A recent newspaper article entitled "Eddie Van Halen's Hard Lesson" summarized an interview with the rock guitarist in Maximum Golf magazine. He is reported to have been "fighting" cancer during the past year and a half.

What can we all learn vicariously from Mr. Van Halen's challenges to facilitate a shift in our perspectives, allowing us to live better lives? Wisdom dictates that we listen and make modifications so as to circumvent the necessity of running into our own brick walls.

Eddie said that fighting cancer has taught him more than he's ever learned before. I think this is quite common. I have been a practicing doctor of chiropractic, with a focus on health and wellness, for over eighteen years. During this time I have seen hundreds of individuals seemingly require a "coming face to face with crisis" experience to reassess their lives including what is important and what changes must be made.

Two possibilities can be quite sad and unfortunate, however. First, many people awaken to find themselves in crisis only to fight the circumstance, to rail against the outward manifestation of an inner problem. When the crisis is a bodily expression of disease, for example, this may take the form of demanding that somebody fix me and make me comfortable again rather than taking the self-responsible approach of seeking to find the inner cause and pursuing a true solution.

Another sad element is that far too often, by the time crisis has appeared, even when we then become truly cause and solution focused, it is now too late to resurrect our health, or our marriage, etc. This is why a proactive approach to wellness and life growth is far superior to a crisis-motivated reactive orientation.

Eddie recognized that his loss of health and consequent disease development did not mysteriously happen overnight. He acknowledged that it was a process of decline, declaring that "I've run too many red lights and gotten away with it for a long time, but it kinda caught up with me."

He was choosing to live his life in such an irresponsible way that he was making frequent withdrawals but few deposits into his health bank account. The balance became so low that his immune system function weakened to the point of permitting a cancerous condition to develop. As with most people (especially when erroneously trusting the absence of symptoms to indicate health), he took his health for granted until it was gone.

No interference

Health is a condition of wholeness that is a gift most of us receive at conception, which needs no help, but rather simply no interference, to keep us functioning at peak wellness. However, since life is full of physical, chemical, and mental-emotional stressors, health must be nurtured along the way. This minimizes the chances of crisis development.

It is the role of the nervous system to coordinate the optimal function of all bodily systems including the immune system, which prevents us from developing everything from colds to cancers. It has been my passion for over eighteen years in practice to study and work with the subtle neurochemistry of thousands of individuals to aid in their self-healing process. The body-mind has a self-regulating inner wisdom that without interference sustains itself in perfect health.

In my work, that interference is the vertebral subluxation. This healing truth is incredibly powerful and still mostly misunderstood by the vast majority. So it doesn't really need to be a "war" against cancer or heart disease, etc. as if disease were an attack by a foreign entity. Disease is the abnormal function of our own systems. Our out of balance systems need to be lovingly restored to health and not attacked.

Eddie concluded that his cancer would not be occurring unless he was supposed to learn something. He has learned how important his wife and son are to him. He said that "even making music- which is pretty much my life-takes a back seat to my family and my health."

I do believe that our health is our most valuable earthly possession. We take it for granted and don't commit to make regular investments in that account until our health is depleted and crisis ensues. Please consider your life in this light, choose your priorities and decide to align your life with them. You are worth it and many people are depending upon you.

Printed in Fresno Bee under Valley Voices, Sept 1, 2001, Entitled " Your Health Account Must Be in Balance."

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About Dr. Norton

Dr. Norton unites his passion for learning, teaching, and healing with a compassion for those who are struggling with pain and illness or not performing at their peak. He brings to his work a high level of academic achievement and cutting-edge bodymind research. However, he also brings a deeply caring heart transformed by difficult personal life experiences. Read more.