A Society of Impatience

I have often thought about the word "patient" when thinking about my practice.  The word patient brings to mind medical, while client makes you think of a service.  But I want you to think of patient in relation to patience.  A patient used to be a person who would seek out solutions for their health conditions and then would wait for them to work.  The time needed was usually determined by the speed at which their body would change and move toward healing.  But now we are a world of impatience.  We want immediate solutions, immediate attention, cut right to the gold star, forget about the idea of apprenticeship and step out into the world immediately as a master.

When people come to me, they often have already exhausted every option conventional medicine has to offer, and have become not only discouraged, but also physically debilitated from medications, side effects, worry, surgery, countless invasive tests and lots and lots of waiting.  So they now want immediacy.  They want natural medicine to work quickly and effectively.  They are impatient.

But in order for natural medicine to work, and it does work, it has to use your body, your nutrition, your energy.  Because it's only a cheerleading squad.  Natural medicine helps identify and correct any imbalances that have put too much pressure on one system while letting another system have an unlimited holiday.  It helps to illuminate what you are doing or eating that is crippling your body's ability to do what it needs to do. 

Do you go to the gym after a year of no exercise at all and expect to run a marathon the next week?  If you said yes, then you're delusional and I don't have a natural solution for that.  But if you realized the impossibility of that, then you will understand that natural medicine is using the exact same pathways.  We direct natural medicine towards your symptoms by understanding what your body is lacking, whether it is protein, essential fats or sleep.  It will also help to balance the overindulgences, the excessive sugar and the morning latte with caramel. 

But it all takes time.  In other words, patience.  You cannot come to natural medicine and expect instant remedies.  You also have to allow it to illuminate the issues that brought you to your knees in the first place.  So without the ingredient of time, your body will never be able to truly heal.