It's all connected

We just started another year; I want to start the year out talking about how our body is connected.  How each body system works synergistically with another.  You see, we live in a world where medicine has specialties.  These specialties separate the body into parts, each specialty zeroing in and treating one specific part.  They see the body as separate systems, NONE of them practice looking at the body as a whole.  It reminds me of the analogy I read a long time ago about the blind men who were at different areas of an elephant, each arguing what they thought it was through their lens.  They each saw a piece of the elephant, not the whole.  They were each right in what they saw but they were missing critical information. 

The same holds true when we look at the body like this, each specialty looking at one area, we miss seeing the whole picture. In my practice it leads to questions like, but I don’t have digestive issues, why are we looking there?   That’s a good question, it’s where we break down the food into the nutrients needed to feed our body.  These nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream that travels throughout the body, this super highway is moved by the beating of our heart, all of the nutrients that are absorbed through our digestive system are fed into the bloodstream for distribution.  It doesn’t just stop at one place and fizzle out, it continues feeding the whole.  

In functional nutrition, we make the connections of how each system is impacted by another. We look at the body as a whole and look at things like how food impacts the body.  How do those heart blockages impact the rest of the body, can we do anything nutritionally to support the body or medical intervention?

A really good example of how medicine separates the body system is if we look at a cancer diagnosis.  In conventional medicine, you receive a protocol that is targeted for a specific site.  The oncologists all follow the same protocols, these protocols are written out for them...if this doesn’t work then go to that and I am not saying to abandon conventional medicine because it does have its place.  What I am saying is, we need to dig a little deeper and trust ourselves enough to ask the tough questions to yourself and your medical team?  What if these questions led us to a better place?   What would happen if we were to change our mindset and take charge of our own health? Ask questions like what is my body trying to tell me with this diagnosis?  What else can I do? What can I learn from this?  Will a change in my diet or lifestyle support me in my journey? 
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These questions are good, these questions lead us to empowering ourselves, they lead us to taking charge of our health and not just being passive in our health care.  We need to start a grass roots movement to get back to trusting our body, honor the processes and realize it’s all connected!