Health is the ability to comprehend yourself in your environment.
This capacity and level of living grows out of a vivid understanding of ourselves: who we are, what we are, what our potential is. As we act out of an intelligent understanding and awareness of this reality, we can begin to be accurately aware of our environment.
Once we can connect to our environment, we can begin to sense the other people in our circle of influence.
As we become aware of the realities of other people, we can start to gain insight into the full sense of our environment.
As we come to know ourselves in our environment, we can seek the path of health, with growing knowledge and our most powerful intention.
To review these steps again:
1. A vivid understanding of ourselves: who we are, what we are, and our potential.
2. An accurate awareness of our environment.
a. Our geographic environment.
b. Our physical environment.
c. Our social environment.
d. Our emotional environment.
e. Our spiritual environment.
3. With this accurate awareness, we begin to seek a balance of these factors to engender a powerful basis for our physical, emotional and spiritual being to thrive and grow in.
In this state our physical being will reflect this amazing integrity by flowing through life like a stream over a rough streambed. It creates a harmony of sound and sight, and an unending persistent rush to our fullness.
In our full awareness, or intelligence, we are primed for more and greater wisdom, knowledge and enlightenment to be added to our heart, mind and soul.
There is a good example in the scientific literature. One study found that our "surroundings play a key role in [our diet choices and in obesity]." They found that “people who used to be satisfied by a 12-ounce can of soda may now feel that a 20-ounce bottle is just right.” They determined that “people learn how big an appropriate food unit is from their cultures. For example, yogurt containers in French supermarkets are a bit more than half the size of their American counterparts. Yet French shoppers don't make up the difference by eating more containers of the stuff.” 1
If we enjoy a full awareness of our environment, we will be aware of our own needs and the pressures of our society, and resist the pressure of society and meet the genuine needs of our body in our dietary choices, social choices and our interaction with both the people in our environment as well as the culture of our environment.
The oft-repeated quote makes this principle plain and simple: “To thine own self be true.” But to be true to yourself you must know yourself as you really are, not as you have believed yourself to be in the past. I hear from people, over and over again, statements like: “My mother had degeneration in her hips, so I am sure that I am going to have it too.” Or, “It’s going to take a long time for me to change.” Or when we hear we have been diagnosed with cancer, we believe our culture, and the belief we acquire is expressed in the first question we ask, which is, “How long do I have to live?” This shows that we believe the doctor really knows what our potential is, and that we choose to take their opinion of what our likelihoods and possibilities are and accept these as real, and by so doing we make them real. Statements like, “Well I am the kind of person that…” are deadly traps in which disease finds a fertile, fresh Petri dish to grow on.
Our environment only becomes a limitation to our expressed potential if we choose to let it be. If we don’t really understand that environment, it will likely take control of our destiny.
We can become anything we desire; anything within the laws of nature, and they are very generous in so far as potential goes. If we are to be truly healthy, we will come to know what kind of a person we really are, and really can become. The reality is that we can become whatever kind of person we choose to be.
Best,
Dr. O.
1. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2006-07-30-eating-cues_x.htm
