REAL WELLNESS

Celebration of the 500th edition of Don Ardell's Wellness Newsletter

 

In 1977, Florida-based Don Ardell wrote the best selling book,  High Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs, and Disease. The success of the book helped spark the wellness movement and propel Don to a career of writing, speaking and teaching ways to apply wellness concepts personally and professionally. Like Johnnie Walker he's still going strong and this week we're celebrating the 500th edition of his wellness newsletter.

Don Ardell

 

If REAL estate is based on location, location, location, then REAL Wellness is based on alignment, alignment, alignment.

 

Here's the original and authentic definition from Dr Wellness himself;

 

'Real Wellness, a deliberate mindset or philosophy inspired by reason, exuberance and liberty. The purpose of wellness is to achieve, maintain and fine-tune a high quality of life.'

 

REAL Wellness; real, not imaginary, the genuine article.

 

It's not based on smoke and mirrors and it definitely has nothing to do with the smoke that the medical industry has been blowing up the trouser legs of politicians and health department bureaucrats these last 30 years.

 

It's not a treatment. It's not something you can have someone do to you. It's not something that can be injected, sniffed, poured down your throat or shoved up you backside. It can't be rubbed on or pushed back into place. It doesn't get better when you heat it or cool it. You can't cut it out or poultice it.

 

It's a way of being - and you're either being it or you're not.

 

MISALIGNMENT MISALIGNMENT MISALIGNMENT

The three great personally generated body system misalignments of our times are

 

-    metabolic

-    musculo-skeletal

-    psychological.

 

Misalignment in these three areas has reached epidemic proportions. It's painful, debilitating, inconvenient.

 

Common wisdom insists that the misalignment comes from out of the blue - as though the fault of misalignment lies in our stars.

 

Of course that's the sort of bunkum that's currently feeding the growth of the bloated and inefficient medical industry.

 

30 years ago the medical profession cared so much about misalignment they designed a universal remedy; drug everyone so they won't know they're out of alignment.

 

It's the antitheses of any type of wellness, let alone REAL wellness.

 

Predictably the misalignment has become worse.

 

Right now America is in the midst of a great Congressional debate aimed at increasing the amount that the Government deems it should pay to keep the medical merry-go-round turning. And it is indeed a very merry go round!

 

If things go to plan, another trillion dollars will soon be poured down the bowl each year from now until kingdom come. The result, even more misalignment. In Australia the same debate is also raging, though it will be just a few billion more dollars down the drain.   What's a billion dollars in the grand scheme of things? What's a trillion dollars? As long as you don't use numbers it's easy to become blasé about the real cost. But here's what we're really talking about.     1 billion = $1000,000,000   1 trillion = $1000,1000,000,000

 

But it takes one heck of a lot of people working one heck of a lot of hours to earn the tax to raise $1,000,000 let alone $1000,000,000 or $1000,1000,000,000. It's unsustainable, it's bankrupting states and countries. Massachusetts is pouring half its budget down the medical black hole. In Australia national spending has reached 10% of GDP and the states are spending 25% of their budget protecting the medical industry.

 

It's unsustainable and sooner or later governments will be forced to start promoting the wellness philosophy. 'Faith' in medicine will crumble in face of the 'logic' of keeping one's self healthy.

 

Froth will give way to substance. The complicated will be made simple, the opaque will become clear, the obscure will become visible, the expensive will become cheap.

 

HEALTH, WHAT HEALTH?

I read an editorial piece the other day where the editorialist wrote; 'There is nothing we can do about increasing health costs, given an ever-increasing number of older Australians will expect to live longer, healthier lives.' The Australian July 28th 2009

 

That's how vacuous the level of debate about health has become. Just read the sentence again. It's bunkum. If people are living 'healthier lives' the cost of medical services should be plummeting.

 

If people were healthy doctors would be sitting around twiddling their thumbs, playing golf on Wednesday afternoons and knocking off early on Friday. The cost of medical care would be decreasing exponentially. We wouldn't be having these debates.

 

People are definitely getting healthier! I've just come back from a trip to America. Here's  a view of the backside of America.

 

 

ALIGNMENT ALIGNMENT ALIGNMENT

'A body in alignment stays in alignment unless acted upon by a force.' There must be a lot of forces out there acting on bodies. Here's a few of the forces working toward misalignment of the metabolic system.

 

 

The chair is a good source of misalignment for the musculo-skeletal system.

 

But the part of the body that's most likely to get out of alignment is, of course the psychological system. There are myriad forces out there turning heads. You don't even know your head's been turned the forces are so subtle. Fewer and fewer are choosing to live the fit, healthy, rich and fulfilling life. And no wonder. Temptation is too hard to resist.

 

Wellness sits under the personal development umbrella. Personal development doesn't appear high on the agenda of our governments or workplaces. A couple of years ago I surveyed one workplace and half the staff didn't know what they wanted to do when they grew up!

 

In schools wellness is a side show. Knowing more about numbers is definitely more important than knowing more about one's self!

 

In America there is a growing amount of personal development in the mid-south and mid-west. It's hard to avoid hearing it on the radio or watching it on TV.

 

But much of it is being purveyed by people who hold firmly to the belief that the fault lies in the stars, people who have taken neither education, geology, biology, psychology or philosophy 101 and who are only slightly less inclined to accept the opinions of those who have than their brethren in Afghanistan.

 

Don, congratulations in achieving the wonderful milestone of 500 editions of your newsletter. Thanks for the wisdom and the inspiration that you've given countless thousands of people to think more deeply about ourselves and what we do.

 

Don't even think of stopping at 500.

 

In the mean time, stay tuned, highly tuned, and keep reminding us that the fault, 'lies  not in our stars, but in ourselves.'

 

Regards and best wishes

 

 

John Miller

Canberra Australia