We continue our month with brief insights regarding our overall well-being, through the lens of TCM (mostly because I’ve always wanted to go to acupuncture school, but am already in chaplaincy training, at least for the next year, but love the study of Traditional Chinese Medicine). So for the coming two weeks, we’re touching in with practical inquiries for how to live in accordance with these concepts, more harmonious in body and mind.
Upholding our physiological health is crucial if we wish to befriend the mind.
Welcome to Holding Nothing; thank you for being here. If you choose a paid subscription, you’ll have access to the entire archives, be able to comment on all posts, and attend our monthly Live Gatherings, during which we have talks, writing, learning and discussion time.
If you have financial restriction, scholarship subscriptions are available. Don’t hesitate to ask.
I realize I’ve been dehydrated for some weeks, physically and emotionally. By dehydrated I mean the parched, frayed feeling when a dear friend is in serious turmoil or ill, or I’ve had fewer than seven hours of sleep, or when I see a young man my son’s age struggling to stand in a drug haze as I’m delivering food from the Zen center to the local shelter. The choices and inputs are many for us all.
I’ve never needed my friendships, my practices, the support of my partner, or my annual spring cleanse more. I wonder if you’re feeling this too.
This time of year, I cleanse. Sometimes liver, gallbladder—this year, focused on clearing intestinal plaque. I’ll spare you the details; suffice to say this requires being close to home for the better part of the day for almost two weeks, getting a number of hours of rest, which finally feels natural to me. Turns out I needed to just be very still, stop worrying about what wasn’t getting done, and rest.
Dr. Sara Szal (formerly Gottfried) teaches that as we age, a chemical (hormonal) veil lifts. Our bodies release the hormonal chemistry that helped us be productive and adaptable to the environment or circumstances in which we lived during our caring/parenting years, in order to protect ourselves, or those we love.
This hormonal shift launches us into a state of emotional bravery; we no longer need to consider what others think of us. We no longer feel called to sort things out, or do things quickly. We begin becoming ourselves, choosing ourselves, guiding ourselves, being patient with ourselves. Feeling in my body a certain buoyancy as I write this, and a feeling of fullness. Speaking of which.
Ann Cecil-Sterman, our esteemed visiting teacher this month, reports that the need for hydration in several regards is paramount, for all of us. The chronic issues about which I’m most curious happen to be the most common issues she sees in her clinical practice—the chronic degenerative diseases we hear about most—autoimmune, hormonal, reproductive, digestive, respiratory, neurological, and musculoskeletal.
Here’s Ann’s wisdom, with my comments in italics.
Most chronic issues are of an inflammatory nature, yet most are unwittingly adding inflamers to the body every day, via eating and drinking.
Our nutritional choices are where we can have the most powerful impact on health.
And consumption of things that are not food affect the body deeply. (This means anything in a package, not grown from the ground or a tree. Dang.)
Examples of things that are not food: drugs of all kinds, coffee, chocolate (no! But warm cacao is okay?!?!), alcohol, hot spices, garlic, onion, sugar, processed foods, GMOs, and chemicals used in food production.
Great example. In her book, one of my bibles, Becoming Healthy, Staying Healthy, Ann shares how in Italy, garlic was historically intended to be used only in flavoring the heating of olive oil, then removed from the pan prior to adding the tomatoes and herbs for sauce.
These are all inflamers, directly contributing to disease. For example, a person who puts hot sauce on everything, eats a lot of garlic and onions, begins the day with coffee and snacks on chocolate, will eventually become inflamed, and dehydrated.
Um, so, my favorite luxuries: matcha, pu’erh tea, dark chocolate.
Hydration is the single most important factor in the prevention of ill health, followed by adequate sleep and rest.
In my clinical practice, inflamers are removed, and we focus on soups, stews and porridges, “wet” foods. With “wet” foods, the body has enough energy and fluids to push off a pathogen, and no longer needs to continually respond to these elements. Energy is freed up, allowing us to return to clear, radiant, energetic health.
Here’s how it works. If we’re dehydrated when encountering a virus (even a cold), the body can’t expel (sweat, sneeze, cough, vomit, or urinate) it out. Then the pathogen has the opportunity to become internal, and it aims directly for our organs, which can be lethal.
When this happens, the channels of the body erect defenses to protect the organs. In the case of arthritis, the channels conduct the offending pathogen away from the viscera, park it in the synovial fluid of the joints, where it can stay undetectable for years. When the body weakens, loses its capacity to keep the pathogen hidden, the pathogen leaks into the bone, creating arthritis.
Wow.
There are many routes for pathogens, and all sorts of diseases, autoimmune and otherwise. These diseases are protective measures, preventing our death by redirecting pathogens away from the viscera.
And, most importantly, this is all avoidable, by listening to the body, getting adequate rest and staying hydrated.
Did you grab a sip of your warm beverage yet?
Are you realizing you might need to be hydrating more, in any regard?
In sharing Ann’s wisdom with you, I’m realizing:
Meditation is hydration for the mind.
{Audio practice is above for you… for all subscribers this week.}
As we practice, we become more aware of the breath, opening channels to the vast mind, allowing all the small mind’s matters to be subsumed by simple awareness.
When we let the brain relax, we’re hydrating the synapses with care. Can you feel it?
So thank you for your practice. Maybe grab some warm lemon water.
One more note:
September 12th-16th, 2025
Dr. Sara Szal (bestselling author of multiple books on hormones and women’s health, formerly known as Dr. Sara Gottfried) and I are co-teaching a tiny (22 max) retreat for women in magnificent Santa Fe this fall. 8 spaces remain.
Come practice, learn, evolve and rest with us in the beautiful colors of the fall in the southwest. Details on The Big M here and linked in images below.
Join us.
And if you’d love two months of practice on Glo for free, click here or below.
Share this post