Welcome to the Ask,
Learn,
Heal podcast.
I'm Mary Jofele,
Your host,
And in this episode I want to talk about holistic healing,
Which is an approach to wellness and health and health care that really does address all aspects of health.
And after we spend a few minutes taking a look at what I mean by holistic health,
Then we're going to take a closer look at physical health through the lens of holistic healing.
So,
As we all know,
Being healthy is about having a balanced life.
And so when I talk about health,
And perhaps you've heard me talk about it before,
You're always going to hear me talking about physical health and emotional and mental health and actually spiritual health too.
And I do that because all of those are parts of our life.
They're all intertwined and interconnected.
They're ever-changing and we really can't separate them.
So my approach is always going to be very comprehensive.
And secondly,
I tease these aspects apart because in my experience as an energy healer over the last 20 years,
I've actually learned through my experience and through all of my work that these four parts of our being,
Physical,
Emotional,
Mental,
And spiritual,
They all land in different parts of our energy field.
And so that's why I want to stress this.
And I want you to remember it too,
If at all possible,
Because it will help you be able to best determine how you can support your own healing.
But before I get too far ahead of myself,
I do want to take just a couple minutes to explain a little bit more about what I mean by holistic healing.
We're all pretty familiar with a more Western conventional model of health care where we identify what our symptoms are,
How we're feeling.
We talk with the provider and they're able to make a diagnosis and offer various ways of addressing the health needs that we are presenting so that we can once again attain good health.
There are some really powerful benefits that come out of this conventional medicine model and there also is a flip side to approaching health care from much more of a holistic approach.
And when we look at holistic,
We can kind of divide it into two groups.
One is considered complementary because together with conventional medicine,
The approaches from a holistic health care model that are done at the same time are considered complementary.
If we have a holistic approach that is used completely in place of conventional medicine,
That's considered alternative.
And the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine,
Which is actually a part of the National Institute of Health,
Has identified five main categories of holistic medicine.
Mind-body medicine,
Whole medical systems,
Manipulative and body-based practices,
Energy medicine,
And biologically-based practices.
So those are the five kind of main categories.
Energy medicine is the one that I focus on and that my work,
I would say,
Is going to align with the most.
And so as I mentioned at the start of today's episode,
I want to take a look at physical health and how we can best support physical health and make shifts towards a higher state of well-being from the perspective of this complementary approach that energy healing can offer.
So physical health refers to,
Of course,
The state of our body and how it's operating or lack thereof.
And we,
Of course,
Know that our diet,
Our level of physical activity,
The ability that we are resting and getting adequate sleep,
All of those are aspects that feed into our physical health.
When we view our physical health through the lens of the complementary health care system,
That's again where we're going to land on the category of energy medicine.
And I think this is just such a wonderful way that we can identify a physical issue,
Concern,
Or need that we have.
And then we can connect with the energetic part of our physical body that's affected,
Not only at a physical level,
But also at an energetic level.
And this is how I believe that healing is able to take place within us.
An example of this would be that a person could be having a headache.
And we know that headaches occur for a wide variety of reasons.
It could be we're dehydrated.
It could be that we've had too much screen time or too much caffeine.
We can be really stressed.
We can be lacking sleep.
There are lots of different reasons for a headache.
An allopathic approach,
The more conventional approach,
Would be to take a pain-reducing medication that can definitely help with the symptoms.
And at the same time,
Working with the energetic approach,
Which is complementary,
To be able to address what is going on under the surface,
So to speak,
To better support overall understanding between the relationship of the symptom or the illness or the dis-ease within the body and how that connects with lack of movement or stagnated energy within the energy field.
So for the next couple of minutes,
I'm going to walk you through a very simple guided meditation that is going to help you,
First and foremost,
Get in touch with an aspect of your physical body that you would like to bring healing into and to do that from a more complementary approach.
So I invite you to allow yourself to sit back and become quiet and give yourself permission to pause for just a little bit.
And as you begin to settle into that space of quiet,
Bring your awareness to a concern that you hold within your physical body.
It could be something that's relatively recent.
It could be a chronic situation that you've been dealing with for some time.
Just simply allow yourself to bring your awareness to what it is that you would like to offer healing,
Particularly through that energetic aspect,
That energy medicine aspect of complementary medicine at this time.
So as you settle into a place of rest,
Allow yourself to get comfortable,
Move your body gently as you need to,
To release any stress or any tension.
And very gently allow yourself to focus on your breath and allow yourself to follow the breath as you draw in oxygen in through your lungs and follow that oxygen as it moves throughout your body,
Knowing that it's taking vital life force with it,
Nurturing and supporting you in all aspects of your body functioning.
And as you breathe in gently,
This is helping your body to shift into a state of rest and relaxation where repair and restoration takes place.
And now slowly begin to bring your awareness to that concern.
It could be a physical symptom,
It could be a health condition,
It could be discomfort that is arising in your physical body and focus your attention,
Focus your awareness on that part of your body.
Simply allow yourself to be aware of your breath as you draw it in and allow yourself to be aware of the part of your body that you are choosing to focus on at this time.
Gently drawing in this vital oxygen and see the oxygen flowing all the way to the cells of this particular part of your body,
Replenishing the cells so that they are able to function optimally.
Each breath drawing in not only oxygen but also vital life force energy and allow that vital life force energy to also move into this part of your physical body that you are calling forth for healing.
Each breath in,
Bringing in healing energy and oxygen.
Each breath out,
Very intentionally sending all of that healing and oxygen to this particular place that you are holding in and out and begin to notice that part of your body that you are focusing on and become aware of the changes and shifting that is beginning to take place,
Allowing this healing to focus in on your cells and on the physical body all the while drawing in vital oxygen and vital life force and sending it to your body.
Begin to notice what is changing,
What is beginning to shift in your physical body and be grateful for whatever is changing and know that even after you return to full awareness this shift is going to be continuing as each breath continue to draws in vital energy and oxygen knowing that the focused healing that you are doing in this part of your body is rippling out and affecting your entire being yet all the while you are focusing on this specific need.
And now begin to bring your awareness back to present moment.
Again knowing that the healing that you have initiated is going to be continuing for some time.
Begin to wiggle your fingers and toes shifting your body as you shift back into a more alert and aware state.
Taking a couple of final breaths allow yourself to return back into present moment.
So following this short meditation I'm going to ask you to be aware of what you noticed and what shifts may you be aware of.
How are you feeling now compared to how you were feeling at the beginning of the meditation?
When we're working with healing physical issues,
Physical concerns,
Physical symptoms,
It's really important for us to remember that changes to the physical body take time.
And the reason they do is that the imbalances within the energy field,
Some of those more disruptive or slow-moving stagnant energies have been in that area for a while and they've actually settled into a more more of a density which means they've landed in our physical body.
It's going to take a little bit of time for it to clear out because our physical level is always the last to heal because that's where the energies are the densest.
So it may be that repeating this meditation often working with the same particular concern or issue is going to be really helpful for you.
It could be that the issue that you called forth has shifted which is wonderful and I would say I would invite you to repeat this meditation with other issues that are arising with you as needed.
Meditations such as this where we connect the energy field and in this case with the physical symptom or a physical issue that we're dealing with.
It's so simple yet so powerful when it comes to improving our physical well-being.
And today for example we focused on physical health.
In upcoming episodes you're also going to be learning how we can work with these same holistic health approaches to address emotional and mental and spiritual health issues as well.
We're always having things arise for us and sometimes it's physical and sometimes it's more of an emotional disruption.
So this is a sort of very simple meditation that we can bring forth over and over again repeating as needed to support our holistic approach to healing.
So I'm hoping that you found this helpful.
I would love to hear comments as to how you're working with this type of simple guided meditation to address physical issues that are arising for you.
I want to thank you for joining me today.
Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions so that I can support you.
That's really what I'd like to do through these podcasts is to help you really learn how to become even more of a healer for yourself and any way I can support you in doing that to bring health and well-being to your body,
Mind,
Spirit is really one of my my most important aspects in this work.
So until next time,
Many blessings.
Be well.
