We’ve grown up to believe that medicine is that pill or liquid you take for a specific illness.  On many levels that is true but how about if we take a broader perspective on what the definition of medicine means.

I love this definition:

“Medicine is about the way you live your life.”

Dr. Judith Boice

What if we did a paradigm shift in our thinking of medicine?  Instead of thinking of a “pill for an ill,” let’s look at medicine as something that is NOT a pill.  What if we looked at medicine as:

• How you relate to yourself – Can you say that you love yourself or do you hold yourself in contempt, think negatively about yourself and speak that negativity out.
• How you relate to your family – Are you loving your family members unconditionally or are you playing “God” constantly trying to change them to your image and not accepting God’s image of them?
• How you relate to your community – Do you love your neighbor as yourself or do you lock yourself in your home and never come out into your community to engage in relationships with your neighbors?
• How you speak to others – Are you filled with anger and bitterness, and you allow that to speak out to others?
• How you start your day and end your day – I used to tell my organizing clients that the clutter in your bedroom will determine how you start your day and how you end your day for a night of restorative sleep.

Let’s Define Medicine

How about if we define medicine as living in a right, healthy and blessed relationship with everyone around you?

I once heard someone say, “We have so much suppressive medicine that is prevents us from looking at the noise.”  Initially I wondered what this statement meant but after some thought it became clear to me.

We are so used to living in the traditional medicine arena getting a “pill for an ill,” that we want to take a different route to get to the root of the medical condition we are suffering with.  We think it’s so much easier to just take that pill.  Well to me that’s the suppressive medicine.  It is preventing us from looking at all the noise that might be around us contributing to our medical condition.  It’s a sort of band-aid.

I’m not saying don’t take the medication if you really need it.  But perhaps getting to the root of the medical issue will be a much healthier path.  You will be able to resolve that issue once and for all and not put a band-aid on it.

What is some “non-traditional” medicine you could apply to your life?

• Dealing with anger and bitterness
• Doing a temperature check on how healthy your relationships are
• Go out into the community and do something for someone else to take the focus off yourself
• Stop the negative self-talk
• Dealing with the trauma from your past

Of course, we have the standard things we should be doing daily as medicine such as:

• Stop processed foods
• Stop putting chemicals on our body
• Getting 7-9 hours of restorative sleep
• Change what we use to clean our homes

Let’s expand our thinking about medicine and not automatically turn to a pill to treat our medical condition.  So much is based on our lifestyle and that is truly something we have control of.  Take control of your health.  Don’t put it in the hands of someone else.

Remember, God designed our bodies to heal itself.  We just need to give it the right tools to help that healing.

Your Spiritual Life and Health Coach … believing in you!