Something that has been profoundly beneficial in my life is the practice of looking across disciplines, and drawing from a wide range of perspectives and practices to help make my life better in terms of health. This has gifted me with all kinds of healing that I have come to rely on for myself, my family, and for those I work with. My only criteria in this gathering is that whatever it is that I am drawing on, serves real human needs, supports the body without harm, includes all of me, and carries with it a resonance of truth and wisdom.

For a while, I did not fully see the value in the amalgamation I was engaging in. At times, even going so far as to hide or downplay what was working for me. I thought maybe there was something wrong with this kind of approach; that I was being some kind of flighty mutt by not committing to just one thing. But then I spoke with my daughter whose degree is in interdisciplinary studies. Not only was there a name for what I was doing, but a deep understanding that when it comes to the really big issues in Life, it is only by drawing from a number of perspectives, that we can hope to come to real and lasting solutions.

Which brings me to where we currently find ourselves with the health crisis we are in. One, by the way, that we have been in long before a virus showed up, but that is revealing all the more, all of the ways, that our current medical paradigm is just not working. Unfortunately, instead of opening up the view around what we are up against, we are further entrenching ourselves in a system that emphasizes disease, insists an expert knows more about your body than you, deals in fear to gain compliance, and justifies the treatments offered as being the only way to deal with what we are facing.

What would it be like though, if on a national level, our conventional medical system opened up the discourse around how best to approach what it is that stands before us? What if the vast array of health approaches that have been safely and effectively practiced all over the world for hundreds and thousands of years were included in how we bring health back to our people?

But that would require a loosening of the monopoly the current medical system in power has over our health. It would require that the AMA stop demonizing other traditions. (Something that dates back to its inception when it declared other legitimate approaches like herbalism, midwifery, indigenous healing and more, unlawful). It would mean the accusations from a system that routinely kills people every year through properly prescribed medications and procedures, would need to stop. This one has even got a name. Iatrogenic illness. Which translates to “doctor induced,” and which claims hundreds of thousands of people’s lives each year, while disabling millions.

If there was ever a time to explore and include other traditions, it would be now. Right now.

The Indian system of healing, Ayurveda, is the longest continually practiced health care system on the planet, being 5000 years old. Chinese Medicine, Homeopathy, Herbalism, Naturopathy, just to name a few are hundreds and thousands of years old with rich traditions of not only healing in general, but possessing the very solutions we need right now. There is also the old, accessible standby, food. The very same thing that Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, spoke so eloquently about when he said, “Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.”

Alternative health care approaches need two things from us to claim their seat at the table. They need to stop being referred to as “alternative;” being pushed to the periphery for the whackos or as last ditch attempts. And they need our trust and our willingness to explore their vast offerings. We, as the consumer, have the right to determine what it is that makes sense to us in terms of how we care for ourselves. And we have the right to demand medicine that does not hurt us. With that said, the biggest shift in our current “health” care system will never come from the government, the doctors, the hospitals, or those who train and credential them. It will only come from us.

This will require an enormous shift on our part. One where we must learn to take full and personal responsibility for our own health. One where we begin to question what is not working, recognizing that it is not, as we have come to believe, that the lack of results is due to the virulence of something, but that it is an indication that we are looking in the wrong direction. And that is where we begin.

Is there some place inside of you that wonders if there is a better way? A place that is willing to ask another question, look a little deeper, challenge what is being offered when what is being done is not working? If so, start there.

There is a big ask in front of us right now on just about every level of living. That being, can we take what is happening and open ourselves to new possibilities? Or will we hunker down, lock down, and wait for it to be over?

The reason why it is such a big ask is that when we are in a state of trauma, which we all are now and have been long before this past year given the world we live in, we are locked out of accurately assessing what is happening. In other words, stuck in a collective trauma response, we are destined to see everything through the lens of false fears and exaggerated dangers. We are subject to looking at the world and what is happening through the window of all the past hurts and harms, large and small, that we have ever experienced, and that have never been recognized or resolved.

From this place, creativity shuts down because truly who needs to be creatively solving a problem when you feel as though your very life is at stake? I know this may sound extreme, or that it might be impossible for you to believe you have been traumatized because our old way of understanding trauma was to believe it had to be the really big things like being abused or raped. But all of the current understandings in this area now rest on the fact that trauma occurs in all shapes and sizes. And that it is subjective with the impact depending on so many things. Like the level of support you do or do not have, constitutional factors, your ability to re-write the trauma experience, and more.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because without a thorough and deep examination of what each of us is bringing to the table at this particular time in history, we will never be in a position to effectively and accurately resolve what stands before us. Instead, we will be fated to repeating over and over again what we fear most.

I’ll give you an example. Because I grew up in an alcoholic home where the wrong things were in charge, where real human needs were denied, and where we were all controlled by something harmful, I have a tendency to look out at what is happening now and fall into a kind of fear and desperation when I see agendas or mandates that I believe are not in keeping with real human needs. So this has been my work for the past year. The process of clearing up those old hurts and trauma-based projections so that I am in a position to not only heal myself, but to be part of a real solution for the world.

Make sense? If so, try this. Pinpoint what you are most afraid of at this time. And then see if it in any way links to anything you have ever experienced. It is a kind of following bread crumbs through the forest with no agenda other than to find the next one, while allowing it to lead you where it will. It is helpful to do this when you have some space. So make the space.

And if not for you, how about for the rest of us?

The opportunities for greater clarity around health abound at this time. Why? Because as we come up against all that is not working, there comes an opening of such magnitude for greater well-being, that it might actually be difficult to imagine given what we have come to expect as “normal.” But what I am talking about is available for each and every one of us when we allow ourselves to be open to creating a greater understanding of, and connection to, the very bodies that we inhabit. The very bodies that we are. The very same ones, unfortunately, that we often fear, disparage, criticize, harm, ignore, and deny.

How can this be? We are mammals after all. That one biological truth alone serves as both a cautionary tale when it comes to where we have separated from our own nature, as well as being a True North in our ability to return to caring for ourselves. You see, as mammals, it is built into us. It is innate. Inherent. Available always. So it becomes both interesting and essential to wonder why it is that no other mammal other than us makes choices that undermines it health, well-being, or very nature. What’s the deal with us anyway?

It can be summed up in one word: Conditioning. We have literally been trained away from the basic biological truths of our bodies. Without which we become lost and susceptible to what is not true. Either through our own confused minds or through the information we receive from the external world, we convince ourselves of the wrong things. And because we see the results of this conditioning on other bodies nearly everywhere we go now, it can be easy to believe.

Want to find your way back? Go to the body. Be with the body. Learn about the body. Get some basic information, and I do mean basic, on how a body works from a source that is not trying to sell you something or get you to do anything. From a source that is actually living what they are talking about, as opposed to experts who give lots of disembodied and unlived information.

I have been working with something that I think of as The Body Primer 101 that may be of service. A set of understandings and nourishments that are a prerequisite for health, and that without the satisfaction of, you actually do not know what you are looking at when the body becomes unwell. These are universal satisfactions that must be met for health. I see them both working together as one, as well as having a bit of a hierarchal nature to them at times.

They are: The Breath, Hydration, Whole Food, Sleep, Movement, Good Company.

The Breath is your single most important nutrient. Literally every one of your trillions of cells requires a continuous, unobstructed flow. The sad truth is that we can breathe enough to stay alive, but not be thriving.

Hydration is critical for many things. One of them being to keep your tissues moist enough to serve as a protective shield against invading microorganisms.

Whole Foods speak directly to the old adage: You are what you eat. The food you ingest makes you; your body, your mood, your energy, your thoughts, your actions, and your contributions.

Sleep is an absolute biological necessity. Did you know that Johns Hopkins did a retrospective study after the 1918 pandemic and found that the single factor predicting how people fared who had gotten sick was how well they took to sleeping and bed rest?

Movement equates to vitality, aliveness, and the overall health of your body and your brain. Forget about exercise. Find something that moves you.

Good Company serves as an insulation against stress, and is an undeniable prerequisite for health and longevity. Loneliness and isolation kills.

Pick one, focus on it, and it will eventually lead you to all the rest. And in the end, all of it will lead you back to not only health, but to your truest Nature.