Most of us who have thought at any depth regarding healthcare in America are well aware that mainstream "modern" healthcare is flawed at it's core. Many have written at length regarding it's having sold out to the surgical-drug treatment model while ignoring or marginalizing known health restoring strategies including diet, exercise, relaxation approaches, structural change, electromagnetic approaches, kinesiology, emotional/energetic approaches, use of humor, the healing relationship and simply empowering individuals to become more independent and to take responsibility for their own health.

It is well documented that much of "modern medicine" is designed to keep patients dependent upon their doctor. The notion that there are things the healthcare consumer can do for themselves has been slow to catch on in the allopathic healthcare environment and many have naturally asked why this is so. For now, it is not my agenda to go into the politics and the backroom dealing of why this has evolved in this fashion. Nor is it my purpose to chronicle the irresponsible marketing of dangerous medications that have put people's lives at risk.

My purpose will be to introduce empowering healthcare content into this blog that is designed to make us all think and to help engender discussion of how to empower organic, client centered and consumer centered approaches that put them in the drivers seat regarding improving and reclaiming their own health. As such, concepts such as the following will be typical in this blog:

• The body is self regulating and constantly wanting to move towards homeostasis and balance. If you give it what it needs, the body itself will do the healing. (Body to include the neurological, muscles, organs, emotions, skeletal, respiratory system and more)
• Our thoughts influence our inner experience and our physical health. Change your thoughts and you are on your way to changing your inner experience and your physical health
• Our relationship with the truth influences our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. Documented research experiments are available that reveal the increase in the effectiveness of the immune system if we tell the truth, or if we lie. Self deception is a major risk factor in all health problems.
• The "hardy personality" is a term coined to depict a constellation of personality characteristics positively correlated withovercoming health crisis and challenges. An example characteristic is seeing the health condition as a challenge or something to be overcome. These types of empowering personality characteristics move us out of the victim stance where we feel powerless and thus more apt to defer to and depend on external sources of authority. Seeing the challenge and moving to encounter it, however, is empowering by it's very nature.
• We ourselves are truly the best authority regarding our inner health environment IF we are paying attention, IF we are aware and IF we listen to and follow what our body is saying and the like. The more we listen and follow what the body is telling us, the more reliably this inner advance health care radar will work in our favor.
• We need to learn to see ourselves as consumers of healthcare services and thus able to pick and choose and therefore better able to take personal responsibility.
• Alternative health modalities are often innovations with wide reaching and positive implications for health improvement. The very fact that they are alternative is often why they were able to be evolved. Without the freedom to explore alternative options that might work, these approaches never would have come into existence. As such, alternative practitioners or traditional practitioners that use alternative means are true allies to our reclaiming our power to choose and to take personal responsibility. Having an "evidence based" construct underlying these approaches is the rule of thumb that should always be employed in evaluating usefulness of any particular approach. Allowing and encouraging innovation, however, is even more central to the very core of health and healing. What works for one may not work for another. Having the freedom to experiment and using the real "scientific model" during our journey will help us enormously.
• Prayer impacts our physical, emotional and mental health. The key here is what is meant by prayer and what is the nature of the relationship the one praying has with the truth. The more aligned with the truth we or another praying are, the more apt that a positive answer will come from the prayer. A disclaimer offered, however, is that the answer may not be what we think is an answer at the time. Over time, however, we often see what occured following prayer to be even a better answer than what we had originally envisoned. Also, often the prayer offered is not the prayer answered. What may be answered is an answer to an even deeper issue that underlies what we are praying for to begin with. More will be said about this in the days to come.
• Diet, exercise, herbs, essential oils and manual therapies can be extremely powerful as preventative approaches as well as useful in reversing a number of conditions. Although no magic bullet, the key is using all of these in the combined format that best works for us.
• Lastly, the power of fellowship, positive social networking and the support of healthy friends and family cannot be ignored. Many studies have documented the healing power of support in dealing with heart conditions. Dean Ornish, MD, is a leader in this type of healing innovation. Although many of us have known this for years, it is finally being documented with the advent of rigorous research designs.

It is my desire that this blog and all those that participate will become a mutually supportive and mutually respecting and interracting collective. This very dynamic I believe is health inspiring and empowering for it is in community that ideas, concepts and beliefs greater than ourselves can come into fruition and nurture our core selves. When this happens, we know that we are not alone. We also know that we matter and make a difference and perhaps in some small measure, we might even feel a sense of belonging. I believe that these are the key building blocks of health on the most subtle and intimate level.