YOUR BODY REVEALS: AWAKEN TO YOUR TRUTH

Balboa Press

Contents

Preface................................................................................xiiiAcknowledgements.......................................................................xvIntroduction...........................................................................xviiChapter 1 - Approaches to Health Care: A Brief Overview................................1Chapter 2 - Disease is the Effort to Regain Balance and Health.........................9Chapter 3 - Empowered Reality..........................................................25Chapter 4 - The Body Reveals...........................................................41Chapter 5 - Steps to Wholeness.........................................................49Chapter 6 - Be a Conscious Co-Creator..................................................79Chapter 7 - Empathy, Compassion and Mirror Neurons.....................................91Chapter 8 - Staying in Balance.........................................................107Chapter 9 - The Body Reveals: From Head to Heart to Hands and Toes.....................115Chapter 10 - You Are What You Eat......................................................129Chapter 11 - Living with the Seasons...................................................147Chapter 12 - Visions of Health and Wholeness..........................................163About the Author.......................................................................167Books, Resources, People & Organizations...............................................169

Chapter One

Face everything, avoid nothing. Andrew Cohen

When it comes to your physical, emotional and mental health, there is nothing more important than choosing a healing path that is safe, effective, and feels right to you. Sometimes it might be Western medicine, sometimes holistic medicine, sometimes, a combination of both, referred to as complimentary. While this book cannot answer which methods are right for you, it will help you to see your symptoms as a timely call to wholeness and discover the deeper meaning and messages from your Soul, an approach I call soul-based integrative.

Conventional Views About Health

The most common view of disease is to perceive it as a mechanical problem. We go to a medical professional, take the recommended medicine, and hope for the best. We hardly ever question the treatment options offered or look for the deeper meaning within the problem itself. We are satisfied with the standardized diagnoses, a name, confirmed by a blood test or other high-tech tests. Hospitals and clinics are more like repair-stations for cars or computers where patients are fixed and released. This widespread approach does not address the deeper causes of illness and disease, and the consequences are now mirrored in our current health care crisis.

Commonly held views about health and disease in allopathic Western medicine are based on linear thinking established primarily by German doctor and scientist Rudolf Virchow's introduction of cell theory in the 1850s. It states that disease is based on the dysfunction of the individual cell. As in the case of liver cancer, only the liver is understood to be ill and in need of treatment. This theory became one of the main foundations of modern biology and medicine.

Another foundational allopathic principle is French chemist and microbiologist, Louis Pasteur's (1822-1895) germ theory, which promotes that germs (bacteria, microbes, parasites, etc.) attack the body, which results in disease. This theory was soon after confirmed by the German physician and scientist Robert Koch. He was the first scientist who isolated bacteria such as the Tuberculosis bacillus. According to this theory, the best course of action is to control or destroy the attacker.

The allopathic healing approach is to repair the symptoms with antibiotics, antivirals, painkillers, anti-inflammatories, anti-depressants, and other synthetic pharmaceuticals. These drugs often have side effects, which cause other symptoms that can be even worse than the original ones. They suppress the body's natural healing responses like fever, vomiting, diarrhea, runny nose, and they destroy the healthy bacteria in the body. This can easily causes other midterm or long-term problems.

Another important concern is the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria through overuse. Antibiotics are no longer as effective as they once were, which is a serious and increasing problem across the globe. Drug companies and medical research labs are continuously developing new antibiotics to deal with these resistant bacteria.

Still, there are many reasons to be grateful for the achievements of conventional Western medicine such as the high-tech and life saving facilities for acute and emergency care: for example, for heart attacks, broken bones, and other crisis situations. Western medicine is also equipped with very refined diagnostic methods in various specialties and the many subspecialties of internal medicine like cardiology, dermatology, endocrinology, and hepatology.

Given the symptom-oriented, medicinal approach to treatment of the health care system in the Western world, I am not surprised by the increase of chronic illnesses and diseases. Chronic imbalances, such as heart disease, asthma, cancer and diabetes have increased dramatically over the last three decades, and even childhood chronic diseases have almost quadrupled over the past forty years. In 2010, more than 133 million Americans, or 45 percent of the population, suffered from at least one chronic physical condition, compromising the quality of their lives and greatly impacting their family's well-being. A similar condition can be observed in many countries all over the world, but especially in the developed world.

As the incidents of chronic disease increase, so does the cost of health care. Expenditures in the US surpassed $2.3 trillion in 2008, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over 8 times the $253 billion spent in 1980. In 2008, US health care spending was about $7,681 per resident and accounted for 16.2% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is among the highest of all industrialized countries. Estimates indicate that 1 in 4 dollars will soon be spent on health care.

Dramatic increases in spending puts a huge pressure on finding new, more cost-effective, health care solutions. Including alternative and holistic medicine- a proactive versus reactive approach that requires new levels of education on the deeper causes of disease, and what our bodies are telling us. These methods are rising in demand every year, and it is no wonder. Not only can these approaches reduce costs, they also provide a life-changing opportunity for a higher quality of life with less suffering.

Alternative Views on Health

While allopathic medicine is designed to sedate or eliminate symptoms, holistic medicine is interested in solutions that restore balance. It focuses on the person as a whole and how he or she reacts to a condition and its history.

Holistic medicine is most associated with the French chemist and biologist Antoine Bechamp's (1816 – 1908) theory of disease. He taught that germs have a purpose and are our friends, not our enemies. He believed that, because germs feed...