The supplement business is making billions of dollars in this country today. ‘Experts’ who never spent a successful day in practice are creating formulas that sound good and sell well, but that do not heal or support natural healing. This problem is happily perpetuated by consumers who would much rather buy a supplement and throw their sacred stewardship to the wind than to take responsibility for their actions and results.
Supplementing is a beneficial thing that speeds healing and saves lives. It makes healing possible in cases that are hanging in the balance. I use supplements a lot and am truly grateful for them. Even so, somehow the understanding of the role of supplementing has changed. Instead of seeing and using supplements as a tool to support and facilitate the body in doing what it needs to do and is already trying to do, supplements have begun to take on another face. Supplements are now seen as some kind of mystic miracle or else as a last ditch effort to restore exhausted, sick people living sick and insane lives. To make matters worse, we sometimes see supplements work in spite of a person’s bad choices, adding to the confusion.
However, a supplement working in spite of you is the exception, not the rule. Generally, if you want to get well, you have to follow the simple advice spoken by one of my teachers, Dr. Richard Schulze: “To get well, all you have to do is stop doing what made you sick and start doing what will make you well.”
This advice is simplistic in its initial impression, but it is far from so in real application. The biggest problem in natural healing is a gross failure to change the habits that create illness. Instead, everyone wants to supplement while continuing to do just as before. Most supplement makers do not want to argue. After all, supplement sales are paying for their third home and sailing yacht! Some of you might be ready to stop all this madness, stop wasting money and time and stop failing to get well. If you want to learn how to use supplements to foster real healing, consider these three steps:
- Get a real, non-tabloid education about vitamins, minerals, herbs and natural healing. There are many good programs and it is probably best to get some education from each of them. Sources for excellent and comprehensive natural healing education materials are listed at the end of this article.
- Learn about three supplements really well per month. Do not stop at exciting and misleading tabloid-type hype, but get an understanding of supplements and herbs as used traditionally or from people who are experts in the field of nutrition or herbs – not marketing! Learn about one herb that grows near you; one herb that is for emergencies; and one herb that is good for lifetime maintenance. Learn the functions of the vitamins and minerals.
- Make one real lifestyle change every month and maintain it forever. This can be a dietary change, getting exercise (remember, the goal is to do it forever, so stay away from radical changes that will not be sustainable realistically), starting Chi Gong, yoga or Tai Chi, becoming more spiritual according to your beliefs, being more congruent with your conscience, having more gratitude for everything, loving others more actively, being a better parent, child, worker, friend, neighbor or citizen, etc. These changes are changes to character and lifestyle at the most important levels. These are not hasty, rash or dramatic, but are subtle, quiet and focused.
The person who takes these responsibilities seriously will change everything. Stop looking for a fast fix and instead get a real fix. You do not want your car glued together with chewing gum. It will fall apart at an inconvenient time. You want it fixed correctly and you would rather wait for it at the shop than on the side of the road. The human body is no different as the principle is unchanging. Seek reality, quality and the sacred power to choose for yourself what your health will be.
