The document discusses several key points about health and healing: - The body has natural healing processes, and while illness can overwhelm these processes, support is still needed for recovery. - Each person and illness is unique, so there are different causes of and approaches to illness and healing. - The mind and body are interconnected, so stress contributes to illness and unaddressed illness/injury can lead to further issues. - Our lifestyle and choices play an important role in our health and wellness.

1. by Earon S. Davis, J.D., M.P.H. -- Sustainability Professor
EaronSDavis@gmail.com http://linkedin.com/in/earon
The Living Roots of Medicine:

2.  The body has natural healing processes that
can help regain and maintain health. When
overwhelmed by illness, these processes still
need support.

3.  Each person is unique. Each illness has a
unique effect in a given individual.
 Therefore, there are different ways to acquire
an illness. And there are different ways to
heal.

4.  The mind and body are not separate. Stress
contributes to illness. Illness and injury set
the stage for further illness and stress, if not
addressed.

5.  We are responsible for advancing our own health
and wellness. Our lifestyle is a powerful tool for
the promotion of health, or for the opposite.
 Practitioners can be of help as doctors, gurus,
teachers and mentors, but ultimately there is a
doctor, a guru, inside of us that we must honor
and cultivate.

6.  Practitioners can help us on multiple levels.
Wisdom, compassion and support are no less
important than technical knowledge. Neither
is sufficient, but together, health is advanced.

7.  Systems Intelligence. We need to step back
and understand all the influences in our life,
all the factors which contribute to healthy
choices and unhealthy choices

8.  We do not, even with the most advanced
science, understand how the human body
works. In 100 years, today’s experts will be
considered primitive and ignorant.
We therefore need to be open to
uncertainty, to embrace the
mystery that is life. Whether we
believe in religion, spirituality
and/or science, we need to leave room
for spirit, universal energy and faith.

9.  If we see illness as the enemy, we may miss
opportunities to mature and to remove
obstacles to our healing. If we see illness as
a messenger, we open ourselves to systems
thinking that gives us more tools for health.

10.  We need supportive, nurturing relationships
in our lives, whether personal partners,
friends or community. This helps us maintain
emotional balance and faith.

11.  Our lives begin and end with
breath. Our heartbeat is vital,
but our breath is a critical
path for our emotional,
physical and spiritual health.
 Working with our breath, we
can achieve greater focus,
greater tranquility, peace and
strength.

12. There are many practices and traditions in
medicine, health and wellness, in conscious and
unconscious observations from the emergence
of our species to the present day.
When we see their shared roots, their common
purpose and need, we more clearly recognize
that we need them all because they are
intertwined and interconnected, each carrying
some part of our truth that serves us well and
some part of that which does not serve us well.