My Journey

I use the word healthcare frequently as I’m writing and discussing what I do. Today I want to really define my vision of health care by telling my story.

Over the last 15 years I’ve experienced the standard changes in my body and mind that we classically see in emerging adulthood. During college I gained the “freshman 15" and held on to it until I graduated. Soon after, I began experiencing minor health issues like sinus infections, digestive complaints (bloating and constipation) and general fatigue.

Later a feeling of depression began to surface regularly. It wasn’t overwhelming. I continued daily interactions and was functioning at work. The problem wasn’t obvious, but I could feel a difference. I didn’t have a vision for my future and didn’t really care.

However, I could see all the things I did NOT like about my life and, particularly, the current state of health and education in our country and local communities.

ALL THIS BACK STORY TO FULLY ELUCIDATE HOW I FEEL ABOUT HEALTH CARE.

Health care can only come from you, from the person to whom that health matters. “Health care” is not a system to be maintained by the government and paid for monthly.

Health care is knowing how we feel and making choices that enhance our well-being. Caring for our health means we recognize our health. Knowing what feels good in our skin. Knowing that those little aches and pains mean we’ve been neglecting some part of our wellness—mental, emotional, or just plain physical.

Naturally, ideally, hopefully… we all come in to birth with the best set of circumstances nature can offer.

However, that perfect state rarely exists. Far from it, actually. We need education and guidance to find the best and most perfect place from where we are starting.

Health care should be education, awareness and promotion of what natural human health can look like. We must not assume illness and pain is a normal state of being. I am not saying we must be free of pain and illness in our lives, or that if we do have some, we are somehow flawed.

But we must not tolerate it as normal. Humans have every capacity to heal, regenerate and renew.

Let health care include tools that facilitate the natural renewal—not suppress or disregard it. 

For me this means acknowledging all levels of an illness. Physical, emotional, life impacts, relationship imbalance, mental and spiritual.

Health care first and foremost can be preventative. As life unfolds and experiences shape us, we then use our pain and illness as a tool to guide us to where we’d rather be. As we move toward that place of where we’d rather be, gradually and naturally our wellness returns.

If we ignore our health as a guidepost we then find ourselves in blame, shame or denial. We start looking outside ourselves for answers (that ultimately will lead us down someone else’s path).

That path has created a major industry with a financial goal. Doctors now have little education in the normal human experience, as they are intensely educated on what a sick patient looks like and what drug suppresses the symptom. Slowly, functional medicine is emerging that allows medical science to help diagnose basic deficiencies that are nutritional or inherent. With this information, each person can begin supporting their system where it is weak and imbalanced.

Natural health professionals, herbalists and midwives have been using this strategy since…forever. I can envision the merging of these worlds to create a new generation of healing and health for our children. We can begin by fortifying our health when we are young. Eating whole foods, getting out in nature and becoming self-aware.

Simple steps create a simple, disease-free future. Illness will continue, but it can be temporary and impermanent instead of the focus of our lives.