CHAPTER 1

GAINING PERSPECTIVE
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
— Greek Proverb

A Brief Personal History

Soon after I was born, I had eczema over most of my body. As a child, I had brief periods of asthma, and the eczema was intense every spring and summer until I was about 16. From age 17 to 21, I enjoyed good health—the best of my life. However, by age 22, hay fever started with each spring and lasted into the summer. By age 25, the asthma returned, and I had to carry a bronchial dilator with me at all times. After living on a farm for a year, I became allergic to most grass and tree pollens, dust, dogs, cats, horses, and cows, as well as eggs and bee pollen. When my doctor put me on prednisone, I began reading about the dangers of this strong form of cortisone, and I weaned myself off it with great difficulty. For most of my adult life, until I began to change my lifestyle, I suffered with all these afflictions, plus indigestion and chronic diarrhea. In later years, food allergies began to be more of a problem as well.

All my life, I felt there had to be answers as to why we become sick and diseased, and how we can return to health. I asked my physicians, “Why do doctors only treat symptoms? Why don’t they talk about the causes of illnesses?” I received no answers from them, so I asked myself, “What can I do? Do I have any power to change my health?”

In my search I continued reading material from the natural health field, feeling that the answers had to be somewhere. In this process, I found wisdom in the writings of some great practitioners and teachers: people like Doctors Arnold Ehret, Bernard Jensen, Norman Walker, and Paul Bragg. These men practiced what they preached. Dr. Walker worked until the day he died at the age of 109 while having an afternoon nap. Dr. Bragg opened the first health food store in the U.S. and wrote many books on health, and died at 95 by drowning while surfing off a California beach.

However, it was not until I came upon the teaching, research, and practice of Dr. Joel Robbins that the puzzle came together for me. Dr. Robbins explained clearly the truths about health and the disease process. Subsequently, I studied under him via the College of Natural Health, which he founded. I was awarded a Doctorate diploma, which entitles the holder to practice as a nutritional counselor in the United States of America.

During those studies, I was introduced to the writings of Dr. Henry Bieler, who wrote Food is Your Best Medicine. He treated patients for over 50 years without prescribing a drug. I also encountered the pioneering work of Dr. Royal Lee. In the 1940s, he invented machinery to produce whole food supplements that retain their life forces, using combinations of various foods. I also met Dr. Leo Roy, who spent most of his life helping people with their health and researching and writing about how the body heals itself. More recently, I became acquainted with Dr. Michael O’Brien’s work and his belief that it is never too late for a body to return to health.

Through these mentors, I came to understand how our body functions. I also learned that mainstream conventional medicine does not understand what causes most diseases. For the most part, modern medicine practices disease treatment, and subscribes to the belief that the symptom is the problem. That is, if you can eliminate the symptom, you have conquered the disease. But that is not true. I am not saying that modern medical care has no place. On the contrary, when we are in a crisis such as a traumatic injury, heart attack, or severe allergic reaction, we have some of the finest lifesaving care, procedures, technology, and medicine in the world available to us. My own life was saved by penicillin when I had blood poisoning at the age of 13. However, for our general health and to avoid developing diseases, we need to become informed and accept personal responsibility for our own health. We need to understand that disease is a process and not a “happening.” It is our lifestyle choices that determine whether a health process or a disease process takes hold in our bodies.

In 1994, I began in earnest to change my own nutritional program under the initial guidance of Dr. Robbins. It required hard work and determination to get to where I am now, but it was worth it. Since that time, the dry skin, indigestion, diarrhea, hay fever, asthma, getting up three or four times in the night, and lack of energy have been corrected. I have an energetic feeling of well-being, and now need two or three hours less sleep each night. In retrospect, I realize I made a lot of mistakes because I didn’t fully understand the health-rebuilding process. Now, I have energy that I haven’t enjoyed for many years. It feels wonderful to wake up feeling refreshed after a night’s sleep, able to think clearly without mental fog.

In the year 2000, when I added a group of electrically synergistic supplements to my diet, the rate of improvement in my health and vitality increased even further. Then, in 2004, I made a sustained effort to bring my acid-alkaline values into healthy alignment. Finally, I began to see the overall results I had been seeking and my health made great strides. But there was one more nutritional component to learn: the importance of significantly increasing the proportion of whole raw greens to my diet.

It is exciting to see and feel good health return again. It takes self-discipline and perseverance to change a lifestyle and to reverse the effects of many years of living contrary to nature’s laws. If you are prepared to take responsibility for your own health, then, as Dr. Joel Robbins says, “Ten years from now you can feel better, and be healthier, than you were ten years ago. I am happy to say I can testify to that statement! This process took me twelve years of learning and experimentation, but because of the information in this book you can make great health gains in much less time—without the mistakes I made.

I would love to have known the information in this book earlier in my life. What a difference it would have made to my own health program. That’s the whole point. The earlier that we convert to a health-building lifestyle, the younger our bodies will look and be for a longer time. When supplied with its needs, the body naturally responds with vitality. It’s an interesting and exciting adventure. And, in the process of learning and applying these principles, we can also help our loved ones and friends experience positive changes in their own health and lives.

First, let’s walk through some basic information. Understanding is necessary for us to persist in carrying through with our new health objectives. As we educate ourselves about how to be healthy, we become empowered to take the necessary steps toward achieving our own vitality for life!

Creating Health or Identifying Diseases?

This book is about how to create health. It is not about diseases. Some degenerative disease conditions are discussed, but only for the purpose of showing that they develop when the body has lost its natural balance, or homeostasis, through being deprived of its basic needs. Disease develops when the natural laws of health are broken. We need a thorough understanding and appreciation of those laws.

The human body knows how to be healthy. Our job is to supply what it needs to do its job, and not to dictate which conditions it must work on. This concept is contrary to our western way of looking at health, which focuses on trying to cure diseases. Conventional western medicine treats disease conditions or symptoms. It does not treat the basic causes of disease, the reasons why health begins to degenerate in the first place.

The “chasing the disease” approach simply doesn’t work in the long run because it can’t! If you don’t address the cause of a problem, it will just surface again later. It may arise in a different form, or it may come back in the same form but be much more serious.

When natural laws of caring for the body are ignored, aging and deterioration take place in a manner that, sooner or later, results in serious loss quality life. As some older friends have said to me, “It’s no fun growing old.” And, with skyrocketing healthcare expenses plus reduced services, how cost-effective is the standard medical route? And how reliable is it? How long are the waiting lists for surgery, or even to get an appointment with a specialist? What are the costs for heart operations or cancer treatments? And, in the end, are they curative?

The fact is, we do not have to concentrate on any one specific disease condition. We need to focus on health because that’s the way our body naturally operates.

How to Start Getting Healthier

On our road to renewed health, we must decide that we are going to be healthy. This is our active intent. We must take responsibility for our own health. We must take control of our own lives. It begins with this first determined thought. Next, we must become fully aware of how our health is gained and maintained. This where the 5 Keys of CONSCIOUS HEALTH come in.

The 5 KEYS

Key # 1: Learning—Gain Health Knowledge

The first step is education about how health is gained and maintained. We need knowledge; it is the beginning of power. Understanding is the primary key to correcting the wrongs in our lives and consistently doing the rights. Education brings understanding that enables us to put the learned principles to work in our lives so we can start to see positive results.

Many people die from lack of knowledge. Always be searching for the truth. And, just because something is accepted practice doesn’t mean it is the truth. False knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance. Accepting one false principle about health and nutrition erodes the benefits of our gained wisdom.

Key # 2: Cleansing—Detoxify Your Body

Over years of not living in accordance with the way nature intended, our bodies become burdened with stored wastes that shouldn’t be there. Toxins are the cause of reduced function and premature aging. Just like the engine or radiator of our car, if they aren’t cleaned on a regular basis, they overheat and wear out. Before we can return to vibrant health, we have to do some housecleaning for our bodies too. This is called detoxification.

Key # 3: Feeding—Give Your Body the Nutrition it Needs

You need to feed your body what it can use to rejuvenate itself. As we have already learned, the human body is very wise; given the proper tools, it knows what to do to achieve health. Our job is not to try to “fix” a disease—that’s the body’s job. Our job is to give the body what it needs and let it do the rest.

Key # 4: Believing—Think Positive Creative Thoughts

Our thoughts stem from our beliefs, and our beliefs create what happens in our lives. A habit of negative thinking creates situations of unhappiness or lack. Positive thoughts, based on positive subconscious beliefs, create happiness and abundance. We need to think carefully about what we think!

Key # 5: Implementing—Take Action

Once we have made the decision to be healthy and have started to educate ourselves about what helps our bodies to cleanse, heal, and stay healthy, we must then be determined to put healthy lifestyle principles into practice. We must take consistent action.

As we gain experience by applying healthy principles to our diet and lifestyle, we can learn to read the various signals our bodies send us when they are stressed and when they are healing. We become detectives, figuring out from the clues our bodies give what they need us to do to make and keep ourselves healthy.

The only way to true health is by taking full responsibility for it. Every “body” is different, with different deficiencies and weaknesses. No one knows you and your body like you do. Individual health is a very personal thing, and no doctor or therapist can know enough about you to “fix” your problems. It is only you, with your intimate knowledge of your self, your growing knowledge about what a body needs for health, and your continuous attention to your bodily signals, who can make the adjustments and changes that are required. Only then can it serve you with real and lasting health. It is a symbiotic relationship: we supply the body with its needs, and it serves us with good health. For those who are just beginning, this book is an important first step. It provides education about what the body requires in order to be healthy. The ensuing steps, of making positive changes in our lives and continuing with our health education, are up to us. This venture is the most interesting, exciting, and rewarding discovery I have made in my life. I hope it will be for you as well.

Breaking through Our Conditioning

Ignorance is defined as “not knowing.” As we break into knowledge or “knowing,” the first step is realizing that “we don’t know that we don’t know.” For most of our lives, we have been taught by our parents, peers, culture, church, and government to look to others for direction, and to do what we are told. In other words, we have been conditioned not to think for ourselves. This has had a disempowering effect on us. For the most part, we have come to think that we don’t or can’t know enough, and that others are more capable than we are. This, inevitably, has led to a lack of confidence in our ability to make decisions for ourselves.

A little book that I recommend in the highest terms is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. In this book, Ruiz shares wisdom from thousands of years ago handed down by Toltec men and women of knowledge in southern Mexico. It cleverly explains how, as small children, we make “agreements” in our minds based on what we encounter in our external, parental, and cultural environments about what must be “true”; then, we accept them and they become our beliefs. But, the vast majority of them are not true. When we read and practice “the four agreements,” they will revolutionize how we understand ourselves and act in our relationships, and we will gain personal freedom.

When we were born, of necessity we depended on our parents for survival, protection, and direction. We accepted their rules and ways of thinking. As we grew older, we went to school and took direction from our teachers. Then, when we got a job, we took direction from the boss; we had to if we wanted to stay in the job. In matters of spirituality and religion, we were taught to listen to the minister, pastor, priest, rabbi, or sheikh. In matters of our health, we have been conditioned by our upbringing, the media, and the pharmaceutical industry to go to the doctor because “The doctor knows best.” But is this always the case?

We think we are free, in control, and well taken care of, but are we really? The answer in health, as in all other parts of our lives, is to think for ourselves. One of the most important truths I have learned in my life is: “It is not so much who we know, or what we think we know that is most important, but the questions we ask.” Always be thinking for yourself, and be open to learning something new. Think like a little child again, and ask the “why” questions.

Health Is a Choice

Once we overcome our ignorance of what the body requires to be healthy, the state of our health becomes our choice. The lifestyle we choose to live determines our health. Every day we make decisions about what to eat and drink, how much exercise, rest, and fresh air to get, how to take care of our personal hygiene, and whether our attitudes will be positive or negative. We create our own health; it is our responsibility.

Understanding Your Body

The human body is programmed to be healthy. It is not programmed for disease. It will reward us with health when its requirements are met because it has a remarkable ability to bounce back. This will happen automatically. That’s great news. However, as we take responsibility for our own health with “self-care,” it really helps to have a basic understanding of how the body operates.

The next two chapters will focus on how the human body was created to function. Chapter 2 discusses how the wonderful human body works to build health and fight disease, and how it sets priorities to always work in our best interest.