The state of our health
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The state of our health
We are living longer than ever before and medicine and science have made some great advances in terms of understanding and treating the various forms of illness and disease that people experience across the lifespan. But if asked, how would you honestly rate the overall state of people’s health in our world today given that health systems everywhere are overwhelmed with the demand for services and governments are needing to pour more and more funds into the area of health in an effort to manage the never ending line of people requiring some form of treatment. Prevention measures are barely scratching the surface of what is going on.
It has become the norm for chronic conditions to be rampant amongst older people but these conditions are now occurring at a growing rate in people at younger ages than ever before. No matter how far back we go in terms of age, we find that younger generations are faring poorly also. In various parts of the world there is now a focus on the first 1,000 days of a child’s life (basically from conception until the child is two years of age) but already there is talk that this needs to be increased to 2,000 or 3,000 days as gaps emerge showing that many children’s mental and physical health is still poor, for example, in terms of childhood obesity and oral health, despite all the resources available. But if parents don’t see the importance of supporting their children’s physical and mental development early on, what is that signalling to children as they grow older?
Without a healthy mental and physical foundation, is it any wonder then that the teen years have become so fraught with few young people feeling equipped to manage the ups and downs of life? Speaking with a worker in a child and youth mental health team recently, they spoke about the escalating number in the past couple of years of young people presenting to hospital emergency rooms having either made a serious suicide attempt or threating suicide and or engaging in high risk self-harming. As this worker said, young people are simply not equipped to deal with what is going on in the world and in their hurt and reaction, their thoughts quickly turn to suicide as the way out; there is no space given to stop and seek support as they have now become so desensitised to anything but the model of life they have been immersed within which treats the human body in a disposable fashion. We can judge this behaviour as weak, pathetic – but where are the role models for the younger generations? How can they feel equipped when older generations across the lifespan display a lack of purpose and yet have an expectation that life will be easy and comfortable, and when it’s not, feel justified to turn to drugs, alcohol, online gaming etc., to cope?
"If we were to add up the real cost of our ill lifestyle choices it will be very clear that we are already bankrupt as a species."
Serge Benhayon Esoteric Teachings & Revelations Volume II, ed 1, p 334
Clearly, there is a deeper current running here because even with more and more resources being put into healthcare, we still don’t fully understand why poor health is so prevalent from conception to old age and why preventative measures barely scratch the surface. If there isn’t an obvious explanation for ill health, it is usually put down to bad luck and the person concerned often feels like life is treating them harshly. Faith in the medical system or alternate medicine is perhaps questioned or alternately, responsibility is handed over to health practitioners to come up with solutions so that the problem will either go away or life can be prolonged with as much dignity and comfort as possible. But is ill health really that random and could the specific design of our health issues carry greater significance than what we have ever realised?
Very few people feel settled and content with their lives; we can achieve success by society’s standards, yet deep inside still feel the unrest and emptiness whenever we allow ourselves to stop long enough to register the disquiet. Hence, it is no surprise that we seek to be either constantly stimulated or numbed emotionally so that we can keep ourselves distracted for as long and as often as possible. But the worldwide explosion of sleep problems shows that this behaviour doesn’t work and instead, creates further problems. We already know that certain lifestyle choices affect organs in our body, for example, smoking tobacco can lead to lung cancer, yet we dismiss the seemingly smaller ticket items. What do we think the impact of being angry, hard, always in drive, disregarding, dulled down, numb, competitive and seeking recognition etc., has on our organs, digestive system, skeletal system and the blood flow through our body?
It all counts; every single thing is registered by our body which then sets the quality of our thoughts that then impacts on our movements and everything keeps cycling around and around, dumping more and more into the body. Our bodies are amazing and work hard to keep up with what is being asked of them, but there is a limit and when that limit is reached, we are faced with a correction of some sort.
Along the way, our body has been communicating to us that there are certain parts of our life that we need to adjust but the usual pattern is to stubbornly ignore these messages for as long as possible. We fear change and not fitting in, and so keep pushing on in the same footsteps we have been walking for eons, all the while not wanting to admit that the external world is full of contradictions and makes little sense. In our insecurity, we judge ourselves and others and feel we need to keep our defences in place to avoid being hurt or feeling out of control – and, of course, our health suffers.
"In-truth, there cannot be an ‘unexpected’ medical diagnosis, simply because you and your body are involved in all that you do. You know all of its associations and involvements simply because you cannot live without your body and in turn, your body cannot but experience all of your choices."
Serge Benhayon Teachings & Revelations for The Livingness Volume III, ed 1, p 530
The external world feeds us the message that we need to look after ourselves first and foremost. But it is a distorted version of the truth and comes from a basis of individuality and justification in not caring what the consequences of our actions are for others. The prevailing consciousness is that as long as we personally are OK or gain out of a situation, then that is all that matters, despite any words to the contrary. True care would have us looking after ourselves in a loving way that relayed a harmlessness in everything we did, thought, and spoke. It would naturally encompass a sense of love and concern for others that embraced equality and equity as a duty that we all share.
Some may feel what is presented is too much and unrealistic in the dog-eat-dog world we live in, yet that is precisely the point. We feel like we have to act tough and ‘fight’ for survival, but all that has done is cause massive amounts of hurt and pain, bludgeoning our bodies and leaving humanity robbed of the richness of who we innately are. We learn to focus on life being about the struggle and any temporal achievements along the way are viewed as proof of our success – and ‘success’ here can have vastly differing meanings depending on where we place our emphasis. When our health declines we tend to shrug our shoulders and attribute the cause to genetics or our ‘lot in life’ rather than joining the dots and realising that it was inevitable when our lives are so devoid of true intimacy, love and care. No wonder the state of our health and wellbeing is poor – we are existing in the poverty of living such a fake existence, even when we are striving hard to be a ‘good’ person because everything is about the ‘doing’ rather than the ‘being’!
Our mind cannot do the job of caring for us on its own; it needs to be in collaboration with the body and our Soul, which is sometimes called our inner essence. The collaboration between this trio when they are all valued is the true medicine we need to live life fully, meaningfully, and the health benefits are beyond description.
Nourishing ourselves is then not just about our diet; it is about nurturing everything about ourselves – the inner and the outer. It brings with it a sense of joy and settlement that shows us what is required from moment to moment. It might be as simple as getting up and taking a break from the computer or attending to that certain phone call we have been avoiding. We can live in the present moment rather than ruminating on the past or anxiously worrying about what might happen in the future. Furthermore, our presence doesn’t impose, but rather holds a space for others to discern if what they are living is truly supporting their own health and wellbeing. This is the real wealth that we are each born with, regardless of all other circumstances we find ourselves in.
None of this happens overnight and it does not mean we will avoid illness and disease all together. We tend to see ill health as a bad thing, but it is actually the body’s way of clearing; a letting go of the debris that has accumulated over many years.
We are being offered the opportunity to stop and do a stocktake of how we have been living our life and make the practical adjustments that are needed. How we chew our food, sit in our seat, drive our car, talk to the shop assistant etc., all has an impact on the quality of our health and wellbeing. If we all started to attend to our lives with this level of integrity and application the cumulative impact on the state of our health at a personal and global level would be enormous.
Are we willing to ‘go there’ and give it a try?
"Make life itself your greatest medicine."
Serge Benhayon Esoteric Teachings & Revelations Volume I, ed 1, p 569
Filed under
Accountability, Disease, Health, Medicine, Responsibility
