Do you need healing, or curing? The answer may surprise you.

Put simply, the answer is “it depends on your belief system.”  Think that you don’t have a belief system?  Incorrect.  Everyone has a belief system.

A belief system, otherwise known as a “philosophy”, may be obvious to the person, or rest quietly in the subconscious.  It can be detailed and have lots of parts, or it can be simple.  In most cases, there are at least a few bits of a person’s practical philosophy that end up being paradoxical, and require that same person to reexamine concepts they once were so sure were true, but just may not be.  No matter how complex, intricate or even shallow a person’s belief system, you can be positive of one thing:  it guides every single choice that person makes, and guides also his or her interpretation of all events and situations in life.

Now, back to the question of “healing” or “curing” . . . What does philosophy have to do with health care?  Let me ask you this:  is the universe and world you live in defective and chaotic, or is it perfect and ordered?  If you answered “defective and chaotic”, you’ll be seeking “a cure” constantly.  If you answered “perfect and ordered”, you will be looking forward to constant evolution.

Do you think a whole is merely the sum of its parts, or do you think the whole is greater than the sum of the parts?  Do you know enough about embryology, endocrinology, physiology, neurology…to state what the difference is between a living being and a corpse?

The answer to that question, you see, doesn’t lie in the study of the fine details of the signaling molecules seen in the process of somite differentiation, or the renin-angiotensin cascade pathway.  The answer is simple, and is no less an answer simply because “modern medicine” cannot bottle it, test it, or recreate it.  The answer is:  vital force.

“Vital force”, “vital energy”, or “life force, “Innate Intelligence”, “Prana”, or “Chi” is NOT a new concept.  To the contrary, it is an ancient concept that reigned for most of human history, until the age of microscopes.  At that point, men became so fixated on the tiny details they then forgot the grandness of the living being, and the "big picture".  For the most part, when Western scientists discovered germs, it was decided in the doctorly community that the key to health was identifying enemies and destroying them (today we can add in “cancer” and “symptoms” to the medical field’s enemy list), instead of strengthening the fortress and the members of the “society” within (the body, its systems, its cells, etc).

You either recognize that there is a vital energy in living things, or you don’t see it.  Likely, you do honor it, but how much weight or meaning you give to that vital energy will vary in proportions relative to other components of your philosophy.  May this tidbit of writing be a call to reexamine how much weight or meaning you’d like to give that vital force in your life from here on out.  Additionally, if you do not “see” a vital force residing in living things, my guess is that you lead a less-than -fulfilling life.  This has nothing to do with Religion, or a personal “God”, I’d like to add:  it is simply a natural truth that you can live with and use to your benefit, or struggle without.

The whole reason I decided to write this article involves the following quote from a colleague.  It struck me as better than anything I could have tried to come up with to explain this fundamental health issue in our modern society.

He says there is a “healing model” philosophy, and a “curing model” philosophy, and each represents a distinct world view:

“The curing model emerges from a Newtonian perspective, which views everything in the world as separate and distinct from everything else.  Here, disease is seen as an isolated event, which must be controlled or eliminated before it causes further damage.  The presence or absence of the symptom is the indication of whether someone has been cured.

The healing model comes from an understanding of quantum physics and unified field theory, which views all of creation as emerging from the same source.  Here, everything is interconnected and affects everything else.  Healing is a process of reintegrating body, mind and spirit.  The measure of whether someone is healing is ‘are you finding more out about yourself?'”

So, YOU get to choose how you want your health care to play out.  YOU get to choose if you need “cured”, or if you need to “heal”.  Principled chiropractic is founded on the healing model.  If you want help on your healing journey, give me a call.  If you want a cure…please call someone else.

Special thanks to Dr. Charles Berrington, DC for this incredible, insightful quote, and thank you Discover Wellness, Inc. and Dr. S.A. Hoffman for sharing this information with the dedicated chiropractic community. 

Call Dr. Sheena today (208) 557-3640