I have struggled to find focus for a book that allows me to capture my 68+ years as a seeker, and 40+ years as a Holistic Practitioner. I was dissatisfied with the idea of writing a book about one topic, such as iodine, since it is connected to so many other things that I would have to exclude. I carry this anxiety about leaving the planet without adequately recording the pieces of my experience that can contribute to the future. Most of my heroes and mentors are dead, but they talk to me through their work and writings, as I am hoping to do here for you. (See Appendix A for my list of Holistic Heroes). 

This book is written for those seeking healing at a root-cause level. Healing is not complex or difficult no matter what they have told you, what you see on Youtube or read on Dr. Google. The most important take-away from this book is this well-kept secret: Healing is inconvenient, BUT it is less inconvenient and less expensive than being sick.

It saddens me frequently to see someone, including those in my own circle, who could get such a huge return on investment if they would just try doing things holistically for a while.  For most people, just a few weeks can get the ball rolling. Forcing oneself to sleep or eat on a regular schedule doesn't really take much and is as fundamental as you can get.  For more complex and long-standing conditions, the only early change will be that of attitude--the patient/client gains a clearer perspective about the factors interfering with healing and a path to heal those factors. As stated above, sadly, many if not most are not able or willing to make that leap, even for those where resources such as time and money are available. My believe is that there is an epidemic of fatigue and helplessness engendered by greedy forces, but if everyone is equally fatigued and hopeless then it is accepted as the norm.  Social systems of all creatures are based on creating stability, and a stable fatigued norm enables the greedy to do what they want. The last thing I will say about politics (which can be a separate book) is that the fear of death programmed in all living creatures, manifests in many ways, including greedy materialism. Going back to masterpieces such as Denial of Death, (__), it is obvious that those hoarders are trying to fend off mortality, but by doing do they harm their own progeny.  Denial is a powerful, effective and destructive feature of the human mind. 

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Holistic Medicine, also called by some Integrative Medicine, begins with a philosophy of health and healing, from which evaluation and treatment processes are derived. Other terms, such as Homeopathic Medicine and Functional Medicine, while sometimes used interchangeably, are not the same as they are more focused on their specific approaches that are not as broad as what would be considered a complete holistic approach.

All forms of therapeutics, whether conventional, Ayurvedic, Chinese or other have a similar structure, though the content and proportion of each element differences. All begin with a client (patient, self) identifying a problem for which a remedy is sought. Then some sort of evaluation process occurs. Now-a-days, Dr. Google is a common part of that evaluation. If you are a monkey or a dog, the evaluation would involve looking, prodding and feeling. If you are a human, a diagnosis or some sort of label is found that helps center the concept, even if, as often occurs, the round symptom does not fit into the square label. 

Based upon the evaluation, a remedy is recommended or prescribed. The remedy could be as basic as rest to eating herbs (or grass if a dog), to changing food or water intake, doing certain mechanical things, up to complex surgeries. 

If the remedy provides the desired outcome, the evaluation process and diagnosis are considered successful. Since nothing is perfect, the outcome is rarely perfect. What can be left is a scar (physical, emotional, physiological, energetic), or a functional improvement at a level that is "good enough" -- allows return to normal life without too much inconvenience. Obviously, the level of improvement that is satisfactory is dependent upon the person. Some accept improvements as low as 10-20%, while others seek 110% or greater (and which, as Holistic Practitioners, we believe is possible).

Implicit in the ideas of health and healing is life--being, existing, breathing, growing, changing, hurting, pleasuring, terrifying, life. How much dis-ease is just that is always a question when humans suffer. However, animals who don't think as we do also develop disease and suffer without being neurotic or worrying about global warming, world peace or famine. All living creatures must die, and the transition between being alive and dead, while remaining an ultimate mystery, occurs materially no matter what.

Whatever that life force is, even if we can never measure it directly (we can't see or directly measure an electron but we certainly do a lot with them), we know it exists without question. The reality of life and death fortunately supercedes all human constructs including money, religion, and geography. We don't need research or God to know that there is a time when living beings, whether a bacteria, an ant or a human stops living and materially deteriorates back to its basic non-living elements.

Where There Is Breath, There is Hope

Bioenergetics