Have you ever sat back and wondered what kind of life your ‘future self’ will be living? Of course, we have endless future selves – the one that lives next week’s life, or your life in a year or decade even from now. With life’s beautiful, if a little unnerving unpredictability, how can we possibly really picture what life will be like for our future self in term of circumstances, as opportunities, careers, relationships, and phases all come and go? Indeed, if nothing else, the past 18 months has illustrated how even the unimaginable is still entirely possible.
However, the one rock-solid reliable feature of any future we are fortunate to have, is indeed ourselves. As sure as night follows day, we will trundle towards our future self, be it tomorrow, next month, next year with a certain inevitability (for as long as we are spared our encounter with the final horizon!). Many of us are indeed prudent planners when it comes to taking care of our future self financially with pensions and retirement plans, or career wise, setting ourselves on course to become who we conceive ourselves to be through education. But in my observation, we are more prone to a couple of significant blind spots, with a greater disconnect from this quiet yet unwavering fact when it comes to our health and the environment, as if the person we are today and the way we are living today will bear no influence on the life and health our future self will enjoy. For now, let’s take a look at health.
As an acupuncturist, Chinese Medicine practitioner and WildFit coach, I find the art and practice of holistic medicine is an intriguing process of consciously meeting a person in ‘the now’, at the threshold of their past and future selves. The consultation process is about archeologically sifting through all they have experienced and how they have lived, physically, nutritionally, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually up until this point and all that their body now symptomatically reveals as an honest reflection of their biography.
Like art, which isn’t so much a process of imposing form but revealing and releasing what is calling to be expressed, similarly the treatment process is one of listening deeply to the quiet whisper of a person’s future self and helping to strengthen their bond to a more positive potentiality. Much like a ship set on a course in one direction, one that may be heading towards a future self fraught with poor physical or mental health, illness, and compromised quality of life, through a highly individualised treatment process, that course can be adjusted by several degrees, which when followed over years of metaphorical miles will indeed lead to an entirely different and more wholesome destination.
I have a particular passion for empowering people to realise just how much they can radically alter the life and health of their future self for themselves simply by overhauling their nutrition. This is a relatively simple yet immensely impactful and practical route to a whole new level of rude health that we are often not aware of. We have so lost sight of all that we as humans need for a true human diet, set aside from all that is on the shelves masquerading as food, that we can genuinely believe we are eating well, not realising that our body begs to differ.
Yet in my clinical life, I see the results of the modern diet all the time and it isn’t pretty. My role is to listen to the body’s cries for help and believe me it can be a resounding wail that even the custodian of the body is oblivious to. People come in because their diabetes, IBS, UTI’s, ME, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, auto-immune conditions or post-Covid syndrome has brought them, or their pains and inflammation has made them book an appointment, or their anxiety, depression and existential angst compelled them to look for help, or their post-chemo fatigue is debilitating them, or their menstrual life is a monthly hell for them or their longing to conceive a baby brings them in or their menopause is wreaking havoc with them.
No matter what brings them in to my clinic, in almost all cases, if I could wave a magic wand for them, the most important thing they need to address first and foremost which would have the most incredible qualitative impact on their health and well-being is what they are putting into their body each and every day.
Our bodies are so immensely forgiving and work tirelessly all day, every single day to mitigate the effects of all the sugars, chemicals and non-functional foods we consume on drip feed throughout the day, often without even realising it. And often, the very symptoms that bring people in for treatment are simply a) a reflection that the body is no longer coping with this low-grade but ever-present toxic load and b) the body’s attempt to discharge that toxic load somehow, someway, in a bid to keep YOU alive and as well as possible. All that inflammation is simply toxicity stored in the joints away from your vital organs. All those UTI’s, skin conditions, troublesome bowels and copious phlegm are your body valiantly trying to find ways to discharge what it can’t cope with, while mental and emotional health is, in part, a demonstration of the body-mind continuum in action. So on and so forth.
Personally, I love nothing more than helping people to build a whole new relationship with themselves and their remarkable body, to discover how much they can do to re-write the trajectory they are on and with a combination of acupuncture, Chinese herbal prescriptions and WildFit coaching, help them fall in love with being and feeling vibrantly healthy. So please, spare a thought and advocate for your future self today in a way that She or He will thank you for!
