IS OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM UNHEALTHY? HMMMM….

Maybe we should call it our “UNHEALTH” CARE SYSTEM. 

Did I just say that?????

Let’s get into this sticky topic. 

It’s been painful for me to watch and listen to so many people trying to navigate through our healthcare system and coming up empty handed.  It’s sad to see people actually trying to get help and getting tossed and turned in so many different directions, with no clarity or support, and left extremely frustrated.  The complaints about navigating through portals, the impersonal feeling, long waits for an appointment, and more.  It leaves us feeling like there’s more value in data collection than actually spending time to understand what a person is experiencing or feeling.

All of this leads to the word “Critical.” It has become critical that we understand the importance of becoming our own healthcare advocates.  Here in the US, there isn’t one system that supports the WHOLE.  Everything has become specialized and compartmentalized.  One of the many disadvantages of this is, the specialist, isn’t communicating effectively with the other specialist.  The end result is lack of communication to the patient.  Where does this leave the patient? Typically feeling defeated and confused. 

WHAT DOES DEFEAT AND CONFUSION LEAD TO?  Mental and Emotional stress, Self-Sabotage, and accepting that this is our fate!  This applies to everything in life.

AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS…We accept that our health issues are our fate.  We throw our hands up and say this is what I’ve been given, so I guess I’ll just have to deal with it…and we muddle through.

What’s happening is, that we are losing trust in the system, which has been conditioning us for decades to, “Put our health in their hands.”  Does this ring a bell…”Doctor knows best.”

This trickles down to a deep subconscious lack of trust within ourselves.  How so?

Well, the message to the self is, if the system that I put faith in for my entire life is not supporting me, I foolishly trusted.  This energetic vibration of “Lack of trust” then trickles into everything that we do because the message is, “I’m afraid to make that mistake again.”  So, we live, not fully knowing where to put our trust.  Even worse, we keep going back to the same system looking for different answers.  We believe this is our only option, or that this system just cannot fail us. 

Another thing that happened in the division and compartmentalization of everything, is that it increased the divide between allopathic medicine and holistic medicine.  This ripple effect causes a deeper divide within ourselves.  How so?  A divided mind, separated from the heart, becomes easy to manipulate and keep stuck in a system, which isn’t providing space for any kind of healing interventions.  Why?  In order to heal anything, there needs to be unity.  This is the key to healing on every level.  What happens when we get a simple cut?  We need blood to heal.  Without the blood platelets coming together to form a clot, we will not stop bleeding.  This is an example of unity happening at the physiological level. 

WHAT IS THE YOGIC VIEW?  GO WITHIN.  This also applies to everything in life. Becoming our own advocates, is “GOING WITHIN.”  HOW?  We are conditioned to believe that professionals know more about our minds, bodies and souls that we do.  WHO KNOWS YOU BETTER THAN YOU?  Yes, we are not healthcare professionals, and we do need professional care, but at what cost? Not at the cost of feeling mis-treated, uncared for, or downright dismissed.  We are HUMANS and we should be treated like we matter, because we do MATTER!!

Before I go any further, it’s important to mention that there are still a number of amazing conventional healthcare providers that really go the extra mile.  They are out there and should be celebrated!

The other sad scenario is that all health and wellness professionals are not playing on the same team, which should be TEAM HUMAN!  The end goal for any health and wellness provider, should be a positive patient/client outcome before anything else.  Money is an energetic by-product of providing a human and ethical service.  This is different from selling shoes.  Serving a human life is a sacred experience!  It should be treated that way.

So, not only has the system, not fully supported Humans, but it also did a GOOD job of breaking the relationships with any other type of support interventions.  By this, I’m referring to, alternative practices.  Mainstream medical claims that there’s not enough data to support the benefits of many alternative modalities.  They tell people not to take herbs and supplements because they are unregulated.  They tell people to move, but that they need permission from their doctor first, and maybe in some cases they do.  This puts us right back in the loop of not knowing who or what to trust.  Who do we distrust the most?  OURSELVES!  A person should be autonomous enough to have a sense of what will help and what will cause harm, but this system says, “Dr. Knows Best.”  This takes away from building autonomy.

The biggest way they broke the relationship, is by not covering certain modalities under most healthcare plans.  This forces us to stay within this system.  The premiums are so high, which forces the mindset of, “Getting our moneys’ worth.”  Therefore, paying for outside services becomes unjustified.  So, most people keep going back to the same broken system, hoping for a different outcome.  Doctor after doctor, with still very little clarity or support, but they keep going back.

WHY?

BECAUSE WE ARE PAYING FOR IT, THEREFORE IT SHOULD WORK. 

SO, WHAT TO DO??  WHAT TO DO??

We can do nothing.  We can keep trying to navigate through our current system, hoping something will pan out.  We can step outside of the box.  We can learn that the first person we need to build a trustworthy relationship is with ourselves.  We can trust how we feel.  We can experiment with new modalities.

The other important thing to mention is the fundamental difference between conventional medicine and holistic medicine.  There is a scale called, “THE ILLNESS-WELLNESS CONTINUUM.” This was developed by Dr. John W. Travis in 1972.  It’s something that I use in my practice all the time, because it clearly explains the difference between the alleviation of symptoms, vs. true wellness.  Neither Illness or Well-being are fixed states.  They are a dynamic play that gets alleviated or aggravated by our choices, and lifestyles. From a holistic perspective, we understand that there are many variables that make up our being, and interrupt our well-being. 

What makes up a human’s well-being? 

• Physical

• Intellectual

• Environmental

• Emotional

• Mental

• Financial

• Occupational

• Social

• Spiritual

  These components make up a WHOLE BEING.  When one or several of these things are out of balance, we are not “Whole,” therefore, we need intervention to bring us back to WHOLENESS.  By the way, this is completely aligned with Ayurveda.  The primary goal of Ayurveda by definition is to maintain the health of a healthy person and to cure the disease(s) of an ill person.  Thus, Ayurveda focuses on one’s overall health and not just the freedom of physical diseases.  I took this straight out of my manual from school.

  
  

The traditional medical system, focuses on the elevation of symptoms.  According to the scale, when symptoms are elevated, we are in a neutral state of the “disease.”  The symptoms are no longer present; therefore, treatment was successful.  This is where conventional intervention stops.  This is also where most people, stop seeking care.  Why?  Our conditioning is, “It’s good enough.”  “I’m not great, but I feel better.”  We are conditioned to accept mediocrity with our health and well-being. Holistic care, picks up where conventional care ends. The goal of holistic care is to take the person as close as possible to the state of “Wholeness.”  Furthermore, it does a deep dive, to understand why and how the imbalance happened in the first place.

THE ILLNESS-WELLNESS CONTINUUM applies to all facets of our health and well-being.  Another example is mental health.  The goal of conventional therapy is to obtain self-regulation.  What is self-regulation?  It is the ability to manage our emotions, thoughts and behaviors so that we can socially integrate in the world, in the healthiest way possible.  When this is happens, traditional therapy is considered successful and no longer needed.  The holistic approach absolutely agrees with the need for self-regulation.  Not only does it support it, it sees it as the foundation for the deeper understanding of who we really are and why we are here.  Holistic well-being goes beyond self-regulation, into self-discovery, which is necessary for a deeper understanding of ourselves ultimately leading to a deep fulfillment of life.

So, what did this uncover? Maybe nothing new, but maybe this provided a shift perspective. The more time we spend angry at what isn't working, the deeper we will sink into the rabbit hole of illness.

UNITY HEALS.

DIVIDE IS THE ROOT OF DISTURBANCE.

DISTURBANCE LEADS TO DISEASE.

Food is a great example, we genetically modified things. That is divide, causing serious gastric upset in many people. Gastric upset leads to disease.

WHAT IS DIS-EASE? Anything that disrupts the normal function or structure of an organism,

ON ALL LEVELS, not just the physical level. Why? We are not just physical beings.

If we can remind ourselves to keep it simple, practice UNITY, and avoid DIVIDE, we can support our well-being beyond what we can comprehend.

HOW WELL TO WE WANT TO BE?

~ Leelah Lakshmi ~