Life is 50/50 meaning that it sucks half the time and is great the other. We get to choose our 50% discomfort, and choose ultimately where this discomfort will take us. BUT, I challenge you to consider that if you don’t choose your 50%, chances are we will be victim to it. Tune in today as we unpack the 50/50 paradox of life, and how you can ultimately use it to your advantage.

Welcome to Your Living Health, the podcast where we talk about real life strategies to reduce chronic inflammation. Each episode will uncover tools for you to lose weight and achieve optimal health. I’m your host, Carly Lucchesi, I’m a UC Davis trained registered dietitian and I’m also a life coach. Together let’s coach through the science of inflammation, but in a way that is simple, purposeful and fun.

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Hey there! Welcome back! Today we are going to continue focusing on the top-down approach to managing your chronic inflammation. As we know from previous episodes, inflammation can be caused by two different sources. There is bottom-up inflammation which is triggered from environment exposure, food, genetics or micronutrients. Bottom up means that the inflammation starts from a trigger in your body, then moves to tell your brain to generate inflammation. Then there is top-down inflammation which can be triggered by a lack of intentional brain management. Top down means that the reaction starts in your brain, then cascades down to your body to create inflammation.

Today is a beautiful day, and why this day is beautiful is because we are going to think on a higher level. We are going to gain clarity over some life truths that aren’t talked about enough while growing up. We are going to focus on and gain perspective of the reality that life is great half the time, and sucks the other half. This is the paradox of the 50/50. It doesn’t matter how much money, education, talents, friends, or love you have, the inevitability of life is that 50% of it will be uncomfortable. The only difference will be the flavor of discomfort you find yourself in, or better yet, the flavor of discomfort you choose.

There are about over 300 words to describe the various emotions that we feel, and each of these emotion words help us to describe the unique ways that we feel emotions. What I mean by that is each of these emotions releases its own unique chemical cascade that affects everything in our body differently. Rage feels different than angry, excitement feels different than delight, shame feels different than guilt. Where and how it feels different is going to be unique to you, because your brain releases its own chemical cascade, and your body reacts to that cascade in different ways. But more importantly, I want you to notice that some emotions feel comfortable, and some emotions feel uncomfortable. Anger feels less comfortable than happy, right? This is of course an obvious example.  But there are many more emotions that aren’t quite so black and white. Emotions like courage, patience, acceptance, or even shock aren’t quite as potent on the discomfort scale as rage or anger, but even still they remain in the flavor of discomfort versus comfort. This is just part of the 50% of life that is inevitably uncomfortable.

For example, when I’m about to go on stage to give a presentation to a room full of people, and I want to be in the emotion of courage. Courage for me feels quite uncomfortable. I experience knots in my stomach, sweaty palms, racing heart, brain fog, all the things. It kind of sucks to be in this emotion, to actually lean into this feeling. Courage is definitely not rainbows and daisies. But I do notice that courage feels a little more comfortable terror, and I’m still residing in the category of discomfort, so it’s a favorable swap. Seeking the discomfort of courage is actually the thing that benefits me in this moment. It helps me to be alert and focused, and helps me to acknowledge that there is fear, but with courage I know I can support myself through it. This emotion serves me, even though it is part of the 50% discomfort of life.

Then there are of course flavors of emotion on the positive side. Elated and delight is much more potently positive than satisfied or invigorated. There are different levels of comfort just like there are different levels of discomfort. And each of these different intensities is grounded in the unique chemical cascade your brain releases in response to a thought that you think.

But now I want you to tune into the actions that each of these emotions’ drives. When you are operating from the energy of anger, what are your actions? And how different are these actions than when you’re operating from the energy of… say… acceptance? Notice how each of these actions you choose to adopt can be useful or un-useful. Energy of anger resulting in the action of yelling at your spouse, probably not that useful, right? It creates a result of disconnect when you might want connection and understanding instead. But intentionally generating the emotion of acceptance may feel equally uncomfortable, but will create the action of open communication and the result of connection and understanding that you may be desiring. The paradox of the 50/50 of life is inevitable, but the beauty lays in the arena of choice. We get to choose how we feel, 100% of the time. Sometimes anger is the exact emotion that I want to create, because I want to be angry when I smash my finger with a hammer. I know that acceptance is available to me, but in that moment, I WANT to feel angry! Just like when I go on stage, there are many emotions available to me. I could choose fear, I could choose hesitant, I could choose anxious, but the emotion that I WANT to choose in that moment is courage. Because the actions I take from courage look very different than the actions I’ll take from fear. Each are uncomfortable, and trigger similar feels within the systems of my body, but courage drives me to useful actions that drive me closer to the person I want to be.

So knowing that life is inevitably 50/50, and that you get to choose your discomfort, why not try to tip the scales a little and seek more of an 80/20 balance. If you choose your emotions anyway based on your thoughts, why not just choose happy thoughts? Well my friends, then you come across very weird and creepy instead of genuine and sane. When I smash my finger with a hammer, I WANT to choose angry. I want to choose discomfort. I know happy is available to me, but how weird and creepy would I be if I smashed my finger, and forced the thought “I love smashing my finger! This is my favorite!” Lies, right?! Not only will you seem weird to others, you will be weird and untruthful to yourself. The truth of the situation is… it sucks to smash your finger. It’s the part of life where I’m like… yup… this sucks. And when I accept that life is 50/50, I’m no longer as resentful at the situation. I’m not thinking thoughts like “this shouldn’t happen! I never should smash my finger!” I’m more resting in the truth that smashing your finger sucks, and I’m going to just lean into this suck embracing that the 50% positive is right around the corner.

But I also want you to tune into some other personalities that instead think that life is more of a 20/80 balance where life is mostly uncomfortable and sucky. We all know these people, the glass is half empty and bad things always happen to me type personalities. This is where the 50/50 paradox is the truth I want you to lean on. Know that life only sucks 50% of the time. If you want to choose to tip the scale to the side of comfort, you might appear weird and creepy and maybe a little desperate. But also know that if you think that life is 20/80, remember that this is something you are choosing. Life is 50/50 by default, any other percentage is by choice. You have the choice to find evidence for anything you believe, and if you choose to believe the thought that life sucks MOST of the time, guess what you will find evidence for? EVERYWHERE YOU GO. If you choose to think that life sucks most of the time, I promise that you will create the reality that life sucks most of the time. Your brain will go to work finding all the evidence in every situation, in every encounter, and in every experience. But it is also available to instead find acceptance and peace in the truth that life only sucks 50% of the time. And if life only sucks 50% of the time, asking yourself where you’re choosing to make it suck for the other 30%? Asking questions like, “What other thoughts are available to me in those specific situations?”  Maybe when I smash my finger, the 50% inevitability is that smashing your finger hurts! And it happens sometimes! Ugh!! But you CAN add another 30% suck by adopting the thought… “this always happens to me” “Nobody else smashed their finger today, of course I’m the one that did”  “Cool, today I smashed my finger, tomorrow I’m going to smash my finger again… of course I have to do things involving a hammer. I can’t have an easy life that doesn’t include hammers” You see how you can spin life to include another 30% suck? Thoughts that might keep the 50% clean would be “Crap, I hate smashing my finger!” and leaving it cleanly at the truth of it. You hate smashing your finger, but it doesn’t mean that you always smash your finger, and it doesn’t mean that you’re going to do it again, or that you’re less than because you have to have a hammer swinging job. It just sucks to smash your finger. Period.

So how does this impact your chronic inflammation? You guessed it. Your thoughts create your feelings, and your feelings drive this chemical cascade that often results in system stress. This system stress is a good thing… in moderation. 50% of life sucks type moderation. If we keep this cascade checked to the 50% of life, chances are your body will be in balance and use that 50% negative emotion for our good. It will use this stress to promote cellular cleanup type activities. BUT, if you choose thoughts that create 80% negative emotion, notice that your chemical cascade will be on chronically. This is where you can get yourself into trouble. But the good news? You are 100% in control to recalibrate your life sucks scale back to it’s 50% default. The power is in the awareness of what thoughts you are choosing to think. What questions you are asking your brain. And what evidence you are asking your brain to find for you. Sometimes even just simply being onto yourself when you are looking for the discomfort can be what changes everything for you. There is no escaping the 50/50 paradox, it just is part of being a human. There is no escaping it, so why add more pain by not accepting it. And life doesn’t suck more than 50% of the time, so why create pain and chronic disease when it doesn’t need to be there. The choice is yours, and I hope you choose to accept what is. I’ll talk to you next week everyone, bye!