By now, if you’ve read some of my previous articles, you know I like to equate the physical body to a car—or another type of vehicle. This perspective is rooted in one of the foundational teachings found across nearly all spiritual traditions: that we are not our bodies. We are the life force that animates the body. We are the soul living in a body, even though many of us were taught in school that the body has a soul.

Think of it like this: there’s the car, and there’s the driver. Just because we’re behind the wheel doesn’t mean we’ve become the car—we’re simply the one operating it. When you adopt this same perspective about the human body, something powerful begins to happen. A kind of clarity sets in. Magic ensues.

Like all vehicles, the body needs fuel to function. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re always refueling—constantly drawing in energy in various forms to keep going. I’ll never forget when I was a teenager, standing in the garage of a family friend who also happened to be our mechanic. He sniffed the air and said, “Do you smell that?” I nodded, mostly pretending to understand while just wanting the keys to my early-90s Honda Accord. “That’s bad gas,” he said, then explained how the ethanol-laced fuel I was using was slowly ruining my car. “Always use better gas if you want it to last,” he warned.

I’m sure I nodded in agreement, then filled up with the cheapest gas I could find so I could still afford a $0.99 double cheeseburger at lunch.

Fast forward 30 years, and the same principle applies—only now the vehicle is my body. What we put into it matters. Sure, aging is natural. A 1990 Honda Accord is never going to be the newest car on the lot. But it can still run beautifully if it’s well cared for. It might need special parts, limited use, and a little extra attention—but with proper upkeep, it can outlast flashier, newer models.

The fuel we put into our bodies doesn’t just come in the form of food. It includes what we drink, the medications or substances we use, and even the prana we absorb through breath and environment. According to Master Choa Kok Sui, food gives us chemical prana—a form of energy we extract through digestion. When we eat low-vibration, overly processed food, the amount of usable prana is drastically reduced. That’s why you can eat a full fast-food meal and still feel energetically depleted.

For many of us, diet is the last thing we want to change. It’s easier to grab a pill than it is to change how we nourish ourselves. Corporate food science doesn’t make it any easier either—we’re constantly up against addictive chemical combinations engineered to override our body’s natural signals. But that doesn’t change the truth: we must pay attention to what we put into our vehicle.

The older we get, the more premium fuel we need. When you’re fresh off the lot, you might be able to run on junk food and caffeine. But the older your system is—and the more mileage it has—the more sensitive it becomes.

This isn’t about perfection. It’s about intention.

Changing the way we fuel ourselves is no small thing. Often, there’s emotional or mental baggage behind the choices we make—comfort foods, stress patterns, old beliefs. But like anything in life, it starts with awareness. One small shift. One better choice. One meal, one breath, one moment at a time.

So, take a look at what you’re putting into your body today. Is it premium fuel—or bad gas? Is it something that will keep your system humming with gratitude and vitality? If not, where could you upgrade—just a little?

As Master Choa taught: “The body will heal itself, if you just give it the right fuel and remove the blocks.” Start there. Your body, your vehicle, is ready to run.

If we’re not careful, pain, sickness, and general health challenges can become identity markers—rather than conditions we can overcome. One major flaw of the human mind is its natural tendency to define itself. We learn from an early age how to use thoughts and words and begin associating them with “me.”

We're taught a small collection of sounds and told, “This is your name.” From there, we start to associate objects as extensions of ourselves—“my toy,” “my blanket,” “my show,” “my bowl.” Without realizing it, we build an identity around these things, blurring the line between what we have and who we are.

This pattern continues into adulthood. Society trains us to seek more, bigger, and better. Instead of toys, we begin measuring our worth by the size of our home, our possessions, or our achievements. There’s nothing inherently wrong with desiring nice things. The deeper question is: Do we believe these things determine our value?

Do we feel worthy with or without them?

Now, let’s bring the focus back to the body.

The same lifelong conditioning that tells us to claim external things as “mine” also encourages us—subtly and unconsciously—to claim our pain, our illness, even our ailments. And here’s where the real trouble begins: we start to say things like my anxiety, my bad back, my depression, my insomnia. While these phrases may seem harmless or casual, they reinforce an energetic connection between our identity and our suffering.

As Master Choa Kok Sui teaches, “Energy follows thought.” The more you affirm something as part of your identity, the more energy you feed it. If you identify too strongly with an illness or condition, then subconsciously, healing may feel like a threat to your sense of self. After all, who would you be without it?

This is not about blame—it’s about awareness. We’ve all received this unconscious training since birth. But with awareness comes the power to choose again.

Start to notice: Are you attached to your pains and illnesses? If you are—and you remain unaware of this attachment—there’s a chance they will stay with you for life. Why? Because the body and energy system follow intention. If you believe this is just who I am, your energy will respond accordingly, sustaining that reality.

As we age, this tendency can deepen. After years of chasing identities—career titles, parenthood, possessions—we may find ourselves left with only health struggles as the remaining threads of identity. The doctor visits, the prescriptions, the diagnoses—they begin to anchor our sense of being. I’m not suggesting you created your struggle, but you may be unintentionally sustaining it.

The moment you see this pattern, it begins to dissolve.

Presence is the antidote. Awareness of our true nature—the soul behind the struggle—creates space. It’s in that space that healing begins.

As Master Choa also taught: “You are not the body. You are not the emotion. You are not the mind. You are the soul.” The soul is pure. The soul is powerful. And the soul is not sick.

So be gentle. Be honest. And ask yourself:

What parts of your identity are tied to your pain?
What might be possible if you let go?

Because whatever you hold onto… becomes you.

Show me resentment, and I’ll show you an energy blockage.

Resentment is like a long-held anger or grievance. It might be directed toward a person, or it might live quietly beneath the surface of a situation you didn’t choose. Either way, resentment is a threat to our constructed identity—all the things we believe to be true or have come to associate with our sense of self. At its core, resentment is a resistance to what is. It says:
"Wait, I don’t like this. I didn’t want this. I’m not emotionally okay with what life is giving me right now."

There’s one word in that sentence that makes it very clear this is an energetic blockage—and that word is “me.”

Now, unpacking the truth of “me” may be more than you signed up for today, but here’s the simplest way to look at it: “Me” is not actually you. It’s the voice in your head that wants to control every outcome, stay safe at all costs, and eliminate any perceived threat to your physical, mental, or emotional comfort.

You might be thinking, “Yeah, Jesse… and? What’s wrong with wanting to be safe and well?”
The short answer is: nothing. But here’s where nuance enters the picture.

According to the Buddha, one of the root causes of suffering is the “unrealistic expectation that favorable conditions will not change.”
That’s a potent teaching—worth reading again.

We spend much of our lives trying to create and maintain favorable conditions: in our homes, careers, bodies, relationships, and even our countries. So when something threatens to shift those conditions, we often interpret that change as inherently bad.
We cling. We resist. We resent.

Why? Because we’ve wrapped our identity around what was. And if those things are no longer there, who will we be on the other side of the loss?

Resentment is the soul’s alarm bell, signaling a refusal to surrender control. And yet, surrender is where peace begins.

As Master Choa Kok Sui teaches:
“When the soul is not in control, the personality becomes unstable.”
Resentment congests the solar plexus chakra, the energetic center responsible for our emotional processing. Over time, this congestion can manifest as anxiety, digestive issues, adrenal fatigue, or a chronic sense of unease. Cleansing the solar plexus—through pranic breathing, meditation, or healing—is one of the fastest ways to dissolve the energetic weight of resentment and return to clarity.

We must learn to trust in the invisible architecture of life—that even unwanted change may be part of a larger design.
As the old saying goes, “Life is happening for us, not to us.”

Yes, even when that one thing happens—the thing we fear most, the thing we never saw coming.
Even that may be a gift in disguise.

If you look back over your life, you’ll probably see many times when you resisted a change, resented it deeply… and later came to see how it shaped you for the better. It’s not the change itself that’s the problem—it’s the mental and emotional resistance to it that causes suffering.

So do what you can. Go to the polls. Speak your truth. Play your role.
But at the end of the day, remember that there is a greater plan unfolding—one that our limited ego can’t always grasp.

And no matter how it looks in the moment…
All will be well.