Dr. Peter J. Weiss

52 Thoughts About Health, Well­ness, and Health­care in Amer­ica Today

1. Our daily lifestyle habits are killing us, but we can’t seem to see or accept this idea.
2. Our habits are in large part cre­ated by the envi­ron­ment around us, yet we blame our­selves.
3. Blame pre­vents change, but blame is a habit with us.
4. Big Busi­nesses, Big Gov­ern­ment, and Big Health­care are part of our prob­lem, yet we turn to them for solu­tions.
5. We must be lead­ers of our own jour­ney to health, but we don’t think we can man­age it.
6. We CAN be dif­fer­ent!
7. “Yes I can!” are the three most pow­er­ful words in the Eng­lish lan­guage.
8. To be dif­fer­ent we must first think dif­fer­ently, which is VERY, VERY hard.  Many of us can’t or won’t do it.
9. We are our own prob­lem.  In many ways, we are our own worst ene­mies, but we can be our own great­est assets.
10. More health­care is NOT the answer to our prob­lems.  Each and every year we spend more on health­care in aggre­gate, but as a soci­ety our health gets worse.  Why?
11. Doc­tors don’t know what they don’t know, and they dis­miss things they know noth­ing about.  I did that when I was a prac­tic­ing doc­tor.
12. No one else can know what’s best for you, and you CAN know what’s best for your­self.
    

    HEALTHCARE Is Com­plex — HEALTH Is Sim­ple

13. HEALTHCARE is com­plex — HEALTH is sim­ple.
14. We like sci­ence too much.  We don’t need more sci­en­tific knowl­edge to be healthy.  Peo­ple were healthy when we had less “sci­ence.”
15. The more you know about health­care, the scarier it is.  Those that know the most get the least treat­ment.
16. Com­plex­ity is the prob­lem — seek sim­ple solu­tions.
17. “Please help me,” are the three most pow­er­ful words in the Eng­lish lan­guage.
18. Dis­ease is expen­sive — health is cheap.
19. Feel­ings are more pow­er­ful than facts.  Facts alone don’t do much to cre­ate change.  Feel­ings ener­gize us and can power a trans­for­ma­tion.
20. We can man­age our feel­ings, but most of us don’t know how.
21. WILLPOWER IS NOT THE ANSWER!
22. Many of us don’t feel well deep down inside.  We’re afraid — afraid we don’t mea­sure up, afraid we don’t have what it takes, afraid to face our prob­lems.
23. Fear is par­a­lyz­ing.  We must find ways to help our­selves and oth­ers to release their fears.
24. We could all use more love; love from oth­ers and from our­selves, yet many of us are afraid to give and receive love.
25. We are a lot like other peo­ple and they are a lot like us.  We can’t see this because we are con­stantly com­par­ing our insides to their out­sides.
26. We need help to change, but ask­ing for help is hard.  Many of us will not ask for help unless we have no other options.  Some of us not even then.
27. Physical-emotional-spiritual; there is no sep­a­ra­tion, yet we are aston­ished and it’s “news” when research demon­strates “another mind-body con­nec­tion.”
28. Enough with the experts.  We don’t need more expert advice.  We need some prac­ti­cal help to change
29. Help can come from unex­pected places, from out­side of the “med­ical field.”  In fact, that’s where you’re likely to find the most use­ful help.
30. We are what we eat.
31. Much of the food avail­able to us is bad for us, yet we don’t see this.
32. From an emo­tional and spir­i­tual aspect, you are what your mind “eats” from TV, the inter­net, books, mag­a­zines, etc.
33. Most of what our cul­ture feeds our minds is harm­ful to our emo­tions and spirit, and any­thing that harms our emo­tions and spirit harms us phys­i­cally.
34. Nor­mal isn’t always good for us.  Can we be more con­cerned with what’s good for us than with what’s nor­mal?
35. Be VERY care­ful about what you feed your body and your mind.
36. Where the mind leads the body will fol­low.
37. Many of us should worry more about chang­ing our minds, as opposed to chang­ing our bod­ies.  Our body issues might then take care of them­selves.
38. We could all stand to learn more, but we don’t need to know every­thing.
39. Prin­ci­ples are uni­ver­sal — details are per­sonal.
40. Learn the prin­ci­ples of health and well­ness, but cre­ate your own details as you live the prin­ci­ples.
41. Seek and you will find.  Don’t seek and you prob­a­bly won’t find.
42. The com­mon wis­dom is not usu­ally wis­dom.
43. God will help us if we ask.
44. Com­mon sense is not com­mon.
45. Dif­fer­ent is not always bet­ter, but bet­ter is always dif­fer­ent.
46. When you make one change for the bet­ter, every­thing gets bet­ter.
47. Noth­ing hap­pens until you start.
48. “Yes I will!” are the three most pow­er­ful words in the Eng­lish lan­guage.
49. Every­one can help some­one.
50. Sto­ries are pow­er­ful.  Find sto­ries that inspire you and tell your story to every­one who is inter­ested in hear­ing it
51. Fear not!
52. These thoughts can change your life.  They changed mine.