THE GOLDEN PATH OF HEALTH
The path of health is created: by visualizing what it would be like to be living a healthy life. Based on day-to-day activities, choices are made that are consistent with the visualized path. It may be helpful to take a moment and think about the fact that many people manage to effectively deal with their disease or disability, and come out ahead, because they were challenged and inspired to make positive changes. They envisioned what they could do-what they felt they had to do-under their particular circumstances. Perhaps you know some people who feel empowered by their adversity or have read about the experiences of others. When you visualize a healthy condition, you know that there is a distance to go from the current situation to that desired state. That is the period of healing. During the period of healing, you are deciding to do things that are consistent with becoming and remaining healthy.
Thus, when it comes time to decide what to do, what to eat, where to go, what to think about, what to invest time in, those choices will be based on what you-as a healthy person-would select. If the vision is not present, then the choices will usually be based on something other than attaining health, such as old habits, or ideas that lack future vision and have no reasonable goal attached. The road will become longer, or will divert to a less favorable destination.
The mind has a natural tendency to forget the healthy vision, instead becoming tied up with the dissatisfactions of the moment. In fact, in a state of bodily illness, it is quite easy for the mind to become entangled in the perception that becoming healthy is too difficult. But focusing on the difficulty, rather than the process of improvement, or feeling defeated rather than assured of eventual success, is not the way to become healthy. Nor is it helpful to set goals that are irrationally high, with results expected too soon or outcomes beyond what is known to be possible.
To visualize being healthy is not merely to imagine being able to do anything you want, unimpaired by illness. Rather, it is to visualize undertaking all those reasonable pursuits that are necessary for maintaining health on a daily basis. What would an Olympic athlete do to reach a performance goal? Would he or she eat anything, sleep anytime, do anything? No: there would be a healthful diet, a regulated schedule, and a certain amount and type of physical and mental training. The training is particularly representative of the path of health: it is a concerted effort to do better than ever before, with gradual improvements week by week, not a sudden change. And it the training doesn't involve strange and radical new approaches, but tried and true methods. These focused and beneficial activities, or their equivalent, must be considered by anyone who wishes to attain optimum health.
In essence, healing is a natural process that results from these efforts. The inner vision of health developed in the mind's eye directs you towards the necessary healthful actions. The actions enhance and harmonize the body's functions, and that permits the mind greater freedom in future activities. Therapies supplied by a medical practitioner can serve as aids to the process of healing, but if relied upon as the sole source of improvement, one is often discouraged; the added self-help assures success, because health ultimately comes from within.
