Every choice that you make has an impact on your health. This can seem overwhelming at first because it forces you to begin looking at why you choose to do what you do. For many people they would rather not know. For others, once they understand this concept, it becomes the missing link that allows them to begin their journey of healing. The difficulty comes at educating people in regards to their health and giving them the proper foundation that they need to “buy in” to the fact that they can change what you do. Here are a few questions to begin asking your self:
1) Why do I choose to put this food in my body?
2) Why do I choose to put this liquid in my body?
3) Why do I choose to put this substance on my body?
4) Why do I choose to believe this thought?
5) Why do I choose to love this person/place/thing? Why do I choose to dislike this person/place/thing?
6) Why do I choose to take this medication/medicine?
You have to follow up the answering to all of these questions with this, “how does this seem to be working for me?”. I believe that there is a disconnect between the choices that people make with regards to their health and the anticipated outcome that will occur. In my experience, people will make unconscious decisions 80% of the time, which means most decisions become automatic without regard to the outcome. In our current healthcare system we further enable the disconnect between the patient and their health due to the primary focus being on the symptoms and disease rather than the individual who is dealing with them.
The concept of “treating the cause” is universally accepted within healthcare but it really depends on how the health practitioner is defining causation. For instance if you have high cholesterol you could argue that your statin drug is treating the cause of it, because your liver is making to much cholesterol. Or if you have depression, you could argue that the anti-depressant is treating cause of the low serotonin within the individual which is causing their depression. This is not how I would define causation. What I have found to be at the root of all illness with regards to causation is two things, stress and toxicity. This relates back to the questions that I posted above. If you are looking to address the cause of your health concerns, you have to understand stress and toxicity.
Toxicity simply put is what goes into your body. This includes food, medications (RX and OTC), vaccinations, body products, etc… You have to avoid substances that create excess toxicity within your body if you are looking to address the cause. People love to justify why something is not that bad for them. We like pretend that just a little bit of something will not hurt. Unfortunately in my clinical experience, there are straws that break the camels back when it comes to toxicity and the development of illness. As a culture we prefer to stay short sighted when it comes to thinking about the long term consequences of our daily decision making. This has to stop! You have to “buy in” to the fact that every decision you make will have an impact on your health. Ask yourself the questions above and work to your lower your toxic burden.
Stress simply put is what comes into our minds. This is predominately focused around our belief system. You have 100% choice over the story that you choose to tell yourself about life situations as they show up in front of you. There are really only two emotional responses within the mind, one being fear and one being love. This relates to the two parts of the autonomic nervous system, sympathetic (fear) and parasympathetic (love). When we stress, our belief system is running in a fear based state that creates a sympathetic dominant reaction within the body’s physiology due to the effect of cortisol. If you run in this state to long, you will make yourself sick due to the inflammatory nature of cortisol. As a culture we are so keyed up worrying about things that are fully out of our control. This has to stop! You have to “buy in” to the fact that every belief you have will have an impact on your health. You can choose to change your belief system, moving away from fear and towards love/compassion to begin your healing.
Dr.Buttler