Reality Check

When I am on my home turf, I find myself surrounded by people who can appreciate my point of view.

As a result I have been lulled into the illusion that I (along with my point of view) are almost hitting the normal zone.



The definition of a real vacation is 'the rare opportunity to see life through a different lens that is very different from our own'.  


I enjoyed some relaxing down time this past Christmas.  I was visiting family in the Southern US . While there I was exposed to American Reality TV, in large doses and for an extended length of time.  I don't have a TV at home so if there is video screen in the room I am like a Mennonite in a furniture store.  I can't help myself.  My eyes keep getting drawn in by the movement.

One night I had a dream about Pickers and Pawners.  Although these were the shows I enjoyed the most while away, the dream itself was more of a nightmare.

I am by nature a neat freak.  I find clutter to be painful.  In this dream I was trying to clean out a building that was full of trash.  The other characters in the dream kept tossing the stuff back to me telling me how valuable all this junk was, and that I should hold on to it and sell it.  Rick says to me "You could make a fortune!".

Is this for real?
The drugs commercials in particular blew my hair back.  The visual images always showed radiantly happy  families blissfully doing outdoorsy things together.  In the US, by law, the advertisers have to list the side effects of their products in full, and most of the slotted airtime was given to this verbal listing.

So as one is hearing the horrific list of ills like "may cause drowsiness  headaches, blindness, cause sterility", bleeding, and "some individuals may experience homicidal  or suicidal tendencies", you see these beautiful people going about experiencing the best life has to offer (in slow-mo with great music).


One advertisement in particular was describing the benefits of a drug used  for the treatment of chronic body pain.  It showed a lovely woman sitting on a  park bench serenely  reading a book.  All the while my ears are being subjected to the horrible litany of side effects which goes on and on and on. (and on).



So as I am watching this, I am wondering if it is just me or is everyone else on glue?


Through my networks I hear many people who are upset about the drug companys' agenda.  Yet I wonder how any company or any movement can continue without the mass of people to support the enterprise?  Companies usually survive by giving people what they want.  Maybe soma is what most people want?  Or perhaps people don't have enough information or common sense to make different choices.

Long ago,  before my personal exploration into the world of natural healthcare, my medical healthcare providers would  suggest medications to me.  I always considered the treatment they were offering, but gave myself the choice.

 I give myself the choice to 'Just Say NO'.

Sometimes I followed their suggestions. Sometimes not.  I wasn't opposed to 'swallowing the pill', but for the most part I just couldn't see a future in it.  I wanted real answers to real questions.

These questions were usually:  What ?  How?  Where? and Why?

I never got great answers.

On one occasion the attending  doctor at my local clinic suggested that my digestive ills were because I was a woman, and women tended to be hysterical.  I want to let you know that I let him live, if only for the reason that if I actually bitch-slapped him, I would indeed prove that I was hysterical.

I did visit with a local herbalist and she was able to determine that I was experiencing simple liver and gall bladder overwhelm.  I also had a congested large intestine.  (She never mentioned 'hysteria' thing at all.)

So back to the chronic body pain.  We can say it in another language 'arthritis' but al in all, our structure hurts. It hurts when we move or it hurts when we don't.  Or we hurt all the time. When it goes on for a long period of time without relief or our bodies don't resolve the problem on its own, we call it 'chronic'.

Here are some thoughts.
To view the body holistically one must assume that we exist in a time continuum, experience cause and effect, and accept that no part or aspect of the body is divorced from the whole.  To push this right into the Quantum zone, we are energy and matter.

Pain is really a symptom of a mystery.
Do we have too much mineral?  A lack of mineral?  Infection toxins backing up in the blood and being pushed and stored into the joints?  Is this an allergic symptom?   An immune response?  Is there a chronic shortfall of nutrition needed for the joints to build?  Is this local or systemic?  Are we over/under exercised.  Perhaps we have toxic blood, or poor circulation?  Is this pain in the area of an old injury or birth trauma?  What about our nervous system pathways?  Is this pain a drug reaction or side effect?

There are so many possibilities.  To my mind, drugs that suppress symptoms short circuit the body's ability to heal the root of the problem.  Removing the pain and leaving all else keeps us from looking at the real issues.


So the questions remain:  What?  How?  Where? Why?  And what can I do about it?

Keep Well_
Nelda