Pop quiz: When is the best time to schedule a healing?
a). When feeling sick
b). When feeling stressed
c). When feeling awesome
d). None of the above
e). All of the above
I arrived to my most recent acupuncture appointment feeling awesome. I’ve been working with my healer for months, and we had gotten my body into balance to a point where time had passed and I didn’t feel dependant on our sessions. I felt great, free of needing an appointment. I almost cancelled my next scheduled date, because I figured, “I’m not sick, so I may as well wait until I’m feeling low again and save our session until then.” Then I realized, this way of thinking is exactly what makes me sick. I was just waiting for, and inviting in, the next cycle of low energy to bring me down. I was forgetting the purpose of our work together: to create healing in my body. So I paused and asked myself, what if instead of passively waiting, I proactively built upon the good energy I was feeling currently? I could remind my body of how it is I feel when I’m really flowing in balance.
I’ve never experienced those feelings of flow in a cubicle or in a hospital. My secret to feeling so great is only partly to do with seeing an acupuncturist and other occasional healers. These days, I spend much more time in nature. I get outside as much as I possibly can: to study, to work, to walk the dog, to get downtown, to bike to school. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt really well and alive. In fact, the last time I can remember feeling great consistently was when my office was a ski mountain, and I spent every day outdoors.
My original line of thinking is how the healthcare industry currently operates (and I was operating within this paradigm), and the 2nd thought is how wisdom healing works. This is the shift in thinking that the Healthcare Industry needs to embrace in order to come in harmony with the earth, and therefore really heal on a systematic level.
“The leading cause of death for all of us under 85 is cancer, and 90 percent of those cancers, according to the World Health Organization, are environmentally induced and theoretically preventable…a sizeable number can be attributed to pollution…It’s also been clearly established that there’s a massive environmental component in heart disease.” (The Sky Is Falling. No, Really, 2006, p. 19)
In fact, the health and hygiene revolution emerged from the industrial revolution, it was a respose to the symptoms, not the root cause of illness.
Now that is a huge task to accomplish. But we can begin to shift the problem by shifting the cultural mindset of medicine: It is easier to prevent than to treat.
Western medicine is starting to implement this paradigm. Many major health systems are now beginning to focus on the prevention of diseases rather than treatment after the fact of illness. What researchers are finding in their study is a correlation between environmental exposures to air pollutants and chronic diseases such as cancer, asthma, coronary artery disease, to name a few. If we are to find the root of these causes for prevention, we must look further than the body itself to what the body consumes, breathes, relates with, and the environment (Yeatts, 2006, p. 634). The reviewers of this study also observed that farm children have a lower incidence rate of asthma than children who do not grow up on farms. (Yeatts, 2006, p. 639).
This is true for the earth’s problems. It will take much more effort to treat the ills we have created than to prevent them now. We can increase what is working, and slowly decrease what is no longer serving us as global society. This also means finding alternate means of energy instead of fixing the carbon problems later on.
Not only is it good for you to take care of yourself every day, but it also feels good to eat well, sleep well, meditate, and exercise. Say I do end up contracting a disease. Well, then, the best medicine is to eat well, sleep well, meditate, and exercise. I am already taking care of myself. Care is not a once a year thing we do when we go to the doctor. It is every moment, every day.
The Answer to the Pop Quiz: The best time to schedule a healing is now. It can be as simple as centering yourself with a breath or taking a walk. As simple as turning out your lights or committing to recycling. A commitment to holistic wellness, instead of polluting your body and rivers. There is never a “time” for healing. We are always, with every one of our choices, working our way towards wellness or illness. Simultaneously in our bodies and the planet.
Swimme, B. (Writer, Actor), & Busch, C. (Director). (1990). A New Prosperity [Episode 12]. In PBS (Producer) Canticle of the Cosmos. San Francisco, CA: Center for the Story of the Universe.
The sky is falling. No, really. (2006). U.S. Catholic, 71(4), 18-23.
Yeatts, K., Sly, P., Shore, S., Weiss, S., Martinez, F., Geller, A., & … Selgrade, M. (2006). A Brief Targeted Review of Susceptibility Factors, Environmental Exposures, Asthma Incidence, and Recommendations for Future Asthma Incidence Research. Environmental Health Perspectives, 114(4), 634-640.
