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By Dr. John Huntington
You probably remember the line in the Neil Young song: “I’ve been a miner for a heart of gold”. I certainly had the song stuck in my head many a workday while chute-tapping underground at the mine, or fork-trucking anodes at the smelter for Magma Copper Company.
This was in the early 70s, just after they started making hydrochloric acid out of a noxious gas previously released into the air from the copper smelting process. San Manuel and the San Pedro Valley no longer experienced the settled sulfur smoke that would often drive us indoors as kids.
Now we had cleaner air, fed families and lots of work – all vital needs for a happy, healthy community. When you realize that close to 3,000 people were employed in our local mine alone, then compare that to Amazon’s (“poorly paid and overworked”) 110,000 employees worldwide, its easy to see the giant lack of opportunity and income that has gradually happened over the last four decades. A lot of money goes to Amazon, but as we know a tiny few get the majority of the money.
So how do we gain and maintain certainty in an uncertain world? How do we keep our hope up, stay balanced and ready for each new day? How do we cultivate the “enthusiastic perseverance” needed for a contented life? Can we really ‘mine a heart of gold’ in a world that reveres real gold?
Well, we all have our ways. Prayer, meditation, and reflection are all tools to reach a quieter, more appreciative state of mind.
Walking, gardening, painting, knitting, working outside – any activity really – when done with gentle, grateful attention on the present moment can bring us closer to calm. This is key to lowering the stress hormones that can do so much damage to our health and happiness.
In addition, when we are in our more mindful states, “in the zone” as we say, we see solutions and options more easily, worry melts away, and our playfulness, creativity and energy rise.
It is important to realize that we already know how to find this inner quiet, that it is our natural, default state. We only need to allow it to come, effortlessly. Keep remembering that the idea that, “I’ll be happy when (fill in the blank: get a job, wife, husband, new car, etc.),” never pans out, not really. That is outside/in thinking, and it really only happens the other way around.
Dr. Huntington practices Chiropractic, Biomedical Acupuncture and Physiotherapy in Oracle, Az. 520-896-9844 huntingtonchiro@hotmail.com.
John Huntington is a local business owner in Oracle. He is a chiropractor with many years in the community. He writes a health related article in Pinal Nugget.
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