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I’ve wanted for the longest time to write about the connection between our health as individuals and the health of the whole world. Now that I’ve seen The Story of Stuff, I don’t have to try to write about this complex and important question. I can just urge you to watch this 20 minute video (free at this link) and see the essence of how our consumer culture works and the impact of its unsustainable and toxic practices. Not only does it affect individual health (though environment toxins, for example), it puts the health of the entire planet in a very precarious state.

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When I first heard about The Story of Stuff, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it. I didn’t want to see a doom and gloom video that would only serve to depress me. But The Story of Stuff is not at all depressing — alarming, yes, but not depressing. It’s worth seeing for so many reasons. It presents facts and information in such clear terms. It ingeniously summarizes the history and current state of our consumer culture in such a clear, compelling way. It is clever, creative and actually entertaining to watch. After watching the video, you can click through to 10 steps you can take. It’s energizing and inspiring to see what we can actually do to change this situation. And my sense is that taking these steps will be an essential part of a true and lasting economic recovery.

Deciding who to listen to when it comes to diet, exercise, treatment choices, etc. can be confusing at best. Currently I have been reading about solutions for chronic back pain. Each book I read enthusiastically promotes its ideas, with lots of impressive testimonials to boot. As I read many of the books, I find myself thinking — oh yes this makes so much sense, this is the final answer. And yet, many of them disagree on even the most fundamental recommendations. Any suggestion, from how the pelvis should be tilted to whether back pain is related to physical abnormalities or stress, will have an opposing view.

I’m finding in my own healing journey that I learn a little bit of value from each book I read and every therapist I see, even if it is what doesn’t make sense for me. Every idea can trigger an insight for me, as I put together what works for me. It’s ultimately my own insights and observations about what works for me that I’ve come to rely on. How many times has a recommendation for health been made by a major authority, only later to be withdrawn as faulty? How many times have you followed a piece of advice simply because it came from an “authority”, only to later realize it wasn’t helpful at all, maybe even quite the opposite of helpful. I feel it’s vital that we view everything in the light of common sense and our own intuition. The best advice comes from what our bodies tell us, our inner knowing and testing things out for ourselves. At the very least, if someone says “always do this”, “never do that”, “eat this”, “don’t eat that”, etc., actively search out the opposing viewpoint and weigh the options for yourself.

Perhaps conflicting viewpoints are most obvious when it comes to diet. You can find an overwhelming number of conflicting theories and recommendations about food. Some say eat only raw food, others say eat only cooked food. Some say a food is wonderful for you that someone else says is toxic to eat. I’ve been very interested in Ayurveda for years. Ayurveda contains an extensive list of what foods are good for what types of people (which is a big improvement over recommending the same foods for everyone as is done in most systems). Many of these recommendations are consistent among Ayurvedic experts, but even there you can find differing viewpoints.

I always get a chuckle when I remember how someone reconciled opposing viewpoints about whether to eat tomatoes and/or potatoes. One vaidya (Ayurvedic physician) said eat potatoes but don’t eat tomatoes. Another said eat tomatoes but don’t eat potatoes. Someone made an amusing remark — my conclusion is that I can eat both tomatoes and potatoes to my heart’s content! Someone else would have avoided both “just in case”. The ultimate test, of course, would be to see how your own body responds to eating both. And always, moderation goes a long way to negate the possibility of eating the wrong thing. “Eat a little of everything” might be the best advice if you are unsure.

To say that we must be our own authority on our health doesn’t mean not to consult experts. But it does mean to ask questions, educate ourselves about what they are recommending, listen to alternative viewpoints, and ultimately make the decision what makes the most sense for us.

Since I feel that I need to be my own authority, I feel it’s important to develop certain skills. I spend time learning about anatomy and how my body works, noticing the sensations and signals my body sends me, observing how my emotions affect my body, and being thoughtful about the choices I make. I spend time clarifying my values and what is important to me. Being my own authority means being willing to rely on my own common sense and intuition in spite of what the outcome will be. There are never any guarantees for outcomes in life, but we can make sure that we make the best decisions possible and that we honor ourselves and our own inner knowing in the process.

I remember once giving a stress management seminar to a busy staff and spending at least half an hour talking about the need to visit the bathroom when nature calls. Almost everyone admitted to feeling too busy to stop what they were doing to go to the bathroom, take a drink of water, stretch their bodies. Sometimes people were so absorbed in what they were doing that they didn’t even notice the signals of hunger and thirst. When they were aware of them, they couldn’t tear themselves away from what they were doing to take the necessary break. Some even felt guilty about taking the time away from their desk.

How often do you ignore basic needs? Do you rest when you are tired? Do you get as much sleep as you need? Do you eat when you are hungry, and stop eating when you’ve had enough? Do you drink when you are thirsty? Do you even notice? Our bodies tell us what they need to be balanced. Our job is to listen.

We can go a lot further than paying attention to these most basic needs. The need for sleep can be a “loud” signal from the body, but we can start to notice “softer” cues that our bodies give us as well. As we increase the awareness of our body’s signals, we get a lot of valuable information about how to keep it in balance.

The more we can perceive about what is going on in our bodies and emotions, the better. If you start to notice more subtle messages from your body, you can become aware of an imbalance before it manifests in a disease. You can notice when you begin to get tired and take a meditation break or a catnap. You can feel discomfort in your body before it screams in pain from a repetitive motion injury. You can notice things early and nip problems in the bud.

Of course, awareness is only the first step. Once you are aware of what your body is telling you, you need to follow through the action to bring it in balance. It can be difficult to form this habit. You may feel you don’t have the time, but in the long run a little time and attention here and there to care for your body can help avoid spending a lot of time having to heal something, not to mention avoiding unnecessary pain.

We created the Body Awareness Meditation specifically to help develop awareness of the body’s signals. It helps you to slow down tune in to your body, so that you can be sensitive to your body’s needs. Even beyond that, it is relaxing and grounding. Listening to the body isn’t just a way to avoid future pain. Much of life’s pleasure comes through the body. The sense of connection with the body is satisfying and worth cultivating for its own sake. Start paying attention to your body. It will thank you for it!

In the past week I’ve received dozens of emails from friends and colleagues identifying the FDA as the enemy who is threatening our health freedom — freedom of access to alternative therapies and products of our choosing. The email contains a message from Rima E. Laibow, MD stating that: “The FDA is using legal maneuvering to end your access to natural health products… and natural health therapies of all sorts.” She states that this is being done through the FDA’s Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration. She asks that you take action through her website using the following link: http://tinyurl.com/2u7ghc. There you can sign a message to the FDA.

I wonder how many people visited her Natural Solution Foundation’s website and signed their name to the message without reading the message and without ever reading the FDA document to which the message refers. How many were willing to take the word of the Natural Solutions Foundation at face value without ever investigating the issue themselves?

I am a passionate advocate of health freedom (freedom of access to products and therapies of our choice, whether they be conventional or alternative). I have reservations about the FDA making decisions about the usefulness and safety of many alternative therapies, and I don’t have much trust that a medication is safe because the FDA has approved it. At the same time, I don’t think the FDA is out to deprive us of all access to alternative therapies. Therefore I read the Guidance myself. (You can read the Guidance itself at this link: http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/06d-0480-gld0001.pdf.)

I couldn’t find justification for many of the Natural Solution Foundation’s statements in the FDA document. For example, they state that “their (the FDA) ploy is to declare the therapies are “Medicine” so any non-physician who uses them will be practicing medicine without a license.” I don’t see anything like that in the Guidance. People have jumped to all sorts of conclusions about the what the Guidance is saying and what the implications of it are that I simply can’t see there.

The other day a friend expressed her upset about what the FDA is supposedly doing — “no one will be able to do Reiki if they aren’t a doctor”. As complicated as the FDA Guidance is, it’s quite clear to me that it does not mean that. There is specific reference to bodywork practitioners who manipulate the bodies of their clients without use of equipment not being subject to the FDA’s jurisdiction. If bodywork is exempt, certainly Reiki, in which the practitioner doesn’t even manipulate the body, would be exempt. Having not read the Guidance herself, my friend had jumped to conclusions based on a message in an email containing someone else’s interpretation of the Guidance.

The point of my post is not to try to analyze the FDA Guidance or Laibow’s position. To do justice to that I’d have to do a lot of reading and study. What I want to focus on is my concern that the same bipartisanship that we see in national politics is being reflected in the realm of health politics. There’s a tendency in many of us (including myself) to want either alternative or conventional medicine to be all right or all wrong. This kind of thinking doesn’t allow us to work together to find the best solutions. These issues are very complex and not subject to simplistic solutions.

There is also a tendency to rely on the opinion of experts and authorities. What’s interesting is that even those of us who feel we’re liberated because we don’t follow the advice of a doctor blindly, are still willing to follow the advice of an alternative “expert”. We find a new authority and don’t even recognize that we are still not thinking for ourselves. The willingness to look into the complexities of an issue and form ones own opinions, as well as the willingness to live in the “grey area” where there are no simple solutions, isn’t easy. But I feel we need to develop this willingness to really progress.