What would you say to someone that tells you that something is essentially wrong with you and they are here to fix you?  (don't worry it's a rhetorical question) 

Could that be a statement of the underlying philosophy and assumptions of the medical method of thought? People that practice medicine generally learns about sickness, how to treat and prevent it. Why don't they learn about how to live healthy too? (contemplate)

Stubbing your toe hurts, should it not? 

Have you ever stubbed your toe on a chair leg or something? (yeah, I guess we all have - answer in the comments) 

It hurt's like hell for a few seconds, and sometimes you may find yourself yelling at the innocent chair in front of you. "How dare you stand in my way!" 

After projecting our anger onto this wooding thing called a chair, or whatever else barricaded our way - hopefully, minutes after we laugh at ourselves for being silly, blaming a completely innocent object for our self-inflicted pain. We admit to ourselves that we should become more aware if we don't want it to happen again and we move on. 

So what do this collective phenomena of stumbling toes got to do with this anyway? It's an analogy, but you'll need to read further to find the mystery of where this comparison is heading, (mohahaha)

What is the medicinal approach to health and disease?

Well, I'm kind of annoyed by these pharmaceuticals. You know those people that discover, develop and earn shitloads of money on drugs, I mean medications. Maybe they all do this simply because they love us with all of their hearts, because they honestly want to treat or prevent our diseases and make sure we never get sick again. 

Don't shot the messenger 

Anyways, let's continues, wow where is this going anyway I totally forgot about that toe analogy. You remember it right? Good, let me explain further: The medical approach, name our health obstacles, or symptoms as sicknesses with different fancy names. There's nothing wrong with some cool fancy names, I've almost wished to get some of those conditions myself; "Geographic tongue" or mayebe the rhythmical named "Kawasaki disease" I like the beat of that. 

However, my point is that when we don't understand something, or don't wish to understand it better, we tend to just blame the very surface of what we're encountered with, we'll make up a name and say "Oh, yeah I'm overweight, depressed, miss a foot and a half, and my toenail just broke. It's because of this new sickness called shakabalaka, I just received my medicine for it so don't worry, would you mind to hand me those ten Mc chickens to me"?

Now I lost my analogy again, let's get back to it. Yeah, now I remember, as said the medical approach name the symptom, and think it's all figured out as they go to war against whatever is occurring. They bring all of their focus into the symptom, leaving no room for understanding the root cause of what is going on. It's like their blaming the chair when they hurt their toe, but they really mean it and stick to it. Nevertheless, the chair didn't do anything at all except reflecting their own unawareness of their surroundings. 

What if the same thing applies to our symptoms? What if its a signal for us to become more aware, to pay attention. Not necessarily of the symptom itself, what if the symptom is simply the messenger screaming to get our attention. And how do the medically minded people usually approach this? Well, remove the chair, remove the symptom. Treat it, take it away to lala land with some drugs. (and next week it pop-up somewhere else) 

We have remarkably intelligent bodies 

What if the symptoms have a very good reason popping up, instead of only annoying us. Maybe that skin rash wasn't just some evil force within trying to mess with your beautiful, avocado-cream treated skin. Perhaps the skin rash was a symptom of you intoxicating yourselves with that first-price, toxic avocado cream. 

It's that idea again, that something is essentially faulty with us, that symptoms shouldn't happen, but they are, reality proves. Why not acknowledge the intelligence in our bodies? Say "Thank you for showing me I'm making some unhealthy mistakes in my life, I'll take a look at my daily life and try to make some changes"

Well, that doesn't work, does it? Eating more healthily, reduce your stress levels and sleep adequate amounts each night isn't what we need, is it? Let's ask the medical business, they've even created trillion dollar formulas with their best intention in mind. To heal the world, are they going to rescue us? I wonder what they do with all their money... 

The root cause 

What if we're actually naturally healthy human beings, but circumstances in addition to consciously or unaware mistakes cause most of our imbalances? Should we pay more attention to the essential aspects of life? food choices, air quality, daily activity and all that stuff? What do you think? 

The medical approach is a way to generally look past the root cause of disease. Sure the doctor might tell you to sleep more when you tell him you're drowsing off at work. However, more intricate, less obvious cautionary things are usually treated as something unwanted and negative needed to be cured separately, without looking at the human being from all aspects, as a whole, complex organism. The question of the root cause seems to be left out in the pharmaceutical way of thought. 

The natural approach

To take the natural approach is to not look for any magical pill, it's to try to understand rather than condemn unbalances and so-called symptoms. It's to turn 180 degrees and take a look at ourselves, our daily life and choices instead of only treating ourselves with drugs. It's to tell your dear symptom " Thank you for showing me something need attention, I'll try to figure out what's needs to be done, and if I get it fixed you don't longer need to appear to tell me" 

Well, now is the time for the disclaimer, I'm generalizing a lot here. I'm not saying any disease arent worth treated with medicine. Not at all, I'm philosophizing. I'm just putting stuff out there, boldly.  

Cryptically speaking I'm just saying, money, power, greed, symptoms, sicknesses, big pharma, $$$ 

We all love some simple statistics 

• 100 000 Americans die from prescription drugs each year. 
• The worldwide pharmaceutical revenue market in 2013 was 980 billion dollars. Roughly twice as much as ten years before that. 
• The percent markup of the prescription drug Xanax, is approximately 570,000%. This means that the consumer cost per hundred tablets is roughly $137.79, while the cost of the active ingredients is $0.024

All pictures from Pixabay 

Leave your comment and #upvote if you like this post. 

Truly grateful for any support, stay healthy and be well, 

Remember to watch where you're going, keep that toe safe!