We are living in the strangest of times! In modern societies we try to teach children to assume responsibility for themselves and to manage their lives in the best possible way and we also try to stay masters of our lives and our choices.
There is one area, however, where we do not retain control much of the time, and where officialdom intrudes increasingly... our health!
In modern times, the importance of going to see the doctor at the first symptom has often been asserted. The natural consequence of this advice is that we end up taking all kinds of medicines or drugs with well-known toxic effects. It is certainly true that large-scale adverse effects are starting to become evident, such as the steadily growing ineffectiveness of antibiotics, to which a great part of the population has become resistant during repeated courses of treatment over the years, and related contamination of the food chain. Although warnings about these possibilities were given decades ago, few people took notice and the "antibiotic reflex" became systematic: as soon as the first symptoms appeared or temperature rose, the pills came out.
It has been the same thing with other medicines and drugs, and abuse of them is one of the causes of the current degeneration of our bodies, made evident these day by the widespread appearance of new pathologies. Our immune systems often find themselves powerless when confronted by new viruses and other pathogens, often caused by misuse, including in the domain of healthcare: too many vaccinations, too many medicines and foods that are incapable of giving our bodies what they need to keep functioning smoothly. The impoverishment of soils as well as repeated errors in our diet or nutrition over the years have resulted in higher toxic loads, which our bodies are unable to deal with, especially when we consider increased vulnerability caused by the daily race against time and ensuing stress.
This weakening of our natural defenses - which prevents us from living out our life choices - is characteristic of our times. We have come to the point where most of us can no longer continue without medicine but still are not in perfect health. It has become difficult to ignore the great numbers of people around us suffering from and succumbing to heart disease and other disorders, not to mention the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of everyone; the fear of cancer. Regarding our body as the enemy always ready for treachery has placed us in a state of permanent war against it. We should not be surprised if it throws the towel into the ring, giving up the unequal and unjust battle!
In spite of all these difficulties, the old dream that we all have is within our reach, as it always has been: the one where we escape illness and gain back our good health that we lost for a while, and learn to preserve it like a precious gift. Our ancestors knew how to do this and transmitted their knowledge, but it often became dilapidated during the times when human beings thought they knew everything and looked upon this precious, ancient, and ancestral knowledge with scorn. Happily nature is rich with resources that allow us to recapture lost health and to conserve it. This is the basis of alternative medicine.
A few of the old methods with known virtues that Mother Nature has placed at our disposal for free are: different breathing techniques, various methods of nutrition, use of plants with therapeutic value (phytotherapy), use of essential oils (aromatherapy), use of various clays, sun radiation, and mineral waters.
However, the search into our environment often misleads us, and we forget that within ourselves, in the substance of our very nature, there are untapped sources of health, balance, and well-being. In the same way as our planet still has many unexplored areas, we remain remarkably unaware of our hidden inner natural resources. Our body has a wide range of methods of self-healing. It is almost as if nature has supplied us with the means to do something to help ourselves or someone else, whatever the situation, whatever happens.