11 Iyar, 5776
Last night I addressed the Whole Health Forum audience as one of several people presenting a panel discussion about healing.
My opening remarks appear below. I was gratified that they were well-received and delighted to learn that some listeners have read
In 2005 I was diagnosed with a benign, skull-based tumor that blinded and almost killed me. GOD, the surgeon, my friends and specific alternative healing strategies helped me to see again. We made medical history. Life lessons were involved. So was my sense of humor.
I wrote this book because I wanted to do people a favor by alerting them to healing possibilities and cutting-edge medical developments, sharing spiritual insights, and letting readers know of world wide organizations willing to pay part or all of your specific medical expenses. EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge shares many ideas, one of which can be explained this way:
Viktor Frankl said "When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves." I'd like to add, "When you’re going through hell, look for the exit. Or create one."
All of us are here to heal. It might be physically, emotionally, mentally and/or spiritually. As you move through the throngs of people and exhibits, you feel an energy coursing through and around you. Use it. Memorize it. Cradle it. That energy can motivate you when you're feeling drained, clueless, and hopeless long after the event.
As we move through our healing experiences, we grow in insights, compassion for ourselves and others. We recognize the need for developing a support network of friends, relatives, acquaintances, plus medical and complementary healing practitioners. We learn not to assume, but to observe, to wonder, to be in awe. Respect, on many different levels, becomes one with our identities. The universe is filled with answers. It beckons us, challenges us to grow, even as we hardly realize that we are growing during our agony. That is Av HaRakhamim, the Compassionate GOD, Rofeh Cholim, the Healer, at work.
Accept the invitation. Fulfill your destiny as a spiritual creature. Let wonder fill your soul. Let the wonder heal you. The adventure is a gift from GOD, though it sometimes feels like a punishment. It's not. It is a path. Humanity tends to berate itself. But HaShem's nature, so to speak, is to forgive. Take Her/His lead. Go, find yourself in the universe, with every bit of your pain, doubt and fear. Access the healing powers that GOD put there. The goal is to grow your soul. Open your eyes, your mind, your gut and your heart to healing possibilities. Learn to laugh again. Find the love that awaits you. GOD put it there.
Other speakers on the panel then presented their stories. One is a board-certified surgeon who'd cured himself of Rheumatoid Arthritis with a macrobiotic diet.
He decried the limited worldview of his western medicine colleagues who denied that connection of food to health.
He briefly described actual vignettes of how doctors deny, ridicule or ignore documented evidence of healing fostered with vegan, vegetarian or macrobiotic diets, plus evidence that organic food promotes health better than adulterated non-organic food.
The saddest story was about a patient who'd recovered from agonizingly painful and debilitating Crohn's Disease with a macrobiotic diet. Her gastroenterologist insulted her intelligence by insisting that food has no impact on the digestive system, that it was the medicine he'd prescribed which had cured her. He did not reply when the woman laid out her unused medication before him.
Food is irrelevant to health. Such a stance is no better than believing that the sun does not cause sunshine.
Other panelists chimed in with proof that adulterated food filled with herbicides, pesticides, preservatives, and other noxious chemicals undermine human health, and that their own deadly types of cancer abated due to improved diets.
I remarked that when I asked the director of a cutting-edge cancer treatment center why his facility is being built, he responded that "Cancer rates are growing. Lifestyles are responsible for that." I responded with a request that he save lives and money by making Public Service Announcements. He could tell the public that synthetic hygiene products, excessive sun exposure, adulterated food stripped of nutrition but filled with poison and other avoidable causes of cancer be eliminated from public consumption.
He gave me a demeaning look as if to say "You sweet dumb idiot." Then he said, "The public will never understand or accept that."
I disagree.
Do you need to be told that you'll sicken and probably die if you eat rat poison? Raw sewage? Spoiled meat?
The group also discussed the medical world's tendency to withhold information from patients, believing that it's merciful to refrain from informing people that they might die or are dying and that it is "only" appropriate to share such news closer to the prognosticated date of death, when symptoms can no longer be denied. THAT is a demeaning point of view. It robs people of the opportunity to handle their own affairs, to save their own lives or at least try to.
Worse, it is a lofty excuse for pulling off a crime. If doctors cannot deal with the emotional ramifications of dealing with sad, frightened patients, then medical schools ought to teach necessary lessons. And arrogant practitioners should leave the "healing" profession that they undermine.
I pray that knowledgeable people will hold Getting to Know You events that foster educational interactions with medical professionals, alternative/complementary healing professionals and survivors who ended their agony by changing their eating patterns and other lifestyle factors, and went on to live more pleasant, productive lives for the effort.
Change usually comes slowly, hence a need to make and to expect gradual changes. But...
... as death rates rise from the poisoned food supply, a need to alert the public that eating just might be a suicidal activity becomes imperative.
May blessings come your way.
Buy the E-book or print edition of EMPOWER Yourself to Cope with a Medical Challenge. Learn techniques for changing your menu sensibly and with a sense of humor.
Face Your Medical Problems with Dignity. Face Your Future with Optimism.
Fill your life with sensible choices.
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