Health and the Whole Person

What is “Health”…?

The “official” or dictionary answer to this will vary depending on person or culture.  For many, “health” is just simply living day-to-day, in their chosen routines without difficulty or interruption. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Each of us was born with a unique character, a unique set of strengths and weaknesses and a unique set of challenges to navigate through in life.

We can pretend that we’re sheep or robots, following recipe lives and living robotic routines, investing in a set of material privileges and values that we’ve inherited … but is that really who and what we are?  If no one has questioned and dug deeper than the programming we’ve been handed in our lives, then we’re bound to be surprised – in an unpleasant way – by what life has in store for us.

So true “health” means more than just being able to “cope”.  Or just being able to be a little productive cog in society’s architecture. Or to live a lifestyle based on assumptions or addictions. True health is not being a “statistic” of the acceptable norm in scientific journals that lives and dies between two dates on a gravestone.  True health is not being just a consumer of “magic pills” that “magically” make your health symptoms disappear while making someone else rich.

Maybe it’s not up to us to define what “health” is for you, maybe it really is up to you.  But maybe part of this understanding of what “health” is, is understanding who “you” are.  The real YOU.  The “you” that sits inside of all the programming to please others and join the sheep and obey the rules and absorb all the superficial values that are handed to us by authority figures.

Once you find out who “you” are inside of all this, maybe you can begin to define what “health” looks like.  Is it more than just being pain-free?  Does it have anything to do with happiness? Contentment?  Peace of mind? Joy? Fulfillment? Understanding and celebrating your unique human character, gifts and destiny?   These are questions that we can’t answer for you, but we can encourage you to ask.

True health is deeply linked to our own state of awareness, “awake-ness” … consciousness as human beings.  If we embrace the challenge of living conscious lives… we’re on the way to discovering who we are and – consequently – what health really is.

What is “Disease” …?

 

Am I a “Whole Person” or just a Catalogue of Parts?