The Path to Elysium
Hello, dear readers! Today you catch me in a soft and thoughtful mood, lulled into daydreams by the haze of the hot southern summer yet seeking the vigor to finish the final third of the year strong and provide useful communication and compassionate support for all. I hope this Edition finds you well and that you glean some pearls or at least some amusement, stop a moment to ponder, are inspired to smile at a stranger.
I have long utilized the construct of myth to understand reality. There is something so beautifully simplistic about the allegory of archetypes that through this lens of categorization it becomes much easier for me to sort, compartmentalize, and make sense of the experiences and relationships of everyday life. In my current work there are many archetypes that come to mind when dealing with healing and with the ever present elephant in the room; death. For each culture since the dawn of humanity, death has been represented by an entity or multiple entities and sometimes also encompasses other societal themes as well, such as rebirth and wealth. And despite your belief system, from Mennonite to Agnostic, Wiccan to Atheist, there are inescapable truths with death being a core one of them, and perhaps the only one, the real root that binds all ritual through all of time. It is my job and goal with every client to - at the very least - prevent death - and, at the most - aid and guide in the elevation of quality of life to the highest potential, physiologically and spiritually. This may seem an undertaking beyond the scope of a writer or a coach even, but once you decide you are a healer in this world with the intent to spread kindness, possibility, and information, it is difficult if not impossible to deviate from this calling. And this healer lies in all of us as I alluded to in a previous Edition with my reference to the poem "On Pain", by Kahlil Gibran.
That said, we will still all meet the same fate one day, leaving these familiar fleshy forms. And yet the anti-aging industry is one of the fastest growing and lucrative of our lifetime, ever evolving simultaneous to AI and tech, logarithmically blossoming every nanosecond with revelation after algorithmic revelation. Longevity is the hashtag of the hour, vitality for as long as possible is one of our deepest desires, to avoid death, or at least prolong the moments we have on Earth before slipping into the void (or for the optimists in the room, on to our next adventure). I have seen fear of mortality itself grip clients of all ages whether this be consciously manifested or subconsciously expressed. I have sensed that this fear was an underpinning of the disease process itself. My observations have led me to believe that once we can look death in the face with an ironic kind of respect, an irreverent reverence, in a "see ya when I see ya" sort of way, while also acknowledging the truth with wry determination, we will not go down without a fight.
To put everything we have into our health and overall well-being is not a futile battle rather the singular quest of humankind. This contradiction, this choice to live fully whilst wholly knowing we will meet death anyway, is the key. And even that is not enough. Once you are strong, once you have fortified your vessel, you then must fight for others. You must give and give of your physical and mental capacities for noble causes until you feel you cannot give anymore and then continue to pour your strength out into the Universe. This is the way, as humans we must strive to live well, and long, and selflessly courageous to meet a peaceful passage. But of course this does take strength of character and wisdom in addition to the ability to continue to "fill up our own cup" so that we have enough to share and give with the rest of society. Perhaps living fully is the only way to counteract the fear of what comes next. As above, so below, they say. The incredible idea that duality is a principle law of existence, that the journey is the destination and vice versa, makes it easier for us to reconcile fate versus free will, there is no one without the other and we oscillate along the path in some form for eternity.
Whew, okay. You'll notice in some of my previous Editions that I do find inspiration from the existential, but in the same way myth mirrors reality and helps me to see things clearly, existential ramblings of sorts therefore, for me, allow the practical to become revealed. Thus, I will now trail from the philosophic and dive into tangible ways we can support our cellular beings with proven methods for improving longevity. In this Edition I will include information about a class of Molecules long-associated with optimal cellular functioning that in more recent years are gaining training for their anti-aging properties, Antioxidants. Then, in the coming Editions I will cover other concepts to improve quality and length of life that I have learned about through my consulting and coaching work, such as Mediation, Heart Rate Variability, and VO2 Max.
As an overview, the word antioxidant is used to described a broad class of molecules which by the nature of the structure may act in the human body to reduce the amount of unpaired electrons in the form of reactive oxidative species. When the body is too encumbered with electrons that are unpaired, the negative charge results in an acidic environment that drives cellular processes towards disease vulnerability. In essence, we are all primed with a varying degree of genetic insults that may result in disease states and a reduction in longevity, but the inevitability of said disease state can be modified and manipulated by the bodies ability to protect itself. Antioxidants as their name insinuates both shuttle these naughty little species out of the body and provide an environment within the cell for autophagy, repair, and regeneration. In this way this class of molecules may be able to halt a disease state in it's tracks, promote remission of the disease state, and even improve the host environment beyond the original baseline.
Autophagy in and of itself is a word with literal translation "self-eating". Those cells that have acquired states of damage that will eventually contribute to disease states need to be identified, sorted, and either resorbed or excreted in the form of their building block products. And thus the symphony of duality is illustrated to us at this very base level in that to live a long and seemingly disease free life, we must die a little daily, quite literally. The beauty and the irony of this biophysiology is breathtakingly simply in all reality and there are several key players that are industry leaders, market available and safe for human consumption that fall into the category of Antioxidants. Several stars of the show are:
Vitamin C, CoQ10, PQQ, Dihydroxy benzopyrones (found in Shilajit), C60 (also found in Shilajit), and a subclass of substances called Plant Polyphenols to include Flavonols like Quercetin.
Many of these molecules are measured pharmacokinetically for their ability to literally reduce an oxidized cellular stage under microscope and are given a speed rating. More recently in the literature the question has become not only one of removal but one of awakening, in that many of these molecules coined as antioxidants also have the power to awaken our latent stem cells, those fresh babies gaining so much traction for being able to reverse all sorts of diagnoses. Come to find it, a process called cellular senescence results when harmony of the body becomes oxidized and acidic meaning that our bodies innate intelligence to toss out the trash cells and bring in the new guys goes into hibernation. But we can wake this process back up. In this way antioxidants have, at the very least, several beneficial roles when it comes to living a longer, healthier life. In summary:
I will leave you with a jazz song, and ode to life, because jazz is my favorite genre as the genre itself tracks with the theme of duality, embodying simplicity and complexity existent together, joy and pain, love and loss, ultimately beautiful. "Here's to Life!"
Always with much gratitude and kindness,
Caroline