Rosenthal Chiropractic
 

Is The Seesaw Missing from Your Playground of Health?

PART 1

What happened to all the SEESAWS? Was it the bruised knees, bleeding chins or sore behinds that brought their demise? It must have been the lawyers fueled by angry parents with sobbing children. This momentous removal was necessary to protect from playground injury. On the downside, we lost a valuable educational tool when seesaws began to vanish from our neighborhoods!

Much more than just a childhood thrill ride, the seesaw teaches us the secret to optimum health and freedom from disease. To uncover the lessons of the seesaw, many questions must be answered and truths understood. Our health is fully dependant on our belief system, knowledge and actions.

What is health? As stated by the World Health Organization, health is: 

"Optimum physical, mental and social well being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."  

According to the Vatican at the time of Pope John Paul:

"Health is a dynamic tension towards physical, mental, social and spiritual harmony, and not only the absence of illness..."

In chiropractic, we also equate good health as proper functioning within a flexible range of balance. Good health is present when one is able to adapt his/her physiological and mental state to the demands of the internal and external environment. All definitions value the understanding that there is more to health than just feeling “normal.” It’s all about FUNCTION and ADAPTATION.

 Does good health come from the outside? It is truly an inside job. The source is within us. It is primarily from the CHOICES that we make regarding how we think and act. We are in control! This concept is EMPOWERING!

Our level of health (and happiness) is an accumulation of our habits/choices! It is the balance between good and bad. Too many bad habits/choices cause a teetering too heavily to one side… tilting us into sickness and disease. Good choices and habits rock us over to health and happiness.  

What about factors that are out of our control?  Many inevitable factors exist that also weight the seesaw towards imbalance. Grouped under what is termed in chiropractic as “destructive survival values” are the following examples: pollution, allergens such as molds, radiation from the sun, genetic tendencies, exposure to weather and the body’s continuing need for cellular replenishment. Although these factors may be out of our control, we have the power of counteraction by choosing thoughts and activities that bring us back into harmony.
 
Where do we start? Begin by inquiring and listing:
 
  1. What are my good habits/choices mentally and physically?
  2. What are my bad habits/choices mentally and physically?

We need many good habits to counterweight the unavoidable factors discussed above. List answers to the questions, and see if your seesaw is balanced or slightly tilting towards optimum health and happiness or sickness and despair. In reality, this is a dance… teetering slightly back and forth as our life swings forward. 

Next month’s article will further explore specific categories of our habits/choices. It will be aimed at exploring strategies for the creation of greater wellness. By taking responsibility and realizing that we are where we are because of OUR choices and habits, we can finally jump off the merry-go-round of illness and unhappiness. Now is the best time to remove our heads from the sandbox and tilt the seesaw towards abundant health and joy!