***Dr. Peter J. Amlinger***
As many of you know my sister passed away a little over a week ago. First of all, I would like to thank everyone for their love, prayers, hugs and kind thoughts and messages. All these gestures certainly made this difficult time easier to move though.
It was interesting for me to observe my sister through this process, especially near the end of it. Even though she could hardly swallow she still took her calcium supplement daily until she no longer could. Another time, she got quite upset because somebody gave her a calorie/supplement with a soy product in it. She did not eat soy because she had previously had a “hormone sensitive” breast cancer and had been told to avoid soy.
What struck me about these two examples was not that she was continuing to make healthy choices right up until the end. What struck me was that her motivation for doing so was actually grounded in fear. She took calcium for fear of osteoporosis and avoided soy for fear of cancer. I realized that many of her choices surrounding her lifestyle were based on disease prevention rather than health promotion. Can you see how the first intention is rooted in fear while health promotion has its foundation grounded in faith. The fear based, disease prevention model is based on the belief that health comes from the outside. The health promotion model is based upon the intention that if we give our body what it needs it will create health from within, out.
I am not minimizing lifestyle choices here gang. I am contending that living a life based on fear will nullify many of the positive lifestyle choices we might be making.
There is an old saying that says “what we fear comes near.” Living a life full of fear and worry or their counterparts is most deleterious and will erode our health and well being.
Work to eliminate these shackling emotions from your life and begin as Thoreau said, “to move confidently forward in the direction of your dreams.”
Filed under: Chiropractic Principles
