Your Enemy Is Habit

Dr. Charley Cropley, ND
@charleycropley

”We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence (Health) is not an act, but a habit.”

Aristotle

What is it that clogs your arteries, puts pounds of ugly fat on your belly and hips, ages your skin, makes your joints stiff and painful and your digestion deranged and foul? What is the root cause of developing cancer, Alzheimer’s, low thyroid, diabetes, depression and every other malady? What is causing your body to malfunction, degenerate and become diseased?

This is the million dollar question. You find this answer and you find the power to Heal. Here is the answer Naturopathic medicine offers you. Almost all pathological/disease changes in your body are the result of ongoing, cumulative alterations of your normal physiology; changes in inflammation, digestion, elimination, blood circulation, lymphatic drainage, hormonal levels, neurotransmitter balance, cellular respiration and metabolism. Physiologic assaults repeated daily, 24/7 turn into the pathological changes which doctors label as disease.

It is your habitual behaviors that damage your body’s physiologic processes until they become pathological/disease processes. And what determines your behavior for is you. The overwhelming influence on your Health is you.

You are Self-Healing

You don’t want to be sick. You sincerely want to be Healthy. You know you could help your body by nourishing, strengthening and resting her. Yet what you actually do to your body is poison, weaken and overwork her. Why? Why do you do this?

What is the force that compels you, against your will and reason to damage your precious body day after day, after day? What forces you into self-indulgent eating, a sedentary life, incessant anxiety ridden thinking… and scheming how to get others to like you?

You find this force and harness it and you find the power to Heal.

This force is habit

You face one core challenge, “How do I overcome my deeply entrenched habits that are literally killing me?” You do this; you’ll be Healthy. You don’t; you won’t.

Every human being faces this challenge. Mastering your behavior is the hardest challenge in life. Almost nobody escapes the prison of habit.

What I am going to say next may be difficult to hear. I trust you will see this as straight talk and not condemnation of you.

The diagnosis, that habitis the cause of your disease, may seem of little practical use to you; not because it isn’t true, but because you don’t really know how to change your habits. If you could change them, you would. But you feel you lack the personal power to do so. You are not confident you can actually control your own actions. Your body and your mind will not obey you. Your most valuable of all powers, self-control has grown feeble from disuse and lack of training.

Repeatedly you are drawn back into your old ways. Even though you know all too well that wh
at you are doing is injuring you, still you find yourself entrapped in the same old patterns again and again and again. It sucks! You hate it. You are ashamed of it, but you don’t know how to beat it.

You live as if it were impossible to significantly improve how you care for yourself. Your behavior gets a fraction of the attention that lab tests and disease get.

You may give up on you, but your body never gives up on you. Until her last breath she will rebel against insult and harm. She will cry out for your attention. This is her nature. She rebels through sickness and pain.

Look at how you suffer, not only in your body but in your mind

I ask you sincerely, “Do you want to be free of this? Do you want to strengthen your personal power and learn to govern your actions? Are you willing to at least have a serious discussion about proven ways to change your habits that lead only to suffering and regret? I know you do.

I have taught thousands of my patients, just like you how to Heal their bodies by freeing themselves from the most difficult of habits: smoking; sugar addictions, overeating, laziness, self loathing and lack of confidence. (These are all habits.)

In my next article I’m going to offer you specific ways that will enable you to master your habits and regain your Health.

It describes how a combination of Health education, support and accountability can enable you to gain power over the habits that you know are destroying your body.

Dr. Charley Cropley has been a practicing Naturopathic Doctor, teacher and author in the Boulder/Denver area since 1979. He has trained hundreds of doctors in his methods of nutrition and Self-Healing. He teaches a variety of courses and retreats. He is author of numerous articles, several books, a blog and an array of audio and videos. He is a frequent lecturer at the colleges of Naturopathic Medicine, and is regarded by his peers as one of today’s leading thinkers and teachers in the philosophy and practice of Naturopathic Medicine.

Charley works with all types of Health problems using no medicines or supplements. He teaches his patients to Heal themselves through wholesome nutrition, strengthening exercise, positive thinking and honest, caring relationships. He lives what he teaches.