My Wellness Awakening

I recently spent a week in the North Okanagan at the newly opened Alive Health Resort, a place that I thought would offer me a chance to get away from my busy life for some much-needed rest.

But it was not to be. Instead, I found myself in an intensive program designed to teach me how to live healthfully and authentically. I did enjoy some great sleeps, fabulous food and a few spa packages that helped revitalize me. More importantly, though, I experienced an educational experience that was part classroom, part spiritual connection, both to myself and to the group of people who joined me at the resort.

The timing couldn’t have been better. I recently underwent a radioactive iodine treatment for hyperthyroidism that left me with no thyroid function at all. Before going to the resort, I’d begun taking medication that would eventually restore my body’s functions, but I hadn’t been on it long enough for it to have made a difference. I was still feeling very beaten-up and sorry for myself.

Alive Health Resort changed my mind. Between the moment I stepped in the door and the time I returned to my real life and all its responsibilities, I switched my perspective from that of victim to master of my own wellness.

It might have been due, in part, to the educational lectures on the Eight Natural Doctors that gave me some incredible insight into our physiology and the need to live naturally. It could have been the emotional wellness seminars that filled me with the idea that I could heal myself by learning how to address and share my emotional issues.

I must also credit the other guests. The things they shared gave me some perspective on "how well I do life" myself. It’s impossible to spend a week with a group of people without making some deep connections. Several people suffered from challenging or debilitating illnesses. Others were searching for a greater understanding into how they could live a more abundant life. One thing we all shared was a commitment to self-responsibility. No matter what we were dealing with in the present, we learned we can shape our futures by choosing to face up to ourselves.

For me, it means that I must address some deep-rooted issues that I believe have contributed to my illness, and which keep me from truly embracing health and wellness.
The pursuit of total wellness requires that we actively seek to uncover areas of weakness so that we can change, grow and ultimately, heal. Of course as much as we’d like to, we can’t all take a week’s holiday from our busy lives in order to make that happen. We can, however, make time on a regular basis to look within ourselves and strive to foster new attitudes that will serve us as we seek wellness today and for life. It’s a commitment that I, for one, am ready to make!

Sherry Robb
Publisher,
OH! Our Health Magazine 05/04



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