05 202405 May 2024

05 202305 May 2023

Positive Healthcare – A New Concept for the WHO?

“Health is broader than the absence of disease or symptoms. An increasingly central role is played by other aspects, such as resilience, sense of purpose, meaningfulness and self-management” (Machteld Huber, Institute for Positive Health))

Positive health is a concept introduced by Machteld Huber. In her 2014 dissertation, Huber turned the WHO definition of health – ‘a state of complete physical, psychological and social well-being and not just the absence of disease and infirmity’ – on its head. Huber argues that this definition is outdated, because then hardly anyone would be healthy. And that it leads to unnecessary and costly medicalization of care. Alternatively, she introduces the definition: “the ability to adapt and manage oneself in the light of the physical, emotional and social challenges of life”, which forms the basis for the concept of positive health. In this concept, health is no longer seen as the absence or presence of disease, but as the ability of people to cope with (changing) physical, emotional and social life challenges and to have as much control as possible. Health is then no longer strictly the domain of healthcare professionals, but of everyone.
(Critical Blog P. Valentijn / Essenburgh.dotcom)

We were at the University of Maastricht in 2014 when the dissertation was presented by Machteld Huber. It was well explained that we as human beings have the first (and last) responsibility for our health and so for our own healthcare as well! Of course it is our own responsibility as free consumers. And of course nobody else can be responsable for our health!

Therefore it is also understandable that in case of a pandemy people should take care for the safety of each other and keep the necessary distance (if that helps … ). But vaccination for our own health only we ourselves can decide! Consumer freedom and responsibility in the 21st century!

Read more:

World Health Organization WHO
Institute for Positive Health

05 202205 May 2022

World Health Day: Our Planet Our Health

Getting ill getting better is a very old statement. And that is indeed the why-how-what of every illness. Be it a human being, an organization, a country or the whole world. Only when we understand illness as an opportunity for our personal or even social development we can work in the right direction. With medicare as an assistant to the individual or the board of managers. Good food, good organizing and good work for sustainability are the way forwards for a healthy life and a healthy planet.

Yes we experienced different diseases already in the 21st century. Be it Corona, Financial Crisis or International Fighting or Trade Wars. Looking backwards we can always recognise (in most cases) that we got better, better than before. And that is always the proof in the pudding! If we analyse the history well.

Like a strong man lifting heavy weights chooses heavier weights every next week to get stronger, so do we in our lifetime and so does the world as a whole!

Read more:

• United Nations WHO / World Health Day (April 7)

05 202101 January 2021

Maturity – The 21st Century and the Corona Crisis

A consumer vision on corona as phenomenon and image of the actual worldcrisis. Especially as an issue of development of humankind and the individual human being.

See the sun behind the moon during a solar eclipse – that is what is named the corona. The corona is the ring of light surrounding and beaming over the disc of the dark black moon. Blackening the sky and the sun the moon now represents death and materialism.

It gives not only a marvellous picture of the world of light behind, above and around the world of matter. Sunlight represents insight, the science of everything. Mind over matter! Because those who have the highest (read: widest) overview can understand mind AND matter, spiritual and material sciences and their relationship between ideas and realities.

For instance: behind a great factory we can see the ideas of its founder, the planning and design, all the organizational principles and planboards, talkings and reportings.
But only in the end of the process the physical buildings, working people and final products and services. Including the bookkeeping. In other words: Money is realized mind!

The same connection between mind and matter can we see when meeting a crisis or illness in our personal life or within an organization. Mostly occurring in the well-known 7-years rhythms connected to the planets (which represent motion and time versus the order of space represented by the fixed 12-zodiac). We can recognize those rhythms in our own biography too.

Illness, bankruptcy, being fired or getting an accident or even wartime and being a fugitive. In many great stories written by people who had those crises in extreme forms can learn us to understand the why, the how and the what of a crisis. Why me? What have I done wrong that triggered my situation? Or what issues of a former life do I have to repair? How can I understand it and find the arguments and the roads towards a solution? And what can I see as the result after the crisis, being the next phase in my biography? Only months or years later we can find the answers on these questions and understand.

Understand that we really can appreciate a crisis as a growing period towards a higher level of being ourselves. Like the chinese sign for crisis is also the sign for change and opportunity. Becoming better instead of the old person that we were before. Becoming the one we are in the deepest sense! As a person, an organisation or even humanity as a whole.

The so-called corona crisis 2020-2021 could well be THE process of dying and resurrection of mankind into the first century of maturity! More than ever people want to know everything, find all the arguments, and take the best possible decisions now! The last 20 centuries are now history. The centuries of religions, politics and marketing, pharao’s/priests and kings and marketing managers who were the managers of daily life in a broader sense. But today every human being is his/her own manager, has his/her own responsibility! And all kinds of consumer organizations are now the platforms for all our questions and dialogue with producers of all kinds: production of goods, services, politics or ngo’s for all other issues.
Towards an economy of real questions and real answers instead of supply and demand only.

Responsibility for our own health and fitness, choices of real good food, choices of social responsibility, democracy and human aid when necessary. Responsible lifestyles and relationships, and sustainable organizations. And last but not least: what to buy or not to buy, to save or to lend, to give or to receive.

Money is the mirror of all our decisions, the mirror of who we are and want to be! Yesterday, today and planning tomorrow. Corona time is an opportunity for reflection and meditation, of planning and organizing.

Peter Daub
20201212

PS1

During a solar eclipse one can experience two different feelings. The first period of darkening it is getting more and more quiet in nature. All the birds stop their talking. Even a chilling feeling of death surrounds us! After the corona experience (watched through dark glasses) the world is real changing! Birds are starting singing in the most beautiful ritms! We ourselves experience that life is really coming back in our hearts and lungs! A new life has begun!

PS2

December 21 is the great conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter (21 years after the last one). It looks like a “handover” of the outer planet with the “overview” to the planet of “management”. As if the Great Creator hands over the management of the future to the human being, the citizen, the consumer, the cultural creative! Maturity has become reality!

Michelangelo: God creates mankind