I had the absolute honour of speaking to over 700 passionate, gorgeous health groupies at the Wellness Summit on Sunday (as I shared in an earlier post this week).  I spoke about building your health cheer squad, your united group of health professionals who get you as a human being, are on the same page (your page, because it’s so different to anybody else’s) and help you on your health journey to lift you up and be the best version of you.  In the same vein, it’s also National Fertility Awareness Week – an important time to share and reflect on our fertility and help hold others up in need.  I think it’s so very important to build your team to help take you where you want to go (rather than where you don’t!)

I’m often faced with patients who feel completely overwhelmed by their health status.  It’s not uncommon for me to learn that patients find us ‘health professionals’ confronting and judgemental especially when it comes to fertility and conception but certainly not limited to this.  It hurts my heart that we (as the layperson) second guess ourselves and our gut feelings mostly because we might have been lead to believe that putting our complete faith in others (who are more educated) to help us with our health choices is the only way.  I’m not here to shame or slam health professionals, that would be really stupid since I am one myself.  Why this hurts me, is that so often ‘us health professionals’ might fling ourselves on our high horses taking the stance of ‘do as I say or else.’  That we know best.  This shut up and do as I say attitude however, just so happened to go out with Buryl Cream and combovers.  I believe that most health professionals do indeed have your best interest at heart, but not all health professionals will approach things in the same way.  It’s about finding somebody who can help you and is someone you trust; somebody who can help you find your special way, rather than following the advice of somebody who you don’t actually resonate with.

If you decided tomorrow it was time to buy a new car, it’s pretty unlikely you’d just go to one car dealer (unless of course you’d built a relationship with somebody you like and trust).  Same goes for your health.  I encourage you to shop around until you find those health professionals who works for you, completely.  We are living at a time where we want to know as much as possible about health and how we can live better day to day.  We are craving information.  We want to understand ourselves like never before and I have to say I love this more than vegemite. I’ve been banging on that drum for some time now, the more educated we are, the more we can make solid decisions based on our gut feeling rather than from being backed into a corner and made to decide out of fear.

This fear based approach to healthcare has rapidly made it’s exit (hooray!).  Because thankfully with knowledge comes power.  The power to take the reins of our own health and choose whats right for us.  Nobody knows this better than ourselves.  This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the advice of our health care professions, but rather we can dictate where we steer our treatments and approach based on what feels right for us under the guidance of somebody we trust – because after all, there is always more than one way.  And the best way is your way.

Your cheer squad isn’t limited to health professionals.  Your cheer squad consists of all the people around you who help lift you up, to be your best.  It doesn’t just take a village to raise a child, it takes a village to be a human being.  Calling and drawing upon others is part of how we get through life.  To think we can go it alone is not only in my opinion ambitious, but unrealistic.  Throughout time, we have called upon our troops in times of need but equally spending quality time with loved ones is so important for our health and happy hormones.  Who are those people who lift you up?  It might be time to say thanks to those who do.

When it comes to getting the best out of your health, I firmly believe we each need to recruit a cheer squad that supports our every need.  You might have seen from time to time, I share and post the tag #unite4health to help raise awareness that we are all in this together.  We are SO all in this together.  So I encourage you to get clued up so you can know as much about your health as possible, create your support team and build your cheer squad!  Remember, let’s unite for health.