"Holistic view on Health".
by Carissa Kuehn
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Most people are familiar with the conventional view of health. Conventional philosophy is that health simply is the absence of any pressing health issues or symptoms. So theoretically you could eat crappy food and take all sorts of drugs, and if you don't have any negative symptoms then you are declared "healthy". Same thing if all your blood values fall into a 'normal' range: you are declared healthy. If things look like they work okay, then you are healthy. The conventional view sees symptoms as a disease, gives you a drug to treat the symptoms, and then when the symptoms go away you are pronounced "cured" and healthy. Conventional medicine relies on the drugs, vaccines, etc. to cure the person instead of a) recognizing the value of disease (such as promoting proper immune system development, or culling populations that have grown too large for the carrying capacity of their environment) and b) letting the immune system do its work.
The holistic view is much different. The body is the ultimate curative agent; the body has the capacity to heal itself, and if given a chance, it will do so. Holistic medicines are selected to work WITH the body's natural processes instead of against it like conventional medicines. Generally, the hope of a cure is not placed in the medicine itself, but in the immune system (although many practitioners fall into the trap of trusting herbs and things to do the work, instead of trusting in the immune system). This makes taking proper care of one's body the ultimate goal. If the immune system is not healthy, the individual is not going to be healthy no matter how many drugs you give them. Besides, a truly healthy individual would have no need of those drugs (or vaccines, or pesticides, etc.).
The holistic view always remembers that the immune system of the body is what actually cures the animal/person. Thus, the goal is to keep the body and the immune system as healthy and robust as possible. This means feeding an appropriate diet and minimizing the use of things that suppress and harm the immune system. These immune suppressors include many of the compounds and chemicals in vaccines as well as many of the common pesticides we use on our pets, ourselves, and the environment. The more 'extras' we throw at the body and force it to deal with, the more the immune system will be taxed and the weaker it will get—particularly since many of these chemicals are, by nature, very immunosuppressive. So this is why a holistic view takes not only diet into account, but also vaccine and pesticide use, water quality, environmental quality, etc. All of these work together synergistically to either promote or harm health.
The holistic view of disease and medicine is also very different. Symptoms are not some disease to be treated, but are the body's way of telling us what is wrong with it and where it needs healing. Instead of prescribing some drug to suppress or counteract the symptoms (so, instead of taking aspirin to suppress a fever), a homeopathic remedy might be chosen to work WITH the symptoms, to point the body in the right direction so that the body can heal itself. The medicine is not the healer, the body is.
Holistic medicine is designed to strengthen the body as much as possible, rather than to rely on some miracle drug or cure. While noble in purpose and helpful to many people by alleviating disease symptoms, miracle drugs and vaccines can never replace the immune system. In fact, things like vaccines "work" because of the immune system. But what conventional medicines and treatments have lost sight of is the amazing power of the body to cure itself; after all, this is what the body has been doing for thousands of years without the help of medicines and vaccines. However, as a result of modern agricultural practices, modern lifestyles, and extensive reliance on drugs and vaccines, both human and animal immune systems are not nearly as robust as they should be. Our bodies are in dire need of proper healing.
Conventional and holistic philosophy also differ in their views of the immune system itself. Conventional medicine views the immune system simply as machinery, and focuses on certain parts or aspects of that mechanical pathway when describing disease and seeking cures. In the holistic view, the immune system and the body are more than its physical components. Holistic care takes the spiritual, mental, and emotional aspects into account as well. Many people hear practitioners talking about things like the "Vital Force" or "life-force", and they immediately turn tail and run because it sounds so "New Age" or "mystic". This mentality is a result of our heavy reliance on science and materialism. Anything that sounds remotely spiritual is shunned and looked down upon. If you start talking about 'energies', then you are labeled as some New Age hippie (never mind the fact that this world is, essentially, energy. That's what the Laws of Thermodynamics are all about!). Medicines like homeopathy are scoffed at because they are seen as "irrational", because they deal with things we cannot see or touch or even test and evaluate quantitatively.
But we are very spiritual and energetic beings. What homeopathic practitioners call the "life-force" is the energy within us that animates us, makes us alive, and pushes us toward life and healing. It is what spurs the body to heal itself, what gives us the will to survive. It is not just instinct or the soul; it is more than that and different from those things. The easiest way to look at it is to look at the difference between a dead person and a live person. The live person has something in them that animates them—not just the soul, but something else that encourages their body to heal when wounded physically or emotionally. That something is the life-force. We can sense it in people or animals. "That's a very strong man", without reference to physical strength. "She's a bit softer, weaker-tempered". We talk about the life-force each and every day as we describe people and their temperaments.
What does this have to do with the body and immune systems? The physical components of the immune system are what do the mechanical aspects of healing. But it is the life-force (not just an external agent like a virus) that forces it to spring into action, that pushes it to express symptoms in a certain area of the body. It is the life-force that initiates healing. The life-force is what pushes our bodies toward homeostasis and balance. When things become unbalanced, the life-force attempts to correct the balance and heal the body. These attempts to regain balance are often seen as various symptoms (such as chronic sinus infections, or colds, or any myriad of symptoms that are seen individually as "disease" but are not actually diseases in and of themselves) as the life-force tells us where the body needs healing. Homeopathic medicine then uses these symptoms to prescribe a remedy that will redirect the life-force so that it can initiate healing.
The things that throw the body and the life-force off-balance are various, but the most common 'instigators' are poor diet, vaccines, pesticide use, stress, and trauma. The holistic view of health takes all of this into account to promote a truly healthy individual who is in tune and in balance, with a strong life-force and a strong immune system. This individual is then ready and capable of handling just about anything, and can finally live up to their genetic potential.
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You can contact me at picasso@prolog.net
