Henry David Thoreau

“Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around”  …Henry David Thoreau

I want to begin by stating right up-front that, as with everything and anything I write — unless it’s a quote or some other information from another source, which will be properly credited — this post reflects my own perceptions, experiences and beliefs as I see them.

That being said, I hope you’re enthusiastic and happy to learn that there is a “Blueprint” you can follow, which will allow you to build your own good health. In my posts, I’m sometimes going to refer to this blueprint as the road to good health, but only because I find it easier to hold an image of a road rather than one of a blueprint in my mind as I write. Whether we call this blueprint a road, a way, or something else matters very little; what does matter is, it will lead us to and keep us in, good and lasting health.

My intentions in writing these posts are to help you to become the drafter in the formation of your very own personal blueprint that will work for you. This is very important because, in this world of perceptions, we all think we have our own problems and needs which are separate from those of others, and because of this perception what works for one may not work for another. Therefore, I hope to place some guideposts along the road that will make it easier for you to follow the one that works best for you. To that end, in an upcoming post — maybe the next one — I’m going to set the first one in place, in which we’ll discuss the belief that allowed me to build my own health blueprint, and in turn, find the road to good health.

Henry David Thoreau pointed out in my opening quote that if we live our beliefs we can turn the world around. Whether that’s completely true, or not, I suppose depends on our individual points-of-view.  But I’m absolutely convinced that as we advance along this wonderful and joyful road to robust health, one of the most important factors in our journey is going to be our beliefs. For they are, whether we realize it or not, the deciding factors in everything we do. For example, I don’t think it’s possible to attain and keep good health unless we let go of the erroneous belief that it’s normal for humans to become frail, weak or ill as they age — or at any other time, for that matter.

In most cases, this false idea, which is on the verge of becoming more and more obsolete, has been accepted into our thought-systems because of well-meaning but misinformed, teachers such as parents, siblings, and authority figures, etc. who held the same belief. But, that being said, in my opinion the real culprit, which induces us to keep holding onto it is the misleading and profit-oriented information we’re subjected to on a daily basis throughout most of our physical experience.

Therefore, if it’s your desire to build a health blueprint for yourself — and the fact that you’re reading this carries the implication that it is — then in all possibility you’re going to need to carefully examine your beliefs concerning health and all the factors that allow it into your experience.

With that in mind let’s see if we can learn a bit about what beliefs really are. According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, “Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.” And now the question arises; how do we get to this state in which we hold something to be true?

During this physical experience we call a lifetime, I’ve come to the conclusion that beliefs are no more than thoughts that we keep thinking. In other words, if we keep thinking about something for a sufficient length of time, we’ll eventually reach the state where we believe it to be true.

And it’s my belief that if we consciously think about, and work toward, good health most of the time we’ll eventually attain good health, and even believe it to be our normal state – which it is. But the same holds true for poor health, even though we may not consciously work toward it, we often hold images of it in our thoughts, and by maintaining these types of thoughts, eventually we begin to believe poor health to be our normal state – which it is not.

Charles Sanders Peirce

In closing, I’m going to leave you with this gem of thought to think about from the American Philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce: He said, “The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise.”

It’s my hope that your belief in good health will establish good health habits for you. As always, thanks for reading, and until next time, watch your thoughts, keep healthy, allow yourself to be happy, and may God richly bless you.