The Healing Probability Quotient

The Naturopathic perspective, of course, is that except in the very late stages where an illness has progressed beyond the point of no return, we acknowledge the reality that healing from disease is not only possible but highly probable if we give your body what it needs, take away what it doesn’t and stimulate your innate healing ability in the right way.

In the last 1/3 century or so, I’ve seen people heal from advanced cases of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, long term chronic infections and a many other serious illnesses.  Over that same period of time, I’ve seen other patients with the exact same illnesses fail to get better and some enter a slow decline into a premature death.

I’ve carefully ponder the question of what is the difference between why some people with identical illnesses heal and recover, and others do not.

There is a key question after assessing and pondering this for quite a few years now, is this: “how likely is it that you will fully recover from an acute or chronic illness, or injuries?”  As I’ve considered this, I began to notice something.  There is a crucial factor that doesn’t show in in any lab test result, not in any double blind, placebo controlled study, and seems to be the very large elephant in the living room of most family discussions about health and healing.  This key factor is the patients themselves – in other words, YOU.

The simplest, most basic aspect of this, is “are you doing your homework”?  By homework, I mean all the factors that I, or any wholistic, natural health care provider recommends.  Are you making the suggested or required dietary changes?  Are you taking the nutritional supplement, herbal medicines, homeopathic medications, or even the occasional pharmaceuticals I may recommend?  Are you exercising, meditating or engaging in any anti-stress activities that were suggested?  Have you done the detoxification program that was suggested?  Have you successfully embraced an attitude that “yes, I really can heal!”

I began to observe over the years, that the patients that are most successful are the ones that fully embrace their healing, and successfully complete the highest percentage of the recommended interventions and lifestyle upgrades.    I have come to refer to this as The Healing Probability Quotient.  As a mathematical construct it is very simple: how many of these recommendations are you actually doing, compared to how many were recommended?

I have observed that those individuals that perform 50% or less of the recommended improvements very, very seldom get better, and virtually never fully recover from whatever it is that they came to see me about.  The ones who engage with somewhere between 50% and 80% usually start to get better; maybe not completely, but almost always show improvement, sometimes significant improvement.  

Those patients who embrace the process fully, especially the mental/emotional and spiritual process that says they really can heal, and can achieve a rate of accomplishing between 80 to 100% of recommended interventions, are the type of patients I see fully recover from even advanced cases of serious illness.  They believe they can heal, and are committed to doing so.

This is very possible for you to check for yourself.  If you’ve had 6 things you’ve been told you need to do, how many are you doing?  If it is 3 or less, probably not a good prognosis for your recovery.  If you are successfully complete 5-6 regularly, the odds of your full recovery go way up.

The one starting point that seems to be key is the mental/emotional shift I’ve mentioned here – the belief, the sure knowledge, that healing is possible, and your commitment to do so.  If you make that shift, and then follow through to get your Healing Probability Quotient as close to 100% as possible, you are putting yourself in the category of those who’ve had the best success in the past.

Dr. Cage