Pain

This morning I woke up to a parched mouth and screaming back pain.

OK, so I read a lot about nutrition and diet and what are the real causes for our medical problems. Based on what I read, I'm pretty convinced that we are our own causes for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc. It's no mystery to me that we are poisoning our water and food sources with chemicals and toxins, we ingest foods and water from these polluted sources, so therefore, it stands to reason that cancers and other diseases are on the rise.

What does this have to do with my back pain?

A couple years ago I got this book called Your Body's Many Cries for Water. In it, the author presents case study after case study, with every ailment from dry skin to emphezema, and says, "The cure? Water."

He presents all these diseases. And the cure to them all? Take a guess. No. Seriously. Just take a stab in the dark. The book's title might be a hint. Can you guess? Go on... yeah... just try ...

YUP! You guessed it! WATER!

Yeah. According to this guy, all we need to do is drink water. Cold? Water. Eczema? Water. Diabetes? Water.

Waterwaterwaterwaterwater.

So I read it, and I kind of toss it aside. Cuz it's too simple, you know? If it were that damned simple, don't you think the medical community would have said so by now? I mean, humans have been around for a while, medicine and medical testing has been around for a while. Donchya think we'd have maybe explored this possibility by now?

Headaches: water. PMS: water. Indigestion: water. Give your digestive system a rest - drink water! Fasting is good for you: drink water! Water! Water! Water!

So now that I've completed my water fast, and I'm back to eating like a good American consumer eats ... I am seeing a difference in how my body felt when I was just drinking water versus now, when I am eating a variety of foods, both "good" and "bad" foods.

When I was on the water fast, I felt much lighter and cleaner. I didn't have any real physical ailments, I had a lot of energy, and aside from needing to make sure I was watering myself regularly, I found it quite pleasant from a physical stand point. Mentally it was challenging to give up the food. But physically, I truly did not feel I was missing out.

So this morning I wake up, after days of knowingly not drinking enough water to sustain my body's basic needs. I am thirsty and in pain. My back seriously felt like it was stabbed, from my lower back on up to my shoulders. I could barely stand up straight it hurt so bad.

I went to the kitchen. I knew it was not aspirin or ibuprofen I needed. I needed water. Stat. My body was telling me it did not have enough. And I needed to listen.

I down two twelve-ounce containers of water. My mouth resumes it's normal levels of salivation. And my back ...

The pain leaves. Almost instantly. It was as if I could feel the water fill in the joints in my back, like water pooling on the dirt when watering plants.

I know this sounds crazy - anybody else would tell you that aspirin would fix it. But mediciations dont' "fix" - they just mask. They make the pain go away, but they don't solve the problem.

I went through a phase where I thought the medical community was this big conspiracy of people trying to get us to ignore our own pain so we stay hooked on their meds. I now see it differently. I think it's very kind of them to come up with medications that ease the pain we create within ourselves. I know full well my sugar addiction could create diabetes in me some day. I hope I can get myself to break this addiction before it gets to that point. But in the mean time, isn't it kind that we have medications out there that let us be who we are? That we can go in to a doctor's office, after years of filling ourselves with cheeseburgers and fries, and have them perform surgery to clear out the arteries in our heart?

It would be completely realistic for a doctor to simply say, "Hey. Fatty. Drop the weight. That is the only way for you to get healthy. Knock off the fries and get into a gym. That's it. That's you're cure. Now get outta here and don't come back till you've lost 100 pounds."

They kinda do that, I suppose. They gently warn us. And let's be real - we all know what it takes to be healthy - fresh fruits and vegetables. Exercise. Fresh water. Fresh air. We know all this.

But the medical community aids us compassionately by providing medications that ease our pains. Hopefully we will change our ways. I hope to change mine, and I hope that the accountability of this blog will help. But I just wanted to share that I finally understand that they know they aren't curing the diseases. They are just easing our dis-ease. That's pretty kind.

And if they can be that kind towards us, maybe we can be kind to ourselves and start treating our bodies more kindly and filling our stomachs with more nutrious foods. It might take a while. But I think we can do it. Kindness is a pretty powerful approach. Until next time. Thanks for listening.