide. There are also three other brands of herbicides that are sold in this same market area. I don’t have sales data for the other herbicides or the other retailers, but I have some logic. In this small market area of northwest Montana, tons/thousands (millions?) of gallons of herbicides were sold in 2011. /abuse? Does anyone remember Agent Orange?
In 2006, National Geographic published an article “Indoor Pollution” by David Ewing Duncan. Mr. Duncan was tested for 320 chemicals that he could have obtained simply by living his life, food, drink, air, basically his environment. David tested positive for PCBs, PBDEs, pesticides, dioxins, phthalates, PFAs, metals, and of the chemicals found in his body, five were found in concentrations high enough to pose significant health concerns. Neurological, Thyroid, Liver, Reproductive, Kidney are among the specific parts of his body that were affected by “their” chemicals from him. I wonder what our levels are and how these chemicals mix with or change the chemicals we make in our bodies.
The FDA exists to protect us from chemical poisons, or does it? The FDA approves or disapproves all foods, drugs, and chemicals in our environment. The FDA, with the blessing of the government, makes the rules. An example of (one of many) where the FDA is simply not acting in our best interest is fluoride. The United States is one of the few countries where fluoride is added to drinking water and other products. Not only are we almost alone in our use of fluoride, nearly 50 studies over many years have found fluoride to be a toxic, health-hazardous substance. Fluoride is one of the basic ingredients in our chemical soup, because we drink it, cook with it, and mix other chemicals with it.
This article only scratches the surface of what chemicals can do to and for us. Chemicals can positively and negatively affect our lives. We can have control over our internal and environmental chemicals, so educate yourself, how do you want your life and environment to be? RSBBbrown