Gut

December was a gluttonous month.  Late nights, large portions of food, egg nog, and cookies were indulgences I embraced.  As January progresses, I return to more healthy sleep and food habits and my physical body rejoices!  No one made me over-consume for the holidays.  I celebrated whole-heartedly and rather enjoyed it.  I own responsibility, but if I had been more rooted in the moderation guidance of my gut, I think I would have felt much better come New Year’s Day.       

 

Gut is defined as a noun, a verb, and an adjective at dictionary.com.
As a noun gut means:
     1. the bowels or entrails
     2. courage and fortitude; nerve; determination; stamina
     3. the inner working parts of a machine or device
     4. the belly; stomach; abdomen
As an adjective, gut means:
     1. basic or essential
     2. based on instincts or emotions

 

Much fascinating current research is being conducted and published on the importance of the internal, intestinal milieu in our overall health.  Amazing, awesome stuff!  I suspect we knew somehow innately, even before science supported the feeling, that our gut is important.  Being out of balance physically often manifests itself there.  When we are stressed we frequently know it in our digestive system.  When we are dishonest, in love, or afraid we have physical feelings in our stomach.  Even the dictionary shows gut as physical and non-physical.

 

When one’s gut is malfunctioning who can think about anything else?  Inner workings will supersede all other thoughts and actions until resolved.  Maybe that’s why fasting, in various forms, is part of many religious and spiritual practices.  Restrict food and you will be drawn into your gut to listen and feel in a difficult to ignore way.  If we clear away that which binds, blinds, and blocks we make room for new choices and clearer sight.

 

Culturally, I think we are not trained to listen to our gut, in a physical nor an intuitive way.  Do we think about how food makes our gut feel?  Making life decisions by looking inward, asking ourselves how various options make us feel, what our instincts reveal seems not to be encouraged.  Perhaps we have lost touch with our bellies!

 

Let me be first to say it can be hard to love one’s belly bombarded with images of what a belly should look like on the outside – both male and female – young, six pack abs, flat abdomen, smooth and hairless.  If you have any of those attributes, fabulous!  But the soft, mid-forties, slightly poochy perching place for a bellybutton on my body is not from a magazine.  Can I love it anyway?  Yes.  Maybe.  I’m trying.  I do know the instincts residing there are essential to my happiness.  Fluffy or flat, the inner workings gut is a place to find and feel intuitively and that may indeed lead to love of the outside. 

 

We know Truth, but we forget or loose the way in lack of practice retracing the path.  The gut is where our fire lives.