Does holistic health work 100% of the time? Yes

It has been said that healing is putting right relationships that have somehow come out of balance. Almost every day, I receive calls at the Center for Holistic Health from individuals inquiring about how holistic health can help them move beyond the symptoms they are experiencing. People wonder whether the answer to their problems lies in a particular herb or type of energy work. While it is true that these things may serve as vehicles to enhance the healing process, ultimately, there must be a change in how people perceive relationships — within themselves and with others — for true healing to occur.

I often find unique ways to invoke the concept of relationship in my practice, since it helps individuals understand body dynamics. For example, we can think about the different parts of our bodies as our children. When we don't pay enough attention to our children, or parts, they begin to act out in the form of symptoms. If we treat the symptoms without addressing their cause, that's like telling our children to just shut up. Chances are our children will continue to behave in ways designed to get our attention.

When working with practice participants, my first responsibility is to help them re-establish a connection or relationship with their own body. Please allow me to explain. The pre-frontal lobes, also known as the higher brain, are the most advanced part of the human brain. This area is also the residing place for expressions and perceptions of love, creativity, reason, purpose and self-assessment. Whenever the brain gets overwhelmed with either the content or the amount of information coming in, it will protect itself by disconnecting or shutting itself off from the undesired information.

This mechanism, called frontal lobe check out, is perfectly natural under stressful conditions. However, the overload of information is then stored in the body to be processed at a later time. When we experience extreme or prolonged stress, it becomes difficult for us recover from or even realize that this disconnect is occurring. Ultimately, if we are disconnected and don't have full access to our higher brain, we cannot truly be whole.

I teach people a technique called Somato-Respiratory Integration (SRI) to help them re-establish their connection or relationship to the body. SRI is essentially an exercise in presence directed into the body, since we must be present in order for any relationship to flourish. I'm reminded of a TV commercial in which a woman is trying to speak to her husband. He says, “I'm listening,” but his attention is completely focused on a football game. Likewise, if we direct all of our attention to the conversation in our head, there will be very little left over for the body. The key is to open up the lines of communication.

Just as people in successful, long-lasting relationships don't dwell on the negative in their partners, we must be able to listen to our bodies without judgment and proceed toward healing in an honoring and non-threatening manner. Keep in mind that symptoms are signals that something needs to be explored, and ask yourself, “How open am I to communicating with someone when the first thing s/he does is to establish that I am wrong?”

Given this kind of opposition, you'd most likely not be open to too much communication. Likewise, when working to develop a connection to an area of the body after some neglect it's important not to be too forceful. Only love can conquer hate, as it were, so instead of forcing areas that are stuck, my practice focuses upon enhancing areas that are more at ease. This enables them to exist in relation to, communicate with, and free parts of the body where energy is stuck.

Relationships are powerful tools for discovering greater aspects of the self. When true healing occurs, there is always something gained or learned from the experience even if we are unable or unwilling to see the lessons that are available for us in the moment.

Relationships and healing are also congruent in the area of personal growth since both involve a greater depth of experience. As we gain greater depth in our own healing process, we realize that healing is ultimately all about our relationship with our self and with others. Ultimately, the term holistic health encompasses our relationships to our body, other people, our environment and the whole web of life. Every judgment, action and inaction, attention and intent affects this web of life as well as our own lives.