How to Speed Healing Through a Holistic Approach
While the crisis of physical illness or pain is something no one ever welcomes, crisis brings opportunity for positive change. This is true of physical disease. The crisis of physical disease forces focus on health: seeking lifestyle changes, medical treatment, and alternatives such as energy healing, detoxification, and dietary supplements. While detoxification and nutritional healing are often necessary, the emotional and spiritual life of a person is just as important to healing and transformation.
Holistic healers understand that while physical ailments may have a root cause in the body, emotional and spiritual issues may also be the cause of the physical symptom. The relationship between the body and emotions is now understood scientifically. In Candace Pert's groundbreaking book,Molecules of Emotions, the body-mind connection is explained by the functions of neuropeptides.
Dr. Pert writes that neuropeptides carry messages in the nervous system, immune system, growth factors, and gut peptides. Some peptides include the endorphins (happy hormones), insulin (blood sugar control), vasopressin (responsible for blood pressure), sex hormones, and serotonin (the feel-good neurotransmitter) just to name a few. These directly impact physical wellness.
What is truly amazing is that we now know that neuropeptides change configuration due to emotional influence! These chemical messengers change according to our thoughts and emotions. Whether positive or negative thoughts and emotions--specific neuropeptides are made in the brain and nervous system, white blood cells, reproductive system, digestive system and heart. They form a two-way network between mind and body. By neuropeptides, our thoughts and emotions become our biology.
Releasing negative emotions and thoughts are as important to physical healing as nutritional healing, detoxification and lifestyle changes. It is often negative emotional thoughts and feelings which trigger physical illness indirectly through neuropeptides. Many studies support this, and show that major illness is likelier to manifest within a year following a traumatic event or emotional shock.
As our thoughts and emotions influence our physical health through neuropeptides, our spirit controls our thoughts and emotions. This is why spiritual healing is so important to healing the person as a whole. A loving, joyful, kind, peaceful, patient, forgiving spirit does not generate toxic thoughts and emotions which can produce disease. Spiritual growth is a vital part of healing as the spiritual growth produces more trust in God, and generates thoughts and emotions which can help us heal.
An example of this is a client who came to me complaining of pain in her arms, neck, and chest. Her complains were strictly physical. The pain had been going on for weeks and was debilitating. Her muscles were very tender and tight. Uncharacteristically, acupressure did not provide relief. We began using the Emotional Freedom Technique, EFT, as it is very effective on relieving physical pain, but it wasn't stopping the pain either.
As the session progressed, she began discussing upsetting family issues. We then changed the focus of the EFT session on emotional issues of disappointment, betrayal, and guilt. As the EFT session progressed, the location of pain moved on her body. For example, guilt produced a heavy sensation in her back not felt before, although her arms and neck now no longer had pain. Within 30 minutes, most of her pain was gone everywhere. Having released much of the trapped, negative emotional energy in her body, she felt free to pray, giving the situation to God and followed up with suggested dietary supplements. She called me the next day happy to report she felt completely well.
In her session, strictly focusing on physical healing would have likely delayed her wellness. In this case, medical or alternative medical approaches may not have been effective in removing the cause of her pain. Physical illness can have its primary roots in the physical; but it often takes a skillful holistic practitioner to distinguish the difference.
Healing body, mind and spirit involves nutritional healing, detoxification, and lifestyle changes as well as spiritual exercises such as gratitude journaling, and emotional release techniques such as EFT. Holistic healing uses methods so that all of the root causes of dysfunction are addressed. Physical pain and disease can be a symptom of underlying emotional and spiritual issues and also an opportunity to heal the body, mind and spirit.
