Prevention Doesn’t Healthy Make!
The new Time Magazine is out. It’s the Health Issue and it purports to tell you How to Stay Out of the Hospital. According to Time,
It’s all about Prevention.
I think they got it bassackwards. There is no relationship between Prevention and Health, and while attempting to keep yourself out of the Hospital may succeed, it won’t necessarily make you Healthy.
I Ain’t No Doctor
So what the hell am I talking about and how the hell do I know? And who the hell am I to be disagreeing with Time Magazine and the Well Paid Doctors they interviewed while putting their health care thesis together?
Well. My name is Charles Faris and I Ain’t No Doctor. I’m a Heart Centered Holistic Health Counselor, and I don’t know bleep about disease. Seriously. I leave that to the Doctors and the entire Health Management system. I don’t know anything about Management either, unless you count getting a 4 year old up, dressed, fed, and off to school three days a week.
I do know how to stay out of the Hospital and the Doctor’s Office, however, and I’ve successfully done both since 1993, when I needed stitches due to a nasty fall at the beach, and before that all the way back to 1986, when I had a very disappointing visit to an Osteopath who prescribed me some pills I never took for a cold that I cured by getting some extra sleep and drinking more water.
I think my last visit before that was a trip to the Student Health Clinic while I was still in college, circa 1980. I liked to use their scale.
How Time Magazine Got Healthy Wrong
Now. Here’s the thing. Health is not the absence of disease. Health is Shiny and Radiant. Its a Positive. Prevention is based on the notion of Preventing Disease, like blocking a Negative. It’s not really based on Health at all. If it was they would call it something like Creation. That’s a much better word, eh. Creative Health. Has a nice ring to it.
Driving in Reverse
See, if you are Preventing Disease, you are focusing on the thing you don’t want. You are driving in reverse. It’s a crazy way to try to get healthy, because driving away from one type of disease might get you smack dab into the territory of another.
Disease is legion. There is an infinite number of possible Diseases. They are discovering and inventing new Diseases every day!
Health, on the other hand, in a Unity. It’s just Health. There’s just one type. All health is Holistic Health, because the words Health and Heal and Whole and Holistic all come from the same root. Health is all about getting Whole.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
Health is like Oz. It’s the place to be, it’s where the action is, and you only get there by following the Yellow Brick Road. You can run away from the Wicked Witch all year long and it won’t get you to Oz. You have to move towards Oz, not away from the witch. And so it is with Health and Disease.
Now. The Yellow Brick Road is magical and mysterious, it takes on many shapes and forms, so practically speaking, there are Many Roads to Health, and some of them come from a State of Disease, and still yet, they all have this in common–they are all about where you are going, not where you have come from. They are about driving forward with a clear destination in mind, not about driving in reverse, trying to get away from somewhere.
Who you gonna call?
Okay then. I’ve said my peace. Just wanted to get that off my chest. One more thing, though. When you are looking toward Health, longing for Health, searching for Health–who are you going to talk to? Someone who is an expert in curing Disease? Someone who can guide you out of the State of Disease?
Now. That may be a very good place to start. By all means get out of that place! It’s dark and dismal and I won’t step foot in there. And then what? What are you going to do once you are over that border?
Well hopefully you will look for a guide who knows the way to where you want to get, to that Emerald City on the Hill–hopefully you’ll look for someone who specializes in Health!
Amongst our weaponry:
Two of my favorite tools for achieving Shiny Happy Health are Yoga and Massage. I’ve been practicing massage professionally since 1993 and I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. And for the rest on June I am offering a Father’s Day Special on Traditional Table Massage, or on Thai Yoga Bodywork.
It’s a good deal, meant to honor the love and guidance of the Fathers among us. If you have a Father in the Boston area, or you share a child with a Father in the Boston area, or you just plain love and respect a Father in the Boston area, consider offering them the gift of massage, a solid step in the direction of Pure Radiant Health. Namaste.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Shannon Wilkinson 06.16.09 at 2:26 pm
I so wish I was in your neck of the woods and could take you up on your massage special. Even though I’m not a father.
Also, great points about health and wellness. Coincidentally, I’m writing about this in my next newsletter. Thanks for being so bold to contradict Time.
Shannon Wilkinson´s last blog ..Listen to this!
Janice Cartier 06.16.09 at 4:11 pm
“They are about driving forward with a clear destination in mind, not about driving in reverse, trying to get away from somewhere.”
It’s slight tweak in state of mind that the whole country would do well to enter IMHO, but an important one I think.
Instead of Health Insurance focus, why not Health Assurance focus? It does have a more shiny radiant feel to it as you say.
Carla Rose 06.17.09 at 1:35 am
Thank you for outlining those differences! Yes, I have MS, but I am still healthy or at least I strive for health. “Health” is not about sticking myself with needles, popping pills and showing up at the doctor’s office - its how I think, feel from within and how I conduct my day to day life.
Carla Rose´s last blog ..Eco Touch Waterless Car Wash – product review
chas 06.17.09 at 9:43 am
@Shannon I’m excited to read your newsletter…how do I get a copy?
@Janice The problem with Assurance and Insurance is that there isn’t a lot of money in Health! Like I wrote, I’ve seen a Doctor twice in the past 23 years! And I’ve only had Insurance during that time in the past year and a half, when the State of Massachusetts mandated that I purchase it. Massively Good Health on a Massively large Scale is a real problem for the Insurance Industry. Of course, it would also be a Massively Good Thing for the rest of us!
@Carla Love your attitude! Glad to see you out there offering Green and Healthy alternatives to the Mass Produced Swag!