In today's day and age everyone is health conscious. Sometimes to the point were they get frozen in the rigid dogma of only counting calories, or a type of new diet fad, or even a body image that is promoted to be healthy. We go to the doctor and we get an overall diagnostic check to make sure that we are healthy. We check blood pressure, heart rate, body weight in relation to our height, etc. We get these things checked to more or less determine if there are any patterns that are indicative of a serious problem. Do you have high blood pressure? Be careful that you don't have a stroke. Are you overweight? Make sure that you don't get diabetes. These of course are the more drastic things that we are made aware of. What about things that we consider to be normal that is not considered to be unhealthy until it is a problem. We often don't fully appreciate the power of sleep, we merely remedy the problem of fatigue with caffeine, or energy drinks. We don't eat at regular times, so we have created food to be modified to our lifestyle. We have energy bars to replace a full meal due to the modern day hectic lifestyle. We take pharmaceuticals that alleviate pain, for ironically the length of a work day but after the 8 or 12 hours of relief the pain continues. Why do we consider health to merely be the ability to go to work, or school? Why do we consider illness the inability to attend work or school? Do you believe that the human experience merely to eat healthy enough to have energy to not get sick. Thus allowing us to go through the day fulfilling tasks that would deem us a productive citizen, " I went to work today", or "I was able to pay my bills today". What if we were made for more, what if we can achieve a different perspective on what health is. What changes to your life would you be willing to make in order to actually enjoy waking up without the aid of pain pills.
The concept of health or wellness, in my personal opinion is often intricately connected with what our current capacity to express ourselves, be it in movement, emotion, mentally. However in order to increase the body's capacity to express itself more fully, physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically, how do we view our current capacity? I would like to encourage the ability to grow in capacity by cultivation of appreciation of our current state of being. Many people go to the gym to improve something, to become more of something, than what they believe themselves to currently be. This causes one to look at themselves as flawed if they do not reach a goal. With appreciation of where we currently are in our ability to express ourselves, we can bolster our current gifts, and talents. The more we appreciate what we have in the present, the gradual increase in physical expression will come without the usual negative connotations of failing to achieve a goal. This discussion is not to be taken to look down on the current tools that people utilize to achieve a level of 'health' but it is merely to help one question what their standards of health are. If going to the gym is something that you currently do, please keep it up that is good. If diet is something that you pride yourself on, that is great also. Unfortunately we have become chained to dogmatic beliefs of what health is based on numbers and charts alone. Humans are more than just a grouping of signs and symptoms of a pathology. We are more than a diagnosis, yet we have become seldom nothing more than just that in our own minds and this is reflected in how we live. We can rise above our strict standards of what we see health as. This is to often merely numbers and lab tests and not a truly holistic view on what healthy is. So I ask again what does healthy mean to you?