Our body knows how to heal itself
Increasingly, we are discovering that health is truly holistic. We are healthy and happy when our physical body, mind, emotions and soul are all in alignment. Healing means to make whole. We are not just our body; we also have an emotional, mental and spiritual body. Nowadays, there is a lot of emphasis on mind, body and soul. Many researchers have made the connection between mind and body.
In fact, our body knows how to heal itself - we just need to help it heal in a very holistic way. Healing is a natural process that the body already knows how to do. We need to get out of the way, listen to our body and allow it to heal. For instance, when we get food poisoning, the body will do everything it can to expel the 'poison'. When we get a cut, antibodies will be sent to the area of the body affected to heal it.
The symptoms that our body shows up means there is an imbalance which we need to correct, but instead we treat the symptoms with painkillers and antibiotics rather than going to the root cause of the issue. If physical symptoms alone are addressed, that cause still remains and will appear elsewhere in the body later on.
Humans have forgotten their innate ability to listen to their body and their intuition. If only we would rest when we are tired, if only we would allow our body to shake naturally after an accident or traumatic event, if only we could express our emotions freely when we feel angry, sad, fearful, etc. But we have been taught to stay composed all the time, that it is shameful to cry, that we should pretend that everything is ok when deep inside we are completely broken and feel empty.
The recent rise in alternative and complementary therapies shows that more and more people are looking for natural therapies instead of popping pills and medicating their bodies with chemicals and drugs.
We might drink green juices, eat all the superfood and exercise daily, but if we don't look after our mental body as well, we are not likely to feel whole, happy and fulfilled. This explains why many people are stressed, depressed and anxious, or have other mental health issues even though they take great care of their physical body.
By doing a physical, emotional, mental and Spiritual 'detox' regularly, we make sure that we are not carrying anything that is not serving us anymore. We go through life with:
- Physical body: chronic pain, illnesses, tension, fatigue and diseases.
- Emotional body: our emotional baggage like anger, sadness, shame, guilt, fear and hurt.
- Mental body: all our limiting beliefs that manifest as depression, worry, anxiety and stress. e.g 'I am not good enough, I cannot be rich, etc.'
- Spiritual body: feeling empty, lost, incomplete, disconnected and fragmented.
Eckhart Tolle, spiritual teacher, states:
"The pain-body is my term for the accumulation of old emotional pain that almost all people carry in their energy field. It consists of negative emotions that were not faced, accepted, and then let go in the moment they arose."
Physical pain is the manifestation of emotional pain. When we don't deal with our painful emotions, after a number of years they turn into chronic physical pain. With healing, it is important to get through the pain, not above it or around it. It is only by going through the emotions that we can release them from the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level. Once they have been acknowledged, recognised and integrated, they can then be released.
By allowing the body to heal itself the natural way, we are not getting in its way. All healing is self-healing. Even if we go to a healer or therapist, he or she does not heal us. They trigger within us our own ability to heal ourselves. They also empower us to heal ourselves on all levels.
We cannot live a happy and meaningful life if we are disconnected and fragmented - this is why it is so important to look at the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies simultaneously. We desperately need to listen to the physical symptoms and subtle messages that our body is constantly sending us and act on them so we can feel whole, complete and fulfilled.