Innate Health: What it is and how to pro/cure it (Part 2)
When we’re sick, we naturally want to feel better, and that natural wish will lead us to seek out a healthcare provider.
We'll tell them what’s wrong with us, and hope that the provider can fix us or give us a cure. And indeed in some instances they can and do.
But what happens when we’ve been to see several healthcare providers, spent lots of time attending appointments, missed lots of work, invested a lot of money, and we’re still not healed, fixed nor cured?
Well, Einstein’s assertion that we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them is very relevant in this context.
Often the solution we seek for illness occurs within the framework of illness itself. So it can happen that the very conceptual framework itself inadvertently keeps us stuck in a cycle of illness.
Why is this? It’s because that framework views us as implicitly broken and in need of fixing.
That ‘you are broken’ framework is pervasive throughout modern globalised culture. And it turns out that it's the framework itself that’s limited and limiting, rather than us.
All forms of allopathic and alternative therapies are equally valid ways of helping us heal. They all provide important necessary conditions for the promotion of healing.
However, it’s important to understand that the therapies themselves are not the actual reason we heal. This assertion is supported by the variability of results across all therapeutic interventions.
Another important consideration in this context is what I call the Circadian Paradox - that despite a vast amount of individual and collective mental output in the direction of raising happiness and reducing stress, there is a chasm in terms of real outcome which is ever widening.
And similarly, in the realm of medicine, health, and wellbeing - despite a vast amount of mental output in the name of helping others to heal, there are overall lows in terms of that desired outcome.
But don’t worry - there’s good news to come as well. Because thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way.
If we understand the relationship between the conceptual framework of illness and the circadian paradox, a brand new and transformative alternative emerges.
If you are a seeker or provider of health and healing and are not getting the results that you desire, rather than blaming yourself, your clients, or the system, why not seek to upgrade the framework of your thinking instead?
Why not explore the possibility of shifting from a conceptual framework of illness to a framework of health?
In my work as a practitioner this is the single most important aspect of the therapeutic encounter - to draw my own and my patients’ attention to our ever present human capacity for innate health and healing.
It is a conversation designed to disrupt the conceptual framework of illness and create a new one that pro/cures wellness instead.
In practical terms such a conversation might look something like the following.
The patient tells me what’s wrong with them as I listen without judging or seeking to form a diagnosis.
I adopt a definite and intentional listening attitude, in which I have nothing on my mind and become fully present to their experience.
I try to understand their world, how they see things, what they’re up against, and precisely what it is that’s keeping them stuck in the cycle of sickness.
Having arrived at that clear understanding, I then strategically shift the conversation away from what’s wrong with them and towards what’s ‘right’ with them instead.
Together, we shift the narrative from one of pathology, and what’s not working, to a narrative that’s centred around health and the many things that are working in their favour.
I’ll remind them that they are a microcosmic representation of the universal intelligence behind all life. That they are the progeny of a long lineage of survivors and innovators, and that they are literally hardwired to thrive.
I point out that right now, their body is like a humming galaxy of activity, all co-ordinated and powered by that universal intelligence. In short they’re a miracle of evolutionary innovation - possessing the abundant potential for innate health, happiness and prosperity.
In that way, our conversation disrupts the tacit framework of illness the patient is likely inhabiting, and establishes a new paradigm with the power to pro/cure health instead.
Importantly, I’ll turn their attention towards the miracle of innate health and help them to contextualise their symptoms and signs within that framework.
Viewed from that perspective, symptoms can then be understood as coded messages from their innate health or natural universal intelligence - informing and advising them about important changes to be made.
In that new framework of innate health, symptoms are just as much indicating what’s right with you. And when clearly understood, they become accurate and reliable indicators, showing you exactly how to get back on track.
So in your own life and work, why not explore the possibility of shifting from a conceptual framework of illness to a framework of health instead?
NEW! LIVE EVENT IN LONDON
Sovereign Tea Time Live
On Sunday 11th September, join me in creating a new narrative of health and healing in the resplendent setting of Mariage Freres Tea Emporium in London's iconic Covent. This in-person half day workshop includes powerful talks, insightful tips and tools, and Q&A - over fine tea and patisserie. For further information and to book your place, click on the link below: