Wholistic medicine addresses the whole person - spirit, relationships (with other people and with the environment), mind, emotions, and body. Each of these five elements may need attention individually and at the same time each is intimately related with all of the others. Each element can contribute to the development of dis-ease and disease and can provide doorways for treatments.

The functions and interactions of these elements is enormously complex.

Spirit is that part of ourselves which incarnates aspects of our soul and serves as our continuous connection with our higher self and the All. Spirit brings with it life purposes and lessons, which are expressed and learned through all of the elements of our being. Spirit is experienced as intuitive knowing of rightness and wrongness in our lives; as inspirations; awakenings; and transcendent awareness that comes through communing with nature, with spiritual teachers, and through meditation and prayer; through synchronicities – those wonderful ‘coincidences' that hint to us of a transcendent choreography in our lives; through challenges in our lives that waken us to ask questions about the meanings of life, to ask for help, and to marvel at the miracles of healings that are given to us.

Spirit participates in relationships with the environment on many levels. Everything in nature is alive and participating in the miracles and lessons of physical existence. Nature spirits and angels guide and nurture the form and functions of everything in existence. Humans can participate with nature in spiritual stewardship of the environment.

Spirit participates in relationships between people as we incarnate from spirit existence into earthly life, bringing us into a family constellation and society in which we are learning personal, individual lessons through our relationships and at the same time are parts of a group soul that is learning and growing as a collective consciousness. Spirit is available for healing as we encounter challenges in relationships and open to the spirit level of awareness.

Spirit participates in mind as intuition, creativity, inspiration, healing of negative thoughts and beliefs, and as collective consciousness.

Spirit participates in emotions through the love and healing we allow into our hearts, to transform the negative emotions in our lives.

Spirit participates in body as we listen to body messages and as we invite energetic and spiritual healing for the hurts that are buried as symptoms within our body. Religious affiliation and practice (presumed to include spirit) are good for our physical health. Spiritual perspectives may make difficult physical problems more tolerable.

Relationships with our environment include the land, waters, air, and all the animal and plant inhabitants thereof. Each of these elements is a conscious, living part of Gaia, the geobiological being that is our planet Earth. When we are in a healing relationship with Gaia, we are stewards of the land and waters and air; wise neighbors to the wildlife, and shepherds to the domesticated animals and plants on our planet. When we act irresponsibly, we are like a virus or a cancer in this environment, even threatening its continued existence as we know it.

Gaia has survived for several billion years and has transcended crises that were apparently greater than the threats that humanity is posing to her existence. She will survive our depredations, even though humanity may not survive – certainly not in the form of the industrial society that is ravaging our planet so irresponsibly.

Environment informs us of spirit, reminding us to that we are intimate parts of a larger collective. In the same manners that we contribute to healing or harming the environment, so we can become aware that we are parts of a vaster reality. As below, so above.

Environment informs us of the importance of relationships with others through requiring that we collaborate in social collectives in safeguarding, maintaining and restoring the land, waters, air and all life-forms on our planet.
Environment informs us of ways in which we can think wholistically and conceptualize ourselves as part of the larger systems in which we are an integral part. Nature teaches us patience, persistence, selfless service and timeless healing. Nature invites us to waken to the universal energies in sacred places, trees, and remedies for our ills.

Environment teaches us love as unconditional acceptance, joy in service, and timeless healing.

A healing environment can promote physical health and enhance healing; a toxic environment can be detrimental to the body. Nature teaches us natural healing approaches and offers us remedies for our dis-eases and diseases.

Relationships with each other provide lessons–through each of the five elements–in offering, giving, asking and receiving on all levels of our being. We are born into a family and develop further relationships with others who are friends, colleagues and opponents in this spiritual dance that we call life. Our lessons are endless in their varieties of content and form, but the common denominators are the overcoming of negative, angry, hateful, vengeful relationships and the establishment of positive, loving, caring, forgiving and accepting ones.

Relationships awaken awareness of spirit. Spirit grows in experience and wisdom as we learn ever more deeply about ourselves. Spirit guides us in creating and processing relationships, in concert with other spirits in our soul group and higher levels of guidance, on our paths of learning and serving our higher purposes. Synchronicities in relationships – meeting the right person at the right time or having the perfect solution to our problems arrive unbidden – are invitations to consider the plans of the Infinite Source and our collective consciousness.

Relationships with our environment invite us to work more closely with others for the common good.

Relationships are mirrors, helping us perceive, experience and understand ourselves better.

Relationships stimulate us to emotional responses that arise from habits born of previous relationships. Such exaggerated or inappropriate responses invite us to delve into our emotional past to clear old patterns of responses that are no longer appropriate.

Relationships with other people may influence the body, calming it or stimulating stress reactions. People who are in nurturing relationships with other people and with animal companions heal more quickly from illnesses and injuries and life longer. Touch, massage, emotional support and encouragement contribute to relaxation, body harmony, and healing.

Mind organizes our understanding of the world. Most of mind's basic assumptions are laid down by a child, and these become our default beliefs and operating systems for the rest of our lives.

 
Mind contributes to spirit through prayers, intent and dedication to healing of the All. Mind seeks to understand what life is about and may learn through linear reasoning or heart wisdom. Spirit informs mind, for the most part through whispered intuitions but sometimes through the thunder and lightning of near death experiences.

Mind and emotions are activated and motivated by relationships–through the feedback of feedback nurturing and positive interactions or hard knocks.

Relationships shape our mind. During childhood, we acquire our rules for living from our family, community and culture. In many cases these rules are healthy and nurturing, but in some cases they are counter-productive and self-defeating. The vast majority of mind's capacity is unconscious. Mind has the observing capacity to realize that its rules for living may be faulty, and to learn new ways of dealing with inner and outer worlds.

Mind works closely with emotions. Mind may help sort out emotional responses for decisions on how much we allow of our feelings into conscious awareness; how much external expression to give them; whether we ask for help in dealing with them; and in learning lessons about ourselves through our emotions.

Mind is strongly linked to the five senses of body and may have a difficult time conceiving of, much less experiencing its connections to the All beyond the body. Body participates in memory, storing responses to experiences in muscles, tendons, the immune system and in other cells and tissues.

While conventional medicine and science view the brain as the origin of mind, and spirit as a product of mind's beliefs, wholistic healing perceives the brain and mind are a radio/ TV transmitter for spirit.

Emotions are responses to inner and outer experiences, particularly our relationships. We may feel hurt, anxious, fearful, angry or sad in response to negative events in our lives; we may feel joy, happiness, peace, compassion and elation.

Wholistic healing can help mind and emotions through counseling/ psychotherapy, self-healing, spiritual healing, homeopathic medications, flower essences, craniosacral therapy/ cranial osteopathy, acupuncture and its derivatives.

Spirit moves us towards quiet awarenesses or to epiphanies of resonation with the transcendent, as we respond through our emotions to inner and outer experiences in our lives. Spiritual upliftment may make difficult emotional problems more tolerable. We tacitly acknowledge this in our language, as the origins of the word heal are in the Germanic and Old English roots of haelen, "to make whole." This is the same root for “holy."

Nature speaks to us of spirit. The beauty of nature and the pathos of erosion of natural resources and environmental devastation stir our feelings and call to us for our healing.

Emotions color our relationships with other people. When we are in harmony with ourselves and others, we experience positive emotions. When we are in disharmony with others, our relationships with others move us to awareness of our emotions and theirs. Strong emotional responses are stimuli to explore our past emotional experiences and our inner rules about relating to people – often exposing inner fears that block us from being in the now; awakening us to see and hear others as they really are; and leading us to reassess how we may be behaving according to inner rules we established long ago for handling our emotions.

Emotions may influence mind to respond according to mind's beliefs and habits. Negative emotions are often buried in our unconscious awareness. Though emotions are buried, our unconscious mind is very much aware of them. The Unconscious acts in ways that distance us from anything that might rattle the emotional skeletons in its closets. For instance, we may stay away from angry men or even from all men as a way to avoid awakening buried feelings of hurt from negative experiences with a man in the past. The challenge for mind is to identify and to deal with distorted or exaggerated emotional responses.

Emotions are also stored in the body. This is why we may literally develop a pain in the neck when we are suffering from a relationship with someone whom we call a pain in our neck, or may develop stomach problems when we are always swallowing down our feelings.

Body is subject to problems from many causes: congenital, infectious, metabolic, traumatic, allergic, toxic, neoplastic, degenerative, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Wholistic care can address the physical body with touch, massage, bioenergy interventions (allopathic (conventional Western) medications, hormones, surgery, and genetic manipulations.

Wholistic care can address the biological energy (bioenergy) body with spiritual healing, acupuncture and its derivatives, homeopathic medications, flower essences, craniosacral therapy/ cranial osteopathy and other bioenergy interventions.

Physical conditions may influence psychological states and alter relationships.

Physical problems often lead us to spiritual awareness through prayer and healing. Peak experiences during sports may open our spiritual awareness. Particularly around the end of physical life, we are moved to seek spiritual explanations for our physical existence.

Our striving for body comforts and physical safety lead us to seek to control our environment.

Body may influence relationships with other people through changes in hormones, pain and other symptoms.

Body speaks to mind through symptoms and illnesses, often calling out for attention to tensions and stresses that are buried in the body and festering.

Body participates in expression and storage of emotions, through the brain and nerves, hormones and musculoskeletal system. Coming in the other direction, body tensions and symptoms alert us to disharmonies of emotions that are outside our conscious awareness.

Copyright © 2005 Daniel J. Benor, M.D. You must have specific permission from the author to reproduce any part of this article, P.O. Box 502 Medford, NJ 08055
www.WholisticHealingResearch.com   DB@WholisticHealingResearch.com

For further discussions, explanations, research and theories on wholistic healing see:
Daniel J. Benor, Healing Research, Volume II: (Popular edition)
How Can I Heal What Hurts? Wholistic Healing and Bioenergies, Medford, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications 2005.
Popular edition Explains self-healing, wholistic complementary/ alternative medicine (CAM) and bioenergies, and discusses ways in which you can heal yourself.
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Daniel J. Benor, Healing Research, Volume II: (Professional edition)
Consciousness, Bioenergy and Healing, Medford, NJ: Wholistic Healing Publications 2004.
Thorough review of research validating the efficacy of self-healing, wholistic complementary/ alternative medicine (CAM), biological energies, and environmental interactions with bioenergies.
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