Life Lessons :”Your Body Is Your Best Physician” – Susan Oyemade

Mrs. Susan Oyemade is one individual who has demonstrated that sometimes most challenges in life have hidden in them goldmine of equivalent opportunities. At a point in her career, Mrs. Oyemade, a trained teacher, encountered a health challenge that forced her to travel abroad for interventions. In the process she came across a solution that not only permanently resolved her health concerns but also became the bedrock of a wellness business in Nigeria that has brought her fame and wealth. She introduced Forever Living Business to the country. Hardly looking her age (she is 73); Mrs. Oyemade says “it is possible to turn back your age and die old in a young body”. You will certainly enjoy her notes on healthy living-and other life lessons.

 

ON HEALTH

Your body is your best physician

I did not get to know that until I ran into a very serious health crisis. It was in the process of finding a solution to that crisis that I stumbled on this lesson I am sharing. I have since discovered that when it comes to health, the God has created us with everything in us. Given half a chance, the body will heal itself. But a lot of people are ignorant about this fact. We know about everything, our computer, our phone, our television, but this body, that we need to continue to exist on earth; we don’t know anything about it. Ignorance and disobedience are the major problems we have with our health, most of the times. The body talks, if you listen to your body, your body will tell you what it needs and what it doesn’t need. If I put sugar in my mouth within few hours, my mouth will be bleeding, my gum will be paining me and I will be feeling terrible in my mouth. So what is my body telling me? Sugar is not good for me. If you listen carefully, your body would tell you what is not good for it and what you should put in it.

If we know about our body, we won’t treat it anyhow. Whatever you don’t know, you misuse. If you can just look at the car we drive, you can see that the car is patterned after the body. I always tell people that when you put adulterated oil in your car, what happens? You knock the engine. So the food that your body is not supposed to eat, if you put it there, your body will be breaking down. Look at the radiator, if you don’t put water into it, what happens? The car begins to overheat and the car will spoil. If you don’t drink enough water, the same thing will happen to your body. The car cannot move without petrol, the same thing if your body is deficient in nutrient, it will become weak. If the oil pump in the car is blocked, the car will not start and the same thing if the arteries in your body are blocked, the blood in your body will not flow and you are dead.  Our blood carries oxygen and nutrients to all our vital organs and if this is not happening, the organs will die and we die too.

So the first thing we need to know as individuals is to know the body, to know the systems in the body. We need to know about the body, know that the body needs proper nutrition. If our body is deficient in nutrients we are going to have health problems. It is like planting on a soil that is not good, what happens to the plant? So if you look at that, if your body is not having all the nutrients it is supposed to have, the body will not function properly. The human body is chemical composition of 16 principal elements, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, magnesium, iodine, iron, fluorine, manganese, and silicon. It is replenishing these elements in sufficient quantity in the body through live foods that will keep the body functioning properly, maintain the body, and rejuvenate the body. If these are not there in sufficient quantity, what happens? You are aging and you will have a lot of health problems.  Proper elimination of wastes from the body also is very important for good health. Healthy digestive system is crucial as it is well known that ‘Death begins in the Colon’.

Things are changing all over the world; your good health is in your hands. Don’t give authority to anybody to control your health. Doctors are knowledgeable, wonderful, and they are very essential, but they didn’t learn nutrition in medical school, they learnt what is wrong with you and then this is the prescription. All over the world, people are running away from medication because of the side effect of drugs. So Integrative Nutrition Health Coaches are now helping people to make good food choices, modify their diet, and live a healthy lifestyle. A lot of people eat junk foods, drink a lot of alcohol, coffee, and soft drinks. These are damaging to our health at the end of the day. A lot of people, old and young feed on sugar; sugar is the food for cancer cells and is the reason for the increase in the cases of obesity, diabetes and hypertension. According the title of Don Colbert, MD, book, “Let Food Be Your Medicine”.

Sleep, sleep and sleep.

Another thing that the body requires that we don’t give the body is adequate sleep. We need seven hours of sleep in a day. If you don’t charge your phone what happens? The battery will die. Do you know that sleep is what charges our own battery? If you don’t charge your phone it will not work, if you don’t charge your body, it also will not work efficiently. We must be sleeping by 10pm till 4am. The body is charged between 10pm and 2am, it has been proved.

Peace of mind

Fear, worries, anxiety, bad relationships and unhappiness have negative effect on our health.   It is our right to be happy. Happy mind, healthy and younger body.

Sit down and die

We also need to know the importance of exercise. Many of us just sit down all the time we don’t exercise, we don’t move. The more you move the better your health. Sit down and die. Even if you are sitting down, get up and move and come back again. Every one hour move around for five minutes and then come back and sit.

ON CAREER

Always go for what you are passionate about

I knew what I wanted, I knew who I wanted to be and I know the career I wanted to follow. At an early age, I wanted to be a teacher and everybody was mocking me, but I didn’t listen. When I should have gone to do law or whatever, I went to a teacher training college. I started teaching in 1963 then I went to England in 1964. I wanted to continue teaching but for one reason or the other, my brother said I should do a Secretarial Course which I went to do after which I started working as a Secretary, but because I love teaching, I went back to college to do a Teacher’s Diploma Course in Business Education after which I started teaching Typewriting, Shorthand, Secretarial Duties and Office Management. That brought me back to teaching. You focus on what will make you happy, I do not want to do anything for money sake, I want to do what will make me happy and fulfilled, so that it is not because of money. A lot of people are in careers they don’t like and they are not happy and they will never be fulfilled. Teaching is fun to me. Even in my wellness business I still basically teach, but this time on how people can live healthy life. If you are in the wrong career you will never be well because you are working with people you don’t like, you are doing what you don’t like which is probably against whatever you believe in, you are not fulfilled, there is going to be sickness.

Know what you want

Another thing also, is right from my early age, I knew who I wanted to be at the end of the day. I knew the type of house I wanted to live in, where I want to have my retirement home etc. You need to see the end at the beginning and you then come back to that beginning and work it up. Life is step by step

and you need the experience of each step to be able to do well and move on to the next one and that experience will help you in that next step. I always see the end, then I come back but I live in the present while working towards the end. The power of now is very important. If you don’t use the power of now and you are thinking about yesterday, you are living in yesterday or you are living in the future, there is no way you can excel. If you are living in the present, although you have seen the future, it is the power of now that will get you there.

ON MARRIAGE

You need to go for the man that fits your purpose

A lot of women are living miserable life because they marry the wrong men and they are also dependent on their husbands financially. That won’t give you fulfillment and satisfaction. You need to do something with the talents and gifts God has endowed you with. What you don’t want, don’t take it because it will prevent you from getting what you want. Getting married is not a joke, know who you are, know the type of person you want from day one. Nowadays everybody is talking about money. You can also make money yourself. I don’t live on other people’s shadow. I want to be myself, I want to have financial freedom. But for our most women, it is also about upbringing, and cultural beliefs that a girl child’s purpose in life is husband, but the purpose for women is not husband. As a woman, God created you for a unique primary assignment on earth which will also be a blessing to your marriage. I knew the type of man I wanted and I went for him. So my husband sees me as a pride to him, he let me blossom, he let me spread my wings and fly. Again, if a man is adequate, why should he feel threatened by the success of his wife?

ON WEALTH

Don’t be attached to possessions.

I have learnt a very big lesson that has revolutionized my view about wealth and possessions. We actually do not lack anything. Everything you need to achieve your purpose is available and there is no scarcity in the Source from where that wealth comes from. So when you see an individual attaching himself or herself permanently to what God has created through him or her, that person lacks understanding. We do not own anything. As the money comes to me I look for channels for distributing the wealth and the interesting thing I have discovered is that the more I give, the more I receive. Even though my husband and I helped to establish Forever Living Business in Nigeria, we did not hold on to it. we have moved on. The wealth inside us is enormous. I often say that if they put me in the desert I will thrive there. Wealth to me is the deposit God has put in me, the talents, that ability, that potential in me is my wealth. Your wealth is what the Almighty father has put inside of you that nobody can take away from you. Money is temporary, it can come, and it can go, so also are material things.  I am content. I don’t fit in, fitting in is endless race that leads to disaster. Contentment is key to happiness

Fulfillment for me, is touching people positively so that they can make good transformation and achieve their purpose in life.   That will make me very, very happy.

ON ATTITUDE

Humility will help you in life

Don’t ever puff up, don’t ever think you are anything; otherwise you would miss God’s plans for you. When I started the Speedwriting College though, I am a Fellow of the Society of Business Education Teachers and worked at Pitman’s, College as a teacher and since I never operated in Speedwriting establishment, I had to bring an expert from that setting to run the College. The expert was the Principal while I served under her as a Teacher. I did not put myself as a Proprietress or owner, I was working under her and that was why I was successful because I learnt everything from her to be able to run my College even after she had left. That really helped me. So humble yourself, don’t say that you are the owner of a company therefore you must be the Managing Director when you have not yet grasped the technical skills to run such organization. If you don’t know much about the business, humble yourself and learn under the person who knows. Through that same humility I got myself doing jobs that ordinarily I should have considered beneath my status. I gave it all it takes. It was while I was relieving a junior staff at the reception desk that I came across a Ghanaian who became my foundation staff at my Secretarial Services Company and brought other Ghanaians who helped me to execute a secretarial contract that fetched us the money to build Speedwriting College House at Opebi, Ikeja.

ON SPIRITUAL

We are spiritual being in a material world.

You need a solid spiritual foundation and some form of spiritual practice to make it in life. I give glory to the Almighty Father because I will say the foundation of everything I become or have is knowing God at an early age. My parents were very good Christians and we were brought up strictly in a very good Christian way. What really guided me in life is the 10 Commandments. Very interesting, I actually felt as if God was watching me all the time so, I would not like to do or say anything that will offend Him.

Another thing that has greatly helped me is the story of Joseph. We were brought up by a father who will not spare the rod in making sure that we behaved the right way. Those days we thought it was hard, but looking back now I would say that, that has helped all of us to be successful in our different endeavours.

So the 10 Commandments, the story of Joseph, the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes influenced me greatly. These are still relevant in my life today and I continue to direct the youths to go to the Book of Proverbs and read it as assignment, I ask them to read a chapter a day and reflect on each chapter. This assignment takes 31 days to complete and I also give them another 2 weeks to write down all the lessons they have learnt from the 31 chapters. I learnt a lot from the Book of Proverbs, if you move with the wrong type of people, the consequence is there, if you don’t respect people it is there, if you are lazy…you can get everything in the Proverbs.

Even at the age of over 70, all the books I am attracted to, all the principles they teach, you can trace them back to the Bible.

ON FAILURE

Failure means opportunity. If you fail, it will help you to move even higher because you have learnt a lesson. If you don’t fail you can’t pass. I don’t hold on to failure, what I am looking at is how can I move past the level of failure and then transform further.  Failure and disappointment serve as a propeller for me.

BEST ADVICE

The first is from my mother, she taught me to always put God first in whatever I do and second, to ensure at all times, that only positive things. come out from my mouth and that I should hold positive thoughts in my mind always. If you think positive, everything is possible. That has actually helped me.   She also made me to realize at a young age, that what one works for will last and that whoever relies on inheritance gives himself up to poverty and suffering. There is no short cut to the top she always told me

Honesty, integrity, hard-work, humility, courage and great attitude were my father’s songs to us, his children.

BOOKS

I read ferociously with understanding and apply the good lessons I learned from the books I read in my daily living and also share the good lessons with others.

I spend most of my money on books and this action has helped me on my life journey

GREAT CHARGE

Never be idle, find what you like to do and get it going or get involved in humanitarian service organizations. I have just completed a Course and qualified as Integrative Nutrition Health Coach and there are still more courses to undertake. I am also involved in some humanitarian service organizations. When you have nothing to look forward to and just sit down wasting away, the spirit will depart your body and you are dead untimely, taking the gifts that God gave you to use for the betterment of the world to the grave with you where they are no longer useful to anybody – what a waste.

ONE GREAT VIRTUE

Another great virtue to cultivate is silence. There is power in silence.   To make good decisions, to be creative, and to be the best in what you do, you need quiet time daily. For some people, it is meditation and for some, it is communication with their Creator.

Quoting from the book I am currently reading, STILLNESS SPEAKS by Eckhart Tolle, the author of THE POWER OF NOW, the book I have also read – “True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.”

With the above statement, one can see why, as noisy people we are not moving Nigeria forward, people in government can’t take good decisions, they are creating so much problems, wasting our natural resources and engage in you chop, I chop business.

The Nigeria youths and children are also swimming in the ocean of noise. Too much noise everywhere, schools, offices, places of worship, on the streets, markets, airport, parties, in homes. It is doubtful if anything good or creative things or new discoveries can come from noisy minds.

Let us learn to be quiet, let us learn to reflect and pay attention to see things that God has placed at our disposal and transform them into gems for our benefit as people of Nigeria and other people of the world.