Building A Foundation For Health
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as:
As defined by the WHO, health is NOT the absence of disease. So, what does that mean? One of the best and easiest ways to define a concept is to look at it's opposites.
Disease is the absence of health, just as ignorance is the absence of knowledge and darkness is the absence of light. But the opposite is not true.
If we understand that health is not the absence of disease, we must look at what attaining true health is. One way to look at the totality of our physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual health is "living with a sense of higher purpose and meaning". To some, that may feel out of reach or unattainable. But with the right approach, mindset and support you may be surprised at the level of health you can achieve.
Let's explore this concept in terms of knowledge:
We know that for a five-year-old to attain the highest level of knowledge, a lot of sustained effort and education is needed over decades, because knowledge is infinite. Likewise, our physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual health are also infinite and in need of sustained effort and attention to maintain the highest level of health.
In an ideal learning environment, to help a child reach its highest learning potential, it is crucial that we "diagnose" the capacities, potentialities and limitations of the child first. Then we need to create a healthy environment and develop a teaching plan that includes continuous assignments, tests and exams to ensure that he or she is constantly stimulated and growing.
Building health is not any different!
To cure a disease, we first need to identify what needs to be cured in a patient physically and recognize that all aspects of us are deeply integrated. If we know the real cause of disease and know how to remove it, we could certainly achieve amazing summits of health in all those areas. But building a sustainable foundation is a coordinated effort on the part of both the patient and the physician.
What Is The Physicians Responsibility?
For a physician to establish a solid foundation of health, he or she must inquire about all aspects of our physical being, from head to toe looking for anything that is not 100 % perfect.
- Emotional -
Not just anxiety and depression for which we have pills, human beings can suffer from a multitude of emotions including shame and guilt, jealousy, hatred, disgusts, embarrassments, disappointment. - Mental -
All the cognitive issues. - Spiritual -
All existential challenges such as sense of self and identity, purpose and meaning, limiting or unhealthy belief system, superstitions.
Once we have collected all this information, it is then up to the physician to ensure that the patient is continually encouraged and guided to reach a higher level of health from one visit to the next.
To put it simply, every single visit to the physician should focus three things:
- A holistic diagnosis
- A treatment plan that has the prevention of future health issues including an understanding of family predispositions
- The eradication of the present challenges physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
The physician’s role is also to work with the patient to identify all the triggers and the obstacles to curing and removing them. You learn more about what I mean by the “real” cause of the disease HERE.
Once the real cause is identified and remedied, and once the obstacles are removed, we need to make sure that the healing process is maintained and continued and that from one visit to another, our patients are in a higher state of health.
No harm should be at the core of all therapeutic interventions. To avoid harm, it is not just enough to have a good intention of not harming. If we do not fully understand what is unique about each patient, what are the predisposition and susceptibilities of the patient and what needs to be cured in a patient, we may unintentionally suppress the symptoms, giving an impression of initial improvement, with many side effects and overall aggravation of the patients in the long hull.
Permanent eradication of the cause of the disease and a rapid and gentle restoration of health is the paramount duty of a competent physician
And this can only happen once we remember that no two patients are the same, that every symptom has a unique significance and expression in a patient and it is deeply connected to everything else that is affecting the patient. Finding the common link between all the symptoms is the only way to assure that we are treating the whole person and not just some parts of the patient.
What Is The Patient's Responsibility?
We are so used to going to doctors only when we are sick that we have not been trained to recognize that our body and mind are constantly giving us signals showing what is not optimal regularly.
Our body is extremely intelligent and is constantly talking to us. Do we wake up refreshed? Is our appetite too much or too little? Do we have cravings for certain things and aversions for others? How is our thirst? Our energy? Sleep pattern, digestion and stool, bladder, sexual desire, menstruation, and other hormonal issues, is the skin too dry or too oily? How is perspiration? Are all nails healthy? How do we react to heat or cold or change of weather? What are our fears and phobias? Do we have nightmares or recurring dreams? How is our memory or concentration? How is our self-confidence, feelings of superiority or inferiority? Self-blame, guilt, shame, anger, anxiety, hatred,...
The more a patient examines self and recognizes areas of one's life that are limiting and not optimal, the more we can share with
a trained physician the signs and symptoms that intelligently point to what needs to be cured in a patient. And of course, once one receives a treatment plan, it is important to pay attention to what is getting better ( in every plane), what remains the same and
what is getting worse.
Whatever is remaining the same or if anything gets worse will guide a competent physician to have a deeper understanding of what could be the root cause of our ailments so the treatment plan can be fine-tuned to make sure that the patient is constantly improving in all areas.
Of course, the physician can never do certain things for you. Nothing replaces healthy nutrition, and the doctor can not exercise or meditate for you. Human beings are not meant to live sedentary life. And creating a space for gratitude, meditation and connection to our own higher self and to the higher consciousness that is animating all life forms is vital to healthy growth.
So What Does Perfect Health Look Like?
Anytime I delve deep into my patient's symptoms, I hear words and sensations that have a ‘closed and disintegrating” quality: stiff, tense, tight, rigid, cramp, constricted, squeezed, squashed, crashed, weighted, heavy, limited, unable, trapped, suffocated, poisoned, bandage, bound, pulled in, stagnant, burning, destroying, devastated, shattered, cutting ... A patient may have one or many of the above sensations in physics, emotional, mental, and spiritual level. Usually the whole expresses itself in a part and vice versa.
A state of health is about gradually moving away from the above limitations to a state of openness ( on all levels). Fears are removed, hopelessness is changed to hope, and faith, limitations and rigidities are transformed to flexibility and stagnation to flow. Any sense of loneliness, isolation and separation transformed into a deep sense of belonging and connectedness to self, to others and the universe. In that state of openness and connectedness, the possibilities will become endless, creativity flows, the whole world will become our playing field, and we are not stuck to our old habits and belief systems and predispositions that have been passed on to us for many generations. Through cellular memory. A healthy being has a deep respect for self and others and has a deep sense of sacredness for all life forms and cares about the inner and the outer environment as they are deeply connected.
