Rectification of Names

Most people I know consider Confucius a smart dude.  Confucius taught that if we want to have any hope of repairing what's wrong in the world, we should start with the “rectification of the names.”

This means calling things as they truly are.

Having the wrong name for things can lead people to behave in ways they did not originally intend. 

Many people today behave as though their premiums for health insurance somehow help them obtain a state of wellbeing.  This causes them to disconnect their personal choices from their level of wellness.  I say this is a great tragedy and is responsible for much of the all-too-prevalent sickness and disease we see daily in America.

We recently overhauled our Health Care system but left the wrong name on it.  I propose we begin a "rectification of names" starting with Health Care. Let's call it what it is - "Crisis Care," or "Sickness Care" or "Disease Management."  This will tell people what their dollars are actually spent on.

Today's Sickness Care has nothing to do with health.  A bold statement, I know.  This Sick Care System is primarily concerned with death, dying and disease.  And that's OK because it does save people from dying when they're on the brink and it is with humble gratitude that I say, "Thank Goodness for these loving professionals!!!"  They are good at their job!  And if I am ever in an accident I want the best Crisis Care Professionals taking care of me!

Doing as Confucius suggested will reconnect people with an understanding of the effects of their choices and that health is what happens when you supply the intelligence of the body with what is required (sufficiency) and keep it free from things that harm it (purity).

Current "Health Care" professionals simply don't have the time to study and educate people on health when they are fixated on the pandemics of early death and disease.

We need a health care system that promotes true health and personal responsibility rather than dependence on technology to undo the effects of our choices.  This can be done by a health care system that educates about the simple idea of purity and sufficiency. Our current system is aimed in the wrong direction. We must find prevention professionals who are outside of the crisis care system, but above all, we must apply Confucius' principle of the Rectification of Names.


Reconnecting you to "Health is Normal."


Resources:
UC Berkeley Article
NY Times article
Private contribution :


“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.”


Picture from:
The Quote Blog

Wellness Made Simple

I find it AMAZING that during any presentation I give, I can ask one question and always get a unanimous response. The question is - "Is there anyone in this room who doesn't want to be well?"

Dead silence...Every time!

Anywhere you go, in any part of the world, when you ask this question, the response will ALWAYS be that every single person, every single time wants to be WELL.

The reason is that this is HUMAN NATURE. It's built in to each one of us, it's stamped into our genes and on our souls - the desire to strive for health, happiness, and wholeness. Sometimes people have been beaten down so badly that they no longer think health is possible, but deep down they still desire to be well. This state of being well, this state of optimal health has appropriately been titled "wellness".

There's a lot of misunderstanding of what Wellness actually entails, so anytime we talk about wellness, we must make sure we're all on the same page. So, let's start with definitions - Wellness is the NATURAL state of the body in a sufficient and pure environment.

It's SO simple!

The body is whole and complete and expresses health, naturally, when it has both  SUFFICIENCY and PURITY - meaning when it has ALL the building blocks that are REQUIRED to express health while remaining FREE of those things that would harm the body (toxins).

These are the first two fundamentally important concepts of true wellness - SUFFICIENCY and PURITY. When we truly understand stress and stress physiology, we will understand that lack of purity and sufficiency is the basis for virtually ALL HUMAN DISEASE and SUFFERING.   There's not the space right now, but when I get to it, I'll show you that there are only 2 causes of ALL HUMAN DISEASE and SUFFERING.  Oh well, I'll just give it away right now, the ONLY 2 reasons that anyone anywhere will express less than 100% health are DEFICIENCY and/or TOXICITY.

Most "pathology" is actually the study of EFFECTS of the body being in a state of stress due to deficiency of required nutrients or toxicity with harmful substances. Look at the major killers in America - Heart Disease, Cancers, Strokes, Type II Diabetes, Obesity, etc. These are all adaptations by the body as a result of STRESS due to toxicity and/or deficiency.

Having a lack of understanding of the intelligence of the body and the environmental influences creating a state of stress is what allows people to believe that HEALTH is achieved by luck or random chance and that SICKNESS is caused by bad genes, bad germs or bad luck. This represents a gross miseducation process.

Health is NORMAL!

Although sickness is VERY COMMON in America, understanding that it is NOT NORMAL is crucial. Sickness, or disease, or illness all result from people either NOT supplying their body with what it needs or by exposing it to things that harm it. In other words, sickness and disease are a result of being in a toxic/deficient environment!  This means that whether we are sick or well is a direct result of what we DO and of the environment we CHOOSE to put ourselves in.

The truth is that Health is a matter of CHOICE, not chance.

Over the next few months, I will post discussions on the topics of Eating Well, Moving Well, and Thinking Well and how they are the very keys to our health and happiness.

Reconnecting You to Well Being, Naturally!

Yours in Health, Love, and Freedom - Intern Steve Perry

Don't watch this while eating!!!

At a recent health fair in Alameda County, I was thrilled to see a booth from the Health Department and to learn of their campaign this summer.  The campaign is entitled "Have a Soda-Free Summer". 

I love the idea. 

But, I knew we'd be going to Aunt Sue's for the 4th of July, and what would the 4th be without a root beer?  So, although I did NOT make the pledge to go all summer without a soda, I did reaffirm my commitment to focus on healthy drinks ALL YEAR LONG (with an occasional toxic soda).  The BEST choice for a healthy drink is pure water or pure water with a squeeze of lemon or lime. 

New York apparently thinks going soda-free is a good idea as well, here is a commercial for their campaign.  This one gives a great visual of just some of the nastiness sodas can cause to a body.  Also noteworthy is the fact that the dairy industry was able to get a promotion snuck into this campaign (fat-free milk with the same color design as the water - sneaky). 

This leaves some explaining to do seeing as how fat does not make you fat (blog topic coming soon).

The best drink you'll drink this summer is pure water - get your energy from food not drinks.

Reconnecting you with a correct understanding of consequences.

Enjoy the video:

What happens to your body when you drink Coke?

Watch what happens when you drink a can of Coke…

In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.

20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)

40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your liver dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.

45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.

After 60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.

After 60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.

After 60 minutes: As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, excreted away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like being able to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth leaving you more susceptible to the diseases that plague Western Countries - Osteoporosis, Heart Disease, Dental Problems, Fatigue, etc.
 
From Nutritional Research Center
http://www.nutritionresearchcenter.org/healthnews/what-happens-to-your-body-if-you-drink-a-coke-right-now/

Food, Movement, Thoughts

Yesterday during church the most impressive moment for me was when someone got up and related a profound story. He asked a coworker what the most valuable thing was in his life. He was inspired by the coworker's response-after thinking for a long moment, the coworker replied, "Relationships."

So true. I even took a moment to write this down (a rare thing for me as I'm usually too busy wrestling with the girls and feeding them snacks to write anything during church services anymore).

Indeed relationships are the most important thing we can cultivate in this life. During the Sunday School lesson I gave, I was sure to repeat this sentiment. Critical relationships in our lives are with our families/friends, our Creator, and also with our own bodies (physical, mental, spiritual). When we lose track of this fact, we become less happy and don't often realize why.

Importantly, many of us are removed from the last relationship - with our own bodies.  Because of the constant bombardment of conflicting ideas, many of us don't truly understand what to feed our bodies in terms of food, movement, and thoughts. Most of us have a general understanding and yet we don't act in ways that produce vibrant health.  Interesting... 

Most of us are disconnected with what our bodies try to tell us on a daily basis.  When we take time to listen, we will sometimes hear, but more often feel whether a behavior was beneficial for our body.  When we learn to listen more intently to our bodies, they will help guide us in becoming more healthy.  When we let the film of interference from outside signals fade away by cultivating an innate awareness from within, we can begin to express the health that our bodies are designed to express.

This is the very reason I created this blog - because our behaviors have consequences and what we do will spill over into what our children do. We need to reconnect with a true understanding of what our bodies naturally require and then figure out how to get ourselves to properly nourish our bodies...for our children's sake.

In Health, Love, and Freedom,

Stephen Perry - Wellness Expert and (soon-to-be) Chiropractor

Go for the wins!

What kind of wins do you have at your house?  What kinds of things will tell you that you've done what you set out to do as a parent?

For me and my daughter - it's when at 3 years old she finally eats some salad because she wants to.

It's her reading a book to her little sister and then running races with her.

It's her giving kisses to her toy baby while laying her down for a nap and telling her, "I love you" after just nursing her.

It's teaching her sister her newly acquired vaccuum-fixing skills.

What do they all have in common?  They all exemplify nourishing her mind, body, and spirit.  It's setting her up for a lifetime of success--of health and happiness and love and growth and service by role modeling.

It's the best gift a parent could ever give to their child and the community - not by coercion or force, but through encouragement and permission.

What kind of wins are you working towards?  How will you know when you have been successful?

If you don't like flies...

Today as I was picking something up from the store for my lovely wife who is preparing for tomorrow's yard sale, I noticed the hand sanitizer by the counter. I thought to myself, "Hmm, they're still selling that stuff?" You see, it's been a long time since I've used it even though it sits on every counter in the Health Clinic. I personally prefer rubbing my hands under running water rather than putting toxic substances, like alcohol, on my skin. (Did you know kids have eaten that stuff and been hospitalized for alcohol poisoning?) I'm very selective about what I put on my skin because the skin is a very absorptive organ and what you put on it goes into your blood similar to if you had eaten it.

So, my next thought was "Why are they still selling that stuff?" and realized, "Oh ya, the flu," - in other words 'bugs'. When reflecting on the last time I was sick, I don't really recall when it happened, and I haven't had a flu shot since 2004, so it's not due to being up on my vaccinations.

There's a better explanation to "epidemics" of flu and illness than lack of hand sanitizer and flu shots. A great doctor said it very well when he described the following scenario:

A woman in the kitchen was annoyed that there were so many flies coming in through the window and insisted that her husband take a look at the scene and kill all the flies. He complied by noting that there were indeed many flies and so sprayed toxic chemicals around where the flies were hanging out. Sure enough, soon there were no longer flies buzzing about. The wife was happy, and when wife is happy, husband is happy too.

But after a couple of days one or two flies started buzzing and by day three there were just as many flies as before. Wife knew just what to do, called in the husband who also understood what was to be done. Again with the poisonous chemicals, again with the mass death of the flies, again one satisfied couple, and again with a couple of days' silence followed by a renewal of flies buzzing.

This carried on for a number of weeks and finally the wife decided she didn't like the continuous exposure to toxic chemicals. She got smart and asked a very important question- "Why are those darn flies buzzing about anyway?" The husband looked outside and saw that the garbage can was directly beneath the kitchen window. Now he had a decision - spray down the garbage can, which, from experience he knew would only be a temporary fix - or he could get rid of the garbage. What do you think he did?

Many of us experience repeated bouts of illness and disease and have been trained to ask what chemical we can use to sanitize the area to kill all those bad bugs and take away the symptoms of the disease. This seems like a logical question, but misses the bigger picture. If we never ask the right questions, we'll never arrive at the right answer.

So, why DO some people get sick when others stay well? Why doesn't everyone at the office "get" what's going around? The answer is NOT that they are exposed to less bugs. The answer, as in the story above, is that they have an internal environment that is less hospitable to the "bad" bugs. They have less areas of garbage in their system, and their body's systems which respond to those bugs are working properly.

The answer is that they have an internal environment that is well-balanced. Could the couple in the story have continued to spray down the garbage and repeatedly kill the flies? What would have been the result? What is it about spraying with chemicals that can EVER get rid of the garbage?

The moral of the story is two-fold:

1. Asking the right question is EVERYTHING. The quality and quantity of our lives is determined by the quality of the questions we ask ourselves.

AND

2. Finding out what garbage we have in our systems is critical because only when we identify it do we have any chance of purposefully removing it.

As a wellness expert, I train people to identify areas of "garbage" in their lives and show them easy, gradual, and comfortable ways of removing them thus allowing their bodies to regain NORMAL, optimal function - NATURALLY. In other words, I help people look for the CAUSE.

The major causes, or categories of garbage, in our lives are:

CHEMICAL (e.g. sugar)
EMOTIONAL (e.g. unmanaged stresses)
PHYSICAL (e.g. chronic sitting, injuries, subluxation)

What drug is ever going to solve the problems caused by an unhealthy diet?

What drug can overcome a problem caused by not moving enough?

What drug can solve a problem created by not feeling loved, appreciated, and having a sense of belonging?

Until next time, live well, naturally, and remember - if you don't like flies...take out the garbage.