Saturday, August 9, 2008

Taking Back Your Power in Health Care



Taking
Back Your Power in Health Care

I was dismayed recently to see an article on the front page of the USA Today on the crisis in the cost in health care. Basically, the article was asking, �Who is to blame for the continual upward spiral in health care costs.� Is it the doctors, the hospitals, the insurance companies or the individual needing the health care?

I was dismayed because I had just come across a book about a �medicineless hospital� in China that has been effecting miracle cures for nearly two decades without the use of drugs or surgery. Impossible you say? Quite the opposite! The medicineless hospital uses the science of Chinese medicine, namely Qigong (chi-kung) which are simple movements to allow the body to regain energy (chi) which leads to abundant health. In this hospital, there are nearly 4,000 - 5,000 practitioners, doctors and patients all working together to allow health to return to the body naturally.

One story about this medicineless hospital relates three �chi� practitioners sending chi energy to a patient on a table that was suffering from a cancerous tumor on his bladder. Within three minutes (while this was being recorded on ultra sound and video tape) the tumor simply disappeared. That day, the same thing happened with five other patients suffering from tumors. A miracle you say? On only outward appearances, it would certainly seem so. But they were simply doing what millions of others in China have learned to do, heal themselves naturally. And it can cost upwards to $70 per month for treatment in this hospital. And it sanctioned by the Chinese government.

The thrust of this treatment in this medicineless hospital is self-responsibility. Instead of the patient lying in a hospital bed, the patient is actively involved in the healing process, sometimes doing the qigong exercises for upwards of eight hours a day. Many of these patients came to this hospital with life threatening illnesses only to have them disappear after a month or two. Through simple exercises and a change in their thought patterns their health returned.

After hearing of this, I wondered, why we have this crisis in health care. A day does not go by without hearing of someone afflicted with some form of cancer, diabetes, and a rash of other diseases. I believe, and have for some time, that being responsible for one�s own life will allow anyone to take back their power in regard to the care of their health or any other part of their life. When it comes down to it, it is the individual�s responsibility as to whether they are healthy or not. But when the individual is responsible for their life, in thought, word and deed, then miracles really can happen.

This is not to say we toss the medical establishment and all its health care aside. That would be foolish. Our society as a whole has not learned how to manage their own health successfully, so it must rely on external sources to help do this. I believe we must look beyond what we are doing now if we are really going to make headway in this health care crisis. We each have innate healing power, but until we begin to use that power, we will always be dependent on others to care for us.

We must start by realizing that we are more than human beings. We are, as Dr. Wayne Dyer has stated, �spiritual beings having a human experience.� We have lulled ourselves into thinking that we are just flesh and blood and therefore have limited ourselves in what we can do. I have heard too many times of miracle cures taking place.

Our world is truly at a precipice in more ways than one. We have ignored our power for too long. How many people know that they are spiritual, creative beings? How many people know that they can create miracles in their lives? How many people know that their thoughts are real and have an effect in their lives? How many people know that their real power lies within them and always has?

Like Dorothy in the �Wizard of Oz�, we too have the power to �go home.� Until we accept the spiritual as the foundation of life, then real change will be elusive. �Spiritual� does not reside in one religion or group, but rather in all of us. All of our great spiritual teachers have taught us this. The
The only �crisis� that remains is within the individual and asking, �Am I willing to take back my own power and be the creative being that I am? The Kingdom of Heaven truly is within.