Health and Your Life’s Mission

Sometimes when I tell a new patient, “your health should be an asset that helps you pursue your personal mission in life, rather than a barrier keeping you from it,” I get a rueful laugh, as if the patient simply can’t fathom such a thing. I picked up my copy of Sacred Contracts by Carolyn Myss this weekend. In her introduction she quotes James Hillman, who said, “you have to give up the life you have in order to get the one you want.” Seem unrelated? Not to me: It’s gotten me ruminating on how building our optimal health and pursuing our individual life missions are two sides of the same coin; perhaps you can’t have one without the other.

What might happen if we’re willing to let go of habits that may not be serving us, and embrace new habits, even those that might seem difficult upon your first exposure to them, but could be just the health-nourishing and life-giving foundational treatments that develop our health as an asset? Could we perhaps develop the strength and energy to do what we love? And might it not work both ways? If we are willing to let go of safe life patterns, such as friends and other relationships that are familiar yet potentially toxic, diets that may bring “comfort” but actually send us down a path toward a rather uncomfortable old age featuring degenerative health problems, or jobs that we dread and deplete us (or any of a myriad of other energy-draining scenarios), could we more effectively build optimal health and wellness?

Eventually all my patients learn that the healing herbs and nutrients I prescribe give a boost to, but do not substitute for, a foundation of healthy nutrition and lifestyle. What health-giving changes in your life might you be avoiding due to fear of the unknown? The first step might be acknowledging that the unknown might be something BETTER.

My personal mission is to guide you on the road to lifelong optimal wellness, so that you are free to pursue your own life’s mission, and become more of who you really are. Let me know if I can help you.

May you enjoy luminous good health,
Dr. Deborah Epstein