Bowen F. White MD - Why Normal Isnt Healthy: How to Find Heart, Meaning, Passion & Humor on the Road Most Traveled

Wise, witty, wonderful. Bowen White navigates the inner territory in a way that speaks to everyones heart. This book is an essential guide to all who are on the path from normal to healthy. It is a very lighthearted but sage look at ourselves. Maybe that is a key message here: to take ourselves lightly while treading on a profoundly meaningful path. Bowens work is a great resource for those who seek balance, play, and vitality in a seemingly hectic world.

Marty Sullivan, M.D.

Cardiologist and Director

Duke Center for Integrative Medicine

Duke University Medical Center

A master of innovation, Bowen White gives us the tools and information we need to change ourselves and to move culture. From Bowen we learn how to create an environment more conducive to creativity and growth. We understand the value of being comfortable with ourselves and of allowing others to feel the same. Funny and intelligent, Bowen leads readers on an exciting exploration of the Fourth Polea trip you wont want to miss!

Sue Klepac

Inventor of Possibilities, Lucent Technologies

Stop your drugs, alcohol, and therapy; read this book and feel better.

Robert Roy Auray Jr.

President and Chief Executive Officer, USCO Logistics

2004 by Bowen Faville White

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the publisher

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004094415

White, Bowen Faville, 1946

Why normal isnt healthy : how to find heart, meaning, passion, and humor on the road most traveled / Bowen Faville White. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:0-9749822-0-2

ISBN: 9781620952054

1. Quality of life. I. Title

The poems on pages 8, 54, 60, 61, 116, 137, 139, 147, 158, 171, and 185 are reprinted with the permission of Coleman Barks.

The list on pages 110113 is reprinted with the permission of Human Service Alliance. It is reprinted from Better Than Money Can Buy (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Innersearch Publishing, 1996)

1996 by Human Service Alliance.

The poem on page 114 is copyrighted 2000 by Robert Bly.

It is reprinted with his permission.

The Panther, on page 42, is reprinted with permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. It is copyrighted 1981 by Robert Bly, from Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Robert Bly.

5 7 9 8 6 4
Edition

Printed on recycled offset, acid-free
Cover design by Marilyn Hager Adleman / Purple Fish Media
Interior design by Nora Koch / Gravel Pit Publications
Typesetting by Universal Press

Dedication

To Hope, Alice, Brynn, and Jordan

Soon after each of you was born, I took you over to a warm-water bath and massaged your little bodies, welcoming you into the world. I gave you your names and told you how much we had been looking forward to your arrival. What a joy it was in that sacred moment to be your dad. That joy has somehow impossibly grown as each of you has grown. This book is dedicated to youtreasures all.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Whom to thank presents an author with a dilemma. At once it is a chance to recognize people who have served as midwives in the process of birthing a book. In an immediate sense, the good folks at Hazelden have been there at thought-side, encouraging the delivery. Karen Chernyaev has been involved as my editor most intimately. The book is better because of her. But if it still isnt any good, it isnt her fault. Claire Lewis, Becky Post, Gloria Gillette, Clay Garner, Bonnie Pigott, Kate Kjorlien, Judy Peacock, Dave Spohn, Corrine, Tobias, Alex, Kathy, Barry, Paula, Roxanne, Tracy, and Cindy all contributed to the birthing. I want to thank Jerry Spicer for taking the risk of bringing me on board as Hazeldens corporate medical consultant and for not only listening to my input but acting on same.

I want to thank Tina Hoover, who works with me, for her encouragement and help in the process of putting this book together.

Those immediate, hands-on, acknowledgments are easy. The dilemma is that all the people who have given me a hand along the way are too numerous to name. But without their participation in my life, this book would never have emerged from my psychecertainly not with its present contents.

First, my parents, Stoughton and Margaret White, are to be thanked not only for having me but also for putting up with and loving me throughout. Secondly, I want to thank Ann White for her encouragement to go with Ron to Italy to begin this work in 1989. There are many other things to thank her for but most importantly for our children. I want to thank Don Campbell, Ron Reimer, George OLaughlin, Ken Higdon, Bob Kroeker, and Greg Tamblyn. These men have inspired me in my local circle of support. I want to thank Susan Smiley, Ruth Forman, Kim Morenz, and Jana Hawkins likewise for their support. As the circle expands outside of Kansas City, I want to thank Elmer Green, Steve Fahrion, and Pat Norris in Topeka. Expanding further into the Kansas prairie, Jay and Sara Bremyer, have been encouraging my lunacy for thirty-five years. And still further outward, Stuart Brown, Patch Adams, you piece of , and Beach, John, Jan, Dima, Melanie, Peter, Mike, John, Norm, Marty, Fowler, Robert Bly, and a huge thanks to Coleman Barks.

To my clients and patients, heartfelt gratitude. Whatever has come out of me is there, in good measure, because of you.

Consider the following dialogue:

Doctor: Have you ever considered trying another option?

Patient: I couldnt do that.

Doctor: Why not?

Patient: Im not like that.

Doctor: How does it feel, being not like that?

Patient: Depressing.

Doctor: Why dont you be different?

Patient: I cant.

Doctor: Why not?

Patient: Because the die is cast.

Doctor: Recast the die.

Patient: I cant.

Doctor: Why not?

Patient: I dont want to risk making a fool of myself.

Doctor: Why not?

Patient: People might think Im strange. I dont want people to think Im not normal.

Doctor: Oh, so its important to you to be normal?

Patient: Yes.

Doctor: Are you normal?

Patient: Yes.

Doctor: Then why did you come to see me?

Patient: I wanted to get a second opinion. Do you think Im normal, Doc?

Doctor: Yes, but

Patient: But what?

Doctor: Normal isnt healthy.

Patient: Shit!

Dear Reader,

Ive known for some time that one of my roles on the world stage is to bug people. Ive been bugging people for years. Im a natural. As I always say, Im an equal opportunity offender. No one is safe. Thats the beauty of it. My market is the planet. Infiltrate and corruptthats my motto.

Now, dont get me wrong. I mean to bug in a good way. If normal isnt healthy, which is the theme here, then things need bugging. We need to corrupt the status quo with suspiciously healthy ideas. We need to infiltrate the normal flow of things with a benignno, a healthycontagion of infectious notions that stimulate a new look at the familiar.

The book idea has been pressed upon me as a way to propagate the contagion. I, alone and in person, can disturb only a small portion of humanity. But a book has the potential that I lack. It can do the mischief I am incapable of performing and can do so at a distance from my person. I am delighted at the thought that I can be sleeping and there is trouble afoot elsewhere. People are being bugged as I sleep. Books long outlive their authors. A book allows me to do in absentia what I am incapable of performing once the final curtain is drawn.