Ultimately, healing flows from within. The word itself originates from "wholeness." To be whole is much more than to experience the absence of disease. It is the full and optimal functioning of the human organism, according to its nature-gifted possibilities. By such standards, we live in a culture that leaves us far short of health.
The importance of nutrition and a healthy ecology, of an environment free of toxins and pollution, need hardly be stressed. They, too, are social issues more than individual ones.
I'm often asked how people should approach their physicians, who may be very adept at their craft but limited by the narrowness of the medical ideology. "It's the same as going to a bakery," I reply. "When you enter a bakery, don't ask for salami, just as when you go to the butcher, it is no use to ask for cookies." Receive, I suggest, what the physician can offer--and often that can be miraculous--but do not seek what the doctor cannot. Find alternative sources for what most physicians cannot provide: a holistic approach that considers not organs and systems but the entire human organism. Take responsibility for how you live, the food you ingest, your emotional balance, your spiritual development, the integrity of your relationships.
Give yourself, as best you can, what your parents would have loved to grant you but probably could not: full-hearted attention, full-minded awareness, and compassion. Make gifting yourself with these qualities your daily practice.
"A culture can be toxic or nourishing," writes Thom Hartmann. If we wish to take full responsibility for health in our society, we must not only be vigilant guardians of our personal well-being, we must also work to change structures, institutions, and ideologies that keep us mired in a toxic culture.
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