For many decades now, our society has been a culture that discourages it's people from taking responsibility for their own health. We are encouraged to enter into paid, contractual relationships with only those medical professionals who have a degree in medicine. We are convinced to think that only those who attend medical school can possibly know how to take care of our health. We are persuaded to believe that everything the doctor tells us is fact, and that if we disagree, it must only be because of our ignorance. We are taught to second guess our own intuition regarding what's best for our health and that of our children.
This state of health care in industrialized nations like the US is actually quite new. We think of modern medicine as having a long history, but it has only been in the last 100 years that the vast array of drugs, such as antibiotics, anti-depressants, blood pressure medication, etc, that make up the trick of bags of most medical doctors these days, have been available. For hundreds, and even thousands of years before that, people relied on natural healing when they became ill.
In fact, most people had a basic, common knowledge of natural healing and kept and used many medicinal herbs, remedies and healing foods in their homes for those occasions when they might need them, or even for daily use to stay healthy in the first place. This common knowledge of wellness was passed down through the generations and provided the knowledge that most people needed to stay well and healthy. There were those times, of course, when a healer might need to be called in - whether it be a wise woman, medicine man, shaman or homeopath - but the common man and woman not only had a basic sense of how to heal common illnesses, but they were much more in touch with their intuition and innate sense of wellness.
Unfortunately, with the rise of the pharmaceutical industry, the AMA (which go hand in hand, in fact) as well as the processed food industry, much of our intuitive knowledge of healing has been suppressed. We have found ourselves in the position of not knowing how our own bodies work, not knowing how to keep them healthy and not knowing how to heal them.
However, natural healing, no matter how far it has been buried, is still with us, in all cultures, throughout the world. All we need to do is reconnect with our intuition, re-educate ourselves, school ourselves in the natural methods of healing that are available to each one of us. Natural healing is something that we can incorporate into our lives, everyday, every meal, every breath. It is not hard and it is not expensive. We need to re-lean what foods to eat (or in some cases, what food really is and is not!), what plants can heal and how to breath. We need to remember how to move our bodies and how we are all connected.
Modern medicine definitely has it's place and it can be a life saver in emergency situations. However, the time has come for everyday healing to be placed back into the hands of everyday people. We all need to take responsibility for our own health and trust the innate wisdom inside each of us that knows how to heal our own body, mind and spirit.