Culture, Convention And Perception

Being a Natural Medicine Practitioner and Health and Wellness Coach is fun, interesting, and sometimes even a little difficult. It’s fun because I get to help a lot of people better their lives, and interesting because there is so much to learn and understand. So what’s the difficult part, Doc?

Well, I often feel like a fish swimming upstream. Not all natural medicine is “alternative” or opposite of conventional medical wisdom. Where they differ is more in their approach to treatment. Natural Medicine Practitioners like to treat lifestyle and the imbalances causing symptoms, where conventional medical practitioners focus on treating symptoms and disease. Each has its place.

The challenges lie in the inequities in our culture, our conventions and perceptions. By this, I mean, what we consider as “normal” is more often “common”, but abnormal. For instance, the normal impression of a Natural Medicine Practitioner, or Health and Wellness Coach, is that we encourage people to buy and use lots of vitamins, minerals, supplements, and herbal concoctions. However this couldn’t be further from the truth.

A quick story to help make my point about culture and, to illustrate its influence on convention and perception: When I was in Chiropractic School, my parents came to visit for the holidays and my Mother made her traditional holiday meal. In doing so, she was pan roasting buckwheat. I had learned this process a couple of years earlier from Dr. Victor Frank, as a method of pre-digesting and lowering the carbohydrate levels of whole grains (see “roasted rice” in my book, Bio-Logikal: Your Guide to Optimal Health). I knew this to be a healthy practice, but I had never noticed her doing this before. I was curious as to what my Mom’s reason was for roasting the grain before boiling it.

I first asked her if she had always prepared the buckwheat that way (my book wasn’t out yet, so I knew she didn’t get the idea from me or Dr. Frank!) She said yes, she had always prepared it that way. When I asked why she was roasting the grain first, she simply said, “That’s the way my mother taught me to make it.” I could see her mind turning, wondering why I was asking, as I was probably like every other kid growing up: sans interest in mom’s culinary prowess! I told her the story about Dr. Frank’s process for roasting rice and what the health benefits are of doing so. She was intrigued for a moment or two, before being distracted by her strict cooking schedule… “the show must go on!”

This example illustrates that we do things in our everyday life because it is the way others have taught us, or because we have “always done it that way”. That’s convention, and it is a strong human trait. Cultural behaviors are things we do because everyone else is too; kind of like the lemming effect.

As a Natural Health Practitioner and Health and Wellness Coach I can tell you, sometimes it takes a whole lot of hand waving and flashy maneuvers to get patients, and the public, to break from their conventional and cultural thoughts in order to see or hear things from another vantage point. But in seeing their problems from different angles, my patients also get to see several possible solutions. It is a difficult process sometimes, but it can be very rewarding when my patients have those “ah-ha” moments. I get to have them too, as I am a teacher and a student!

Perception is another fascinating and challenging issue for Natural Healthcare Practitioners. What someone perceives about what we do may already be ingrained in them, and tough to alter. Perceptions shape our notions of what’s “normal”.

No topic has a stronger perception factor or is more controversial than immunizations for children. This is a hot button, and most people (whether they know it or not) are highly polarized to one side of the issue or the other. Fear, anguish, personalities, peer pressure, and societal “requirements” all drive this issue. I’ll save my thoughts on this topic for another article, but suffice it to say you’ve probably got a good idea of what I mean by perception by now!

So what’s my style? Well, first, I don’t judge my patients and clients. I try to meet them on the road where they are in their convention and perception. I do my best to explain what’s causing their health problem(s) and what can be done about them, in a way that is clear and meaningful to them. I do my best to evoke and answer questions to help patients understand what they need to do to be healthy and why it will work.

Even deeper is my goal is to help the patient with his or her goals. That means helping them to achieve their desired level of health in the time and way they would like to. I’m the Doctor, and the Health and Wellness Coach, who can educate and help them navigate their health problems, giving them options for testing and treatment when they’re needed, and methods of solving problems. But ultimately, the patient has to captain his/her ship and decide which course they wish to take.

Doctor is the Greek for teacher, not healer. As a Natural Medicine Practitioner and Health Coach, it seems I must balance both.