The Healer Within: The Four Essential Self-Care Techniques for Optimal Health - Hardcover

Jahnke, Roger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062514768 ISBN 13: 9780062514769

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1997

Synopsis

A doctor of acupuncture and Oriental medicine presents a complete, easy-to-follow program of optimal health maintenance that incorporates gentle movement, self-applied massage, breathing exercises, and relaxation or meditation. Tour.

About this title

About the Author

Roger Jahnke, O.M.D., is the director of Health Action in Santa Barbara.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Healer Within

The Four Essential Self-Care Techniques for Optimal Health - *Movment*massage*meBy Jahnke, Roger, O.M.D.

HarperSanFrancisco

Copyright © 1997 Jahnke, Roger, O.M.D.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780062514769
The Medicine

It is the primary role of the physician, whether the African witch doctor or the modern doctor, to entertain the patient while secretly waiting for nature to heal the disease.
-- Albert Schweitzer, physician, philosopher

How strange that we would produce the most profound medicine within our own bodies and then, somehow, forget to use it.

Chapter One

Your Power ofSelf-Healing

The marvelous pharmacy that was designed by nature and placed into our being by the universal architect produces most of the medicines that we need.
--Norman Cousins,editor, innovator, professor

Your body, in cooperation with your mind and spirit, is marvelously blessed with miraculous self-healing abilities. The body is the temple of your life. Mind and spirit are the dwellers within the temple. Mind and spirit maintain the temple. Mind's intelligence and spirit's inspiration vitalize and quicken the body. The three together--body, mind, and spirit--cooperate to produce the most profound medicine ever known in the history of the human race, right within you.

Any injury or illness is spontaneously cured when these naturally occurring self-healing resources are operating optimally. When you cut yourself, the wound heals automatically. When you have a sprain or bruise, it heals automatically. When you have a broken bone, the physician must set the bone correctly, but then nature heals it spontaneously. The famous sixteenth-century physician Ambroise Par said, "I administered the treatment, but nature provided the cure."

I had a personal revelation of this early in my own life. Through a series of sports accidents, one of my front teeth was broken off to half its length. While the planning for a cap for the tooth was in process, the tooth actually began to grow. Over six months this tooth called on inner resources to grow past its normal size until it was as long as the other, unbroken front tooth. Some unexplained interaction of forces and elements caused this unusual healing event to occur. Science cannot explain much of what causes what we call healing. The "original cause" of healing, health, life itself, and the whole universe is unexplained. In ancient China this "original cause" is known as "mystery."

An inside joke in medical circles reflects on the healing power of nature: "With a doctor's expert care you should be better in a week, but without access to the marvels of modern medicine your recovery will require at least seven days." With or without a physician, with or without medical intervention, the natural medicine that we produce--our healer within--is working to heal us and sustain our health.

A wondrous self-healing mechanism has been built into us by the architect of the universe from the beginning of human history. This remarkable gift belongs to every person from birth. Unfortunately, most people have not known about this gift; it has been a secret. You, however, have entered into the circle of individuals who will make this secret known. Freeing the potential of self-healing in your own life and sharing it with your family and community will have marvelous effects.

Once upon a time and for many thousands of years, humans did not have fire. Much later, when only a few had fire, it changed the course of human history dramatically. Keepers of the secret of how to produce fire had tremendous power. Then, in an extraordinary historical moment, fire became the property of the many, rather than the few. Now anyone powerful enough to ask for matches at the corner store can have fire for no cost.

You are involved in an equally extraordinary and historic moment. The period in human history around the year 2000 will be remembered as the phenomenal time when the secret of healing became the property of the many, rather than the few. Once, long ago, the secret of fire was known only to a few; later, people discovered how to mass-produce matches. Now, the keepers of the secret of healing have made an equally profound discovery: the essential resources for healing, which are naturally occurring within each individual, can be activated purposefully at no cost.

When our natural healing ability does not function automatically, something is terribly wrong. Our spontaneous self-healing resources have become damaged or disordered. Formerly, we lived in a world where the only solution to this problem was thought to require physicians, hospitals, medicines, and tremendous expense. Now we know that the best, easiest, and least expensive cure is to rehabilitate the automatic healing capacity through self-healing methods. The simple practices of focusing on the breath, applying self-massage, gently moving the body, and deeply relaxing bring the natural relationship among the body, mind, and spirit back into balance.

In mild cases like stress headache, occasional constipation, colds and flus, aches and pains, insomnia, and anxiety, these self-healing methods can completely replace the need for medication. When medicine is necessary, self-healing methods complement and support the treatment. Most medications or medical treatments do not actually restore or fully heal our natural ability to sustain a high level of well-being. In addition, the possible side effects of many medications are frightening. If we really think about it, most of what we have come to call health care does not authentically and actually improve health.

Medical pain relief and medical reduction of symptoms are not typically accomplished by enhancing health. The surgical removal of a section of the colon or heart bypass surgery, for example, may save a life and reduce pain. Such procedures even improve quality of life and comfort level. But it would be false to say that these surgeries genuinely restore the original health of the person.

The use of pain medication does not actually eliminate pain; it only eliminates the sensation of pain while, we hope, the spontaneous self-healing ability of the body is actually improving health and eliminating the cause of the pain. Only rarely will physicians disagree with this idea. Unfortunately, until recently it has also been rare for the medical community to focus on and encourage self-healing practices.

Spontaneous self-healing ability is not a dramatic new scientific discovery. Nor is it a "New Age" phenomenon. Many techniques and methods for self-healing are quite ancient. As we learned from Patricia's story, which demonstrated the healing power of the breath, relaxation, and faith, there are potent messages in the Judeo-Christian traditions regarding the healing resources that we have within ourselves. In China and India, as well as in Africa, ancient America, Australia, and Europe, rich traditions of self-care and self-healing have existed since long before written history. One of the first things I learned about in the study of traditional Chinese medicine was Qi (Chi), which is the name for the medicine within. The process of cultivating the medicine within is called Qigong (Chi Kung).

For decades, we in the modern Western world have believed that medical science would invent better medicines and healing procedures than those automatically born within us. Given that cancer, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes remain terrifying realities throughout our communities, we now know that the promise of medical science has been at least as much of a disappointment as it has been an inspiration. Exciting new scientific research and clinical experience show, however, that the most profound medicine is produced naturally within us through the collaboration of our own body, mind, and spirit.

Research of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, presented in the Healthy People 2000 report, states that over 70 percent of all disease is preventable (DHHS, 1991). Recently, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that eight out of nine deaths occur from preventable causes (Fries, Koop, 1993). In 1996, on the eve of the one hundredth Olympic games, the office of the U.S. surgeon general confirmed that simple, mild exercise significantly decreases the risk of many serious diseases (DHHS, 1996). Sixty percent of adults were found to be insufficiently active, and 25 percent were found to be completely inactive. It was found that simply increasing physical activity a small amount has a powerful fitness-enhancing and disease-reducing effect.

It is obvious that self-care and prevention are preferable to medical intervention. Even our own folk traditions--the wisdom of our grandmothers--insists that "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure" and "a stitch in time saves nine." When we take steps to sustain and enhance the mysterious "original cause" of vitality and health, medical intervention is necessary less often. Even in cases where health has been lost and where pain and disease have set in, self-care can lead to dramatic recovery.

Continues...

Excerpted from The Healer Withinby Jahnke, Roger, O.M.D. Copyright © 1997 by Jahnke, Roger, O.M.D.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0062514768
• ISBN 13: 9780062514769
• Binding: Hardcover