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Welcome to African American Holistic Wellness. I hope hope the information you read is helpful toward your journey to wellness.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Tend to Your Own Temple






We only have one body, and it is very important to take care of it. How often do you clean your car or your home, and how many times do you drive by your neighbors as they carefully are tending to their gardens or working on the house?. The point that I want to make here is that our body deserves as much attention as we give to other things in our life. My natural health philosophy is truly that disease is due to the accumulation of the many toxins in our life.


These toxins affect us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. If we are not careful about how we treat our bodies and not paying attention to what we put in and on our bodies we will develop dis-ease. You can trade in your car for a new one, you can have someone come in to put in a new lawn if the old one dies, but you can not get a new you. You will not be able to just trade in your body for new one because you did not take care of the one you had. With this in mind, it is imperative that as a people we take responsibility for ourselves.


There is no such thing as a quick fix, drugs and many treatments also come with side effects. There has never been a cure all, because germs and toxins have a way of becoming immune to the many treatments that are on the market today if used for a long period of time. The only way to insure yourself is to take care of yourself from the inside out. Tend to your own temple. Taking the time to tend to your own temple has many benefits as I see it, you will have a greater sense of control when you realize that only you can determine if you are going to be well or sick.


You will feel less stressed when you come into the knowledge that there are many options available to you for handling whatever crisis that comes upon you. One of the ways you can tend to your temple is to detox at least once a month for seven to ten days. This process is very important to the proper functioning of your liver which is responsible for many processes of our body. According to authorities in the field of nutritional therapy, cancer is a likely sign that the liver has been functioning poorly for some time, and the longer toxic waste stays in your system, the more likely it is that poisons are being reabsorbed into your blood stream. The next thing would be to develop a healthy eating plan and stick to it.


You have goals and dreams and your health is an important part in that plan. An important aspect of tending to our temple that many people miss is to properly manage your thought processes. Chronic stress and negative emotions can cause chemical imbalances, hormonal changes, develop fertile ground for disease and it effects every cell in your body; with this in mind, the time is now to develop an maintain a more positive way of thinking. Another neglected aspect of our self is our spiritual self. This is often neglected because many people do not truly understand what this actually means.


Tending to our spiritual self means being connected to the divine, that which connects us to life and creativity and a much higher consciousness. It means going beyond the pettiness of this life and transcending towards a deeper purpose and meaning. Will you tend to your own temple today? Will you do what it takes to plant fertile soil for wellness? Are you willing to take the responsibility for your upkeep or will you just leave it to the handyman (other professionals).


If you do not answer yes to those questions then eventually you will begin to see the early signs of neglect, just as you will see if you neglect your physical house. You can cover up the wear (symptoms) with paint (medication) but eventually what is truly going on underneath the surface (breakdown, erosion) is sure to show through. The best thing to do is preventive maintenance to ensure that everything is working properly inside and underneath so that the outside can shine brightly!


Fateria Johnson M.A. CSMC, CMBFC