Doorway to Health
by Carrie L'Esperance
Among
the many pearls of wisdom in natural healing is this statement: "Illness
can be the doorway to health." Whether the illness originates in the mind,
body, spirit, or environment, we have the choice to allow illness to compel us
either toward health and higher learning, or away from health and to eventual
destruction.
It is not surprising that about 50 percent of people in the United States now
use alternative therapies, both to maintain health and to treat illness.
However, alternative therapies are, in truth, not so alternative. Many of them
have actually been utilized for thousands of years. Many people in this country
are using them as important additions to Western allopathic medicine. The
evidence is overwhelming that people who take care of themselves have lower
health care costs.
Preventive medicine in particular is a kind of health insurance that pays
interest. Preventive therapies require that people take part by achieving
awareness and body conscious behavior by actively participating in and being
responsible for their own health. Preventive therapies enable us to feel
confident that what we do now to avoid medical bills will help us overcome or
deal with future health care crises. We are looking toward our later years, a
time when life should be fruitful and satisfying.
Food is vital because it is the primary source of gaining energy. Everything
around us has its own unique kind of energy or vibration. Some foods increase
energy more than others. Depending on the way they are grown, prepared, and
eaten, foods have the ability to increase or decrease the vitality and the
strength of body, mind, and spirit. This fundamental knowledge of foods has
always been with us.
Today the quality of our earthly environment has a net effect on physical
health. Commercial kitchens, supermarkets, agribusinesses, and systems of food
distribution are industrialized and immensely complicated. Radiation, food
additives, genetically engineered foods, and overprocessing are just a few of
the problems we deal with today. Our bodily elimination systems were not
designed to decompose substances totally foreign to us. Pesticides, decayed
matter, food additives, dead protein, certain inorganic minerals, and a number
of other substances simply do not belong in our bodies. The condition of our
bodies also reflects the condition of our environment, our world, and our future
on planet Earth.
We can be overwhelmed by toxic accumulations as a consequence of fatigue,
poor circulation, constipation, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, improper diet, and our
environment. As the body becomes increasingly toxic, proper oxidation cannot
take place in the tissues. Without oxygenation, we lack energy so the tired body
continues the downward spiral. Restoring our own bodily systems after years of
constant wear is essential for maintaining health and preventing disease.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés describes the body as a sensor: "Many times it
is the things of nature that are most healing, especially the very accessible
and the very simple ones. The body is like an Earth. It is a land unto itself.
It is as vulnerable to overbuilding, being carved into pieces, cut off,
overmined, and shorn of its power as any landscape. We tend to think of the body
as this 'other' that does its thing without us. Many people treat their bodies
as if the body were a slave. We have only to pay heed to our bodies to know what
we must do. The body is not sculpture or marble. Its purpose is to protect,
contain, support, and fire the spirit and soul within it, to be a repository for
memory, to fill us with feeling. It is to lift us and propel us, to prove that
we exist, that we are here, to give us grounding, heft, weight. The body is best
understood as a being in its own right, one who loves us, depends on us, one to
whom we are sometimes mother, and who sometimes is mother to us." [Women
Who Run With the Wolves]
The importance of being "mother" to my body hit home when I was in
my late twenties. During many years of studying nutrition, I felt I had taken
care of myself with good eating habits. Imagine my alarm and confusion upon
realizing my health was deteriorating a little more with each passing year.
Constant allergies made it impossible to be anywhere without a box of tissues. I
began to have night sweats and insomnia. Seasonal colds and flus came and
lingered long. It did not seem to matter how much care I took with my diet.
It was at this time, while reading Dr. Walker's book Raw
Vegetable Juices, that one small paragraph about detoxification caused a
light bulb to go on in my head -- and I have never looked back. The message was
simple: "Cleanliness is the first step toward a healthy body." This
was an important but missing link for me: We can regenerate the body when clean
tissues are able to draw all the nutrients and chemical elements we need from
the foods we eat. We cannot put clean food in a dirty body and expect good
results. Accumulation and retention of waste and morbid matter in our bodies
begins in the womb and continues throughout childhood and up to the present
moment. We are not necessarily what we eat; we are what we are able to
assimilate, digest, and utilize. If the organs of our bodies are clogged and
congested, we cannot expect to function optimally -- and we do not!
About 2,500 years ago, Hippocrates is said to have offered the Grecian people
wise advice: A healthy mind in a healthy body should be the goal of all
generations in the world. Hippocrates was a vitalist who taught that good health
and purity of environment are dependent upon each other. Over time, pollutants
build up in the tissues of our inner environment and cause our bodies to fall
out of balance and weaken. Various forms of disease are then able to take hold
when the body is in this weakened state. Many others since the time of
Hippocrates have known that the body comes back into balance with the assistance
of correct diet.
Hippocrates was an enlightened physician; his first step in maintaining
health was regimen, or a regulated mode of life. He knew that Nature made the
cure and that the doctor's role was to assist. He believed that the diseased
body needed a period of rest -- not only a physical rest, but a chemical rest,
which he considered even more important. Chemical rest could be achieved only by
withholding food, thus giving the organs of the body an opportunity to discharge
accumulated waste products and thereby to cleanse themselves.
We go about the restorative process by the use of special cleansing and
dietary fasts. Fasting is the oldest form of natural healing. Many authentic
world healing systems, which include Ayurvedic, Unani Tibb, Chinese, Japanese,
Sufi, Native American, and European folk medicines, utilize herbs, foods, and
fasting to achieve balance and health. Internal cleansing is the foundation of
preventive medicine. Utilizing food and fasting to heal the body offers the
benefit of helping the body to detoxify itself from the variety of pollutants
evident in our modern environment. Many people intuitively sense the need for
this detoxification.
The principle of fasting is based on the basic structures and processes of
the human body, mind, and spirit. Some people confuse fasting with starvation
and find various ways to talk themselves out of this healthful practice. The
sense of hunger often disappears in people who completely abstain from food --
both those fasting and those starving -- but the similarity ends there. The
process of fasting is one of gradually aligning more and more with the body. It
is actually the epitome of a natural way of life, and its benefits do not end
with correcting our out-of-balance systems and restoring our health.
"Restoring balance physically and mentally through right diet and
fasting can change the individual human constitution, the intellectual tendency,
the sexual inclinations, and social behavior slowly and steadily in the
direction of total health," explains Japanese nutritionist George Ohsawa. [You
Are All Sanpaku] The great visionary Edgar Cayce proclaimed: "The
body physical is truly the temple through which the mental and the spiritual and
soul development must manifest, and in manifestation does the growth come."
[Edgar
Cayce Handbook for Health Through Drugless Therapy]
The methods of fasting employed throughout history range from discontinuance
of a single food for a short time up through total abstinence from all foods and
liquids for extended periods. In the present day, fasts must be adjusted to suit
the times. These all involve certain combinations of food and drink. If you are
reasonably well, most fasts will bring about an almost euphoric feeling of
well-being and provide inexpensive and effective insurance against disease. If
you are not well, the fast is an excellent beginning of a therapeutic program.
The corrections the body makes can be subtle or powerful. Hering's Law of
Cure states: "All cure starts from within out, from the head down and in
the reverse order as the symptoms first appeared. " [Tissue
Cleansing Through Bowel Management, Dr. Bernard Jensen] The law of cure
for healing the body moves symptoms from inside to outside, from top to bottom,
from more important organs to less important organs. The movement may stir up
your most recent symptoms of disease, or it may reawaken your oldest ones. Old
problems may reappear for a short time, but they will fade. It will not take
long for peaceful healing signs to emerge, and these signs will let you know you
are doing a good thing for yourself.
The Sufis probably have more experience performing fasts than any other
group. They point out that natural symptoms or "healing crises" are
precisely the events that Western medicine labels illness and disease. Many
people are unwilling to endure any discomfort or unpleasantness whatsoever when
ill and thus resort to various chemical drugs, which will unfortunately put an
immediate end to any healing actions of the body. This may suffice to get a
person back to work, or prop him or her up to attend an important function; but
over years of suppressed eliminations, the toxic matters back up within the
system until organ damage occurs and there is no hope for a cure, except by the
most drastic measures. (The physical manifestation of illness may also be the
effect of a deeper problem involving your emotional and mental body. When you
address the cause, your body must follow suit.)
While fasting the severity of the symptoms in a healing crisis is usually
related to the amount of stored toxins in the body. You may experience
headaches, cold or flu symptoms, constipation, depression, skin eruptions, or
fatigue. In many cases, the possible effects the detoxification triggers are
much less dramatic than you might imagine. In most cases, these symptoms are a
good sign that you are allowing your body to heal itself. However, your medical
history should be taken into consideration. If you feel concerned about any
symptom, you may wish to call your physician. Some people go through cleansing
fasts with few symptoms.
A cleansing fast will encourage the body to release stored toxins from
muscles, glands, tissues, and fat cells into the bloodstream for elimination
through the lungs, kidneys, intestines, skin, and the menstrual cycles for
women. If elimination is impaired, these toxins cannot be eliminated quickly
enough, which creates some of the uncomfortable symptoms. To help relieve this
toxic burden, the internal baths are very important. You will learn much about
your own needs as you progress through your fast. It is important to observe and
utilize disturbances as stepping-stones for higher, better, and greater
understanding of your body's needs. Remember to be patient while fasting,
knowing that healing must arise from constructive thinking and application on
your part.
When the body is cleansed, the eyes sparkle, the skin becomes soft and clear,
the mind is sharp, and the manner is calm and pleasant. Everything gets better,
including the memory, circulation, and digestion. These benefits are only the
beginning. Health and happiness can become as contagious as disease. If we work
on our health only when we are ill, we will usually return to the place where we
started. Or, we can work on our growing health and not become ill. The willpower
and discipline for proper care of nourishment, exercise, and self-awareness are
not easy, but then nothing of value ever is.
Fasting has been likened to a surgeon's knife: It does away with toxins of
all kinds. We must ask ourselves what is wrong with us, and then direct the fast
to the purpose in the correct manner.
 This
article is excerpted from:
The Seasonal Detox Diet, ©1998, 2002,
by
Carrie L'Esperance.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Healing Arts
Press, a division of Inner Traditions International. http://www.innertraditions.com
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About the Author
CARRIE
L'ESPERANCE, a certified iridologist and former gourmet food professional, has
spent more than twenty-five years studying the healing systems of the world's
cultures. She now specializes in helping clients discover the individual
nutritional requirements that will allow them to feel and function at their
best. She lives in San Francisco.
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