I am a holistic health practitioner but what does that really mean?
Holistic is twofold, firstly, it means taking the entire body into consideration and not seeing each system as independent from each other, as is often done in allopathic medicine. For example, if you have eczema, you go see a dermatologist and the dermatologist gives you a cream to address the eczema but a holistic practitioner will look at the entirety of the physical and mental body, recognizing that the skin pathology has a deeper source or origin.
Secondly, wholeness is the embodied sense of feeling safe, creative, strong, loved, expressive, spontaneous and connected to our true self. It is what we all are but we may have forgotten or buried, through certain life experiences that may have shaped our beliefs and worldviews.
Wholeness is the felt sense of feeling preciously complete. Not looking outward for validation, not looking at the past to predict the future, not giving your power away to others or ideas which you may have come to believe. Wholeness is present moment awareness in the greatness of yourself, which has and always will be enough. Anything less creates unbalances in the mind and body. We thrive when we are in alignment with ourselves, when we are in tune with our innate wholeness.
In our hectic and busy lives, it becomes essential to create a regular practice that reminds our mind and body, that we are whole. We need this because old habits die-hard but our brains and nervous systems are malleable and through practice, we are able to be the change we seek to be. This self-nurturing and self-affirming practice can be as diverse as we all are on this planet and can differ on a daily basis according to our needs. We can choose to meditate, practice yoga, sing, do art, dance, do breath work, walk, etc. If we feel we need extra support on this path we can also turn to practitioners to give us a helping hand at seeing our completeness but the practice of reclaiming it is essentially ours to do and wouldn’t be of any help if it were any different.
Seeing our wholeness in all of life’s adversities is in many ways our life’s work – or what we call the human experience.
