Body and Spirit

For many years we Frosts have taught pro-active stress relief--the means to avoid getting sick from being chronically over-stressed. The technique is simple: you take steps before the stressing event happens to alleviate the response (also sometimes call the fight-or-flight response). In today's world we continually stress ourselves through physical or social stressors that we might just as easily avoid. A very common example? Traveling to work at the same old time every day over the same old route and getting caught in the same old traffic jam. A change of time or of route will eliminate this source of stress.

There are many other situations in which you can easily avoid going into stress. One of the areas that causes most stress--yet scarcely recognized--is the alleged conflict between our spiritual self and our physical/temporal body. The spiritual part of our being wants to do such things as meditate, or give a donation to the local hospice, which our mundane side says are ridiculous or something we can't afford. This means that you generate an internal stress between the two parts of yourself. When you put together your life plan for the next few months, you need to balance these two demands on yourself. Figure out a way to make the demands compatible with each other. When they conflict, you open yourself to all those diseases which are conditions to be avoided. Just as life partners ideally work together hand in hand to form a pleasant life, so the parts of your psyche need to be balanced and to work together so that you can proceed in an equitable fashion into the future.
You've been told that the spirit and the body have different agendas and cannot work together: that they conflict. That idea has served for centuries to control your actions--yet it simply isn't true. The parts of your being can work together. In fact, the truth is this: They complement each other. Each does functions that the other cannot do.
Don't believe these accusing claims fed to you as facts-that-must-be-followed. Always ask yourself: Who gains by telling me that my spiritual side and my physical side are irrevocably at war with each other?
Think about it. It's a ploy that many institutions use to gain control of you through guilt.
1. set up the guilt, as the stick. Then 2. promise relief, through donations or whatever means, as the carrot.

You will very quickly find that when you get your body and your spirit working together, life becomes pleasant and easier.