Health and Human Values
Almost all clinicians believe that stress is a
contributor, or cause, of most chronic illness. Stress hammers our adrenal glands leading to adrenal stress and exhaustion, which in turn leads to a variety of health issues.
There are a host of techniques to reduce stress, such as meditation, yoga, and use of the breath. Their clinical benefits are documented by scientific research. While techniques can lead to periods of mental peace, the mind with its infinite capacity to churn out random thoughts and desires, quickly regains momentum after a period of calm. In this article, we’ll go deeper than techniques, looking at the role of human values as they relate to peace of mind, and a stress-free body.
An ancient Eastern system of human values exists that explores the five core human values, namely: truth, dharma (super integrity), peace, love, and non-violence. All the other human values, from courage to compassion, are sub-values of the main five. While each of the world’s major religions focuses on one or two of these human values, modern society uses the word “value” incorrectly. We may value family, health, prosperity, and good education, but these are not “human values.” Rather they are norms, social mores, and preferences. Social mores (pronounced more-ays) are the unspoken, widely understood norms of a community or society. Social mores vary from time to time and place to place. America is quite divided politically. Red is red. Blue is blue. Each political party, whether major or minor, has its own values or mores. People will fight and die for the values they hold to be true. Anything that is transitory and changing cannot be viewed as a human value or as being an agent of permanent, positive change.
Truth
Regarding the five core human values, each one has its foundation on the one before it. The first is truth. Years ago, at the end of my first meeting with a patient, she asked me what her chances were. I asked her, “To what degree do you want to know the truth? That’s truth with a small “t” and Truth with a big “T.” She answered immediately, “I want to know the truth 100% no matter what it takes.” My response was, “Then you will do very well. I cannot tell you how long it will take, but you will do well.” She was dealing with chronic pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, and a stressful marriage. It took many years but those three issues were cured or transformed for her many years ago, due in large part to her commitment to truth.
When I ask people about truth, I’m talking about their personal truth, their hopes, desires, traumas, and conflicts. By Truth I’m referring to enduring spiritual Truth. I make it clear that I’ll explore these issues, but certainly not that I “know” all the answers. Truth based on dogma does not carry the same weight as Truth gained through personal experience.
Right Action
By speaking one’s truth, you save a lot of time, for lies require more lies to keep one’s myth intact. Seeking the truth of any situation quickly leads to knowing the dharma, the second human value. Dharma is super integrity. It’s doing the right thing no matter what. Once you know the truth of a situation and you know what you must do, what is required is courage (a sub-value of dharma). The hero, in determining the right course of action, faces the same fear as everyone else, but he musters the courage and takes right action.
The quest for truth leads you to the door of dharma. Right action is a call from conscience, and a light from the intellect, which weighs information from right brain (intuitive) and left brain (analytical). The deep desire to do what is right is what moves us along the path of integrity.
The more one seeks the truth and practices dharma, the stronger one gets. Practicing right action is like flexing a muscle. The more you do it, the easier it becomes to take right action. Your personal dharma becomes stronger. When we shrink from taking right action, anxiety quickly sets in.
What do people do to find their truth? First, it’s important to tolerate ambiguity without rushing into action. Our personal truth is conscious and unconscious. Almost all forms of psychotherapy ultimately are about helping people learn more about themselves, about what makes them tick, about their hopes and dreams, and about what lurks in the basement of their unconscious mind.
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz teaches some important principles that help us know a broader truth. Of the four agreements, the one most relevant to human values is “Never make assumptions.” Much of our life quest is about relationships of all kinds. When someone says or does something, many of us make a quick conclusion about their motivation. Perhaps there was someone particularly irritating in the checkout line at the grocery store today. Do we say to ourselves, “How can he be so inconsiderate!” or do we ask ourselves, “I wonder what’s going on with him?” Perhaps his wife just left him. Perhaps he just lost his job.” By realizing that we don’t know other people’s motivations, we become more aware of what makes us tick and what our truth is.
If you have a broad understanding of the truth of a situation, but still don’t know what action to take, wait! Perhaps the missing piece of information will come to you tomorrow or next week. Usually we have time to think through truth and dharma.
Peace
The third human value is peace. First there is inner peace. Then there is world peace. Once you have carried out the right action for a particular situation, you feel a sense of peace almost immediately...even if you might feel rattled briefly. Many of us over-react to what we see as bad news and can even over-react in a positive way when something wonderful happens. Life is full of good and bad, up and down. When we can see the gift in the pain, in the thing we didn’t want to happen, our sense of peace deepens.
Learning to quiet the mind, especially through meditation, slows down the thousands of random thoughts per day, and begins to tame the mind. Many of us are slaves to our mind. When we make the mind the servant of something higher, the witness or intelligence, a lasting peace sets in. The peaceful person remains tranquil through all situations.
There is a Tibetan Buddhist monk who had been a prisoner in China for about 15 years. He’s a friend of a friend of mine. He had endured beatings and torture. This man is full of love, forgiveness, and gratitude, even for his prison guards. His truth, dharma, and peace are intact. He is full of love and lives with a sense of non-violence. By hearing about one person like this, or a Nelson Mandella, we are inspired. We are not inspired to become president like Mandella. We’re inspired by the “content of his character,” to use a phrase spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Love
The fourth human value is love. In the development of character, we begin to love more and more people. Along the way we forgive more and more people. If we don’t, anger and resentment burn a hole in us. Love is the right choice.
The lack of love is fostered by our inclination to see differences between ourselves and others. Genuine lasting love exists when we seek to know how we are similar, or the same, as other people. The fragmentation of western civilization does not promote love. Native American culture pays attention to the interconnected web of life, of which we are a part. The connection with the Earth is also important.
When the pilgrims came to America, they saw a need to become friends with the Indians. However, the friendship was hollow. The friendship didn’t last long, as the new Americans killed huge numbers of Indians and took their land. One of the early bargains between white man and Indians had to do with allocating the Indians of the Northeast a segment of land. It was a trade. “We will take most of your land, give you a small piece of land, and stop killing you.” This concept of ownership of land was totally alien to the Native Americans, for they did not see themselves as being separate from the land. Man and Earth were one and the same. Out of that sense of oneness with the Earth came a deep love and respect for the Earth and all her plants and creatures. The world’s indigenous people are powerfully connected to the Earth, Spirit, and all of life. That deep connection leads to peace and harmony for the individual and group.
Non-Violence
The development of non-violence is intimately related to love. To develop love, we need to look for the unity in diversity, seeking to realize the interconnected web of life. When love falters, it’s helpful to switch mental gears and focus on the things you are grateful for. When we dwell on how someone harmed us, physically or mentally, we move away from love. As a human value, love is a state of being. It is “who we are” more than what we do.
Much of what we call “love” is limiting. We love someone until they do something we don’t like. Then, perhaps we’ll love them less, or not at all. Love, as a state of being, is not subject to the ups and downs brought on by outer experiences. As a human value, it’s important to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent (or minimally violent. Killing a bug in your house is a necessary violence). When we see ourselves as being connected to the Earth and all other beings, violence begins to fall away naturally. When we can see both friends and enemies as our brothers and sisters in the human family, the urge to harm falls away. Non-violence is at the heart of all religions and embodied in the golden rule. One version of the golden rule says, “Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.”
We can identify which human values we are deficient in and consciously work to improve them. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. consciously practiced non-violence. As we evolve and grow in human values, our character becomes stronger. A strong character is good protection against mental and physical illness. Character allows us to experience deep, persisting peace, which helps us exist without external stressors weakening us. Strength in human values makes us more resilient against illness and is the source of lasting happiness.
David Gersten, M.D. practices Nutritional Medicine and Integrative Psychiatry out of his Encinitas office and can be reached at 760-633-3063. Please feel free to access 1,000 online pages about holistic health, amino acids, and nutritional therapy at www.aminoacidpower.com and www.imagerynet.com.