Trying to figure out what does and what does not work seems very confusing.

I have tried many different things that promised great results – from Scientology to urine therapy. At first, a new method to greater abilities or even enlightenment seem to work but when it came down to real and life-shattering changes, these new abilities or changed conditions did not materialize – at least not through the application of any of the new methods.

Let me tell you the first experience I had on my path to understanding this.

I had learned about macrobiotic, immediately started to apply the principles to my nourishment and had great success with it, as the body came out of a hidden apathy and started to work much better. During this time my father had been hospitalized and his physicians had warned him that he should not forget to take all this medication they considered necessary for his survival. My reaction to this was to give him the same book that had allowed me to understand what macrobiotic really was and how it worked.

To my great delight the book had the same effect on my father as it had on me. He changed his mind about his life, started to apply the principles he now understood and that did not include putting products of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry into his body. Two weeks later he was working again in his garden and the lack of the medication had not killed him – just the opposite. Being retired he had the time and energy to start a completely new career that involved traveling around the country and teaching seniors to enjoy life through dancing.

Once, during this time, I visited and ate with them – and got sick!

Yes, THEIR understanding of what cooking according to the macrobiotic principles was differed grossly from my understanding. I just knew that they did it all wrong and I got sick because I believed that I was eating all the wrong things and reacted accordingly by getting sick.

At least I was – already then – smart enough not to tell them. I knew to leave things alone if they worked. My parents continued with their way of eating and things continued to work for them.

But a few years later my father got caught in some other school of healthy living that actually contradicted the principles of macrobiotic. I still don’t know what drove him, but he gave up what had worked for him and he started to drink all those strange teas, then he got trapped by some (likely) misdiagnosis of his family doctor, believed it and died shortly thereafter of leukemia.

For quite a while a still believed that it was still the abandoning of macrobiotic and adoption of those teas had made the difference, even though my experience that I got sick eating what made him well should have given me a clue that this could not have been true.

It was many years and many other life-changing methods later that I understood what actually made the difference:

Taking Responsibility!

When he learned about macrobiotic he took charge of his own life. He did not believe anybody anymore just because he was told, he actually took a risk to implement what he felt was the right thing. That, in this case macrobiotic, was secondary and rather irrelevant. It could have been anything else that he could have believed in.

When he abandoned his own certainty and gave the responsibility for his health to somebody else, this is when he became sick again and eventually passed away.

You can learn from others, get data, educate yourself – but what it all eventually boils down to, is taking charge – knowing what is right and pursuing it.

And it does not matter what it is you do. This is why drinking your own urine heals some people while others just turn in disgust and would simply throw up. It certainly helps if you chose a method to improve you condition that resonates with you, and that makes it easier for you personally to stand behind – – but that just makes it easier, not possible.

Chanting and running around the kitchen table will not work for me because it would not fit into my frame of reference and I could not stand behind it, but it might work for others.