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Welcome to the Healing on Purpose podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Miriam Rahav. The content of this show is meant for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any illness or health condition. Please discuss all information shared herein with your own personal health authority. I hope you find value in this episode. This podcast is also available on YouTube on the Healing on Purpose channel, should you want to look up any of the graphics, diagrams, or other visuals mentioned in the show. Links to the podcast and its YouTube channel will also be available on my practice website, https://rahavwellness.com. Please join me on my Facebook group, Healing on Purpose podcast with Dr. Miriam Rahav, to continue this conversation. Enjoy the show.
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She Hello. Thank you for joining me right now, because right now, at this very moment, is the perfect time. The time you choose is always the perfect time to step onto and walk further on the divine path to healing on purpose. On purpose means with intention and with an awareness of what one is doing. In other words, with consciousness. You You were made on purpose, and that purpose is your entirety, your Shalom. Today, I would like to speak with you about the topic Resiliency on your Journey. I’d like to share with you some words from the introduction of esteemed scientist and author and speaker and researcher Greg Braden and his book Resilience from the Heart: The Power to Thrive in Life’s Extremes. Here is his introduction, or a section of his introduction. From the breakdown of national economies and the global shift of energy dominance to the realities of climate change and the failure of war to solve our differences, a convergence of extreme conditions unlike anything known in the history of the world is upon us. It’s because now is different that the thinking of the past no longer works to solve our problems.
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Life gets better, and resilience is the key. It’s important to remember that the only things breaking down in our lives right now are ways of living and thinking that are no longer sustainable. Personal resilience makes room for big shifts in our lives and is our greatest ally in our time of extremes. Thank you, Greg Braden, for these powerful, resonant, and truthful words. Resilience makes room for big shifts in our lives and is our greatest ally in our time of extremes. I wanted to speak about resilience in the physical body, and specifically, resilience as a key for healing at the level of the mitochondria. To bridge from my hypothesis about resilience as part of healing at the level of the mitochondria, I’d like to just remind us of the definition of the word resilience. I have looked at a few definitions, and mostly this is what I come up with. A physical resilience is the ability of a substance to return to its original shape after being bent, stretched, or pressed. Then, of course, there is another connotation, which is the ability to be happy, successful, again after something difficult or bad has happened. Isn’t that so interesting that in the definitions themselves, there is both a physical definition of returning to an original shape after being bent or stretched or pressed, and also our ability to anchor happiness and success after something difficult or bad has happened.
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How are both relevant? Well, let’s imagine that our health has been changed. Perhaps we’ve been suffering from symptoms such as fatigue, such as pain. Perhaps we’ve actually gotten a diagnosis such as cancer, and our faculties are stretched to their limits as to how we might cope in a time of adversity. And finding the ability, perhaps at the level of the mitochondria, to cultivate a resiliency might be the key to more than one process. Let me explain. We are multicellular organisms, and our ability to even be multicellular organisms is believed to be hinged on the ability of each cell in our cooperative organism to manufacture its own energy. That energy is manufactured at the level of a subcellular organelle known as the mitochondria, also described as the powerhouse of the cell. It is mostly what we eat that we know gives us energy, and what we consume and what is processed through assimilation, physical assimilation of our nourishment that is converted through many steps down to what we call our macronutrients, which are either carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. These are all able to enter a cell and then enter the mitochondria, which is inside the cell, and be converted converted through a multi-step process into the currency of energy that is produced in our mitochondria called ATP.
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Now, why is this important because energy is the essence of life. Having energy is also the foundation of our resiliency. If we cultivate energy, then we will have the strength, literally, physically, metaphorically, figuratively, to face our challenges and to find perhaps ways to adapt, but it starts with our ability to be physically adapted to change. For example, we have co-evolved over a millennia to be able to thrive in times of plenty, be able to make energy from things like carbohydrates, be it potatoes, be it rice, be it grains of various elk that have been the staple foods of so many cultures since we have appeared on this planet. We also have the ability to make energy from protein. There are certain cultures or certain times where protein is more available and therefore protein is a source of energy. Sometimes there is fat, either from our diet or from a very interesting metabolic switch that takes place when we don’t have food coming in from the outside, and that is our own storage. Fat is a very calorically dense, energy-dense storage form of energy. When we don’t have food coming to us from outside source, that is a signal via a very important signaling molecule known as insulin, to switch from assimilating energy to being able to use our own stored energy, which exists in the form of fat.
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Fat breakdown products, known as ketones, are extremely efficient sources of energy, also able to be used by our mitochondria. Our ability to make energy from different molecules, be they carbohydrates, proteins, or fats, is the fundamental source of our metabolic resiliency on a molecular level. Interestingly, our mitochondria are believed to come from ancient organisms. I wanted to share my screen with you and show you a really neat video depiction of this that I have found recently on my search on the interwebs. Here we go. Here we have an image of a mitochondrial membrane and a protein complex. I mean, the stuff that they’re able to do right now to give realistic depictions of what’s happening inside our cells will hopefully help you not maybe understand, but marvel at the infinite complexity that we We are all invited to appreciate and understand that is happening in our body. Here there’s an explanation, mitochondria, the Cells Powerhouse. By the way, I’m on a website called NatureDocumentories.Org. They’ve created this animation of the mitochondria. They’re talking about mitochondria being once freely living organisms that have somehow become symbiotically, which is cooperatively incorporated into us so that each cell can be responsible for its own energy manufacturer, and so that our bodies become this massively complex cooperative organism where each takes responsibility for energy generation, and yet we work cooperatively together, all for the purpose of creating health, for creating, this is my hypothesis purpose, finding, discovering, and actually living in our potential as transcendent beings created by love, created to love, of, created as potential generators of infinite life and light, that we have only yet begin to scratch the surface of our understanding.
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Anyway, I digress. That theory of how mitochondria were separate organisms that symbiotically became incorporated into cells so that we could become multicellular organisms is known as the endosymbiont hypothesis. We also know that mitochondria has its own genetic information, its own DNA, and that the inheritance pattern of mitochondrial DNA is through the egg. The egg, the maternal lineage, carries the mitochondrial DNA from mother to daughters and sons, and from their mothers to their daughters and sons. Interestingly, it is this, the feminine mitochondrial DNA RNA, that is the energy passed through maternal lineages since the beginning of our existence as a multi-cellular cooperative organisms. I I thought it might be really just beautiful. I don’t have the sound on here, but just the visual. And of course, you are welcome to have a look at this website, https://naturedocumentaries.org/18697/mitochondria-cells-powerhouse-harvardx-biovisions/. And look at this depiction of the mitochondrial membrane with this energy complex in it and this fluidity of this membrane, which we are learning is at the heart also of our health and a subject that we speak upon much in clinical practice, in my clinical practice at Rahav Wellness. We do a lot to support the health of this membrane, the mitochondrial membrane.
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Here we literally have the engines that make our energy. Look at it. It defies description. It looks like something fantastical Yet this is the incredible development that we have of beginning to be able to visualize some of the infinite complexity. By the way, this is one intermembrane space of one mitochondria making this molecule called ATP, which is the currency of energy in our body. And incredibly, we have anywhere between 200 and 2,000 mitochondria in each cell of our body with a preponderance of mitochondria in our nerve cells. I’m going to stop sharing here for a minute and return to me. I see my video signal turned off for a minute there. Anyway, I just wanted to share that That incredible and magical image of the mitochondria that hopefully you were all able to see and appreciate. Now, what happens if we have certain pressures on our cells and on our organism? For example, if we are exposed to mitochondrial toxins, what are some examples of mitochondrial toxins? Well, sadly, there are many within our environment, including ones that we screen for on a daily basis in my clinical practice at Rahav Wellness, for example, lead and, for example, mercury, for example, arsenic, for example, cadmium.
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These are all mitotoxic. These are metals that disrupt mitochondrial function. Then we lose that mitochondrial ability to function. What is another very, very important driver of mitochondrial function? The answer is oxygen. Oxygen. When we have problems with our circulatory system. When we have problems of sluggish blood flow, we develop potentially mitochondrial injury. This is incredibly important, and you are all welcome to listen to my episode, which was featured very early in the launch of this podcast on COVID-19, and how spike protein can interrupt blood flow and lead to mitochondrial injury. As such, we lose resiliency of our mitochondria on a cellular level. This is incredibly important because this is at the heart, this loss of mitochondrial resiliency, mitochondrial function, mitochondrial ability to toggle between different types of fuel. We lose this resiliency through multiple mechanisms of action. It is time to start thinking about the body on a cellular and subcellular level and from the perspective of the mitochondria as a funnel to teach us about where and how and why we may have lost resiliency, be it through problems with circulation, be it through environmental injury, be it through problems with our hormone signals, especially that important signal that I mentioned to you called insulin.
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Insulin signals to us if we should toggle between certain kinds of fuels, such as carbohydrates and proteins, to other kinds of fuel, such as fats. If there is a problem with that signal, then we also may stand to lose mitochondrial resiliency. That phenomena can also be known as insulin resistance, which is the dominant problem problem in diabetes, where we lose the insulin signal, either because of insulin resistance or because of autoimmune destruction of the cells that make insulin, that would be a type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune response, or a type 2 diabetes. These are incredibly important to understand not only because of problems of blood sugar imbalance, but because of our understanding of mitochondria as a funnel for our subcellular resiliency, ability to make energy, and therefore, ability to have the energy to deal with the changes that we see, both in our environment that affects us us inside our body and on a macro scale in terms of societal and world-level problems. However, on the pathway to healing on purpose, it is my contention that the change starts from within, from self-consciousness and an intention to understand yourself, your mitochondria, your fulcrum for resiliency on a subcellular level that can absolutely translate into your resiliency on a macroscale and your ability to therefore potentially take place as a being with energy, able to take responsibility for your own well-being and your place, your purpose, your ability to fulfill your potential as someone who is vibrant, as someone who is joyful, as someone who has an inner strength, literally and figuratively, to be a source of strength and evolution so that you can stand in your appointed role as a person, as a member of a family, as a friend, as a coworker, as a
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diviny appointed living being, to live your life out with energy, to meet life’s challenges and develop responses that are evolutionary. I realized today might be a little bit of an abstract conversation, and yet so many things are tied in to the mitochondria, this idea of resiliency, and this idea of us experiencing extremes in our times and the invitation that is being made that we can take up the mantle, take up the invitation every day to develop consciousness around our health, around our mitochondria, and the tie into resiliency so that we can observe with hope, with even excitement, how certain systems are falling away, including our healthcare system, which is not so much focused on this common funnel for health at the level of the mitochondria and awake within yourselves, the common denominator, the awareness of the common denominator of the mitochondria, so that all of these different ideas Our circulation, our nutrition, our environmental exposures, and more, of course, there are more. How all of those different elements can come into play and inform your health in the most profound possible way. How do we work? Therefore, once we find out where our mitochondria are, and by the way, if you have insulin resistance, you you have mitochondrial injury.
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If you have poor circulation, you have mitochondrial injury. If you have If you have problems with lymph drainage, which is another important system that helps move toxins out of circulation and allows your body to regulate itself, you’re going to have problems with mitochondrial function. It is an incredible funnel. It is an incredibly important common denominator to understand. If you have problems with blood flow, hypertension, it doesn’t mean you have a beta blocker deficiency. It means that there’s something disrupting your circulation, and it’s going to affect you on a mitochondrial level. Your body an absolutely honest reporter. The things you feel have meaning, have purpose. Your body has a creator. The complexity that I showed you in that video, it is nothing that we could have imagined ourselves, but evidence of something much bigger than us that is our creator and that we are invited to begin to understand. Perhaps it is that health challenge. Perhaps it is that fatigue. Perhaps it is that brain fog. Perhaps it is the migraines that you struggle with. Perhaps it is the loss of stamina. Perhaps it is the joint pain, perhaps it is the abdominal pain, perhaps it is the bloating, perhaps it is the uncomfortable menstrual cycles, the loss of menstrual cycles, the heavy bleeding, perhaps it is whatever it is, you are invited to listen.
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You are invited to understand that this is important and this is your body honestly reporting to you that something deserves attention. The attention that you give it, the study that you do of your body, of your mitochondria, and the cultivation of your resiliency is your connection through maternal lineages, eternally all the way back to source. The source of that infinite love, that truth that created us at some point in time, that we are invited to learn through the clues of the body and only begin to begin to begin to answer the questions of, who are we really? My brothers and sisters, we are only beginning to understand having the faintest inklings of who we are. It is a time to learn who we are, to invite the crisis, to be the opportunity to learn more about the truth in our body, the truth that is embedded there since we were created. It is the the truth of our creation, and that is the study of the body, and that is the pathway to healing on purpose. I thank you so much for listening to this episode. I really look forward to your feedback, as there are so many themes that need to be developed out of this idea of resiliency and resiliency at the level of the mitochondria.
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This is the beginning of a conversation. This is the beginning of a journey that we are all, in fact, on Some of us may know it more than others. Those of us who choose to meet health challenges head-on and learn, use it as a fulcrum to learn as much as we can about ourselves. Congratulations. You’ve arrived. You’ve arrived at the onset of the pathway to healing on purpose. This is the path that those of us who have landed here in the realization that if we are to live the lives that we dream, hope, are possible to live, that we are invited to take responsibility and understand, perhaps, what was not readily understandable before, but that now more and more there are scholars, there are physicians, there are practitioners out there, there are humans who have discovered this for themselves and have found a path that is opening up to them to healing with mitochondria as a funnel for our understanding of our physiological and also our a physiological resiliency. So my friends, here we go. Embarking on a journey together. Thank you for joining me for this Musing on Healing on Purpose, and I look forward to being with you again very, very soon.
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Thanks for listening to the Healing on Purpose podcast today. I hope you found this information helpful, and I encourage you to share this episode with others who may also benefit from the information shared. Please consider rating and reviewing my podcast on Apple Podcasts so more people can find this information. I also invite you to join the Healing on Purpose podcast on Facebook continue this conversation. I’ll see you there.