When you think about health one of the most significant
things you can change is your perspective. The way you think about health,
shapes your health. If you think only your body matters, you might eat well and
exercise, but then your worry or anger will negate those efforts. If you think
you are a body and a mind, you might also learn to manage your daily stress,
but then you might not tend to the deeper emotional wounds behind it all, nor
focus on a connection to a higher power or the world around you.

The question follows, “what isn’t a part of my health?”
Spiritual traditions will tell you that you are deeply interconnected with the
world, and what is done to one is eventually felt by all. Science now knows the
same principle to be true. There is no debate, all of life is interconnected
and the pollution in the air and water is as much a part of your diet as what
you buy in the store. Everything impacts your health; the world is an extension
of your body in a very literal way.

This means that if you are concerned with your health, you
should be concerned with the health of your planet. You can’t see your body
metabolize Vitamin C, but you know you need it and that your body uses it well.
You can’t see the massive oil spill off the Gulf Coast (partially because the
Coast Guard and BP Oil are controlling media access), but you still know its
impacting our world. I am struggling to make a difference and have accepted
that I won’t be flying down to help. But I can make donations to charities that
are helping, I can write my Governor or Senator, I can ask my friends to get
involved, and maybe some of them have connections or time to help. I am sending
this blog to all my posts (which breaks some blogging rules) since it is one
effort to help make a difference.

 Because my next book is about the connection between
inspiration and health (Inspiration Deficit Disorder), I have found myself
talking to a lot of people about lifestyle changes and how to make themselves
happy. But true inspiration impacts others and makes the world a better place.
And though it’s unpopular to say, it is not just about being in the world it is
also about doing – the core of an inspiration deficit is believing one thing
(like valuing nature) and then doing another (ignoring massive environmental
catastrophes). This kind of incongruence may not touch you in the short term,
but in the long term it may impact us all.