“The combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 ($35.9 billion) were more than the profits for all of the other 490 businesses put together ($33.7 billion). Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself.”
– Dr. Marcia Angell
Former Editor in Chief New England Journal of Medicine

This alarming statistic reveals how increasingly dependent we’re becoming on the idea of a “miracle pill” to cure everything from pain, depression and sexual dysfunction to adult attention deficit disorder. If we examine this more closely, it clearly represents all the ways in which many of us have become disconnected from the healing properties of nature and our innate intelligence to deal with life’s challenges. Only 100 years ago, we thrived on the health benefits of whole foods and plant-based medicines, and tuned in daily to the seasonal cycles of nature as guideposts for our most important daily decisions. The greening of healthcare is in our hands as we make choices today to value this path of vitality and wellness, and to honor our role to restore and maintain our personal, environmental and planetary health.

Each day, we are witness to and are part of a period of transformative shifts, sobering climatic changes, encroaching (and potentially dehumanizing) technology, paralyzing levels of daily stress, social isolation, and an abandoning of values. All major systems - educational, political and economic, including the healthcare system - are going through major change. In New Mexico alone, 17% of our population is living at or below poverty line, while 22% do not have access to basic healthcare needs. Addictions, depression, cancer, and autoimmune and environment-related illnesses are at an all time high throughout the US It’s time we each take a serious look at how each of us contributes to the healthcare crisis in our daily lives.

As we re-vision and co-create our future and consider the role of health in our lives, our commitment to personal sustainability is critical to our success. To “sustain” means to keep in existence, to withstand and to support the vitality of life. To sustain ourselves, it is imperative that taking care of our own body, mind, and spirit be our number one priority. From there, everything else will follow.

No magic pill can fulfill this mission; no one can delegate this responsibility or institute this by law. We achieve the greening of healthcare when we take charge of our lives and balance our most important life-values with how we live everyday. This starts by making daily choices that support us---eating healthy foods, exercising regularly, and most importantly, to clear and redirect our thoughts in a positive and proactive direction.

Our Inner Health and that of the Earth reflect each other

With so many well-intentioned individuals working to bring our world into balance, why haven’t we reached the point of critical mass in which a shift toward greater global health and harmony can occur? The answer lies not “out there” in the world, but right at home. The answer is in our refrigerators. It’s in the television and media programming that fills our minds. It is reflected by unused gym memberships and dusty treadmills. It is in prescription bottles that fill our medicine cabinets and drugs that run through our collective veins.

So again, why have we not reached “critical mass”? This is where personal sustainability enters into the equation. Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” By practicing personal sustainability, our individual goals merge with the change we want to see in the world. We become the change!