JersElizabeth

…So I’m turning the Tide box over, climbing on top and hoping somebody listens – nay, THINKS – about what I’m about to say.

Though I am a cheerleader for preventative healthcare, medical research, and common-sense ways to care for oneself to keep oneself feeling healthy and vibrant both spiritually and physically, I simply do not understand why so few people challenge the status quo when it comes to “conventional wisdom.” (The Food Pyramid is Wrong.) Dr. Oz be damned, there’s more to the picture than anyone seems to see.

We’ve lost the concept of Self-Care entirely. It has been swallowed by the misinterpreted Medical Science heading, and the general frenzy of the unthinking masses has made all other Scientific fields secondary (Science is ”a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws,” according to Dictionary.com; and “Medicine” according to Webster is “the science and art dealing with the maintenance of health.” I assert here that “medicine” has come to mean less the art and more the medicating, so let’s not split hairs on points of technical definition.) The only reality we see, the only diagnosis or treatment regimen we attempt, the only wisdom we take as truth are the scribbles on a Rx pad. Men and women carrying hundreds of excess pounds of body fat are diagnosed with Diabetes, gout, high blood pressure, what have you – and we cry publicly that a cure for Diabetes must be found! There are too many stingers on this scorpion to not seek other, equally scientific, non-medicinal sources for health. (Jesus did it, for example. And he said we could too. He said it, not me…I digress.)

The physical cure for many cases of Diabetes – and beyond that, for depression, exhaustion, addiction, even cancer in some cases – is proper, conscientious Self-Care. This includes the science of medicine, the science of Christ, the science of ecology – you name it. The treatment of disease (or, “absence of ease”) is what defines the medical field today, and it is a noble field indeed. But the ease of pill-popping and accepting a diagnosis made in a 15-minute office visit under the dark cloud of malpractice insurance has made us irresponsible, even ignorant, about our own capacity for prevention and healing. The medical system is currently completely overwhelmed and we must be more thoughtful about our self-care in order to bring it back to the center, clinically and financially.

We got off-track somewhere in the well-intentioned battle for better health and lost sight of the truths of our existence. We turn around post-accident, survey the wreckage and ask, “how can I un-mangle this?” The answer? Drive safely and attentively in the first place.

I’m melding two issues here by postulating that the Medical field is a branch of the Science of Existence and not the Science itself, while mentioning Jesus in the same breath. But there is a spiritual side to wellness that is equally scientific and medically verifiable, but unconventional and therefore often disregarded (unless it is invoked in a last-resort situation). But how can this be continually ignored when hospital infections alone account for as many as 18,000 premature deaths each year? Is this simply “par for the course?” Are we using our reasoning skills to answer the Health question, or are we reasoning backwards to justify the only healthcare system most of us have ever known?

We can make medical science better by exploring our existence as whole, loved, spiritual, healthy, resource-appreciative individuals, and possibly discover a more complete existence in the process.