Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (144 page)

If you’ve answered honestly, you may have uncovered some of the beliefs that are keeping you from having a fulfilling and satisfying relationship with a good health care provider.

To turn this situation around, I’d like you to think about the fact that there are literally thousands of different health care providers practicing in the United States and around the world who can help you help yourself. I’d like you to spend a moment or two each day visualizing how great it will be to have a health care team you trust, feel safe with, and feel empowered by. Feel how exhilarating it is to know that no matter where you travel, you have the ability, through your thoughts and feelings, to be able to attract just the circumstances you need for healing.

7.
Acknowledge the power to choose.
Over the years I’ve heard many patients tell me that they couldn’t take a supplement or get a massage, or whatever it was, because their insurance wouldn’t pay for it. Almost invariably, these people have had poorer health than the ones who say things like “I don’t care what it takes, I’ll find a way to get what I need. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I’m not sure how I’m going to do this, but I know I can work it out.” Please think for a moment about what it means when you tell yourself that you can’t do something for your health because of the rules and regulations that a bunch of insurance executives have come up with. Whom are you giving your power to?

I have come to see that one of the leading causes of chronic ill health in this country is the belief that your insurance—or the government, or someone else besides you—is responsible for your health care choices. Culturally, we need a big shift in consciousness around this issue. In my view, we should abolish the term “health insurance” and call it what it ought to be called, which is “crisis insurance” or “disease insurance.” The business of creating health and staying healthy is your responsibility, and because none of us is perfect at this, we need a backup in case of catastrophic illness or an accident. That’s what our disease-care insurance should be for.

So for now, while the entire old system is breaking down, I suggest that you get the highest possible deductible that you can afford and then put the amount of your deductible away in a money market account or, if available to you, a health savings account. (These accounts are becoming increasingly common, but they still have a long way to go. I’m also aware of the plight of those with no health insurance, many of whom simply can’t afford the ever-increasing cost of the policies available today.) Then, with the considerable savings that you aren’t putting into the pockets of the insurance executives, you will be able to af ford all kinds of good food, gym memberships, or massages. These sug gestions might sound overly simplistic—and for some people with very limited incomes, they are. But for many others, they are a ticket to true health care choice and freedom, in contrast to the sheep mentality that is so prevalent and disempowering.

We are moving toward a time of unprecedented choices and ways to flourish daily in our lives. But until we as a nation start addressing lifestyle issues, we’ll continue to have to pay the enormous cost of bailing people out of situations that could have been prevented in the first place! Why not be a recipient of the health care of the future, starting today? You can do this by working with a great paradox: You have to create health yourself, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Please acknowledge your power to flourish in your life daily, and understand that healing often comes to us through our connection with others.
⁷

CHOOSING A TREATMENT:
FROM SURGERY TO ACUPUNCTURE

If you are seriously ill, treat the critical symptoms first, by whatever means are the most appropriate for you. Look for insights later. Conventional medicine is unparalleled in its ability to deal with emergencies and severe symptoms. Though there are many alternative treatments in ad dition to drugs and surgery, conventional medicine is sometimes necessary and helpful.

After a thorough assessment of a patient’s situation has been made and she has been informed of the standard recommended treatments for her situation— like hysterectomy for a large fibroid uterus—then the patient herself must decide what “feels” right. For one, the choice will be the hysterectomy. Another with the same problem might be more com fortable trying dietary change, castor oil packs, or myomectomy first. The Internet has helped women become far better informed about their options.

Once a treatment program has been recommended to you, regard less of what it is, let the information sink in for a few days or more. See if it feels right in your body. If it doesn’t, give it more thought, get another opinion, ask for a dream, or turn it over to your inner guid ance. If surgery has been recommended, I’m a very big fan of getting second and even third opinions. Very few conditions are such an emergency that you have to make a decision on the spot. If you sit with a decision for a while, you’ll be much more trusting of the treatment you eventually decide upon.

Which Treatment Is Best?

How a woman chooses to treat a condition will depend on her own needs at the time. I say this while acknowledging both the power of the medical-pharmaceutical industry to sway public opinion and the cultural biases I’ve already explored.

People often have prejudgments about treatments. Those who are oriented toward natural therapies sometimes see surgery or the use of drugs as a failure and the use of vitamins for the same problem as a triumph. One of my friends who finally had an endometrial ablation procedure for heavy menstrual bleeding and chronic anemia said the following: “I realize now that I sort of reverse-discriminated against conventional medicine. Because I was so against surgery and only interested in ‘natural’ options, I almost missed doing something that was really the right option for me.” To those who are more familiar with conventional drugs and surgery, the very notion that an herb or dietary change could help seems preposterous. I teach women that there are many choices and they need not exclude entire categories that could help them—either conventional or alternative.

Eating brown rice, tofu, and vegetables is appropriate for some women who want to decrease symptoms related to excess estrogen, for example, while taking a progesterone preparation is the best option for others with the same problem. Sometimes a woman needs both. Many women are confused about these points and need to understand that they have options.

To approach illness without using the diagnostic tools of modern medicine where they are appropriate is as dualistic and harmful to patients as saying to someone with arthritis, “We’ve completed your tests. You have arthritis. It is a lifelong, chronic, debilitating disease, and you might as well learn to live with it”—without suggesting that she explore the effects of nutrition, stress, and lifestyle. Because mystery is a constant part of life, we can never be sure how anything will turn out; we can never be sure that a medical condition is hopeless because there are well-documented spontaneous remissions from just about everything!

A thirty-eight-year-old artist came in for her annual checkup once. She had been trying to decide whether to go on Prozac, an antidepres sant, for her periodic depressions. Philosophically she didn’t like the idea, but her condition wasn’t getting any better. She had had an intu itive reading with a well-respected person in our area who had encouraged her to try the drug. She finally decided that the only way to know whether the drug would help was to give it a trial. She told me afterward, “One of the most helpful things about coming to you was being able to tell you about my intuitive reading and understanding that I could tailor my medical care around how I was feeling about that information. That you were willing to listen to all the different parts of my story is precious to me.”

When I saw her three months later, she said that she was feeling wonderful and that the drug seemed to be a “missing link” for her. “I can’t believe how my life has changed around,” she reported. “Now the universe seems to be providing for me. My artwork is selling well, and I am much more creative. I’m also claiming my power and energy as my own and am not nearly so worried about what other people think or whether I’m better than or worse than anyone else [as an artist]. I have more energy than I’ve ever had before.” Taking the drug became a turning point for her, but before she could accept it, she had had to release her prejudgment about it. Though the drug definitely helped, she also dealt with the issues from her past— childhood sexual abuse—that were core issues in her depression.

Six months later, she stopped taking Prozac because she felt that it was creating “an artificial euphoria” that didn’t feel right to her. What had worked well at one point was no longer appropriate. She contin ues to feel well, powerful, and creative without the drug. (Interestingly, the data on antidepressants versus placebos shows that placebos can be just as effective. That means that sometimes antidepressants work just because we believe in them.)
⁸

There are many ways to heal. The right way for you is the way that feels best for you at a particular time. We must learn to see ourselves as processes—changing and growing over time.
Eventually, any externally imposed
guidelines for how to become well must be consistent with our own
inner guidance system. Eventually, we must learn to support ourselves
through self-respect—not through restrictive regimens filled with
shoulds
and
oughts
that feel punitive
.

Externally imposed regimens such as dietary improvement are often a first step in healing. These regimens often help women feel good enough to get on with their real work of finding out both about their deepest woundings and about the self-nourishing things they can do to help them heal their wounds. These two quests go hand in hand. We can’t skip over the parts of our lives that hurt or are disturbing in an attempt to “follow our bliss.” But when we commit to following our bliss, the healing of our wounds begins spontaneously.

Analysis Can Cause Paralysis

We are running around looking for knowledge, but we are drowning
in information.

Information gathering is only a first step to flourishing. Sooner or later, you have to close your eyes, go inside, and listen for
your
answer, not
the
answer. Many people, equating techniques, medicines, and even vitamins with health, stop at this level. I’ve seen women with a variety of different conditions go to scores of health care practitioners of all types but come no closer to healing than they were before. Often, the more facts they have, the more confused they become. This information dilemma is common and can immobilize us.

In people who are trying to heal a condition with diet, for example, there often comes a time when trying to control the amount and quality of everything they put into their mouths dominates their lives: “How many greens should I have? One cup or a half cup? Should they be cooked? How about my bowel movements—should they sink or float? If they sink, does it mean I should add bran? What about water—two glasses or three? And is it okay to have an orange? One a day or two?”

It is simply not possible to know and understand the effects of every —Karl-Henrik Robèrt thing. This approach becomes very problematic when we are dealing with a living, breathing, ever-changing human body. The answers are always in your heart, not your mind.

Hormone therapy is another common situation in which women can work themselves into a real frenzy if they rely on intellect alone. No amount of studies on hormone therapy, mineral intake, or exercise will ever be able to take into account all the variables that affect a woman’s life around menopause.

Sometimes we have to take a step back from our intellect and laugh at it, running around in circles, chasing its tail. Writer Natalie Goldberg calls this “monkey mind.” Regardless of what the issue is, once you’ve read all the books and consulted all the experts, only your inner guidance, of which the intellect is just one part, can give you the right answer.

Please remember, too, that Divine Love is the most powerful healing force on the planet and that no disease is incurable. (See the information on the World Service Institute—
www.worldserviceinstitute.org
—in chapter 15.)

CREATING HEALTH THROUGH SURGERY

At some point in their lives, many women are faced with the prospect of surgery. More than 40 million people in the United States have inpatient surgery each year (adding outpatient surgery brings the total to almost 72 million), and 58 percent of them are women, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. I’ve watched many women put their lives on hold for months or even years while trying to cure “naturally” a condition that is very amenable to conservative, organ-sparing surgery. Surgery to repair the pelvis is totally different from surgery to remove everything in the pelvis. Surgery should always be considered along with other healing modalities. I like to help heal the negativity often associated with surgery by renaming the experience Creating Health Through Surgery. Surgery can be approached as a healing ceremony. Jeanne Achterberg, Ph.D., Barbara Dossey, and Leslie Kolkmeier give full instructions for how to do this in their book
Rituals of
Healing
(Bantam Books, 1994).

The Second Opinion

Before having an elective surgery—or any other surgery, for that matter— get a second opinion if you have any doubts whatsoever. I’ve seen countless women for second opinions regarding hysterectomy. The second opinion gives women time to think about their decision, and it exposes them to the vast differences in thinking that exist within the medical profession about treating a particular problem. Some women see as many as five or six different specialists before they decide on a course of action. Ultimately, they have to tune in to their inner guidance to come up with the best answer for them, since no doctor can provide it.