Another timely topic for today! When mass society seems to count on what some “great mind” has figured out for our health care; a minority of folks are smart enough to rely on a little common sense and trusting their gut-reaction. I wonder which comes out in better in the long run.
I have an interesting philosophy on all of this, since I’ve been one of those taking the road less travelled for over 35-years while overcoming numerous chronic and life-threatening conditions. I did that without the help of science, I might add. So, thought my two-cents might be relevant on the subject of which is healthier, intellect or intuition.
As many of you, who have heard my healing story, know that when I first developed rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in 1981, I was a dutiful patient following every one of my doctor’s orders. I even served on Hospital boards and was a devout believer in everything conventional medicine dictated. So, I listened and obeyed. When I was told my first couple were chronic conditions and that there weren’t cures, I agreed to settling for conventional medicine addressing my symptoms with pharmaceuticals. That’s precisely what they did.
What I didn’t realize is that with any chronic condition, drug therapies continue until the day you die, often adding more and more to counter subsequent side-effects from the first drugs. For 18-months, we were treating the symptoms and never getting to a cure. Additionally, since all drugs weaken the immune system, by either direct suppression or by putting it on the side-lines, and 90% of drug, besides the side-effects, drugs are never a great idea.
Back to side effects, if you don’t believe me about those, listen carefully to the pharmaceutical ads on TV, they list many of those side effects at the end of each commercial, which most viewers are now so accustomed to, they ignore. But listen closely next time—the hair on the back of your neck will stand up. Anyway, in my case, my RA really didn’t improve, over those first 18-months, my meds just kept getting stronger.
To shorten a long story, by the time my rheumatologist was ready to write the prescription for Methotrexate, a drug much too toxic for my taste, my body froze. I couldn’t say anything or do anything, so I didn’t’ and ended up walking away from conventional medicine. It just didn’t feel like I was on the right path. Did I know what I was going to do? No idea—but I knew it wasn’t that. That was also the first time I realized my body had an opinion and could give me a signal.
As I wandered out into the completely foreign world of natural or alternative medicine, I was lost, and I recognized it. So, I just took it a day at a time, not searching or frantic for answers but simply trying to get my bearings. Then, when answers began to appear; I tried them all. Those that worked, I kept and those that did nothing or my body rejected, I stopped. Nothing was a total cure, but one maybe helped 10%, another 20% and so on. Within a couple years my little ritual now added up to 100% and I was symptom free. I realized total healing was cumulative and progressive. My body was the judge and jury in this entire process, and I listened to what it had to say. If things worked, it was obvious— if they didn’t that was obvious, too. None of this was an intellectual process.
That became the way I approached my healing challenges over the next three
decades and it worked every time since I recovered from the rheumatoid arthritis, leukemia (twice), hyperthyroidism, psoriasis, chronic allergies and even neutropenia— when the immune system functions less and less until it has no capability to fight off anything (another very serious condition) —all without pharmaceuticals or conventional medical intervention.
The problem with most people is they are afraid. They don’t trust themselves and they don’t trust their bodies. They believe someone must understand the how and the why regarding medicine and science to make an intelligent decision about their health. So they look to someone—anyone—to believe in and they follow whatever they’re told. Well, one voice, in the wilderness, cannot possibly know what is right for your specific body, at that moment in time. One size fits all medicine rarely works. Symptomatic remedies here and there work fine, but not long-term drugs or other preventive measures that proport to replace the body’s own immune system.
Instead of relying on science to find drugs to do the work of the immune system, we should be learning how to strengthen our body’s own immune system. Trust me, all the methods for doing that are natural (not harmful) and your body will respond right away! You’ll know you are on the right path. Most of those methods will feel right and in making those decisions, you’ll be using your gut, not your brain.
So, let’s get back to gut. Have you ever wondered where the phrase “gut feelings” came from? Fact is, the gut has millions of nerve cells, giving it almost a mind of its own. Although all the body’s signals come from the brain, the nerve cells in the gut do play a part in not only your emotion but your intuition. Many in Eastern medicine honor the signals from and function of our gut. Notice how the configuration of the intestines and the configuration of brain matter, look pretty similar? Some believe the knowledge that second brain might be more powerful.
For example, when you get a knot in your stomach, feel anxious in the center of your body, get a gnawing feeling or even a queasy one— it’s your gut telling you something important. Sometimes those signals stop us cold and sometimes they drain us of energy. There is another powerful feeling to help us—the one that is sort of a “knowing” Is that our body talking to us or our intuition? Are they even separate?
Intuition is under-rated and intellectual gifts are overrated when it comes to healing issues that are labelled chronic. I’m living proof of that. Without a single guru leading me, I had only my intuition and my body and I was led to a host of smart practitioners of all sorts who came and went in my life, bringing valuable insight and remedies for my body to try and judge. I let my intuition guide me and my body give me the verdict. I trusted and I was led. The blessing about chronic conditions is that they don’t kill you the next week; you actually have a little time to experiment, and I did.
Your intuition is crucial in life. I’ll bet when you think of some of the most important decisions you ever made, they were always intuitively made. They involved emotions, feelings, senses and your gut—not always the most logical but always perfect! The house or car you picked, the mate you selected, the way you responded to your new baby or the care with which you nurtured someone who was near passing. Rarely intellectual and almost always intuitively led.
So, if you want to improve your health and the likelihood of total healing, trust your intuition more and your intellect less. Let others figure all the time-wasting, intellectual stuff, then you can simply sit back, listen, pause for a moment and then nod yes or no. No may mean, never for me or may mean, I’ll just wait for now.
Making intuitively led decisions in your health care is an empowering and a much more effective way to stay in optimum health!