Nature has a remarkable way of finding balance. Even our bodies, an extension of nature, are incredible in the manner they will work their way constantly to homeostasis if we remove the obstacles causing harm. It is a self-regulating system filled with microcosmic systems, magical, yet we take them for granted and as human nature has it, instead focus on the parts that we don’t like, or are problematic. Once the way in which we scanned for risks to our life, now our survival brain scans for problems and if we don’t monitor it, we will focus only on those rather than the beauty and life-giving.
This year has been a moment in time when I have been pondering whether I get lost in the problems due to the work I do. Certainly, as a Naturopath we help guide our clients to see their brilliance but are trained to seek out what can be tweaked in order to help the body heal itself, with support of the abundant plant medicines in the form of herbs, supplements and food that we are graced with. I peer through the same looking glass when examining our food system (and other ingrained systems) and can see with the perspective of a naturopath, the pivots needed to be taken to again let this natural world thrive.
Without seeing these things, without them being made clear to us, it can be easy for us to continue with business-as-usual while unintentionally supporting industrial practises that have very real, tangible unhealthy effects on individuals, communities and the worlds biodiversity. So I stand firm, that we must identify and name these practises to see how we are consequentially a cog in their wheel, so we can consciously take a step back and accept the sometimes hard-to-digest truth, that without interrupting these currently accepted ways of living, we will cause mass disease to our host as a whole.
We already are.
Like with the lung cancer patient, it is vital to recognize that smoking is causing the disease so they will stop the habit. As so, we must educate ourselves to our habits that are causing harm, to ourselves and our Earth. Yet equally as important as “do-no-harm” to the cancer patient, is the understanding to heal we also must nourish our body, and to inspire this desire to care for our body we must firstly remember to reverently respect it.
To viscerally know with every cell, the gravity of its precious and irreplaceable nature.
In combination, we do not lose sight of the errors that are crucially needed to be eradicated and rebuilt better, while also holding in our vision, the miraculous, innate ability of nature to heal. Reawakening to the truth thatwe are part of nature, and her systems. That we too as a collective made up of many individuals can heal – and must do – for our evolution because her healing and ours are intimately intertwined.
There is the possibility, if we chose.
But we must give hope legs and make the choices and take the action aligned with natures design.
