I once took the role of Passenger when it came to my own health. Making decisions was difficult and I let others do the work for me because It seemed easier than assuming command. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me so I let everyone else decide. Then I changed…
When I changed my way of looking at my problem, my future changed.
I stopped being a patient who was passively seeking answers, letting people who didn’t know anything about me tell me what to do. I actually liked hearing that there wasn’t anything I could do; that “this was irreversible, yes, you can drink coffee, there are no studies that prove your diet will make any difference. We’ll start with this medication and move on to the next. Exercise is good for you,but it won’t reverse the RA…” This was good news to me. It was permission not to do anything except take medication. And guess what happened. I got worse. The day I decided to look for my own answers was the day I began to get well. I knew in my soul that what I was eating was bad for me. I did not need a medical professional to tell me that. I read many books on how to heal. (Internet? Not available at that time. Although I was beginning to hear about email:-) So Many diets. I also began a spiritual journey and introduced myself to a new world of beliefs and healing ideas. I learned new words,Studies and phrases like Holistic-Meditation-Psychic Healing-Food Combining-Auyervada-Vegan-Okinawa-Mediteranian and the list keeps growing. I tried all of them and would sometimes see improvement and sometimes feel like a sucker. I learned a lot and one of the important things I learned is that what works for one person does not work for everyone. And I’m grateful that I was able to experiment with all these techniques, because if something worked, I was ahead and if it didn’t, I was only out the price of a book because I was always (not really) eating real food. I didn’t try things that were going to hurt me if I failed. The copper bracelets and the magnets didn’t work for me, but I knew they wouldn’t harm me either. So for myself, I learned what wouldn’t work and that was also a successful experiment. I did not try everything because, there are times when my intuition led me away from sharks (cartilage) trying to scam the hopelessly sick out of their money and I did indeed get sucked into some pretty stupid ideas.
If you’re desperate and in pain, sometimes, you can feel like a sucker. I never wanted to be, yet I didn’t want skepticism to keep me sick. And now that I know better, I do better.
6 questions to ask yourself when you are considering a new therapy:
- If this doesn’t help, could it hurt
- If this doesn’t work, am I Out of a lot of money
- Am I letting a leach (literal or figurative) in my life
- Do I trust the source
- Why aren’t other people using this
- How will I feel about this decision tomorrow
Trust yourself. You’ll know what is right for your body.