The body functions in a phenomenal orchestration of metabolic processes involving cells, tissues, organs, systems, fluids, gases, chemistry and energy – including interactions with other people and a variety of other organisms.

This impressively complex metabolic orchestration is the result of a detailed set of instructions or innate intelligence at work on every particle of every cell. Our innate intelligence is analogous to the operating system of a computer. An operating system is designed to accomplish or manage a specific set of purposes. Our potential to survive and thrive is largely determined by how well matched our operating systems are to the complex metabolic challenges we face in our world.

Innate intelligence has long been revered in the healing arts, but often its limits have been mistaken or overlooked. One prevalent idea is that of vitalism or the thought that the operating system is perfectly purposed and fully capable of adapting to all that modern life could throw at it. It shouldn’t take long in considering either natural poisons or deadly man-made chemicals to realize that such a position is wishful thinking. Likewise, there are such a variety of “inborn errors” affecting individual metabolisms that the old adage “one man’s food is another man’s poison” takes on great clinical significance.

We can imagine the day will come when it is possible to fully map out an individual’s operating system, along with the knowledge of the optimal operating environment as well as specific obstacles that might critically impair an individual’s well-being. For now however, those boundaries are still largely hidden from view.

Our innate intelligence can be a two-edged sword. It is ultimately what we must rely on for treatment success even as we investigate ways that it may have become unreliable. It is a sound principle to seek the “underlying cause” of an individual’s lack of well-being, but that is still more of an ongoing process between discovery and intervention than it is the sum of a group of objective measures.

Metabolic pathways are intermingled in complex ways and the origin of an individual’s symptomatic signal from a disruption of homeostasis can sometimes only be hinted at by an indirect measurement. We truly participate in the art of healing by applying time honored principles, such as embodied by D.R.E.S.S. for Health Success®, while taking advantage of every available insight that can be gleaned through carefully considered testing. In some cases, only a great intuitive leap (or an almost exhaustive set of tests) would give a direct measurement of the cause.

Healing opportunities are identified through taking careful histories and correlating them with the results from well-chosen labs. This approach has proven to be very beneficial, even though it is always proven by hindsight, since it relies on non-specific findings to fashion a very individualized solution. This process of applying wellness principles and exploring individual limitations leads us on a journey of ever deepening insights about individual obstacles to health and opportunities for overcoming those obstacles. The honest pursuit of these healing opportunities and creatively working towards their resolution is the basis upon which FDN works.