Hello and welcome to The Own Your Health podcast.
I'm Cyndi Lynne and I can't wait to
help you step into your health power.
Today we're going to talk about healthcare, and it,
like so many things, has become so divisive.
You have to be completely in the mainstream healthcare system
and listen to everything your doctor says or you have
to be alternative and go it on your own.
And of course, this makes for great headlines, and
it's a fabulous fodder for the blame game.
Here is someone who didn't go
to the doctor and they died.
Here's somebody who went to the doctor and they died.
And that's a bit drastic, but that's what you
hear all the time, and that's what you see
in the mainstream media, and that's what you hear
when you talk to people about their health.
And I know many, if not most of my
clients are very sensitive to issues like this because
many of them aren't comfortable talking with their family,
some of them not even with their spouse, because
people have such very strong ideas about how you
should take care of your health.
And the happenings of the last few
years have made that even more pronounced.
Whereas years ago, somebody was going to go to the
doctor and manage this health situation, that was fine.
And now people are very judgmental.
People very much want input.
People very much believe that their way is the
only way to do it. And I don't!
I think of healthcare all the
way from completely natural herbalism, energy
medicine is a continuum all the way through
to the ultimate in medical interventions, surgery.
Right.
Everything falls on a scale in between there.
And I also believe it's very contextual, meaning it very
much depends on the context, which tools in this continuum
of health that you may choose to use.
So I am by no means a purist.
I value my decision-making and my
ability to do that with confidence.
And that's what I help my clients with, as well.
Their ability to understand and be confident
in choices that they make to manage
their health, to care for their health.
So when I talk about healthcare, I'm
not talking about the healthcare system.
That's kind of a whole different ballgame.
I'm talking about care of health.
And how you choose to do that is very individual,
it's very personal, and it can also be very private.
So as an example, and I bring this forward because
a lot of the times podcast topics come from things
that happen repeatedly with my clients in the office.
And twice this week I had clients come in and say,
oh, I tried so hard not to, but I just had
to go in and get something for the pain.
And I tried so hard not to, but I just
had to go in and get an X ray to
make sure there wasn't something actually wrong with my foot.
And they say that with disappointment, or they say
that with embarrassment, or they say that as though
it is a failure in some way on their
part to manage their health themselves.
But in fact, their choosing to take that action is
part of owning their health, of managing their health care.
And there's no reason to feel guilty about
it or to feel bad about it.
With my clients in the office,
we work on their physical bodies.
I do body work, they do rehab exercises.
We work together on these things.
But that doesn't mean that's the
only thing that can happen.
And part of my role in working with them
on this is to help them understand all of
their options that they have in healthcare.
And very often it doesn't mean, and I've heard this time
and time again; Cyndi, you're very different as a practitioner because
most of the people I go to only want me to
see them; and that's not true for me at all.
I have practice.
It has very specific, targeted work on it.
But the coaching piece, the nurse in me, the
caregiver in me, really wants my clients to have
an understanding and options for all of the healthcare
tools that are available to them.
So we very often talk about the context of,
okay, when is this a good thing to try?
Is this a first course of action?
Do you want to try something else and then
move on to a different course of action?
If you see a physician, what do you want from him?
Very often people want tests.
And then I say, okay, you're going to have this test.
What are you going to do with the information?
What do you suppose is the outcome?
We look at the next steps. And those actions, the
ordering of things, the understanding of what outcomes you want,
are all part of the decision-making process in you
owning your health care, you owning your health.
So when people come to me and they say,
well, I couldn't possibly manage my own health because
I don't know as much as doctors know. Well, guess what?
Even doctors don't know as much as doctors know, right?
An orthopedist is going to be very
different than an obstetrician is going to
be very different than an oncologist.
Like each of the specialties don't
even know everything a doctor knows.
But understanding the system, understanding what they want
from any given provider, helps them be better
healthcare consumers, helps them make better choices.
And because they understand that they're able to
research, they're able to ask the best questions,
they're much more savvy consumers of health care.
And that's how my clients feel as well.
When they go to a physician and they know exactly
how to ask for what they want, they feel confident
in it and they actually get what they want.
And that in turn, makes them feel confident
for the next step in managing their health.
And it really is a health journey.
So I want to encourage all of my listeners
to see all of health care on a spectrum.
And for ease of discussion, I'll say everything
from taking a supplement to having surgery. Right.
Everything on that spectrum are options for you and
options for you to investigate and choose or reject
based on your circumstances at this very moment.
So based on the context, based on your goals, now, it's
not a matter of saying, no, I only want to do
natural, and I'm not going to enter the healthcare system, because
believe me, I'm the first one to say I really don't
want to enter the medical "sick" care system.
But you know what?
If I'm in a car accident and have trauma,
that's the first place I want to be, right?
If I feel like I'm coming down with the cold
or the flu, last place I want to be.
But that's my judgment
based on my context and based on the tools that
are available to me, I help my clients find what
tools are available to them, how to understand, how to
research, how to investigate, and how to decide what they
want on that spectrum of health at any given time.
And that may be different than their desires
yesterday and their desires tomorrow may be different,
but it doesn't have to be decisive.
You have all the options, and you can develop
the ability to make your choices with confidence.
So having access to all of the tools, having
the confidence to know, to investigate, to choose, is
what owning your health is all about.
And I would love to help you.
Now, I have some tools on the way that
I'm going to introduce shortly that will help you
with this process of being a more savvy consumer,
the process of not feeling pressured to decide if
you're an all natural girl or mainstream medical.
There's room for everything in between.
On any given day of the week. Until those tools
come out, I'll be happy to answer any questions that
you have, or if you have specific questions or are
dealing with a specific situation, by all means, grab a
quick free 15 minutes on my calendar and will help
you solve the owning your own health choice.
So until next week, let's go out and own it.
