Revolutionary Way to Be Healthy, #5: Repossess Your Health

It's often said that we take our health for granted right up to the moment we become ill or injured. And I think that's true. We humans are inclined to take a lot of important things for granted until they are threatened or lost. What's weird about our relationship with our health, though, is that almost as soon as it begins to falter (as the predictable result of neglect), we proceed directly from taking it for granted to simply rejecting our responsibility for it. Rather than re-declaring our ownership and jumping into corrective action ("Gads, it appears I have left this valuable vessel unmaintained and on autopilot for far too long! I shall reclaim command of it at once!"), we wring our hands and proclaim helplessness ("Eek, this darn thing isn't working right! Somebody, fix it, please!"). I don't mean to ridicule or blame the victim here. Certainly, there are illnesses and injuries that can come upon any of us, unbidden, and over which we have little or no control. And there are certainly people living in such desperate, entrenched conditions of poverty or violence that their choices are tragically limited. So yes, in some cases, there really is little to do but manage a given health challenge or injury with as much consciousness and self-compassion as we can muster. But here in the United States, where chronic lifestyle-related conditions account for the vast majority of our medical interventions and expenses, such scenarios tend to be the exception, and not the rul...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news