Vision
The question we asked ourselves while considering how to best present a coaching system was:
What is missing?
Is there a void in our culture that people hunger to have filled?
A great void for many people is lack of attainment of a great personal triumph. Many live lives of quiet desperation, feeling secret remorse for not having attained dreams and goals they have hungered after for years. Their void is the sense of fulfillment and completion that they believe such an achievement could bring to their lives. Many miss out on the contentment of knowing that they have done their very best and that due to their own efforts, are on the path to becoming the persons they really want to be.
There are some critical considerations that can be quite significant both in discovering one’s life’s purpose and then carrying forward a plan to its fulfillment.
Many people loose their health and/or die of a preventable condition before they complete their lives’ purpose. Many never even discover a compelling purpose for their lives. (Victor Frankyl’s book “The Will to Meaning” throws much light on this issue.)
The above frequently occurs because people fail to prioritise their personal health. We live in a world where trillions of dollars have been spent over several generations to elevate addictive comfort-eating to first place on our social values list. (The identification of and restructuring of personal values has been dealt with in-depth by Dr. John Demartini.)
General health is clearly on the decline, especially brain health. New chronic diseases are continuing to emerge in all age groups, especially those which affect brain function. Autism, ADHD, Aspergers, juvenile arthritis, cancers and leukemia in the young. Early-onset Alzheimer’s can be seen in brain biopsies in people as young as 35 years and has risen to the point where dedicated care facilities have become commonplace. Early-onset Parkinson’s disease from the 40’s age group upwards. Conditions such as crippling arthritis, obesity and chronic exhaustion in all age groups. Such a rapid and devastating degree of change clearly has to have a chain of causation. We need a clear understanding of the cause of ill health, the path to recovery and how to sustain vital health when we get it.
On the way to attaining peak performance health, most of the psychological obstacles that people have been “working on” for years, greatly diminish or simply disappear. In their place, there arises a wonderful capacity to see opportunity around every corner. Healthy people tend to shift from holding back, to eagerly moving forwards in their lives.
There is certainly no shortage of health recovery programs available. With so many promising paths to choose from, even trying to evaluate them effectively is a daunting prospect in itself. The internet is a lot like a noisy public bar. Plenty of earnestly and sincerely held opinions and belief systems to be found. But there is an old maxim: “Sincerity is no guarantee for truth”. So how does one distinguish what is factual, appropriate and really works, as opposed to what is just opinion?
WHAT ACTUALLY IS THE DEFINITION OF HEALTH
It’s hard to find something if you don’t know what it is you are looking for. Advertisers would have us believe that health is a consumer product. That we are suffering from a deficiency of creams, medicines, vitamins and surgical procedures. Many modern people spend their entire lives consuming such products while continuing to deteriorate.
For all time health has been and still is a state of balance. The secret of health has been rediscovered over and over again during the last 10,000 years. It shows up as a foundational principle in numerous medical traditions. The Indians and Chinese have understood it for millennia. It was rediscovered by Claude Bernard in the 1850’s. It is a state of balance that is innate and self sustaining and is called:
HOMEOSTASIS
So what exactly is homeostasis? It is a condition where everything that is supposed to be normal stays normal all by itself. Whenever it is pushed out of position, like a Russian doll, it returns back into balance.
Anyone who has ever lived in a culture where people do not subsist on dead, processed food will be quite familiar with this. In China only 40 years ago, the entire population lived this way. They woke refreshed, rose early, went to the market, bought just enough freshly harvested food for the day. Prepared 3 meals during the day and ate them. They were not habituated to excessive behaviors. They got naturally sleepy at 8.50pm and were in bed asleep by 9.15pm. People remained in homeostasis from puberty to menopause. Europeans found it difficult to tell the age difference between 20 year old and 50 year old Chinese people because they remained of the same stature and were for the most part completely healthy.
The body has a certain mileage of blood vessels, already established while still in the womb. These in turn support a given number of cells. When a cell divides, apoptosis (a form of programmed cell death), takes care of the extra one so the cell count remains much the same. In full health, if one goes on an inappropriate diet for a while the body may increase in weight by 3-4 pounds. On returning to normal eating, saity returns and with it the body returns to its set mass in a few days. Likewise, on taking up an athletic training program the body might lose 3-4 pounds. On returning to a sedentary regimen it will quickly return to the setpoint established by its vascular and cellular layout.
Disease begins only when any of the systems by which the body normally regulates itself, begin to fluctuate. Mood, sleep, temperature, appetite, perspiration, menstruation, fertility, libido, body mass, etc are not volatile in true health. The body looks after these all by itself. Any volatility in these systems is an early warning sign of metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome is the precursor of type 2 diabetes and modern chronic disease
A healthy immune system is automatic and effective. It will make short work of colds and flu to the point that many vigorously healthy people rarely get them at all. Neither will a healthy body tolerate an underactive gland, an arthritic knee, the growth of a tumour or the failure of a key organ like the heart.
A HEALTHY BODY TAKES CARE OF ITSELF BY ITSELF
If you live in today’s world you may be in one of two situations
You may want to regain and retain your health or
You may want to maximize your potential and continue to live in a peak state
In either case you will probably be looking for a system that will enable you to make:
MEASURABLE CHANGE IN REASONABLE TIME
This is the first requirement of a working system. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it didn’t take forever either. To this end, we have established a system of regular tests and measurements that can track your progress dynamically. Many of these can be carried out in a few minutes daily in one’s own home with inexpensive equipment.
Secondly we have a realistic target which again can be determined and measured and that is the key characterisic of actual health. It is as pointed out above, homeostassis. It is the normal state of a healthy teenager. It is also the design state of any adult living in a healthy culture on live, fresh, unprocessed food.
THE WELCARE SYSTEM
The program is built on a sound basis of practical information and principles. These have been garnered from both ancient and modern approaches to healing and healthy lifestyle as well as recent research. The basic developmental work was started in our original outpatients’ clinic in Galway which opened in 1983. Then we went on to thoroughly test the system in our city-center Dublin practice, starting in 1995. The extensive client base developed over the intervening years has been in excess of 20,000 cases.
The second requirement was to clarify the path and create a structured, supervised program. One that could be followed through step by step to full completion, even at long-distance.