FINDING WELLNESS
AUTHOR: DR.RANDALL S. HANSEN

Wellness is quite an esoteric state for many to grasp, as it can be difficult for them to catch up. Where to begin and where to end, and of course, there is no set formula for it. Perhaps that’s the prevailing notion amongst us. But wellness is something we’re all intuitively heading towards, considering our innate aspirations. Dr. Randall S. Hansen has set three cardinal precepts for Mind, Body, and Spirit and accordingly devised a three-pronged healing strategy workable-for-all to achieve it. In his book Finding Wellness, he demystifies wellness and then provides the healing tack to clinch wellness, keeping hope as the polestar to keep goading us in times of desolation or while reeling in a state of quandary.

The author is gung-ho to allay the existing misery of readers and be their ally in redeeming them. ‘I am excited to share 50 of my most popular articles, all easily accessible in this handy book.’

The best way to convince a reader about their skewed lifestyle is to cite some dire facts and stats. A timeline offers ‘major milestones that have led to declining healthspan, such as in ‘2024: New study shows that people born after 1990 have a higher likelihood of 17 cancers than previous generations. Again, alarming stats like ‘1 out of every 3 adults is prediabetic’ serve as a deterrent to remaining a couch potato.

There is another tack to cajole readers into action that happens when the author relates his own past follies and foibles and how he won it over. Dr. Randall makes a clean breast of his own holistic reformation. ‘Almost 25 years ago, I was a highly successful college professor hiding from my past, acting out dangerously, and drinking and eating irresponsibly. My mental and physical health suffered greatly.’

Dr. Randall is upbeat to celebrate the grand opportunity to live on this earth, ‘I invite you to discover a life like you have never experienced. A life without medications…..A life of hope, peace, joy, and love.’

Healing is the mainstay of this book. – ‘… For me, the first step in healing was changing what and how I ate…’ . Besides, the book hinges upon a spiritual approach and recurrent appeal for Divine intervention - ‘I know gratitude (and prayer) brings me closer to God.’ There is a tremendous ‘Power of Forgiveness’ and ‘God commands that we forgive others’, and the well-known aphorism of St Luke 6:37 instills the crux of Christian faith altogether. The author charts a key pathway for coaxing this seemingly intransigent state of ego bogging down our minds. Healing and forgiveness go together. Such a prudent solution is missing from the widely available medical books, and this book makes its mark.  Likewise, readers are reminded of ‘Thanksgiving’ and what ensues during the National Gratitude Month in the US, and also the World Gratitude Day on September 21.

The author shares about himself –

‘My healing modalities started in nutrition and somatics, but my real healing modality was nature, which led me to spirituality,

and eventually to psychedelics.’ And yet again, he reiterates,'I started my healing journey, using long and solitary times in nature to truly face and excise my demons. I learned to forgive myself and others, which led to the most beautiful and profound experience of learning to love myself — and to let others love me.'

The book comes down heavily upon unscrupulous vested interests of some businesses routing and debilitating our society - ‘lies of Big Food, Big Medicine, and Big Pharma’ and cites - ‘Matt lost both his parents because so many of our systems are broken, from farming to food to healthcare to pharmaceuticals.’

Several US government policies, too, are deceptive and detrimental to society –‘..subsidies do not go to our local farmers who are actually growing our foods, but instead to massive corporations growing monoculture crops with questionable value, all while damaging the soil with unsafe practices.’  A chapter is devoted to the connection between soil health and human health.

Dr. Randall has touched upon diverse aspects that affect wellness directly or indirectly. In the chapter Timeline of Our Food & Health Demise, there is a mention of a 2020-released documentary, Kiss the Ground, which makes the premise of the power of regenerative agriculture to help heal the world’s soils, completely and rapidly stabilize the Earth’s climate, restore lost ecosystems, and create abundant food supplies. It highlights the important role healthier soil plays.

The healing journey holds the course, and lesser-known aspects open up, such as ‘How to Detox Your Home,’ including the pantry. The book stands out, ‘Ready to be shocked?’ with the mention of ‘Detox  Your Prescription’, to ward off polypharmacy and its dire fallout– the simultaneous use of multiple medicines (some definitions say 5 or more) by a patient for their conditions. Polypharmacy can land you in the hospital…or worse.’

Readers find many pertinent checks and balances that remain largely ignored and unaddressed in similar books available in the market - ‘if you are on any antidepressants or anxiolytics, you really need to do your research on whether these drugs are helping or hurting you.’

The 20 Faces of Trauma typifies human persona, afflicted with psychosomatic dissonance, often remaining undetected but keep causing insidious damage to the state of wellness. Dr. Randall peels off these disfigurations with his healing peeler, having SIX major healing modalities - Nature, Somatics, Psychedelics, Spirituality, Nutrition, Breathwork to induct them in his Healing Revolution! The book trenchantly tracks down several maladies plaguing our populace and also unravels their vicious chain-making spree.

The book encapsulates notions and practices of several cultures and races to give it an implicit manifestation of the exalted Gaia, connoting it to be a self-organizing living system. 'The Japanese have a term for relaxing in nature — shinrin-yoku — which means "forest bathing." It involves opening the senses to the woody aroma of the trees and other plants, the green scenery, and the soothing sounds of streams and waterfalls... because all of these elements play a part in promoting better health and healing. Simply being in nature induces a state of physiologic relaxation, a true stress-reducer.'

The parting shot leaves readers with a quote from Marlo Thomas: ‘Laughter completely engages the body and releases the mind. It connects us to others, and that in itself has a healing effect.’ It’s no laughing stock considering its immense biological ramifications.  Dr. Randall has dug up a wellness well for everyone to take a guided plunge for a guaranteed makeover, proving the elixir of his wellness regimen.