Instituting a New Approach to Health & Wellness

       The long-term solution to America's healthcare crisis requires a shift in our nation's values, not just its resources. Peer-reviewed medical research supports that many of our physical health problems are directly influenced, if not actually caused, by our thoughts and behaviors. Each person needs to take a personal inventory and recognize her/his self-worth; then, take responsibility and claim her/his own happiness.

       Changing behavior takes a great deal of emotional and psychological energy. Healthy lifestyle efforts are unlikely to take hold until people are happier. There is so much sadness and anger hidden in all of us -- just look at the national statistics on alcohol/drug abuse, childhood sexual abuse, and domestic violence. Add to that, that so many people do not particularly enjoy their jobs -- they chose careers based on earning potential, or just settled for what was available where they lived. If they are doing what they love, it's often under a toxic boss or disrespectful working conditions.

        The health care delivery system needs to be driven by the purchasing power of the health care consumer, not the industries that make a financial profit on illness.

       As a society, we need to stop trying to bring others down in an ineffective attempt to make ourselves feel better. Most "isms" (racism, sexism, etc.) are just immoral attempts by the perpetrators to tell themselves they are "worth something" or give themselves an artificial sense of power -- at least they are not as "bad" as "those people." If these people could only recognize that their own worth and power does not lie with their own skin color, anatomy, choice of religion, or income and social position!

       It's no surprise to me, that heart disease is the number one killer for women as well as men. Our "spiritual" hearts are sick, creating illnesses in our physical hearts. We don't have the energy to take care of our physical bodies because we are emotionally exhausted from living in ways that are not true to who we really are, deep inside. Once we discover who we really are -- our true worth, not just our relative value compared to others -- we reclaim our personal power. Now, we can begin to show kindness and compassion to ourselves, and create the peace within us that we so want to see reflected around us. In the words of Ghandi, we have to be the change we want to see in the world.

      Heart disease will continue to be the number one killer of women as well as men, until people evolve past defining their worth according to what they do, what they have, who they have relationships with, and what they've accomplished in the world. Those things exist because of who you are, deep inside -- the core traits and characteristics that define who you really are, and that remain inside each of us even when those worldly things are taken away from us, as is known by the survivors of fires, floods, hurricanes earthquakes, and war.

       Presently, few, if any, primary preventive medicine techniques are covered by insurance, and secondary prevention interventions are only rarely covered. Mental health coverage is even worse for disease treatment, and non-existant for preventive programs. Insurance companies and hospitals consider personal growth and development a self-indulgent luxury, rather than recognizing that self-worth is the essential cornerstone of both mental and physical health.