Without health, life is only a state of suffering. A healthy body is a guest chamber for the soul. A sick body is a prison. Good health is true wealth. Wealth cannot buy good health. No amount of material possessions can make up for or really be enjoyed in ill health.
When speaking about health, I am not just referring to a lack of illness or symptoms. For many people, health is defined as not being sick or an absence of symptoms. Health is in fact the presence of vitality, passion, love and enthusiasm. In the presence of health, joy and happiness, a few physical symptoms would not be enough to make you feel unhealthy. Health is something you have or earn, maintain and consequently enjoy.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine wrote ” A wise man should consider health as the greatest of human blessings and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit (learn) from his illnesses.” Healthy people do not postpone a wellness lifestyle or health activities. They practice them right now. Embracing health, using illness as a teacher, living with vitality and passion, being loving and enthusiastic right now no matter what else is going on is the attitude of real wealth. “Long life to you! Good health to you and your household! Good health to all that is yours. (1 Samuel 25:6)” Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. ( 3 John 1:2 )
Include Body, Mind and Emotions
Holistic Health is the reason that health coaching is necessary. In the past when I was working as a Naturopath, Homeopath and Herbalist, a patient would come to me with an ailment or pain. I would assess their problem using symptom diagnosis, iridology, nutritional analysis, blood tests, hair analysis, kinesiology, reflexology, dark field microscopy, ayurvedic and chinese medicinal profiles, check their genetic background, their lifestyle, their emotional status and their stress levels. I would find out how their immune systems were functioning, whether they had enough vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, glyconutrients ,enzymes and antioxidants to heal themselves and stay healthy.
I would look into their home and work environments to see if they were being exposed to excessive chemicals. I would check their personal care products, household cleaning products and possible toxins that they were exposed to in their place of work. Based on all this we would detoxify their bodies and rebuild them using top class nutritional supplements, make sure that they got enough exercise and relaxation, and ensure that they had a spiritual purpose for being alive that worked for them.
Then I would ensure that they were happy in their careers/jobs and personal relationships. Reading all this you might ask,” Why would anyone need anything more? Isn’t this a holistic approach?” The answer is YES & NO! Your health, personal relationships, financial status, career, weight, addictions, stress levels, self esteem, self confidence all effect each other. If any of these are unbalanced there will be a negative impact on your health.
Coaching is the process that moves you steadily in the direction that you desire. It is a system that ensures you are clear on what you want and follow through by doing what you undertook to do in a systematic manner. A coach is someone who supports you and holds you accountable for doing what you said you were going to do so that you achieve your goals. We all have an inner coach. In order to be able to activate your inner coach, start by working with an external coach. A coach enhances your ability to coach yourself successfully towards your goals. Healing, health and happiness should be goals for everyone.
Dr Oz hits the nail on the head when he says that coaching is vital to achieve physical, mental and emotional health habits and values. To attain holistic health, we need to change grow and expand. Most people battle to swallow a course of antibiotics ie to take one pill a day for several days. Research shows that people take medication until they feel better, not according to what the doctor told them to do. Why are we so blocked about our health maintenance? Why are you unable to keep on an exercise program consistently? Why do you eat in a very healthy manner for a short period of time and then go back to your old habits. We are going to explore the subject in this blog. Could humans be programmed to function as slaves without much concern for their wellbeing?
Hidden beliefs, attitudes, emotional scars and a host of other factors also impact your behavior. You need to detoxify emotionally in order to be free to go after the health and happiness you want. In addition you need to break the old programming which is dehumanizing. You can choose to no longer be a slave, to have a noble life purpose!
The Pill for Every Ill
We come from a youth culture. Most young people are healthy, fit and have a zest for life. While young and healthy, all this work on body, mind and emotions looks like hard work and a waste of time. Along comes the brainwashing ! You are taught that you must swallow drugs to make your illness and pain go away. You are also taught that looking after your health is for health nuts. The medical field wants us to accept that there is a pill for every ill. So why bother with a healthy lifestyle. You are programmed to believe that it is a waste of time and money! You are told to value your material wealth and possessions as being all important.
Medical health centers and hospitals are everywhere. They diagnose illness and dispense drugs and/or surgery if the person is sick enough. The medical system encourages you to be passive and do what you are told by “my doctor” who is a God like authority. This excludes taking personal responsibility for your own health. On a subtle level there is the meme that looking after body, mind and emotions is actually selfish, indulgent, a waste of time and really over the top. Most movies and television programs poke fun consistently at health fads and health nuts. Disinformation and lies constantly appear in the media about nearly all health programs and healthy lifestyle. This has resulted in the public becoming cynical about health reform,while trusting the medical system.
Most people battle to consistently look after their health in the first place. For starters you are not taught from a young age to take care of your body other than going to a doctor. You are taught to wash your skin and nothing about washing your insides- your organs, blood vessels etc. Detoxification is left out of your basic hygiene knowledge. Understanding that the body mind and emotions are able to heal themselves is not taught nor trusted by most people. We exercise while we are young. As we age, we have children, put on weight, acquire lots of addictions and become fatigued from our stressful lifestyle. We move less.
The ever inviting couch and DSTV win the war on fitness. We become more and more housebound as we age. We live outdoors less and less . Then there is food. Food, food, glorious food. TV has created the foodie culture. Also there are home deliveries of fast food which only require you to pick up your phone and order it. If you want gourmet cooking we are bombarded with endless cooking programs. They pay minimum attention to health and focus on lavish eating pleasure. Why do they not do both? Eating is supposed to be a pleasure. Eating the right food for your individual body is a challenge. Awakening your taste buds to how delicious simple natural food is, is a twenty first century challenge. As we get used to all the super yummy food, we forget how to eat healthy food it garnished with simple herbs and spices. Surely the aim of eating is nutrition,pleasure and health maintenance.
Holistic Health
You want something in your life to change! You want your health and the quality of your life to improve! In order to move forward you will encounter blocks and self sabotage tendencies. These are caused by your beliefs and emotional wounds. Other things that hold us back may involve money or career; deep seated mental or emotional habits; relationship problems or the need for a personal relationship; addictions (eg smoking, drinking, cell phones); a weight or energy problem; negative beliefs/lack of self esteem or confidence; fear of risking change and many others.
Body——-Mind——Emotions——Spirit/Soul
Your health is impacted by all of the above. Generally they all effect each other. That is why I offer coaching in all these facets of life. To improve or create a relationship, you may need a greater income or better health. Break an addiction and you may lose weight, improve your self confidence, attract a better job, afford to attract a relationship and you end up taking better care of your health.
Some coaches call this Life Coaching. Your entire life affects your health. I have spent 40 years helping people restore their health. Today I call myself a Health Coach. Your life and your health are effected by every facet of your personal, environmental and work life. That is where the concept of Holistic Health comes from.
Old school of thinking involves you running to the doctor to suppress your health problems. You can take pills to suppress every pain or illness. What about google? Google+the media are owned by big pharm and big agri. Most health seekers who google are caught by in trap. You do not know that the mixture of truth and lies on the internet are calculated to lead you to drug usage.
Various doctors and specialists treat different parts of the body. Psychologists and psychiatrists try together to fix the mind and emotions and resort to chemicals most of the time. That is the opposite of holistic treatment which embraces one system, one entity.
Why is health so low on most peoples list of priorities? Society already labels you a health nut if you take responsibility for your health. Food and addictive eating serve to not only to nourish you but to drown out your uncomfortable overwhelming negative emotions like fear, anger, frustration, boredom, failure, grief, cynicism etc. Those emotions need to be dealt with as much as being at war with your germs, In fact if you heal the negative emotions, your germ and parasite populations tend to die out.
Answer me a simple question. Why do you get ill? What is the purpose of some sort of a breakdown occurring? Internal stress causes you to use up great amounts of nutritional building blocks. As these run low, your genetic weaknesses kick in and disease processes flourish or at least bother you. My answer to my question is that pain, unhappiness and illness are inner requests for change, growth and repair.
Do the inner work and you can reduce your stress levels. It takes some work. It involves your mind, emotions and environment. You can always fortify your system with foods, herbs, supplements and a stress relieving program or lifestyle. Coaching is the system that ensures that you delete unhealthy habits and install new healthy ones. This is way superior than suppressing symptoms!