Health & disease

I stumbled across the work of Herbert Shelton’s Natural Hygiene, which has been a wonderfully validating read. He writes: “Health and disease are the same thing - vital action intended to preserve, maintain, and protect the body. There is no more reason for treating disease than there is for treating health”.

He argues that throughout history medics have not always followed nature’s way in facilitating healing. How medics have sold the idea of cure, but more often than not are just treating symptoms. And how, in treating these symptoms, they cause more symptoms, simply because they are giving poisonous drugs to people who, if well, would get sick, and while unwell, inevitably (in most cases) get sicker.

As he writes, “the popular mind has become so imbued with the curative virtues of drugs, all of which are poisonous, that the attempt is being made daily to recover health without reference to the habits of life, if not in open and acknowledged violation of all the laws of life. The medical profession is truly, as Graham so aptly described it, a “mere drugging culture”.

The needed materials and conditions, which alone can be used, are air, water, food, temperature, rest, sleep, light, warmth, agreeable social surroundings and abstinence from all harmful indulgences such as tobacco, alcoholic, drug poisons, etc. etc., their appropriation being directed by instinct.”

He continues, “every living organism is compelled, upon pain of disease and extinction, to adjust itself in conformity with the laws of its being. All processes of recovery or healing are but extensions and modifications in the processes that preserve health and the materials and processes employed in caring for the sick must be in consonance with the physiology and compatible with all other useful measures. Restorations of health that are made by nature are conditional”.

He argues that there is a vast difference between a care plan based on removal of cause and one that is based on relieving symptoms. As we know in Ayurveda, there can be no effect without a cause. Every action has a consequence, even the most well intended. This is a natural lore. It is understood that a sick person cannot regain health so long as the causes that are impairing health are still present.

His answer - return to the law of life. He feels that any attempt to remove the causes of disease at the expense of the life of the sick person or by deteriorating the conditions of life, so as to leave one’s future existence more uncertain and full of suffering, and guarantee premature death, requires less skill than may be supposed.

He feels that when misuse of the body and the means of living (conditions and choices of living) have resulted in disease, intelligence suggests that before health can be restored, the first thing to do is to understand and ‘correct’ the cause of the illness. Therefore to continue to abuse the body and misuse the means of existance and seek for cures, or to seek to be immunised against the consequences of abuse and misuse is - in his words - “absurd”.

Certainly from an Ayurvedic perspective we are seeking to restore health, treating symptoms where necessary BUT trying to get to the root cause of any loss of wellbeing through changes to diet and lifestyle and the use of natural medicinal herbs. Reiki also helps us get to the root cause of any loss of wellness, but it can take time - it may have taken years for us to be living out of alignment with nature for disease to manifest and it will take a good while to undo this pattern - and we have to be deeply honest with ourselves.

Yoga too is invaluable in helping us understand more of our mind and the impact this has on the body. Yoga is primarily a practice for the mind but does have physical therapeutic benefits too. Slowly, we learn to undo tension from the mind and body and in the process we start to notice more of our tendencies and patterns - the way we get ‘triggered’ and what lies underneath this - what is the story and is is true? Where do we feel it in the body? And what thought processes/limited beliefs etc accompany it. Sometimes the underlying ‘scent’ or ‘aroma’ was set in a previous life and yet still we keep living the pattern in this life. Committed practice is essential, there is no half way house if you truly want to heal and realise more of the self.

It is my experience that any loss of wellness in the body, every ache and pain is merely highlighting where we are holding onto an emotion (energy in motion), which has got stuck, and will always have a mental and indeed spiritual aspect to it too - so we will need to be prepared to look at ALL levels of our being.

I have a sense that the key to healing is taking responsibility and listening to one’s body. BUT, I am conscious that sometimes our karma is such that healing or recovery as we might anticipate it, is not our journey this lifetime. It is entirely possible that the journey of illness, is where we might find our greatest peace and moments of enlightenment, in passing from this earthly incarnation and onto the next.

One might ask - so why bother with healing practices, if we are all going to die anyway? Ultimately it is about quality of life and in many instances, this is based on the choices we make.

Herbert has a lot to say on this: “It is true that the causes of disease are often obscure and that mistakes in their discovery and association are liable to occur, but this difficulty is obviated by removing from their influence upon the patient all causes of disease…

…Failure to recover is often due to small indiscretions, which the incorrigible refuse to discontinue. Those little indulgences that “do not amount to anything” are often enough to prevent the evolution of good health. Sitting up and reading until 11 or 12 o’clock because ‘I can’t sleep if I go to bed before”; a little candy, “not enough to hurt me;” a dish of ice cream, “just a small amount, not enough to amount to anything”, a smoke with a friend, “just one cigarette, that can’t hurt me”; a small drink, “just to be sociable, not enough to amount to anything;” staying in bed too late in the morning to get regular exercise; a little food between meals, “just enough to expel the longing, that all-gone feeling;” “surely such small trifles cannot possibly have anything to do with my continued bad feeling.” If I told not to eat between meals, they will chew gum and ask, “Why can’t I chew gum? It cannot do any harm. Besides, it relaxes me and is advertised to be good for the digestion.” If told to abstain from starch, the patient will take “just a little bread” or “only a few crackers or cookies, not enough to amount to anything.” If coffee is enjoyed, he will have “only a little weak coffee, it was mostly water.” He will have a small lunch after the theatre, “not enough to count, just a sandwich and a bottle of Coca Cola”.

“These chronic sufferers are likely to ask, “Doctor, can you do anything for me?” Such sufferers want somebody to do something for them; they do not want to do themselves. The correct answer to their question is: “No. But I instruct you how to do something for yourself”. How to do something for themselves is not the kind of prescription they are seeking. They want palliation - relief - and they will have it if they have to die to get it”.

Again we are reminded the importance of self-responsibility (more on this in a future blog) and being increasingly conscious of the choices we make and their impact upon us.

As Herbert continues, “A correction of the habits of life, even if only for a time, results in a disappearance of symptoms; but to build vigorous health and restore a normal body and mind, to retrieve lost vigor and add years to life, correction must take place before serious organic change has occurred in some or several of the vital organs of the body”.

It is not always easy to make these changes, not least because of our habits, but because of our relationship with others who may not understand the changes we are making, and may not always be supportive of these changes. When I stopped drinking alcohol, for example, this changed my life in more ways than just the benefit to my health, as I realised that much of my commonality with ‘friends’ at that time, was based solely on sharing a few glasses of wine together. Inevitably those friendships came to pass, and new friends entered my life who also chose not to drink alcohol and our friendship was based on a different connection.

Without doubt I have been judged for other choices in my life, which go against convention. It has taken a long time for my family to understand my dietary changes over the years as my sensitivity has increased and my tolerance for certain foods has been challenged, plus my perspective on “do no harm” has led to me finding it increasingly difficult to eat anything which may have been harmed by my eating it. It’s about vibration ultimately, and cleanliness of what I not only put in my body but what I expose my body to by way of environmental factors.

Yesterday someone commented on us leaving our back door wide open, which we do partly so the cat can easily go outside as we don’t have a cat flap, but also because I need fresh air. I would live outside if our climate permitted it, feet on the actual earth! I’d much rather live in a world devoid of WIFI and 5G too if I could, because I have a sense that there is an implication to our health from these vibrations, to say nothing of noise, too many people, and the general stress of the pace of our modern life with all its online living.

But back to healing and Herbert continues in his rather ‘to-the-point-way’, “How long is it going to take to take us to distinguish between spectacular palliation and getting down to the basic causes and removing these? Any fool can take an aspirin for a headache and remove it. Any ignorants can trim a corn; it requires more intelligence than most people seem to possess to get a properly fitting shoe. The land is overflowing with people who take an antacid after every meal, but few try to find and remove the cause of their almost perpetual gastric distress. How few correct their mode of eating to that they may enjoy gastric comfort!

Let us take the man whose gastric acidity is so intolerable that he keeps taking alkalies with which to neutralise it - it is never suggested that he remove the cause of the hyperacidity. His meals may well be described as a “heterogeneous comminglement of compound contrarieties”. No matter how much his stomach protests and cries out in pain and sourness, he will continue to eat indigestible mixtures and palliate his symptoms with drugs.

What a depressing prospect lies before the sick who devote most of their time to palliating and suppressing their symptoms. They finally end with the ever-narrowing confines of the vicious circle of symptoms grown to complexity from very simple beginnings. The suppressing, depressing, stimulating, and enervating effect of drugs are not health building under any circumstances of life. When a drug is taken to silence pain, we but defy the warnings of nature. Instead of obeying the admonition that is pain, we slay the messenger boy and pretend that no warning has been given. To remove an organ and ignore the cause of the impairment is to fly in the face of nature”

He continues, “There is no recovery where cause is not removed. The practitioner who putters with palliatives and treats effects and ignores the cause is a pretender, a charlatan. The man who cuts out affected parts of organs and permits cause to continue until it destroys the patient is criminal”.

And there’s more: ”Drugs and manipulations, heat and cold, electricity and supersound, prayer and psychological soothing syrups may palliate for a time; but there must inevitably come a time when these fail. There is but one genuine road back to good healtrh and this is a radical about face in the way of life. If disease is the result of gluttony, there can be no restoration of health until the overeating is discontinued. If tobacco is the cause of suffering, nothing short of giving up tobacco will enable the body to return to a state of health. If alcohol is the cause of discomfort, only sobriety will enable the sufferer to evolve into a state of good health. Whatever the habit or habits that are impairing health, they must be discontinued and their places taken by constructive habits of life…

…Just as long as our pleasure-crazed and self-indulgent people can be made to believe that disease is something apart from their daily life - germs or viruses or something over which they have no control - they will refuse to attempt to govern their frenzies, but will continue to wreck their health and life, and when they suffer, they will stupidly resort to palliatives and to surgical removal of affected tissues. The world is filled with means and methods of palliating symptoms and discomforts, but there is only one sure road to good health and this is the removal of the causes that impair health”

He goes on yet more as he is very passionate about healing naturally, but you get the idea. My reason for sharing is because I genuinely feel that treating symptoms is not enough, that we have to go deeper and make changes to the way that we are not only living our life, but perceiving our life and all that remains un-processed within us. It is in this way that we take back our power, and heal ourselves.

I have seen and heard of too many people suffering because of attempts merely to deal with symptoms, of one drug taken to counter another drug to counter another drug and all the suffering and the death that still comes. How fear often gets in the way of us listening to our bodies and truly making the changes that it’s pain is asking of us - if there is one thing the universe has shown me recently, it is the way that our fears often drive our choices and create our experience of life, impacting our wellness in the process.

Spiritual practices like Ayurveda, Reiki and Yoga all help us to come back to our true selves, to learn to love and respect our body - befriend it - and listen to the messages that it is trying to convey to us. In this way we begin to take our power back, which is a deeply empowering experience, allowing the song of our body to express the tune of our soul and our heart to flourish in the process.

Food for thought as we approach the solstice and the turning of the wheel - life doesn’t need to be lived day after day, week after week, month after month the same. There is always the possibility of change - just look at nature because if there is one certainty, it is that every moment is different to the one before, and resting into this truth gifts much comfort - we can begin again in EVERY moment, it is NEVER too late.

Love Emma x

This makes sense.