a positive path for spiritual living

President’s Corner – Good Health

by Paul Frament

I would like to share how our Abundant Source has given me great health. When I was young (ages 3 to 8), I was a sickly child. In grades kindergarten thru third grade, I missed about 40 days of school per year. I had the usual Measles, Mumps, and Chicken Pox., and every Fall I would get colds that would make it difficult to catch my breath, and that would last for many weeks. Doctors used words like Asthma, Bronchitis, and Whooping Cough. One doctor said that I was allergic to cold germs, and that a simple cold would escalate into a serious coughing and difficult to breathe episode. I spent a lot of nights with a vaporizer in my bedroom.

One perfectly awesome Fall Day, when I was in fourth grade, I stayed home with my difficult-to-breathe cold, sitting in our living room with a vaporizer, and after school was done for the day, I was watching my friends play outside, and I decided that I did not want to be sick anymore. I wanted to be outside playing with my friends. This was not a wishy washy wish. This was a serious decision. I did not want to be sick.

Something real happened on that perfect Fall day.  I haven’t used a vaporizer since that Fall day.  My body quickly recovers when the symptoms of a cold start to appear. In fact, when the stuffy, dry throat symptoms of a cold are about to materialize, my inner voice tells me that if I get quiet, rest, and drink honey & lemon, my body knows how to fight off the cold, and get me back to normal. Trusting that my body knows how to fight off colds and flu really works. I have been working at my current place of employment since 1980, and have taken 3 sick days while working there. And, for one of those days, I wasn’t actually sick. It was late October, and I had to finish some outdoor painting before cold weather arrived, and I took advantage of a trusting employer. Please don’t tell on me.

When I feel cold or flu symptoms try to take hold, I KNOW that if I listen to my body, it will provide me with good health. Sometimes, when I want my body to do something, I wish that it would. For me, knowing something is true, is way different than wishing that it were true. How does one get from wishing to knowing? I have no idea. Maybe, in the next newsletter, someone else will have the answer. In one of the chapters of Rob Geyer’s Little Buddha book, there is a teaching that you should not fight a sickness. I hope to learn some useful strategies, when we discuss that chapter.

As I think about what I have shared, I wonder how my Unity friends (maybe former friends) will react to know-it-all Frament, who can ward off illnesses. I can picture a friend with a cold deciding to cough in my face to see if I am immune to those germs. Maybe I shouldn’t send this article to Ed and Roger…

Well, I will submit my story, and be ready to move quickly, when a friend (?) gets too close.

Seriously, I do hope that there is something in my story that will encourage others to listen to their inner voice, and learn what is true for them.