Reason 5,289 to Take the Healing Journey – The Best One

I have written about the Five First Steps To Better Health; I have lectured about the Five First Steps; and I have coached people through the Five First Steps. A surgeon referred patients to me, telling them to eat like I eat so that they can heal and avoid surgery. That seems like a pretty good motivation to change. Yet very few people actually take the Healing Journey. For the last three years I have asked myself countless times “Why?”

To me the Healing Journey is the journey of a lifetime. I have recovered myself from dangerous physical ailments, helped my husband heal from ADD and helped my son overcome debilitating seasonal allergies. Our lives are pretty darn fantastic. But this article is not about me. It is about how to get other people to buy into the journey and learn to expect and enjoy vibrant lives.

I have read and written a lot about why people need to take the journey. If you are curious to see what “a lot” is, check out the rest of my blog, Moving Strongly Forward. Over two years of reading and reflections are there. I am not going to regurgitate all of that here. No more scary science around how the health of people in modern societies continues to deteriorate. No more motivating stories of amazing recoveries by people who have taken the journey. I am taking a new approach, bringing the message in a completely different way.

Reason 5,289

Curious yet?

I have been reading You Are Here by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist teacher. You Are Here and other writings by Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh's nickname, meaning Teacher) have helped me to learn to Live in the Present, if only for a few moments a day. Being present in your moment is the foundation for EVERYTHING you do.

Thay discusses health and mindfulness, or living in the present. This approach to health is new to me (you can substitute any food, drink or action for whiskey):

“When you drink whiskey, learn to drink it with mindfulness. ‘Drinking whiskey, I know that it is whiskey I am drinking.’ I am not telling you to absolutely stop drinking. I propose that you drink your whiskey mindfully, and I am sure that if you drink this way for a few weeks, you will stop drinking alcohol. Drinking your whiskey mindfully, you will recognize what is taking place in you – in your body, in your liver, in your relationships, in the world and so on. When your mindfulness becomes strong, you will just stop” (p. 69).

I learned to listen to my body in a different way. Faced with health challenges I cleaned my body up because these health challenges conflicted seriously with my self image. With a clean body, my body speaks powerfully to me and I can’t ignore it. Thay’s approach is much, much more powerful. Be mindful, really listen to your body and your Healing Journey will begin organically and easily. When you learn to be present and listen, taking the Five First Steps will become much easier, you will want to take more, and your life will become more amazing than you thought possible.

Final Thoughts and Old Fashioned Motivation

Here are a couple of fantastic things to think about. I asked my Dr. of Oriental Medicine two years ago how long he thought I could tell people that “The older I get, the younger I feel?” He said, “I will give you an even more exciting thought: If you are not feeling better every year of your life you are doing something wrong.” Then he told me that if I thought I felt good then (at age 42), just wait to see what the next year brings. Wow.

You Are Here is only $8.40 on Amazon.