The Journey to Our Promise Land
It’s been an interesting time in the office lately. As you may know, after I became a fuller time missionary last year, I subsequently went to part time hours in the practice and stopped taking on new clients. For nearly a year I gave all our referrals to my partner Aaron, but over the summer some serious family problems forced him to move back to Indiana. Since he has left, we continue to get referrals, so as of a few months ago I began working with new clients again.
What has been interesting is going through the process of teaching these new people about their body and their ailments, while also educating them on what they must do to achieve the results they want. A big part of this with most people is helping them break free of mindsets that are self-defeating. I want to talk to you about one of these mindsets today.
In this ultra-consumer society, we have SO many ads for SO many things being fed to us all the time. Many of the things that are being sold to us are sold as a fast and easy solution to an annoying problem. As a result of messages like these being heard over and over again, most of us have subconsciously been trained to believe that somewhere out there lies a fast and easy solution to EVERY problem that exists in our life. Sadly though, this is not true.
Some problems have natural laws that govern them, and they cannot be solved quickly or easily. For instance, if you have a very strained relationship with your spouse and have been neglecting them for years, you may really want to believe that ad that says, “Fix Your Marriage in a Month”, but does your common sense tell you that your spouse is going to magically obey the claims of the flyer? Probably not.
Sadly though, many people make these same faulty assumptions about their body. They neglect their body for many years, develop a bad physical problem, and because they have heard so many messages about “quick-fixes”, they genuinely think that if they just find the right pill, procedure, therapy or whatever, that their body will stop following all the natural laws and the ailment will just magically disappear.
Now, believe it or not, I actually have a great deal of sympathy for people stuck in those mindsets. It’s not their fault that they believe something that isn’t true, so I try as gently and as compassionately as I can to let them know the truth. I tell them that their body has rules and timetables by which it can do things (like healing, pain relief, athletic gains, etc.) and that my job is to help provide them with the necessary physical stimulation for things to happen quicker and more thoroughly. I also tell them that THEIR job is to manage the internal environment of their body through healthy nutrition, hydration, supplemental exercise, rest and proper body usage. I tell them that this is as important, if not more important than anything we do together.
What often happens though, is that even though they initially agree with this, some people quickly fall back into the mindset of thinking it should be fast and easy. So, when I ask, “did you do your exercises?” or “have you been drinking the proper amount of water?” or “have you adhered to your diet?” or “did you stop doing x that was hurting you so bad?” the answer is usually… “no.” Sometimes, they end up realizing the problem and changing, but sadly sometimes they don’t. This is usually because deep down they are still convinced that there’s magic out there somewhere.
On that note, let me give you one of the most helpful pieces of health advice you could ever get- to get to your promise land, you must go through the wilderness. You must make many sacrifices, sometimes for a long time, before you see dramatic changes. You must discipline yourself to do the hard stuff, even when you don’t feel like it. You must be consistent; you must be patient and you must be relentless. Don’t search for a magic bullet, just focus on taking really good care of your body so it can heal, repair, grow and change. If you are willing to do this, a wonderful promise land awaits you.
With you on the journey,
Chris