Focus On What Is Good For You.

Today we ask that you focus on what is conducive to your health.

Focus on what is conducive to your health.

What does this mean?

Most of you who are open to reading this message have a basic sense of what is healthy for you, and what is not.

You know what kinds of foods are healthy.  You know that it is good for you to exercise your body, and so forth.

You know the difference between an apple and “junk food.”

What is “junk food”?  It is food that lacks nutritive value, often involves chemical processing,  and contains unhealthy sugars and fats.  While its flavors may satisfy an addictive craving — and it may offer a cheap, quick fix — usually it does not sit particularly well in your body.  If your lifestyle involves a great deal of “junk food” consumption, your physical health will deteriorate.  You will gain weight, and be prone to diseases.

This is how you know that junk food is not conducive to your health.  Because it makes you sick.

In general it is not all that hard to determine what is unhealthy.  Usually the pattern is similar to junk food: while the unhealthy behavior or substance may satisfy a craving and offer a quick fix, repeated indulgence deteriorates your health.

Conversely, healthy behaviors and substances increase your health.  They make your mind and body healthier.  You feel better — not a quick fix, necessarily, but a lasting improvement, often one that occurs gradually.  Over time, you may even find that your habits change: you now crave apples more than candy bars.

And by the way, it is okay to have the occasional candy bar.  It’s just when you are eating candy bars every day, that the problems arise.  

Just as there are healthy and unhealthy foods and substances, there are healthy and unhealthy behaviors.

A healthy person is someone who generally does things that are harmonious for his well-being, and the well-being of others.

A healthy person tends to increase feelings of well-being — for himself, and others.

An unhealthy person tends to increase feelings of disharmony and dis-ease — for himself, and others.

In stories, heroes are generally individuals who increase harmony and well-being in the world, while villains are those who increase disharmony and dis-ease.  

That is how you can tell the difference.

Obviously there are a great deal of disharmony-increasing people and situations in your reality.

And the existence of those people and situations tends to be very upsetting for those of you who wish to increase health and well-being in the world.

However, focusing your attention and energy on disharmonious people and situations is, generally speaking, unhealthy for you.

For example: you are going about your business, and suddenly someone says something very rude to you.

Now your whole day is ruined.  You brood over this rude person, and what he said.

Doing this is an unhealthy habit.  It’s like eating junk food.  It may satisfy a craving — which is to get back at this rude person, to imagine all the remarks you might have made.

But the more you do this, the worse you will feel.

Likewise, when you spend all day brooding over distressing, fear-inducing news, you are not helping anyone or anything.  You are only increasing dis-ease.

You may say, “Well, I need to stay informed.”  But in truth, any information that you truly need to hear will find its way to you.  

However, stewing in a morass of fear-inducing news just puts you in a foul mood, making you more prone to lash out at your loved ones and those around you.  

So no one is being helped, and you are only increasing disharmony in the world.

That is why this behavior is unhealthy — like eating junk food.

If you really want to increase well-being in the world, you must learn to wrest your attention away from all the disharmonious people and the things they do that you don’t like — before you sink into a foul mood over it.  

You do that by choosing to focus your attention on that which increases your feelings of well-being.  Go for a walk, and look at the trees and the sky.  Cuddle an animal.  Meditate, do yoga, ride a bike, go for a swim.  Do something that is genuinely helpful for yourself or someone else.  Express appreciation for something good in your life.  That is the equivalent of “eating an apple.”

That is what it means to focus on what is conducive to your health.

Indulging in black feelings about this or that person, or this or that situation, really is like eating junk food.  It is okay to do once in a while, if you must — but do it every day, and you’ll get sick.

So if you are someone who wants to be healthy, and tries to maintain healthy habits — keep this in mind.

Everything you take in is “food.”

What you take in through your mouth, you digest in your intestines.  What you take in through your eyes and ears, you digest in your mind.

So eat good food, if you want to be healthy.  

Focus your attention on what is conducive to your health.