Listen up for a minute, this is what happens:
While in our teens and twenties, we live pretty much in the moment: trashing. Sex, drugs, rock n' roll is our reality - not just an advertising slogan.
We're ambitious. We're doing our thing, finding our thing, honing it and making every effort to push forward. We take on all excesses, try everything, and some of us leave no drug, drink or sexual experience behind.
We're young, we bounce back, we still somehow make it to work the next day. Life is crazy all over, but we keep on going and after a slice and a shower, we are back out doing it some more.
It's exciting, fun, and sometimes even profitable. Many a friendship, band member, job and business deal has been forged (or lost) at a very smokey 3AM, after a few bottles, and a spin with the mirror.
Some time in our 30's the party road divides. Those of our tribe who were super self destructive have flamed out - ask any older musician or artist - we have all lost friends. Out of the survivors and simple partiers, some enter rehab, and some naturally cool out and establish a functional relationship with their libations and habits.
The health issues start to show up in our late 30's through 50's - if we are lucky enough to get there. Everything from digestive and weight issues, dental problems, sleep disorders, to cancer, heart attacks, and strokes begin to plague us. It gets scary. Our bodies are saying "no more" and it's time to take action.
Now what?! You want to keep at it, but you don't want to die anytime soon - and you certainly do not want to suffer.
It's time to take better care of our bodies. It's time to heal the damage, restore and renew our health, and then strive to maintain and increase our well being and vitality as we age. That way we can continue sharing our art and our brilliance - plying the crafts and careers that we worked and partied so hard to build.
This need to take better care of ourselves as we age is universal. It does not matter what kinds of youthful excesses were encountered, or if you led a perfectly pristine life. Our natural processes slow down, organs and tissues wear out over time, toxins accumulate, as part of the growth and decay cycle of life. Ideally, what should be happening is a gentle maturing, where our intelligence shines as our bodies gracefully age, and after enjoying a long and productive life, a very swift decline at the end - like slowing down and going to sleep - or the light bulb burning out all at once.
Cancer, obesity, heart and liver diseases, joint and skin ailments, tremedous pain, do not have to be part of this. That's the stuff that is not natural.
Food, water, environment, gravity, exercise, stress management all affect our health over time - along with all of the other challenges of excess and neglect that you might have put upon your body.
So, who am I to be telling you all this?
I'm a musician, record dealer, and computer artist - a lifer. One day, I got sick, and concurrently my parents got sick. Through a long horrible medical journey, I simply got scared into change.
Also, along the way, some of my pals did even worse than die - some had strokes and became half paralyzed forever, others got various cancers and had major painful surgeries. I got scared "shitless".
In the process of my healing and to help my family, I went back to school to learn how food and herbs can heal, strengthen and prevent illness. I studied at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which is affiliated with Columbia University in NYC. I am now a Certified Holistic Health Counselor, and hold memberships with the American Association of Drugless Practitioners and The Physicians Committte for Responsible Medicine.
Specializing in the areas of chronic illness, mood swings, weight gain and loss, food choices and healthy cooking, I have found that many conditions can be avoided and most all of them improved by making informed dietary and lifestyle decisions. I can teach you how to help yourself.
Want to find out how?
THE STORY: Yours and Mine