My Body – My Closet
… by metabolic balance® Coach Meda Christiani.
There were warning signs, my 90-year-old mother reluctantly admits.
Stuffing that last ‚too good of a deal to pass up’ dress into her closet required a lot more creative muscle power than her last purchase did. „Get three dresses for the price of one!“ An „all you can eat in one hour“ buffet. Buy – gorge your self - it’s an awesome deal you know. Stuff it in - you’re saving so much money. ‚Don’t pass up this fantastic offer’! No awareness or consideration of the capacity and health of her closet or of her body.
Yes, she remembers the days when the pole was straight. Yes, she had noticed that it was getting more and more of a downward bow over time (as if the intelligence of the closet was contemplating becoming an archer and shooting those excess dresses into oblivion in an act of self-preservation).
Why would a pole sag? Why would a vertebra disc collapse? It’s amazing how much excess weight a pole can take and the extent to which it can bend to accommodate abuse. No respect, awareness or sensitivity.
The infamous „straw that broke the camel’s back“. Which straw was to be the last straw?
I had the ‚pleasure’ of breaking down the French cottage of a deceased relative many years ago. Now THAT was one sagging closet pole!
It deserved an achievement award for supporting a wardrobe spanning decades (beginning from the left hand side the 1960’s bell-bottoms all the way to the 90’s polyester jackets on the right hand side). Sorry I didn’t have a camera (that was in the pre-IPhone days).
This pole had out-lived my relative! He flooded his kidneys with alcohol, sweets in all variations and tons of goose livers until one day his body came to a sudden halt. His blood vessels were laced with globs of fat, cancers had burrowed through his liver and his poor kidneys were shriveled little peanuts.
Not one item of clothing was salvageable in his closet either. Not one. The rats had had a field day tunneling through the decades of clothes. My guess is that they began tunneling from one side in the 80’s, made a U-turn a few years later and tunneled back again. If I count the holes like the rings of a tree then they made about 6 laps. Often there was no distinction between a wool sweater or a pair of cotton shorts as the rats had gnawed and chewed and barfed up balls of fluff to line their dens in the closet corners.
At some point the body just can’t take it anymore and you wake up in a hospital bed (or the morgue). Your organs are suffocated by fat and toxins, too exhausted and unable to do their job of nourishing and cleansing your body – your home – your closet.
The mountain on the bed could have simply been carted away to the dumpster. But no - mom wanted a second chance! Mom wanted to live longer. Mom wanted to get healthy. Mom was willing to call in experienced help to fix the broken pole and teach her how not to break it again. Long over-due care was finally taken and she agreed to give her closet and her body a health check. Out went the clothes that could never fit again, were torn or hopelessly out of style. Blood tests were made. Junk food was purged from the pantry and fridge. Evil, hidden sugars found a new home in the garbage can. No more visits to second-hand stores or succumbing to those evil mass-quantity food deals. No more unhealthy food allowed into her body. Now was time to learn about nourishing her body back to wellness.
Eighty-four sunhats doesn’t mean you keep fifty. Eating half a portion of an absurd amount of food is not based on what your body needs to function properly! It was time to get back to sanity and shop for quality, not for quantity.
It was time to put a screeching halt to consuming more and more without paying any attention to the capacity and sensitivity of the container created to hold it all. Mom took the professional help offered seriously. She understood that she held the power to avert the inevitable collapse.
Your body is your home just like your closet is the home for your wardrobe.
A healthy closet has a reasonable amount of clean, mended, pressed clothes for all areas of your active life. Your organs need healthy nutrients and space to breathe and stretch. They need mended at the first sign of distress. Periodically they need checked for malfunction and cleansed and rejuvenated regularly.
Daily acknowledgment and appreciation for your body and the endless jobs your organs do will keep the doctor away.
Your clothes from a healthy, well maintained closet can help you look great but no top of the line designer outfit can camouflage an unhealthy, neglected, toxic, over-weight body.
It doesn’t matter whether you begin by purging your closet or getting a health check-up with a nutrition consultant. The synergistic effect will improve both.
If you don’t know where to begin, contact Meda Christiani, a Wellness Empowerment Coach for metabolic balance® and get a jump-start into a healthier, happier life.
If you don’t take care of your body – where will you live?