Chronic conditions are not easy. Complex issues never are. Yet we live in a world that promises instant results. We feel like something must be wrong (or wrong with us) when we don't find the "answer" right away. But is this really how life works? 

It's easy to get discouraged. A chronic condition is already sapping your strength. Maybe you feel like a burden, or just lonely and afraid. It can be hard to keep up a front when friends or family offer shallow or ill thought out "advice," no matter how well intentioned. 

So you dig for answers. But information alone is not enough. If it was, we would all be getting healthier and happier. We see the opposite happening. You don't have to know all the statistics, just look at the faces of the people around you. Do you need a medical degree to see something isn't right?

Neither is technology. Have you ever wondered how people managed to survive for thousands of years before modern medical technology was developed? Before all the drugs and fancy test devices? Of course there have been some wonderful inventions (like trauma care), but people are getting sicker, not healthier. What gives?

There's something essential missing from the way we approach health and healing. A key ingredient that's not evident on the surface. Like our factory farm grown food, it looks shiny on the outside, but lacks real nutritional value. We only see the cumulative effects years later, manifesting as chronic disease. 

Our healthcare system has become chronically ill in the same way. Gleaming shiny buildings full of sick, hopeless people. Despite the efforts of many valiant, caring folks, the logic of a fundamentally broken system is playing out. We may not be able to change it, but we don't have to resign ourselves to it. 

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It's not about choosing sides, "alternative" vs. "conventional" or "private insurance" vs. "government funded" or whatever. You have to decide whether your (or your family member's) health and well-being is best served by the status quo or not. And by "status quo" we mean more than just the system "out there." Even more essential is how you approach the whole process of healing.

That process starts in the heart. Does it come from a place of unconditional love? An unquenchable desire to find and do what is best for the person suffering - whether that person is you, a loved one or a client.  

It then moves to the place between the ears. How you think about the process. How you think... Period. Could it be that we've ended up with such a contradictory and complex and messed up approach to health and well being - in spite of all the trillions poured into research and technology and education - because something is fundamentally off with how we think?

It takes courage to ask difficult questions. Not only to "rock the boat" at work or "fight the system" but to look within. To question whether the long line of lemmings in front of and behind you is heading in the right direction, around in circles, or off a cliff. To ask yourself whether you're searching for the right path or settling for the path of least resistance. Or admit you just don't know what to do.

Like the motley troup in the Wizard of Oz, each of us has a Tin Man, a Scarecrow, and a Cowardly Lion inside. You're not the only one - it's part of the human experience. It doesn't matter where you started, or how you got here. What will you do from this moment on to get back "home?" Back to who you were born to be. 

As Dorothy discovered, home was always just a click of the heels away. It was always right there. She just couldn't see it - because she didn't know what she was really looking for. It was simpler, and yet more profound, than she could have imagined. It was only by going through the process - building up her heart, knowledge and courage - that it came into view.

The Wizard of Oz is a metaphor for the healing process. For the journey of life itself. A chronic disease is like a tornado striking, throwing our world into disarray. It breaks us out of the comfortable routine that we think is life. It shows us there's something we've been missing, that we didn't even know to look for. Something we could have never imaged.

Of course, it's just the manifestation of the chronic disease that hits like a tornado, after building up for years, hidden and unnoticed. The comfortable state we felt was merely an illusion. A nice facade on a termite infested foundation. The shock comes when the facade falls away and we're left face-to-face with the cold, hard reality.

This is obviously a "wake-up call." But it points to an even deeper question about the the nature of health and healing. What exactly does it mean to "get well?" Is it to remove the symptoms so we can go back to "life in Kansas" as it was before the tornado hit? Is that really the answer? Or is it just switching to a different movie - Groundhog Day?

Dorothy didn't just return to Kansas. She went home. But it wasn't the same home she left, because she was different. Her family, the farm, hadn't changed, but she saw them in a whole new light.  She hadn't changed as much as she became more of who she really was. She came out of her cocoon turned into a butterfly. 

Most of us would gladly stay in that warm, cozy cocoon if given the chance. Isn't that what we're doing when we look for a pill, potion, or practitioner to "fix" whatever ails us? That's what anyone would do. It's normal. But is it good enough? Only you can answer that question.

Obviously you should seek qualified assistance when something is affecting your health. The point we're trying to make is that the way that you go about finding that help makes all the difference in the world. It ultimately shows what you practically believe about the nature of life and reality. Not what you think or say you believe, but what you act on. That's what counts.

All of us are a confused bundle of contradictions in that regard. Kind of like the old aphorism, "Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die." These contradictions are so obvious that little kids point them out all the time, until they're trained to shut up and "be polite." Most of us learn that lesson well, and go through life shoving them down deeper and deeper.

Any wonder why we're all so stressed out?

Where do you go for answers then? Who can you find that is "above the fray," and not subject to this maze of contradiction and confusion? Does such a place or person even exist? If so, would your Scarecrow be smart enough to see it, your Tin Man have the heart to seek it out, and your Cowardly Lion the courage to follow through on what you learned?

To ask such a question is to answer it. Which is to see that it's the wrong question. It's fundamentally a dead end. 

The Yellow Brick Road doesn't lead to such a person or place.  The man behind the curtain wasn't anyone magical, he was just a man, pulling levers to create illusions. He didn't really give brains, heart and courage to Dorothy's friends, he showed them that they developed them along the way to Oz. 

You don't go from not having brains, heart, and courage to having them. It's an ongoing process. You don't go from "healthy" to "sick" all at once. It's a process. Reversing it is a process as well. Seeing how it's part of something much grander and bigger than you can possibly imagine right now comes into focus along the way, in its own time.

In order to help you to speed up the process, we've created a special program. It's not going to give you the answers, but help keep you moving along the way. To give you the raw materials to help you build up your own answers more quickly. We're just fellow travelers, sharing resources and insights we've discovered along the way.

It's an online workshop called...