Lowballing Normal

What is normal? Are you normal? Am I normal? These are loaded questions to start a blog, but hey, let’s just go there.

Normal is a scientific reference point for a baseline defined by repeated protocols that can be measured and quantified by research. In other words, if you can create a standard, scientific process of explaining or expanding scientific paradigms through measurements, you have created some standard baseline to measure from.

Although words like average, common, or standard are used as synonyms for normal, they aren’t really the same thing scientifically. Whereas normal from a scientific perspective would be considered the “ideal standard,” Americans today are functioning below normal. Our basic averages have fallen well below what science would define as ideal. From blood pressure and cholesterol levels to postural alignment, we are, in fact, lowballing normal.

Answer just a few questions and see how you do stack up to the ideal standard:

1. Are you overweight?
2. Do you take a prescription medication?
3. Do you wake up in the middle of the night to pee?
4. Do you feel lethargic midday?

If your answer is yes to 3 or more, we need to seriously review your idea of normal vs average. Now I have to be honest here, I think our modern-day society has created a boatload of humans functioning below normal. In fact, average is below normal when you consider the average American is managing excess weight, poor sleep habits, an overworked, loveless lifestyle, and limited happiness – not to mention using multiple medications or alcohol to reduce their bad feelings about those things. I’ve even had a client tell me they only laugh when they’ve had a couple drinks in them. Then they get social.

With what modern technology has done to make information more accessible and convenient, you would think we were living better with more free time for fun, relationship building, and love. Instead it seems we are just adding years to a poor-quality life. That’s what modern medicine is doing – it’s allowing us to lowball normal and live longer doing it. That just sounds bad, doesn’t it?

We spend more time working, less time socializing – and I mean with real people in real time, not clicking the Like button or throwing hearts out on Instagram and Facebook. We are more despondent, depressed, and our social skills are in fact diminishing despite all of the self-help books, apps, and devices designed to make life easier and more manageable. I actually think what we’ve done is create more reasons why we DON’T have to talk to people, look people in the eye, connect, play, or have fun. We find ways to work harder rather than streamlining our work life to enjoy life more. Why is that? Again, we are lowballing normal.

People think it’s “normal” to work from 6am until 10pm, get up in the middle of the night at least twice, feel stiff and achy after sitting for hours, and feel exhausted by 2pm – that’s what coffee is for, right? Wrong. The shift in our modern lifestyle is actually accelerating faster than our DNA can keep up. Cancer, mixed connective tissue disorders, mental illness… they are at an all-time high, and we are seeing more kids diagnosed with disorders once thought to be an aspect of aging.

What’s worse, we think these things are normal, so when someone tells us our repetitive lifestyle is causing most of the dysfunctions doctors are treating us for with medication, we convince ourselves that can’t be right. Why? Because a doctor told you so and diagnosed you with something specific? Maybe your lifestyle caused those specific issues? Go figure.

When a client comes in depressed, in pain, and stressed out, I try to connect to some root cause of how a person got to the place they are in. You don’t need to look very far from the source of their history, how they view life, love, happiness, work, and basically themselves to figure it out.

We deny ourselves “me” time as well as “friends” time. Do we even know how to be a good friend anymore? Despite people being my “friend,” I have to be honest, I think I have two friends that even call to check in to see how I’m doing a few times a year. The rest, I wouldn’t hear from at all if I didn’t reach out. And I get it, life is busy. We get busy. We don’t have time for calls, and hey we think about calling so maybe we are unconsciously using our telepathy from day to day… but actually making the effort to be normal, that’s an effort of grand proportion.

So, what can you do about it? First, I say 10 minutes a day, every day, we should get quiet, give ourselves permission to go into our bodies and sense what we feel. You might be shocked when you realize, “I don’t feel anything” or “I’m not exactly sure what I feel.” We are so disconnected from ourselves, how can we be expected to feel connected to anyone or anything else?

It actually takes practice to use what I call Body Sense. To key into common imbalances or compensations can actually improve our ability to eliminate them before they cause pain, depression, and accumulated stress that alters our ability to think clearly and engage in life fully.

Want to take the Rest Assess Test? Click on the video below to learn how to assess your body for stuck stress and see how many common imbalances you find. There are 4 common imbalances that many of us possess that are left unaddressed from day to day, and you are going to learn to sense the ones that compress the spine the most, alter the brain’s connection to our center of gravity, and reduce stability and balance the most.

I can also teach you how to quickly assess the parts of your body that support, protect, and stabilize you without your voluntary control or awareness. I call those aspects of your body the Autopilot. For most of us, the Autopilot is functioning on safety mode, much like a computer when some form of corruption has been found. Your computer works, just some of the software doesn’t load quickly or at all making us modify, compensate, or cheat our way to keep working efficiently. The Autopilot does the same thing. It can’t self-correct – instead it lowers metabolism, alters movement and motor response and timing, and ultimately compensates so you can keep functioning and feel like your average isn’t really below normal.

So to end this blog, I want you to take the Rest Assess Test. I want you to see how close or far away from normal your body is functioning. Then, if you care to reset your body, become part of the MELT Tribe and join MELT On Demand. Learn how to eliminate stuck stress and compensation from your Autopilot and give your average a boost back to normal. Life is too short to be average – live in a connected body and MELT your way back to normal.