"I write about people, mostly, and the things they contrive to do for,
against, or with one another. I write about the likes of liberty,
equality, and world peace, on an extremely domestic scale."
— from an essay titled "Knowing our Place" by Barbara Kingsolver
My name is Kristina. I am a survivor. Today, I am healthy, happy, and
proud that after a long battle filled with despair, I am winning! I'd
like to share with you my experiences of being sick and my experiences
attaining health. I am doing this because I want you to see clearly why
I am an expert on the subject of health and healing. Imagine that for
many years my days were filled with chronic pain that forced me to be
bedridden. My weeks were filled with visiting doctors and specialists
who cost a lot of money and still provided no cure. Not only was I
facing challenges using modern medicine, but my alternative health path
was equally confusing.
My Road to Recovery
First of all, I worked with a naturopathic doctor who had me taking 20-30
different supplements daily and following a strict diet of organic
vegetable juice, minimal grains, no meat and vegetable fat. I was also
told to do daily colonics, regular fasting and liver cleanses. While on
this program, I had my mercury fillings out. This program left me sick
in bed for six weeks and with chronic intestinal pain for over five
years. I left the guidance of that naturopathic doctor to work with a
registered nurse turned health consultant. She again had me taking lots
of supplements and following a strict eating program. Even though I
diligently followed her guidance, my Irritable Bowel Syndrome caused me
tremendous pain every single day. After two years of working with her
to attain a partial recovery, she discovered that she had cancer and
died three weeks later.
Learning to Think for Myself
These tragic experiences have led me on a path that forced me to continue to
learn, to figure out how to think for myself, and to heal deeply by
digging deep into my pain. My recovery from alcohol and drug use paved
the way for this entire experience. I am grateful for the recovery, but
it was heartbreaking to have dug myself out of a tremendous amount of
emotional pain and addiction, only to be sideswiped by a debilitating
illness that I thought would kill me. From these experiences, I have
gathered well-researched and broadly applied tools that have worked
excellently for me. I know that many of these tools will also work well
for you. However, I do encourage you to gather your own tools. My hope
for this book is that its contents will assist you in being able to
think for yourself about what to look for in a tool that can deeply
improve the quality of YOUR life.
Our Body's Healing Ability
Ironically,
the many tools that I needed to regain an active, healthy life were
readily available. As it turned out, many were packaged within my body,
which was just waiting to unleash its marvelous powers. You see, the
body is an ingenious, efficient organism, designed to heal and overcome
the emotional and physical things that strain it. Unfortunately, we
interfere with our body's healing abilities, usually by our lifestyle
choices. Through my emotional and physical health struggles, I
discovered that systematic laughter, crying, shaking, yawning, and
sweating, along with the best possible nutrition, creative exploration,
and wellplaced detoxification, brought me profound healing from
emotional or physical imbalances. This work has brought me to a place
of knowing with complete confidence that people have the potential to
heal from the mental and physical health struggles we face.
Choosing Optimal Health
Perhaps
you have selected this Optimal Health Center plan because you have been
feeling run-down or you have symptoms that make your life harder.
Whatever the state of your health, chances are it is not quite where
you want it to be and you would like some help making improvements. You
have made a sound choice because this is my specialty! I am certain
that all of us can have better health and even reach our individual
Optimal Health level. Optimal Health is the ideal state of our bodies,
which allows us increased energy, peace of mind, and a richer life.
Unfortunately, this attitude that most of us can choose to set up our
lives to enjoy optimal health is not a part of the way that we think as
a culture.
My
philosophy and ongoing mission are to shift our collective standards of
what we mean by health. Optimal Health is more than the, "If it isn't
broke, don't fix it," mindset, where after years of ignoring and
abusing our bodies (often without realizing it), we try to manage the
symptoms that we dutifully accept as, "just part of the aging
process" — a mindset in which seventy is considered old and still being
alive at eighty is considered lucky. I believe a shift in that paradigm
is possible. My ambition is to be old at one hundred and lucky to reach
one hundred twenty or more. Would you like twenty to forty extra years
of joyful and vigorous living?
Daily Decisions
We
need to seize the courage of these convictions and refuse to allow the
status quo to wash us down the drain before our time. This mission is
big and very appealing; however, through daily decisions, we must take
a stand to end the shortsighted view of health that robs us of our
vitality.
Let
us strive toward our own optimal health. We do this when we realize
that to pursue optimal health is to embrace a way of life. Optimal
Health doesn't just mean that we take ten different supplements daily,
or that we see our doctor for our yearly checkup, or that we are
satisfied with taking our cholesterol-lowering medication, or our
Prozac. Rather, the path to optimal health is a lifestyle that
constantly questions the status quo and holds the view that when given
the proper conditions, the human body can heal, adjust, and function
beautifully.
Caring for Our Bodies
Optimal
Health is a mindset. It is a way of revering life, allowing rational
choice and not convenience, comfort, habit, economy, fear, boredom, or
other forces to guide the actions that affect human health. Optimal
Health is a path; it is not just a place to reach or a set of skills to
attain. It is a journey. It is the daily decision to do things as
though your health really matters. When this new lifestyle becomes
second nature, we have attained our goal. When we make daily rational
choices that promote our health, as naturally as we would choose to
remove our hands from a hot oven, then we will love the way we feel and
feel more fully the way we love to feel. I believe that if enough of us
choose (and yes, it is a choice) to live long, vibrant, and powerful
(optimally healthy) lives, our evolutionary trend will shift
dramatically in the direction that affirms our human goodness and our
ultimate ability to share Earth's bounty for optimal health for all.
Did
you know that at this point in history, all of us, unless we are killed
by a tragedy, will die of a disease created by the way in which we care
for ourselves? This is unacceptable to me. I take issue with the
standards that we collectively hold regarding what it means to care for
our bodies.
Perhaps
this is the time in your path to take stock and to take control of your
life and body. You and you alone can make your life the way you want
it. You and you alone can pursue your dreams.
