How Simple

It always amazes me how attached we are to complicating things. Addicted to a cult of effort. To the point that when someone offers you a simple answer, its not taken seriously because its not complicated enough?! How mad are we really?
I'm reading The Alchemist, P.Coelho. The shepherd and the englishman are discussing alchemy while on a long trek across the desert. The englishman has lent his books on alchemy to the shepherd boy to 'learn' from. He asks the shepherd boy if he learned anything from the books, and the boy's response is,
" I learned that the world has a soul, and that whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of things. I learned that many alchemists realized their destinies, and wound up discovering the Soul of the World, the Philosophers Stone, and the Elixir of Life.
But above all, I learned that these things are all so simple that they could be written on the surface of an emerald".

We are all guilty of making mountains out of molehills. As a doctor, I see this everyday. Mostly from within the 'industry' of medicine. The long stories from the pharmaceutical firm reps, the growing 'need' for stronger drugs, weirder combinations of pills...and now the latest move to produce a polypill for heartdisease...wait for it... prevention. Somehow the magical, perfect healing mechanisms of the body get shrouded in clouds of 'scientific research'.

I only choose to write about what works, not what doesnt. However, for those who want to see whats cooking behind the scenes, check out www.mercola.com, www.thepeopleschemist.com and www.jonbarron.org, these guys all do the research on the complicated stuff in healthcare and why so much of it doesnt work, all very interesting reading/newsletters.

The most profound healings I've seen have not employed any of these 'well-researched and scientfically validated research'. Reconnective Healing, without even touching a person, even at a distance across the globe, has been miraculous. Intentional healing which Lynne Mactaggart has given so much of her love and time to making popular through her websites, has had some profound effects in those on the recieving...and giving end. EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique, wow. I had a chap come in and see me the other day with chest pains, tightness in his chest. Did we get complicated? No, we did some EFT for 15minutes on anger issues, and....yup, his chest opened up and we were blown away at how much better he looked and felt. Sitting and really listening to my patients, and I mean really listening, not just hearing with an automated reply already picked according to key words in the conversation, has had some real healing benefits. I believe the chinese symbol representing the word 'to listen' is comprised of four pictoral elements: an ear, a heart, and eye, and a symbol meaning 'undivided attention'. That struck me as pretty amazing.
There is most definitely a 'stuff' that connects everything, and as we learn how to drop our 'learned knowledge' and realise we are this 'stuff', we become powerful healers: of others, of ourselves, of the world.

Buteyko breathing technique for asthmatics is so beautifully simple, and incredibly effective. The Annals of Internal Medicine (June 2006) said that Salmeterol, a popular asthma medication, may be responsible for 4000 OF THE 5000 ASTHMA RELATED DEATHS in USA annually. ?!?!. In fact two recent asthma drugs, Salmeterol and Formoterol, have FDA warnings that they may increase the risk of serious asthma attacks.
The buteyko technique will, on average, reduce the need for reliever medication by 86% and for steroid based preventers by 40-50%!!! WOW, thats significant man! Simple, true.

The institute of Heartmath in the states, has done incredible research into the enormous benefits to one's wellbeing, yes including physical health, by the use of a very simple heart-based breathing technique. Essentially, you will express the stressful emotion that is bothering you, decide on a feeling that is the opposite to that (eg anger becomes joy) and then focus your attention on your heart, in the middle of your chest, and imagine breathing the better feeling into this area. So, you are breathing Joy through your heart area, intentionally, rather than simply breathing and thinking joy. This profoundly simple technique has an amazingly far-reaching cascade of physiological benefits throughout the body. Check out the freely available research on www.heartmath.com.
When you consider how hypnotised we all are about cholesterol, fatty foods, animal fats, and cholesterol drugs being the biggest role-player in heart disease, the true research will shock you. The truth is that taking a cholesterol drug will have a POSSIBLE benefit in only 0.8 people out of every hundred that take it. (Not the 40-50 % that we are told). Heart disease is one of the longterm complications of these drugs!!! The leading causes of heart disease are : Anger, resntment, loneliness and depression. No kidding. Current research. So if we all employed the very simple heart-based stress reduction exercise that the heartmath institue has described, we could have a MAJOR reduction in heart disease, not just 0.8%, more like 60%

Many years ago, Dr Deepak Chopra quoted some data from the CDC (Centre for Disease Control in the USA) that should have changed the direction of healthcare. They basically summarised the most important role players in a person's healthy outcome in life. Medication had a 10% impact, genetics about 17% impact, the environment about 15% impact, and one's everyday/personal choices had a wopping 58% impact. mmmm. (I dont have that research paper at hand, so the exact %'s may be up or down a point or two, but not more than that).mmmm again.

So what could be a simpler truth than we all hold the key to our health, individually and colletively? Not much.
KISS: Keep it so simple!( The simpler the better)