Superman was my hero as a little boy. Unlike the struggle to get out of bed to get ready for school, I was up bright early on Saturday mornings to watch Superman on the black and white television adorned with a rabbit ear antenna often capped with aluminum foil. There were other Saturday morning shows I liked to watch such as The Lone Ranger, Mighty Mouse and Lassie among others. “Here I come to save the day” was Mighty Mouse’s catch phrase. One of the common themes found among my favorite television shows was that there is a hero of some sort who can come and “save the day.”
It is not unusual to mistakenly believe that our hero is something or someone “out there.” If we could just configure our external world in a certain way, then all our problems and struggles would disappear. If we can find the right job, the right person, the right pill, the right book, and on, then all would be right. In fact, what we are looking for is within us. It is important to embrace that we are our own hero, that we have the power to do what we need to do for ourselves. To look for some outside source to “fix” our lives hide us from the beautiful opportunity of embracing personal responsibility and all the joy and empowerment that accompanies it.
Just the other day I was watching the Arkansas Razorback game with my nine-year-old grandson. During a break in the game a television commercial about a medication to treat Type 2 diabetes came on. My grandson remarked that it was strange that all the people on the commercial were smiling and laughing as the possible side effects of using the medication such as death, stroke, diarrhea, etc. were being listed. Ironically, in a pilot study on Type 2 diabetes prevention (McKensie AL, et al. Nutrients, 2021) revealed that lifestyle interventions can prevent and even reverse type 2 diabetes in 60 percent of cases. As I have stated previously, an integrative approach does not exclude conventional approaches to health such as the use of medications but rather it does include contemporary and alternative measures, primarily lifestyle interventions, that can reduce and possibly eliminate the need for evasive procedures and/or medications in some health and well-being situations including the benefits of positive and health promoting side effects. Dr. Mark Hyman states, “Your daily behaviors are the single biggest factor in your health.”
In closing remember that we are the wind beneath our wings. We are the hero for our lives.
