The new paradigm in healthcare that I’ve been discussing in this series of blog posts is sometimes mistaken for simply alternative modalities of practice. The choice of modality is not unimportant, but neither is it a panacea for sound practice.
Valuable as was my personal academics, pre-med training, a four-year full-time study in naturopathic medicine, and seven years of post-graduate training in homeopathic medicine and Bowen therapy, it turned out that none of these paths – in allopathy, naturopathy, homeopathy, physical therapies, or psychological approaches – offered me a clear solution. No stand-alone therapy was complete without my full presence and engagement with it. I had to overcome all my objections and look at my belief system, investigate the operating presumptions before I could “surrender” into any approach at all.
I was born a skeptic, who requires proof of everything, in some form or another, while holding all options as equal possibilities. My driving force has always been a search for the “truth.” I’d never been satisfied with treatments limited by statistical probability or research with operating models that are too limited to allow one to make an intelligent or informed decision. It had to apply to me personally. And thus it became evident that I found myself to be the “variable factor,” the “player” that would make all the difference in how the statistics about “me” would fall.
It is with that realization I understood that how you live is how you heal. Applying this insight is the core of the healthcare approach I’ll be discussing in this series of blog posts.
