"When we learn how to properly cultivate the garden of our health, we gain the ability to sustain optimal well-being. The steps may vary for each individual, but the process is always personal and intentional."

1. Healing in the Right Order: Cultivating the Garden of Health

Maintaining good health is a step-by-step process—and following the proper order is essential. Just as you wouldn’t plant seeds in a garden overrun with weeds and expect a thriving harvest, true healing cannot take place without first preparing the internal environment.

An experienced practitioner of natural medicine understands that health transformation follows a logical and biological sequence. The “soil” of the body—particularly the microbiome of the gut, mouth, and reproductive system—must first be nourished and cleared of imbalances. When the internal environment is unhealthy, pathogens like viruses and bacteria can thrive. However, these invaders are often not the core issue—they are symptoms of an overburdened, toxic, or depleted internal terrain.

According to the laws of nature, when the right nutrients are introduced into the right environment, at the right time, the body has the innate intelligence to heal itself. True health is not forced—it is cultivated. Just as a gardener must be patient, tending the soil, removing weeds, and rebuilding nutrients over time, so too must we approach healing with respect for timing, order, and natural rhythms.

This philosophy differs greatly from the allopathic medical model, which often seeks to suppress symptoms or force physiological responses quickly. In nature, when growth is forced or steps are skipped, the system suffers. The same is true for the human body.

If we consistently introduce chemicals, medications, or toxins—whether knowingly or not—into the "soil" of our bodies, we compromise our ability to grow and maintain good health. Without regular care, intention, and alignment with nature’s laws, the garden cannot thrive, and neither can we.

2. Step 1: The Initial Consultation — Beginning the Detoxification Process

The first consultation marks the beginning of a structured and personalized healing journey. During this visit, Dr. Robert Abell or Dr. Lisa Abell will take a comprehensive health history to understand the root causes behind your illness or dysfunction. Most chronic conditions are multifactorial, often involving accumulated toxins, suppressed biological processes, lifestyle factors, and stress.

A core principle of our approach is that true healing cannot occur unless the body’s drainage pathways—including the liver, kidneys, intestines, lymphatic system, and skin—are functioning properly. These systems must be open and efficient to allow toxins to exit cells, organs, and glands, making detoxification both effective and sustainable.

Detoxification is not a one-time event; it is a step-by-step, cultivated process that must follow the natural order of the body. Just as in a garden, you cannot grow healthy plants in toxic soil. Similarly, the body must be properly prepared before regeneration and repair can take place.

During this first phase, we begin teaching you how to manage your internal environment through:

• Taking prescribed remedies consistently

• Following a personalized, anti-inflammatory nutrition plan

• Incorporating proper movement and exercise

• Cultivating self-care habits that support long-term health

This initial visit is just the first step—the foundation of a longer journey that will evolve based on your condition, your body’s responsiveness, and the stage of illness. With regular maintenance and commitment, you can reduce the risk of future acute illness and begin to restore balance from the inside out.

3. Medications in the Soil: How Drugs Affect the Garden of Health

Emergency medicine plays a critical and often life-saving role—as its name implies, it is meant for emergencies. However, our modern medical model has shifted away from this original intent. It now relies heavily on suppressing symptoms, whether in acute or chronic conditions, rather than cultivating a healthy internal environment that prevents disease in the first place.

When medications such as antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and other pharmaceutical drugs are used frequently, they begin to alter the body’s terrain—or "soil"—in significant ways. Just as applying chemicals to a garden impacts the quality of the soil, regular use of medication can disrupt the body's natural processes, making it more prone to dysfunction over time.

While medications may be necessary, especially in certain cases, their side effects and toxic accumulation can often be mitigated through natural support, including homeopathic remedies, drainage therapies, and organ support protocols. These strategies help detoxify the body and maintain healthier function, even while medications are in use.

That said, healing a medicated and chemically burdened system takes time—just as restoring nutrient-rich soil in an overtreated garden is not an overnight task. But with proper guidance, patience, and care, it is possible to rebuild the body’s internal environment and support long-term wellness from the inside out.

4. Diligence with healthy habits is necessary for a healthy internal environment:

If a garden is tended for a few months and then the gardener stops watering, tending and cultivating the little plants, the plants grow to their fullest potential. Healthy habits are instilled in the form of:

1. being diligent about continuing with new protocols every 2-4 months to support optimal detoxification of the systems of the body

2. compliance with protocols

3. adding baths

4. movement or exercise

5. proper eating

6. managing mental and emotional stressors

Regular maintenance is essential in the detoxification process. Adding chemicals, medications and toxins to our “garden” will affect the soil, the way the garden will grow and lengthen the healing time with cultivating a healthy garden. Medication may be added due to various reasons for a period of time and this can be discussed with your doctor to mitigate the side effects of the medication. Biological Medicine is a methodical process that takes a patient from a “diseased state” to a healthy state in a systematic way. Medications are always assessed on an individual basis according to the history of the patient and what medications are necessary for the patient and which can be removed when the patient heals from their symptoms.

5. Managing Unhealthy Habits: 

The body’s systems get “clogged” by eating out regularly. (This is due to added toxic oils, pesticides, antibiotics and hormones, plastics, microwave, preservatives, non organic foods) Other unhealthy habits include lack of exercise, overconsumption of sugar, alcohol or nicotine, junk foods, high stress, toxic environment at work or at home or irregular sleeping habits. The body may become “clogged” if the patient does not develop healthy habits. Once healthy skills are learned, then a patient can cultivate his or her garden well without having support from his/her doctor regularly. The patient now has skills of one’s own that one can implement, and support from their doctor is needed once every 5-6 months rather than every few months. . Baths, exercise, nutrients, managing stressors, or a change of unhealthy habits can ward off imminent disease. In this way, the patient begins to take responsibility for his/her own health and reduces the possibility for any future “dis-ease”.

6. Supporting Natural Laws with naturally derived vitamins, minerals and nutrients:
Tending our garden according to a flawed medical system rather than according to Natural Laws will often produce disease. If a patient does not have expert gardening skills or uses quick suppression approaches, this may result later in acute or chronic disease. Many take care of their health without experienced practitioners of natural medicine, however, the results may not be optimal. True experts are needed in order to succeed in our health and in our life. Often, the media and flawed science does not give us accurate expertise on how to stay healthy due to hidden monetary gain, personal kickbacks and personal agendas. Those who return to a diet and lifestyle of traditional foods, and those living according to natural laws, produces successful results with their health. Excellent research today is mixed with harmful untruth and it is difficult to know what is truly healthy for the body and what are lies. Having accurate knowledge and guidance on how to maintain proper health can be life saving.

7. Learning how to use natural remedies when acute issues arise:

With regular treatment and detoxification, patients learn how to use natural remedies specifically for their own acute issues whether this be chronic headaches or joint pain. Patients will learn how to use natural remedies for their own and their children’s acute issues. Natural support does not produce harmful consequences or side effects. Tylenol or antibiotics, on the other hand, affect the terrain/soil of the gut and immune system. Using anti-inflammatories semi-regularly, will likely allow “invaders” like systemic viruses and bacteria to enter the organism without proper immune defense. Long term use of medications will affect one’s systems. There are usually consequences later for short term pain relief. Tylenol is one of the most common causes of liver failure. The side effects of Tylenol and other anti-inflammatories are on the CDC website. Regular use of anti-inflammatories is similar to Opioid drugs. These drugs have now been directly shown to be addictive and harmful. Many over the counter medications have harmful results that directly affect our body’s organs, tissues and glands. Often the side effects are the very consequences that patients are trying to manage. With any long term medication, the more toxins that are placed in the “soil-or gut microbiome”, the more consequences this will have in the future of our “health”.

8. Building a healthy foundation takes time and an investment in your health:

If patients have had many years of medications or processed foods, then these chemicals and drugs are in the “soil” of their garden. When planting healthy seeds in chemical laden soil, often the seeds will not grow well. Because this is common in our modern era of medicine and processed foods, our soil will become “out of balance”. Dysbiosis or abnormal gut flora means that pathogenic organisms are thriving in the body instead of healthy gut flora. This happens when the good microbes in our soil are out of balance with the bad ones. All microwaved food, processed foods, chemicals, medications and environmental and industrial toxins kill our good bacteria. If parents have unhealthy soil, then they pass their unhealthy soil on to the child. As the saying goes, “The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.” 

When this happens, we must change this soil from unhealthy (pathogenic) to healthy (life-giving). It is not realistic to change the soil in 2 months. When a conventional farmer wants to change their farm from a conventional one to an organic farm, it takes the soil 3-5 years to certify the garden as organic. If we have infections, bacteria, fungal growth or yeast, there is abnormal flora. The soil is not healthy. The fungi or bacteria is not the “problem” but a “result" of the problem from the unhealthy soil. It will take some time to change the soil to healthy, life giving soil again through work and proper cultivation. The more medications, toxic foods, toxic ways, and chemical exposures in our environment, the more work it will take to create a healthy, thriving garden with healthy soil. This means that the detoxification and rebuilding process may take longer. The good news is that all gardens have the potential to change and become healthy again.

9. Maintaining a healthy diet is individually based: 

What patients consider a diet to be healthy whether being vegan, vegetarian, Keto or filled with carbohydrates may not be optimal for what the individual needs to function correctly. An example of this may be that a patient may not want to eat saturated fat. If we do not eat specific forms of saturated fat, this will then affect our brain, skin and gut mucosa. Memory issues, dry skin, along with gut issues may surface. The body needs specific nutrients: vitamins, minerals, amino acids, organ meats and fats. If these nutrients are not obtained, then the body will be compromised in specific ways. The patient will learn how to eat correctly according to the needs of their body’s deficiencies during this process. Adding specific fats, meats or nutrients has nothing to do with our beliefs, opinions and preferences about diet, but what the individual actually needs to function optimally.

10. Detoxification Foods vs. Rebuilding Foods: What we put into the soil: 

When addressing a patient’s specific dietary concerns, each patient may go through specific phases of a specific diet for a period of time implementing detoxification and/or rebuilding foods into the diet. Often a patient needs a specific percentage of foods for detoxification and a specific percentage of foods for rebuilding the organism depending on whether the patient has inflammation, a degenerative disease or if the patient is trying to successfully lose weight. It is a myth that weight loss only occurs by changing the diet or with diet and exercise alone. There are many other factors to consider.

Conclusion: Gardening, like our health, is not simple. There is no single cure-all substance that will completely heal a garden. Health takes work by managing, nourishing and tending in the right way. Wisdom and understanding of the natural laws is not common with natural practitioners today. Sadly, we look to single cure-all remedies to rectify our untended garden. By learning the skills of proper cultivation and understanding that health is multifactorial and constant. (Much like cleaning a house; it will continue to get dirty every day) We will guide a patient back to health. Once the garden is managed and properly tended, it will still take work (like cleaning a house weekly to maintain order) but it will be much easier than leaving the garden untended and undernourished. When a new patient comes to us, we must work with the patient to overhaul the garden. Understanding these natural laws and working in harmony with them is unique to our practice. Most practitioners pull a few weeds with their patients by giving a few nutritional supplements, but do not understand how to manage and cultivate healthy people through the many phases of their patient’s lives from birth, childhood, adolescence, pregnancy, surgeries, traumas, menopause, andropause and old age.

Biological Medicine and Homeopathic treatment is a step by step process that addresses the many problems with health in both acute and chronic situations. The garden is yours to tend. It will take work like everything wonderful that we obtain in life: raising a child, playing an instrument, a degree, learning a sport or building a house. We cannot tend your garden, but we can help you to effectively make changes in order for your garden to be abundant, healthy and fruitful. We take our health for granted until we do not have it. Dr. Abell and I will help you with this process for life-long health for you and your family. 

Warm regards, 

Dr. Lisa Abell, DACM, L.Ac & Dr. Robert Abell, N.D., VNMI