In the medical model our main concern is to remove symptoms and restore the body to its previous state.  From a wellness or healing perspective we may actually want to gain some insight from our symptoms so that we can learn, grow and evolve.  I often tell clients that within every symptom there is a gift.

Jill Bolte Taylor is a medical brain researcher who had the experience of a stroke which she later describes as a gift.  There is a video available on the internet called “A Stroke of Insight”, which tells the story of Taylor’s experience.  During her stroke she lost use of the left side of her brain and consequently experienced an increase in the qualities of the right brain.

As she explains during her seminar the left or more linear part of the brain is used for separating and categorizing our world.  The right brain sees the beauty and connection of everything in the world.

During this episode she experiences a level of peace and connection that she never knew was possible.  Some of what she shares reminds me of my experiences at Transformational Gate seminars receiving multiple Network Spinal Analysis and Somato-Respiratory Integration sessions.

Taylor make the point that we don’t have to have a stroke to consciously choose how we want to use our brains, choose our experience and effect those and the world around us.  So check out the link below and let us help you get a little more connected at the Center for Holistic Health.

Dr. Gene

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

It is unfortunate that right now, many people reading this article are suffering from one or more chronic health issues.  You may be one of them.  Many times the symptoms are not so bad that you can’t learn to live with them.  Of course, they do get worse, but helpfully, ever so slowly.  We are, after all, prime adapters. And should living with it fail, there are always the great medications.

But you know me. Sometimes when I meet people having this experience I’ll ask, eagerly, “Would you like to find the underlying cause?”

Now you’d think that the response would be a resounding YES.

Yeah, well. You’d think.

Nope. Often a shrug of the shoulder.  A polite tock to the head. Indifferent eyes. Absolute stillness. And all within striking distance of the answer, right before them, just waiting to help. Sometimes my head will swim with astonishment. Until I begin to recall at least some of the reasons why.

Illness as a matter of luck.  Illness as genes. Illness as something that time will take care of. Illness as something I may have to change (and I’m so tired now…). Illness as a belief in these things. Maybe a shrug, in so many syllables, is what their doctor, limited within his own expertise, gave them, when there was no other answer. Except for those great medications.

Look, I love modern medicine. We all should. God bless ‘em for what they do best: Corrective surgery. Research. Survivorship & Emergency Medicine. Even those great medications again.

For creating a pill is, if you think about it, every step of the way, is an act of astounding brilliance. But camouflaging symptoms with it?….maybe not so much. Covering up symptoms is an act of emergency medicine, and no one should live in a state of emergency. Tamping down symptoms is fine if that’s all you have, but I’m here to tell you emphatically it’s not all you have. Not anymore. Some us out here in Help-You-Land are, if I say so myself, pretty darn good at nailing the whole health problem to the source — and quickly. Symptoms don’t have much of a chance around here. Causes either.

And then, one day, one day soon, like all those who once defended themselves against change (or luck or genes), you can look back on your old self from the height of the spanking new improvement shaking your head at why in the hell you ever waited.

Or believed otherwise.

As the average American navigates today’s treacherous world of healthcare, there are a number of things to consider.  With ever rising rates of cancers, heart disease and diabetes, just to name a few, more consumers are looking for solutions that actually work.  Fading are the days when compromising one’s health with side effects that rival, or even surpass the original symptoms, is an acceptable casualty.

Since health insurance typically does not cover many natural and safe alternatives to traditional medicine, a smart consumer must carefully consider how to allocate his/her healthcare budget.  That’s right, I said it.  An investment in our selves is mandatory for those interested in achieving and maintaining good health in today’s challenging environment.  But make no mistake about it – even if you don’t care about your health, one way or the other, you’re going to have to pay.

It’s easy to understand how other things can take priority over our health.  This is especially true when, with the help of symptom-silencing medications, we begin to lose our health with gradual imperceptibility.  However, when we lose our health, the back end cost is so much more than the small investment it would have taken to alter our fate.

A recent study in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that, on average, the lifetime costs per person of a heart attack ranged from eight hundred thousand to over a million dollars.  According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer cost our healthcare system 124 billion in 2010 and will cost 207 billion by 2020 – and that doesn’t include lost productivity.  According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetes cost us 218 billion.

Even if you have insurance, it’s not hard to see how a twenty percent co-pay could cost you your lifetime savings.

And that’s just money.  What about the quality and longevity of your life?  Is being around to spend time with your grandchildren important?

With the realization that we are going to have to invest some resources into taking care of ourselves and our families, we might as well be smart about it.  Realize that it costs much less to keep ourselves healthy than to wait until disease has manifested.  Make sure that your efforts get to the root of your health problems.  And understand that no amount of healthcare, alternative or traditional, can take the place of intelligent healthy lifestyle choices.

Dr. Gene Clerkin

When I saw him a couple of years ago, I noticed it at once.  Something about him was different.  Biting my tongue, I thought, “My god, he looks like he’s dying.”  My childhood friend.

From the perspective of a health practitioner and out of general concern for the welfare of others, it can be difficult to watch someone’s health deteriorate.  And I don’t just mean my own friends and family; I see this every day.

People are determining, by their daily habits and decisions, what their health, and ultimately their quality of life will be in the future.  Whether or not they will be around to see their grandchildren, and in some cases even their own children, grow up.

Not long ago, I was able to time a trip to New York when my dad was in from Ireland.  Though our stay was short as thieves, we were able to get together for breakfast.  We sat across from each other, family again.  One… Two… Three… Four… My jaw dropped as he stirred them, heaping upon the teaspoons, into his small cup of coffee.  I knew right there and then, he had a sugar problem.  And of course, I wanted to help him.  I mean, have you ever seen the pictures of someone with advanced diabetes?  I don’t know about you, but I’d rather meet a different demise.

Every day, people like my father and my childhood friend seal their fate by their own conscious actions.  Conscious, I assume.  But how could someone, once it is clear, consciously choose to lose their health?  This question plagues me.  Why?

The easy answer might be lack of education or understanding.  And, yes, it is true, I find disinformation & incomprehension cut a large swath through the patient’s I see.  However, even if armed with the proper direction, many are unphased.  I sent my father a self-purification kit and tailored supplements to start him down the path of renewal, yet months passed without a step.  He admits understanding the consequences of his dietary habits and, alas, the inability to change them.

So it becomes a question of not if, but when.  It’s like gambling and knowing with absolute certainty of a loss.  But the casino was sure nice.  How do I help them?  Is the gentle unassuming offer of help if they would like it enough?  My strong rescue impulse aside, I’ve been around long enough to know that only those who want to be helped can be.  Isn’t the lure of the roulette that it looks like a whole lot of life – yet just a little death?  What are the odds?

And what are the evens?  I offered my dying friend the option of coming to stay with me for a while.  Personal, 24/7 guidance; probably his best chance for survival.  Against the odds for years I’d gently nudged him with the probable outcome of his lifestyle, knowing that that was a euphemism.  Though I didn’t specifically predict colon cancer, with his regimen (smoking, stress, long hours, food in name only) it was no surprise.  His gut was simply the first checkmark on the long list of possibilities.

Even now, I don’t know if he will take me up on my offer or even if it’s too late. I don’t know whether he will get to see his children graduate from high school.  I don’t know if he can even accept my help.  I don’t know if my father will find the strength to change.  Whether the love that gave me life will let me thank him by extending his.  Time will tell.  And the one sure thing about time?… is that we all think we have it.

But I do know this; I will continue to reach out to people through my article writing and other programs.  What I do works.  Call me stubborn, but my disease, contagious I hope, is a deliberately naïve optimism.  I will continue to let them know that if they have unresolved health problems, there might be an answer: Where I come from there usually is.  That it might not be too late: Where I come from it usually isn’t. Don’t be fooled into thinking that your choices don’t matter – they do.

Evidently, it is in my nature to care even if others do not.  Or aren’t so sure.  Or care more about other things somehow.  My choice, which matters, is to do this; your choice which matters even more, is to this with me.

It’s a shoe-in for everyone’s Resolution List and the number one contender on a patient’s questionnaire.  And no wonder.  Just this week I watched as a sampling of pedestrians on their lunch hour passed across the thin of my windshield: Three-fourths were, how to put this, portly? Stout? Adipose?… More than a few pounds over a healthy weight.  It was, for me, a real déjà view.

You see, once upon a time, I didn’t really think of myself as overweight, but my belt size and love handles were, I admit, slowly and steadily increasing along with the number of pairs of pants that they’d retired.  Nevertheless, my personal motivation for seeking and using clinical nutrition was the desire to get to the root of some very serious and long term health challenges, not to slim down.

And so I began the new year with a twenty-one day cleanse to detoxify my body.  I’d heard that it takes about that amount of time to develop a habit.  It must be true because by the end of the three weeks, I had reconstructed not just my eating habits, but me.  The combination of a superb diet and a whole food supplementation devoid of guesswork helped turn my health around; energy, outlook and vanity.

I mean, I hadn’t even been keeping track of my weight but I could tell my pants were getting – what’s this? – looser.  And I think it was the fine morning that my pants fell down, almost beating my jaw to the floor, while walking over to get the belt that also no longer quite fit, that convinced me to buy some new clothes. Only after several trips to the Gap dressing room, each dialing in with decreasing pant size, did I realize, absolutely amazed, that I had dropped six inches from my midlands.

Okay, you might be thinking, “It cannot be that easy for me”.  And, yes, there are a number of contributing factors that should be checked.  If you try to exercise away a thyroid problem, you won’t succeed (and you won’t know why).  If unrelenting stresses increase your body’s level of the hormone Cortisol, (which easily leads to holding weight around the midsection) diet may not be enough.  Don’t even get me started on how many people have been given bogus information about what constitutes a good diet.

But then again, do get me started; that’s what I’m here for, and the good news is that you can, we can systematically, methodically check and eliminate the hurdles to having an attractive weight.  Whether it’s toxic buildup, under-functioning organs, improper diet or depleting stress, it’s just a matter of figuring out the pieces to your own particular puzzle.  And they all add up to you.

While I must admit it’s nice to like what I see in the mirror, the peace of mind of having first followed my inner needs into the looking glass means far more to me than my reflection.  And, yes, it did come out well at the mirror.  And when you like what you see, we know it’s a reflection of a happier and healthier you.

She politely raised her hand, looked at me intently and asked, “What about genetics?”  Could that not be the cause of ailments like high blood pressure, cancer or hormone imbalance?  And although I mounted what I thought was quite a compelling argument to the contrary, she held firmly to her belief.

As I packed up my lecture equipment, I had a lingering thought: what is the possibility that she is right?  After all, haven’t I had dozens and dozens of clients come to the Center with a prior diagnosis of genetically caused symptom-otology, like high blood pressure?

The truth is that genetics do play a role in which symptoms a particular individual may experience.  While it is, in fact, possible that genetics could seal an individual’s health sentence, we must consider a number of other possibilities – if we are to have any say in our likelihood of a long and healthy life.

Each of us has DNA from our parents passed onto us that determines our genetic potential. The key word here is potential, meaning the outcome is yet to be determined.  You may have the genetic potential for being a racehorse, but if you live a lifestyle of overeating and no exercise you are unlikely to rise much beyond mule. And although you may not be sure quite which one it is, the same rules would apply to your overall physical fate.  Genes are a lot like a hammered nail: it may be in there to stay, but it matters a lot what you hang on it.

The fact is that today’s modern world, despite our advancements, arrives with a plethora of modern day stressors, too: electromagnetic, vibrational, and chemical toxicities to name but a few.  And let us not forget the emotional stress of keeping up with the culture.

So the first thing we do here is test our patients for these types of stressors; I know, without any doubt, the negative effect they have.  It is amazing to uncover, in this office, how many people have chemical and metal toxicities negatively affecting their health – and who, until they showed up here for screening, had no idea – when, lo and behold, from a previous diagnosis blamed on firm heredity, their genetic disorders magically disappear.

So, while they may actually have had a genetic predisposition to, say, high blood pressure, it only showed up when they were overstressed by any of the aforementioned offenders.  Either way, whether you have “bad genes” or not, doesn’t it make sense to first check for and handle the outside stressors? The danger of a diagnosis of a genetic disorder is that patients tend to give up and, putting last resorts first, submitting to a lifetime of medication.

And for those who still believe in their fixed genetic fates, a small test. Pretend for merely one month that your choices, of life and health, may actually have an unpredetermining effect upon your inheritances and, I promise, you will soon no longer have to pretend. Make changes to improve your health as if what you do does matter, and it really will. Your genes may be the first voice your genetic future ever hears, but it is by no means the last. The last voice is the verdict. And whose is better?  By coming here, I bet that the better voice is made clearer to you, your actions in harmony with nature as nature was fingerprinted within you. True, nature to be commanded, must first obeyed. So, for you, let’s find out what is, in order to reach what truly can be. Genes are not simply what makes you; they’re what you make them.

Sometimes my knees would swell to the size of a football. Sometimes it was a wrist and other times a foot or ankle. I was never sure where or when the swelling and intense pain would strike next. I was, however, certain of one thing; with each passing year, and lately with each passing month, it was getting worse.

With increasing frequency came increasing concern. How long would I be able to continue to work? What was the long term damage to my joints?… Would I eventually land up in a wheel chair?… I suppose I could sit in my wheelchair and play my guitar. That wouldn’t be so bad.

However, as if the possibility of a non-ambulatory twilight wasn’t enough, even my fingers began to swell. I could add writing and playing music to the growing list of things I could no longer do. It seemed that despite every mental adaptation and concession to my quality of life, I couldn’t get away. It was as if I was being backed into a corner.

I wanted to get this handled, but I didn’t know what to do. Having been in the wellness business for sixteen years, I’ve been exposed to a plethora of holistic modalities. They all had one thing in common: a lack of certainty. The normal scenario went something like this. Let’s try it and see what happens. What happened was nothing. My symptoms seemed impervious to any intervention.

I wasn’t too proud to explore traditional medicine either. That was the biggest joke of all. One symptom-suppressing pill a day for the rest of my life without actually fixing what was wrong. Thanks but no thanks. I’ve personally seen the deteriorating effects of that strategy on enough people to know better. Finally, after over a decade of worsening health, I found the answer. It was a bittersweet experience for me, having needlessly suffered for so long when the solution was just out of reach of my awareness. But now, looking back, the peace of mind and certainty of knowing that I’m getting better and better every single day far outweighs the decade plus of disappointment and suffering. Not to mention the fact that I can now do things that I haven’t been able to do in twenty years.

That’s a pretty great feeling. That’s the feeling that I would like to help others experience. Maybe it’s you? Or maybe someone you know is going through the same experience, feeling disappointed and hopeless. Well, I’m here to tell you that there is help. I’ve been down that road and now I know the way out. No matter what symptoms you may have, no matter how bad thing may have gotten, the solution may be more simple than you think.

For quite some time, I had the idea of forming of Conscious Living Group although, admittedly, I wasn’t exactly sure what that would look like. Delaying no longer, I put my foot down, set the date and decided we’d… uh, figure it out at the meeting. There, one of my own suggestions was for the group to do some kind of project that would make a positive difference in the community.

Upon request, attendees contributed their input regarding the group’s direction. One spoke up and said, “I’m not looking to change the world, I’m just looking hang out.” It proved quite an echo for me. In the weeks following, I wondered, what exactly makes a group “conscious”?—of more than each other, that is.

The basic idea of promoting consciousness, or so I thought, is to develop ever increasing levels of awareness, inner & outer, world & self. With the natural offshoot being to eventually engage in behaviors that support and enhance our own well being, planet & person.

Which brings us back to the group. What exactly to tell them? I’m not quite sure I can instruct someone in how to “just hang out”

consciously. Not that they’re unwelcome, but growing green wallflowers is not what I originally had in mind. Maybe for some a group is too much. Maybe, ultimately, we are all in this separately. And if that’s true, then what it comes back down to… is me, as just one guy in his own right. Whether I’m at the head of the group – or the feet—little matters. I must do my part. That inexorable urge to change your outer world once your inner world has changed is the natural photosynthesis of we all who’ve felt such sunlight in our lives.

For me, I’ve been changed by changing little world’s one spine at a time, my own included. And the urge to move from a sequence of transformed patients to patients who themselves transform was as natural as putting my backbone where my wishbone used to be.

So what is your job, your skill set, in this? Perhaps mine is aligning people, like so many vertebra, so that, like Atlas, they can shoulder the world – not just their own (though that’s plenty) but the planet’s as well. And since it is, in the end, about energy, then it’s no wonder that I’ve undertaken such an extraordinary labor-intensive expertise in a nutritional counseling nearly as transformative of personal worlds as my method of chiropractic.

What I’m feeling when I think of a conscious living group almost borders on a Mission Statement, that: “Collectively, as a human race, we make choices that determine our individual health as well as the health of our environment. The health of our environment, relative to toxicity and function of the ecosystem, in turn, exerts its omnipotent influence upon us. The choices we put to our bodies and environment spawn a long arm of consequence for both. Ultimately, people experiencing higher levels of consciousness understand the intricate interconnectedness of the world and their role in creating a positive impact upon it.”

See, it’s a vast concept. Readable, listenable, likable. But like most mission statements, it fails to motivate the mission.

Even as human beings who love we often have to be reminded that love is not a noun– but a verb. “Conscious living” is also a verb, not a noun. So, surely, the being in “human being” is a doing as well. I would say to anyone wanting to be a “human doing” – then act. The prescription? Just Do One Thing. Not two, not three, one. One doable something. Oh, and it must be small. Small always get finished, while large just gets tired. If all you can manage is just to show up at a group for conscious living, as a noun among verbs, then that’s at least something. Life and the planet both benefit better from a rain of small incessant droplets than from a flood, which wipes out both flooded and flooder. The Just-One-Thing that you do may seem paltry, even vaguely pathetic, but it’s important that you do it. Be the droplet; or the place where they can drip. For however terribly insignificant it may seem, it matters immeasurably.

Just ask the bucket.

And keep dripping.

In April of 2010, Reader’s Digest published an article titled “5 Vitamin Truths and Lies.” The article cited several research studies finding the use of vitamin supplements ineffective in improving health. So, what do you think? Were they right? Many people have experienced feeling better through vitamin use. The truth is that they’re both: wrong and right. That may sound strange, but read on….

The vitamin studies the article refers to are most likely not done with vitamins per se, but vitamin isolates. Since most people I talk to don’t understand the difference, you can see where the confusion & misinformation comes in. Now, sure, it’s brilliant that we, as a species, can synthesize the building blocks of life. But the body has other ideas.

The vitamins used in the studies, along with the majority of the vitamins sold in your local health food store, are synthetic, non-food concoctions supplied by pharmaceutical companies.

If you were to eat a piece of fruit or a vegetable that contained Vitamin C, you would be ingesting a number of known substances that work together, synergistically, to make up the Vitamin C complex. But if you read the label of the Vitamin C bottle, you will most likely find only one ingredient, ascorbic acid, in mega amounts. The problem is that without the other parts of the complex, this “stripped down” version of C cannot perform the functions necessary for your body to function properly.

Because these mega doses of vitamin isolates need their synergists to work, they pilfer those from any real vitamin C already within you, creating a long term deficiency. In making themselves whole they leave you with a hole. Although these mega doses can have the effect of altering symptoms temporarily, they can cause more problems later.

So, it would seem that the studies are right. We do get our nutrition from food. But there are a few potential hurdles therein to getting the proper nutrition we need.

To begin with, the typical American diet severely lacks those proper amounts and ratios of health foods needed for optimal nutrition & functioning. There are a number of contributing factors. A typical diet is extremely high in processed foods, which is fine for shelf life but not so much for your life. That processing also destroys their nutritional value. Add pesticides, hormones and genetic modification, and you’ve got a formula for illness and worse.

The 1992 Earth Summit Report indicates that the mineral content of the soil in North America has been depleted by an average 85%. Some are 100% depleted. Depleted soil means depleted crops. Considering that every person reading this eats a ton of food per year, produced on 12,000 lbs of topsoil already so depleted that afterward it cannot be reused, then the help you buy in a bottle should be food-sourced, grown whole and fertile, and grounded in life. But where to go? The question is worth asking.

I myself have learned of a few such sources, and use them. This knowledge is instrumental in my life and practice. The difference in my health shows the truth. And I would be happy, as always, to be the synergist in your own move from holes to wholes.