The GAIA Health Blog

My "First Life", from birth until perhaps a year ago, was basically my old "World View", as I call it, my accumulated perceptions on race, on relationships, happiness, spirituality, etc……

……hardwired into my head by Society, Television, Music, Culture, and all the rest.

In My "Second Life", all that went in the trash, and I get to redefine my World View from a mature and sound-minded point of view.

Fortunately, being so into health and wellness, this new consciousness is encased in such a youthful and vibrant age 54 year old body……and it really feels like a "Second Life" !!!

In my First Life, I was the dumbest, smart person I knew…….

….in that I was always a bright student, straight A's (when I felt like applying myself), but looking back at that "First Life", it feels like I always made stupid decisions.

Be it choosing girlfriends, going into debt after college, choosing the wrong companies to work for, any thought that come up from First Life seemed (up to a year ago) to make me cringe.

I tried to let go of  "First Life" thoughts, but they wouldn't let go of me

No matter how "Zen" I tried to become over the years, I simply could not let go of thoughts of how I made a fool of myself day in and day out in a gazillion situations in that "First Life".

They never overwhelmed me, but those thoughts were my constant nuisance. Preventing me from having that "Quiet Soul" and "Still Mind" that I knew was in me somewhere. 

My first life was governed by skin color and race…..

I suppose this applies to every "sub-culture", but for sure, when you are a "so called" African American, you have to transcend this skin color craziness. The hardest thing to accomplish, so much baggage piled up in the collective psyche, passed down from slavery days, to Jim Crow, to the present……..

For whatever reason, not sure if it was before or after I start using the term "My Second Life" to my friends, I started telling them, "From now on, I'm gonna stop letting society dictate to my conscious what skin color means, I'll decide on my own what it means, and I suspect it means nothing".

In my "Second Life", I don't see color…..

…..or better put, I'm aware that there are a variety of skin tones in this country, but I think that, at least for me, what makes "Good People, and "Bad People" seems to be evenly distributed across the spectrum of people in the USA, at least in my experiences, and I've had more than a few.

So, in this second life, race "feels" like an illusion. Or shall I say, race has no real meaning to me anymore, no real relevance to who a person really is when I look them in the eye, it was merely what society shaped, molded, and drummed into my mind in "The First Life". That old life is dead.

Playing the "God Card"

I seldom play the "God Card". Too many people talking the talk, when we should stop preaching so hard, and just and walk the walk. The "living it" (mistakes and shortcomings included) should be the real preaching.

But, in "My Second Life", the true essence many quotes from the Bible, the Tao Che Ching, Whitman's "Leaves of Grass", and many other transcendental writings that I'm into, make perfect simple sense now.

"He that loses his life shall find it"
  –The Messiah

It finally hit me,  the meaning of the Bible verse when the Messiah spoke on losing one's life. I don't think he was asking us to suffer a painful death to impress him. He already did that for us as a free gift of love, and elsewhere in the Bible, it says we are called on to live in Peace.

He is asking us to throw away that "First Life", and the illusion of all that we have accumulated in the conscious since birth, and then we will find our higher "Second Life"…….so simple to understand now.

Relationships made simple in My "Second Life" ……

A recent cellphone text from a woman to me:
"If you think of something inspiring for us to do, give me a call"

My "Second Life" text response:
"I'm Texting this with a 'friendly chuckle', but if we were inspired by each other's energy, we wouldn't need to struggle to think of something to do to enjoy each other's company."

The "Second Life" protects me from Cellphones and Social Media…….

….in that, as I learned from letting go of the First Life, so much of my reality was shaped by TV, Movies and Music, before the internet, Social Media, and cellphones hit full stride.

It's obvious to me that Social media and cellphones are shaping perceptions ten times as fast n' easy these days, but it won't happen to me. (which is why you will seldom see me with my head down in my phone on the street)

Nutrition and my Second Life……

Being an "egghead" nutrition scientist is what makes the Second Life so thrilling. Meaning, nutrition and to some degree exercise made being over 50 not that much different than being 30.

What that really means is that with all that I've learned, there is still so much youthful experience left to experience, but with the enlightened mind of all I am in My Second Life.

Zen in the Art of Basketball in "My Second Life"……

…a strange principle I know, but borrowing and applying the Zen principle from the great book
"Zen in the Art of Archery" by Eugen Herrigel.

Like archery, or any discipline, basketball is a pretty amazing metaphor, in that, at age 54, I'm still zipping up and down the basketball court, expanding the mind-body connection through basketball and fitness, pretty amazed that health and vitality in "The Second Life" is still so vibrant.

"Forget about it, that was in My First Life"    (my new mantra……)

…my mantra in that phrase, "Forget about it, that was in my first life" is what my subconscious always reminds me whenever one of the gazillion thoughts of something stupid I did or said comes in my head and tries to take over my thoughts.

Somehow, that mantra softly and subtly reminds me My First Life is dead, reminds me to drop it all, drop my entire past……..and good riddance!!!

"My Second Life", the greatest blessing……

In that, I knew I was divinely inspired to get into all this health science "mumbo jumbo", having a naturally analytical and inquisitive mind, and love for research.

Thus, age 54 feels like age 24 or 34 to me, and with this divinely inspired knowledge, and I can live this second life with youthful vigor almost as if I get to live another adult life, but without all the mistakes, bonehead decisions, societal strife and burdens, it's a "Second Life" that is totally true to me………..

……….and that is no small blessing 🙂

Hiroshima: "Tabo"
(my favorite "Zen Song", had to stick it in the post, ENJOY!!!)

~stay healthy~

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