There’s a lot in the air these days about who’s in charge when it comes to our health. Given the divisiveness and the accusations that abound here, it feels a little dicey even putting it out there. But if we don’t take a deeper look at who is the ultimate authority when it comes to the health and well-being of our bodies, we will not only continue to be at each other’s throats, we will have missed the most important question of all:

What makes for true health, and in whose hands does it belong?

Thinking about this, I was taken back to a time when I was working as a therapist-in-training. There were so many rules about how to engage with a patient. The proper boundaries around interactions that we had to set. The legal requirements around how to practice, and how to keep from being sued.

And then of course, and perhaps most ‘important’ of all, was the agreed upon (and often unspoken) narrative that drove the therapeutic interaction: The therapist is the expert and they know far more about the patient than the patient knows about their own life, what the trouble is and what they most need. In other words “I’m the expert and it’s up to me to tell you what’s wrong with you and how to fix it. It’s your job to do what I tell you.”

This never sat well with me, though at the time I could not have told you why. But now I can.

To ever presume that you are the expert in another person’s life is to not only create an imbalanced relationship that carries with it the promise, or at least the possibility of abuse, is nothing compared to what you will have robbed that person of. That being, their experience of learning how to claim their own inner authority.

For any of us to come to know a sense of full adult status, we must traverse the difficult terrain of claiming full responsibility for ourselves; the choices we make, and the lives we create through those choices. It is by engaging with all of the decisions that we must make as an adult in charge of our own body that we reap the power, clarity, strength, autonomy and authority that we require to live in health. And that our communities require of us in order to create healthy communities.

Becoming the bona fide expert in our own lives is the single, greatest contribution we will ever make to our life and to the lives of those around us.

Just as every parent must understand that to keep a young adult child tethered to us and our expertise may feel safer than letting them figure out what they must on their own, to do this is to cripple them. It is to rob them of a sense of self-trust and inner authority.

It is no different with the health of our bodies and with those who would appoint themselves as the ‘experts.’ We must, each on our own, be allowed the space and the freedom to decide what is best for us, mistakes and all. To do anything less is to cripple a populace. It is to keep them infantilized to parentified and controlling outside authorities.

In the end, it is to undermine the richness and the possibility of a world based on a kind of organic health that seeds itself in individual expertise, that then goes on to blossom into health for all.

“How can I stand without gripping?”

I am in my morning practice as I ask myself this question. Why this question? Because I am noticing for the umpteenth time the way I am clenching and gripping the muscles on the outside of my hips to hold myself upright.

At this point in time, I know enough to know that not only is this not necessary in order to keep me standing, as importantly, this pattern serves as the root cause of the pain I often get in my left hip and lower back. And yet, all these years later, it’s still there. Hence my question.

Posing this question is significantly different than imposing something on my body. Like trying to force it into a new position. It’s also different than medicating myself against and away from what my body’s messages of pain, imbalance and discomfort are. These approaches never work because they are not including the most important ingredient; my body and what it’s telling me.

I have come to know that when I wonder about something with my body, it always gives me information. The most fascinating thing of all being, I never know what it’s going to reveal. I know this can be a source of fear for a lot of us, but I will tell you:

There is nothing to be afraid of when it comes to the messages of your body. If you are willing to be open to truth.

Today’s truth for me had nothing to do with reminding myself over and over again to release muscles. Instead, the truth being spoken today had to do with releasing an old way of meeting up with the world. One where I am hanging on for dear life to take a stand in a world I perceive won’t be interested in what I’m offering, or will somehow be hostile towards what I am bringing forward. (With the bodily gripping being a way I shore myself up for the perceived assault.)

You can see then, that no amount of reworking my muscles or taking pain medication will ever resolve what is happening in my body, unless and until, I address a pattern far deeper than the way my muscles grip.

This way of being with ourselves not only changes the health of the body, it takes us directly to a greater Truth of who we are and why we are here. To try and control or  medicate against our bodies in order to shut them up, is, in effect, shutting up our very existence.

When you think of the word “Healer,” what comes to mind? Someone in a white coat? A shaman? Or maybe something in between?

I am guessing though, that whatever your image or definition is, it is likely, not you. That for most of us that word conjures up someone else. Something outside of you. Someone more knowledgeable and more expert than you.

When I looked up the etymology of the word “heal,” it comes from the Old English. The definition, in the exact order it was given in, goes like this: Cure. Save. Make whole. With a “healer” being one who heals. 

In other words, a healer is one who cures, saves, or makes whole.

A lot is revealed in the order of the wording in the definition as we go from cure, to save, to make whole. I think the order speaks directly to where we are in our own healing evolution; both individually and collectively. As in, when we believe that health is about curing and saving as opposed to making whole, we find ourselves in a more primitive (dare I say outdated) evolutionary model of health and healing.

Personally, I believe that there is an essential distinction that needs to be made by more of us if we are to make the necessary evolutionary leap beyond the illness model we now subscribe to and into a greater and vaster possibility.

Without using being cured or saved as the litmus test, what might happen if more of us began to see what health is, and how we heal from a more advanced perspective?

We know all too well, having done it for far too long now, the experience of being cured, looking for a cure, feeling incurable, with all of the shame, frustration, and fear that goes along with this. We also know all too well its companion; outsourcing our authority to someone who “knows better.” Someone who can save us.

This place of looking to be cured by a savior is nowhere more prevalent than in our conventional medical system. But what if this paradigm is incorrect in terms of where the real healing resides? And what if healing is about so much more than just health? 

These are enormous questions to contemplate. Even more challenging to put this mindset into practice. We are so conditioned to look for cures in the hands of someone other than our own. Which is why we need new ways of thinking about what healing is, and in whose hands it actually belongs.

If you’re up for it, try this: Spend some time in a quiet moment thinking about a challenging health issue in your life. If you could take the worry and the someone-else-knows better-than-I-do out of the equation, what would healing mean to you if it wasn’t about being cured or saved by someone else?

Specifically, what would healing look like, feel like, and yes, require from you, to make whole something about you and your life? An evolutionary shift that would help open you to the possibility of being your own Healer Within in the service of a greater experience of wholeness.

In my world, that would be a true advancement in modern medicine.

P.S. If you are wanting to explore more deeply your own Healer Within, please visit https://rememberingwhatmattersmost.thinkific.com/courses/membership

Our precision (not perfection) at naming the moment to moment and daily truths of life in a body, will determine how well we can respond to what it needs and what it is saying; which will determine the overall feel and quality of our lives. The words we choose about our bodies carry great weight. They shape the stories we tell ourselves, revealing powerful belief systems about how we really think about ourselves and the world.

The words reflect not only what we think is happening, but what we believe is possible in terms of health and healing. Most of all, the words we choose determine how we feel about these bodies of ours, and what it means to be alive.

When my mother was still living, we had this bit we would do. She would disparage some part of her body (the stomach that was never flat enough because of the four cesareans and one hysterectomy, the skin that was too loose because she was in her 80’s, her weight on any given day that she tracked repeatedly by daily weigh-ins on the bathroom scale), and I would look at her and tilt my head. To which she would respond, “Oh yeah, I’m not supposed to say that.” 

It was funny. And not. After years of us doing this bit together, although she had come to know that if she ran her body down in my presence I was going to challenge her, I don’t think she ever actually knew the extent of what she was doing to herself. I don’t think she ever allowed herself to feel the impact of maligning her body, sometimes even with great disgust at its inability to measure up to some externalized state of perfection. I don’t think she ever got it was her own self she was running down.  

I will say here to you what I said to her: Your body is listening, and the words you use about it hurt or heal. If this makes sense to you, practice being more mindful about the words you use in reference to your own body. When you catch yourself using hurtful words, say, “I’m sorry. I take that back.” 

If we use pejorative, fear-based, and negative phrases about our own bodies and what is happening for them, our ability to see clearly will be grossly obscured and misleading; rendering any “observations” we make, inaccurate. False. Potentially even detrimental in outcome because we have misnamed them. Meaning, we won’t be able to take good care of ourselves. 

Not only that, any ongoing negativity towards, and about our bodies, will have a detrimental impact on the overall experience of being alive. As in, it won’t feel good to be here. 

P.S. If you’d like to feel better in your body, consider joining my health and healing community at: https://rememberingwhatmattersmost.thinkific.com/courses/membership

I think a lot about the body. More to the point, I spend a lot of time with my body, and with the bodies of others exploring what they need. What it is that we cannot do without. And what it is that we should learn to do without.

What both fascinates, and yes at times greatly frustrates me, are the signs and symptoms of a body out of balance. Mine or another’s. What it does when it’s sick or things hurt. All of the ways that the body conveys to us each and every day, what is working, and what is not.

In other words, the language of our very own body.

To be clear, this is a language. As a matter of fact, before we could talk, this was our very first, and only, language. It is not the same (although they do overlap) as the language of the mind. More to the point, we often get into trouble with the body because we allow the conditioned rational mind with all of its bodily hangups to run the show when it comes to what we’re experiencing: Yuch, what’s that? I don’t like this. That’s gross. I’m afraid. Make it stop. What if it never goes away? Make it go away. I hate you. I’m not listening. Shut up. I don’t want to know.

Sound familiar?

But what if the symptoms of your body are essential and vital information? And what if learning what message was being sent was a way into something beyond what you could even imagine?

I have this very experience over and over again in my life. Something comes up in the body that I’m not comfortable with, or that I flat out don’t want. Anger, frustration, and fear arise. But when the tantrum of the resistance to what is happening blows over, the feeling of injustice and despair passed, an inner surrender sweeps in. And always, always, some gift appears.

Beyond any of the specifics of what I am dealing with, and whether or not what is there goes away,  I am made whole again. The feelings of being at odds with myself vanish. Which is why I honor the language my body speaks. Even when I hate what it is saying.

Try this: In a quiet moment (for me it’s in bed or in my morning practice) let yourself recognize something in your body that doesn’t feel good. Put your hands there, and for a few breaths, just be with it. No forcing. No fixing. No looking for an answer.

When you feel more settled, ask yourself, “What do you want me to know?”

Pause and wait without reaching out for the answer. Sometimes I get a memory, a song, or a flash of something I once read, or something someone once told me that is somehow related. Sometimes nothing comes. Or it shows up later in the day. No matter.

What always tells me though that I’m onto something is when I burst out crying. Or am deeply moved somehow. This used to freak me out. Now I know that whenever something breaks open, in the “brokenness,” I am made whole again. Exactly where I always wanted to be.

So how could I ever vilify how it is that the body gets me there?

I sometimes like to imagine what healing was like before we got so focused on machines, lawsuits, and pharmaceuticals. A time before your physician was more intent on getting the “right” codes into the laptop in the seven minutes they were allotted by the conglomerate, than actually being with you and getting to know you.

A time when the human body and the human soul was at the very center of the healing relationship. A time when we knew we were all connected, both within and without. A time when our physicians felt honored to be of service to us, instead of answering to the bottom line profit demands of a corporation.

A time when our healers were naturals at bedside manner.

That unique capacity to be with another human being; next to them, holding their hand, looking into their eyes, being with them as they made their journey through life. In both, as they say, in sickness and in health. What an honor to be privy to the deepest, realest and most raw experiences of another soul.

And now, what a devastating turnaround that it has gone missing. Only to be exchanged for not only poor substitutes, but for a form of “care” that is most decidedly devoid of care. Even at times, dangerous. What could possibly have replaced what we need most? Money incentives, efficiency, standard protocols, separate specializations, insurance codes, following the rules, and fear. Yes, fear.

Fear that they will miss something or make a mistake. Fear of being ostracized, sued or fired for stepping outside of SOP. Fear of getting too involved. Fear that they cannot help us. Perhaps worst of all, fear of their own humanity, and of showing that to us.

We need this. We need those in the healing profession to reclaim the human roots of their calling. Visionaries. Those with the courage to do less technically in the service of doing more healing wise. Those willing to break ranks with anything that violates their sacred obligation to us, and to what it is that actually heals.

Those willing to claim the power and the healing Presence of such quaint and outdated practices as the art and science of bedside manner: A genuine and authentic relationship built on care that transcends any agenda other than that.

Maybe this has never occurred in history. Maybe it’s pure fantasy on my part to believe in its existence. But this is what I yearn for: Medicine built on integrity, real care, and most of all, a healing relationship with a physician who trusts that connection above all else.