When you think of health and healing, what comes to mind? For many people today, it is not much more than a visit to the doctor’s office, sterile rooms, prescriptions, surgeries, and medication. We have grown to become accustomed to long wait times, quick impersonal exchanges with a doctor, and a overall disconnected energy when it comes to us, our bodies, the medical professionals and the system as a whole. In this essay we will explore the field of green medicine and its potential for our health and wellbeing.
Although it is easy to pick apart all that is wrong, or not working for the conventional medical system, it is always more empowering to focus on solutions, of which there are many today. As we personally and collectively come to realize that the way the current medical system is set up is not serving our health needs in the best, or most effective of ways, we seek other options. Today, these options include various holistic and integrative medical approaches, and a more connected experience when it comes to our overall health and healing.
As our world experiences a shift in consciousness, more and more medical professionals and people alike are awakening to a more integrated and holistic approach when it comes to health. For thousands of years ancient cultures have acknowledged the different dimensions of our being such as the body, mind and soul or spirit, knowing that health was integral, not compartmentalized. They have relied on and worked in synergy with plant medicines, nature, the elements, the body’s natural healing ability and our energetic nature. Today, we are re-integrating these foundations acknowledging their importance in our health and healing. As part of our human evolution, we are attempting to fuse the best of both worlds into a complete healing approach that is least invasive to, and most in alignment with the human body’s state of balance.
A Green Medical Approach
One of these holistic solutions to health and healing is something called Green Medicine. We have all no doubt heard a lot by now about various green movements, but green medicine? You may be wondering, what could “green” possibly have to do with medicine? In short, this term is used by Dr. Larry Malerba to indicate an overall ecology-like approach when it comes to our health and healing. When we think of how ecosystems in nature operate and what makes them “healthy”, we know that there is an intricate relationship between all aspects of the system. Each part depends on all others, and isolating one part in some way, means removing the balance from the whole. Using this approach Dr. Malerba helps us understand our health, highlighting the importance of treating the human being as a whole system, rather than a subset of parts. All things are related, and all things are connected. In grasping this, and applying it to our health, we are unlocking one of the greatest potentials when it comes to understanding how to maintain our well-being, and prevent or heal disease states.
It may come as no surprise therefore that Dr. Malerba is a holistic physician. He is a doctor of osteopathy and practices homeopathy. He is an author, educator, and leading proponent of a green revolution in the study of health and the practice of healing. As part of his passionate work in this area, he wrote the book entitled Green Medicine: Challenging the Assumptions of Conventional Health Care.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Malerba over a video interview to discuss more about the concept of green medicine, the challenges of the current approaches to health, and the solutions possible for better outcomes.
In our discussion Dr. Malerba shared about his work and what osteopathy and homeopathy entail when it comes to patient care and healing. As part of the challenges or shortcomings of the current medical system, he brings to our awareness the medical biases that the system relies on, the effects of indoctrination of the patient through fear and compliance, and the monopoly of pharmaceutical and insurance companies. He also helps us understand how science and scientific studies often work in the current medical industry, clarifying the bigger picture.
Dr. Malerba shares how we need to interconnect the fields of science and spirituality, which complement each other for our benefit, and the importance of unifying the body as a whole with the mind, heart, and spirit. He helps us understand our energetic nature, how energetic patterns can be inherited and how energetic imbalances manifest in physical ways. Additionally he explains how we must have a broader understanding of symptoms, and learn to work with them, rather than against them by trying to remove them at any cost, while they hold vital information about our overall imbalances. With this in mind, he helps us understand the mind-body connection and our body’s natural healing ability. When we become more in tune with our body, we learn to support it in ways that aid its healing and restore its balance. This is why Dr. Malerba also shares that we cannot ignore our personal experiences for they offer valuable information for us, regardless of what the current commonly accepted medical opinion may be.
Enjoy the following video episode, where Dr. Malerba shares some practical advice as to how we can be empowered when it comes to approaching our health, including chronic disease and the health of our children, as well as the hopeful outlook for the future of green medicine.