Community and Health

Much evidence is surfacing regarding the idea that health is closely connected to the extent of community in which people are immersed and conversely disease reflects the isolation that separates people.RS

Rachel Naomi Remen M.D briefly describes this situation in Kitchen Table Wisdom where she wrote, Side by side, patient and physician focus on the disease, the symptoms, the treatments, never seeing or knowing each other. The problem gets in the way and we are each alone.

Dean Ornish M.D. supported the need for a new definition in the foreword of the same book. He writes, The heart is a pump and needs to be treated on a physical level with the best medicine science has to offer, but we are more than just machines. The real epidemic in our culture is not just physical heart disease; it's what I call emotional and spiritual heart disease: the sense of loneliness, isolation, and alienation that is so prevalent in our culture because of the breakdown in social networks that used to give us a sense of connection and community.

(Russel Sturgess €“ Fascial Kinetics Student Manual)

The number one stress buster according to American Institute for Stress Research is Social Support. (Social Support: The Supreme Stress-buster)

How many good friends do you see on a daily basis?
How many good friends do you see on a weekly basis?
How many good friends do you see on a monthly basis?
How many good friends do you see on a yearly basis?
When was the last time you spoke to your mother, father, siblings, relatives?

These miracles all had a common thread as have nearly all the miracles I have witnessed, and they generally had to do with healing relationships. As suggested above, the new paradigm of healing could be based on the origin of the words health and disease, which is oneness and separation. These obviously are words that describe aspects of relationship, and this paradigm would suggest that as people move along the continuum from separation towards oneness, that healing is manifest. (Russel Sturgess €“ Fascial Kinetics Student Manual)