It’s been such a beautiful day today, Goldilocks would be happy. It was not too hot and not too cold, but just the right amount of breeze to keep the mosquitos at bay, warm enough to not need a jacket but not to be sweat-inducing. So I decided to clean the car, mostly because it really needed it:). I noticed that there was quite a bit of pollen on the car, as I wiped the windows clean. And later in the day, as I was walking Biggie, a question came through my mind: If pollen causes allergies, then why isn’t every single person suffering with allergies today?
If the presence of pollen was all there was to us having allergies, then everybody would be sneezing and coughing up a lung today. And that’s just not the case.
There’s been a lot of research done to see how the presence of pollen triggers an allergic reaction in the body and how allergic symptoms result. We understand how pollen can cause the allergic response. I wonder if anyone has done research on people who don’t show allergic symptoms (even though they’re breathing in the same pollen), to see if there’s something special going on inside them?
This by the way in my mind is the difference between studying sickness and disease vs. studying health. When we’re studying sickness and disease, we look at the triggers as well as the disease process in the body. When studying health, we don’t look at the disease process; we look at what is a healthy body’s response to overcome or adapt to a trigger or challenge.
This is called Salutogenesis. In Salutogenesis, we answer the question, ‘how do we create more health for ourselves?’. Which is not the same as, how do I keep from getting sick? For me the difference between focusing on the disease process vs. Salutogenesis can be compared to the difference between asking ‘how can I reduce my debt’ vs ‘how can I make even more money and create some savings?’
If you stop at the point when you don’t have any symptoms, it’s like stopping at $0 debt. If you’re focusing on disease, you’re either in debt to some degree or you’re at $0. If you focus on creating more health for yourself regardless of whether or not you have symptoms, or challenges, then you’ll end up in the black.
At the Happy Spine, our goal is to not only help you resolve your symptoms; we’re also focused on helping you become more energy solvent. Being energy solvent or profitable is the stuff of a good life, a life in which we feel we matter, that we make a difference, that we can grow into our potential, sharing our gifts and receiving the gifts of others.
So if you want to answer my original question, ‘if pollen causes allergies…’ then you’ll be exploring a variety of ways to build your health so that you not only are not suffering from allergic symptoms, but you’ll also be exploring your potential for a more meaningful and impactful life.