HABIT OR HEREDITY?

By John Maerz BA LMT

     With all the recent advances in technology genetics has become a powerfully compelling argument that all of our physical woes are due to our parents' DNA. We are further told that if we have a gene for a physical malady that we must run to our nearest drug dispenser and load our bodies with a chemical inhibitor to prevent the malady. How fortunate for all the drug manufacturers!

     Because of the human tendency to find the easiest way out of dealing with things (including ignoring them and maybe they'll "go away") we have allowed ourselves to be fooled, by modern medicine, into believing that just because we can see it physically that the "fixing" must also be physical. Hence, we are conveniently led to believe that if we just take a pill it will "goes away." Usually, the only things that go away are the symptoms or us! Tylenol doesn't cure your headache. It is an analgesic that causes the nerve impulses to be inhibited so we don't get pain messages. The headache is still there and so is the tension that caused it. We just don't feel it.

     Pain is a warning system that tells us when we must take steps to change our action because the action is toward a behavior that runs contrary to the natural flow of our inner energies. Pain is produced by our resistance to and our need to control the flow. When we go with the natural flow we feel no pain.

     Our stubborn attempts to force our daily life in the direction in which we feel the most secure usually goes contrary to the natural flow. This blocked energy must go somewhere. If resisted or repressed it is forced to move in unhealthy directions. Hence, our repressions show up in all kinds of unusual behaviors and ailments. The behaviors are learned by observing the actions of our parents. Change the behavior to go with the flow and you can't help but become healthier.

     The key that modern medicine is unwilling to acknowledge is that it is the behavior (directing of energy) that is responsible for TRIGGERING unhealthy responses by the genes thereby "creating" disease. We must have both the predisposition (heredity) AND the aberrant behavior (habit) for the disease to manifest. The charm is that in most cases if we maintain a balanced behavior we will not manifest disease even if we "catch the germs."