Blue Rose Healing Arts: Transitions and Transformations: Holistic Healing and Body, Mind, and Spirit

Holistic Healing and Body, Mind, and Spirit

The word “holistic,” as in “holistic healing,” refers to the whole of a person. Not just your body, your physical self, which is the focus of Western medicine, but your mind and spirit as well. The theory behind holistic healing is that true healing is difficult to achieve without taking into account all that you are—your mind and spirit as well as your physical self

Let’s talk a bit about the other “parts” of yourself besides your body.

When I use the word “mind” I am thinking of your mental and emotional self: your intellect and reasoning, your subconscious as well as your conscious thoughts, and all your emotions and feelings, “negative” as well as “positive”—your fears and your anger and your resentments as well as your joy and your love and your delight in the pleasures in your life. I put “negative” and “positive” in quotes because your emotions—your feelings—are very natural responses to what is happening around you or to you. No emotion is “good” or “bad”; it just is. What makes an emotion seem good or bad has more to do with how it affects your life and how you react or respond to it. If your response to anger is to take a time-out and try to determine why you are reacting the way you are and deal with that underlying situation, that is good, but if your response to anger is to reactively beat up that which triggers that emotion than that is not so good. Mind, as I use it, therefore also includes how you look at and react to the world.

When I talk of “spirit” I am thinking of that aspect of yourself that seeks for and applies meaning to your life and the events around you, whether you are religious or not. There is obviously an overlap here with mind, but for me spirit generally deals with your relationship to that which is greater than—and often seen as outside—yourself, whether that is a Higher Power in some religious sense or is simply your trust in the skill of your doctor or your own capabilities. When I was working as a hospice spiritual counselor (another name for “chaplain”) we were known as members of the Spiritual Care team, so people would often ask me what “spiritual care” meant. I would reply “care of the spirit.” If someone has experienced a trauma of some sort—perhaps she has been laid off, or a loved-one has died— you will often hear others ask, “How are her spirits?” What they are really asking is not just is she sad or scared, but also how is her general outlook: How is she responding to her trauma? Is she optimistic or pessimistic? And most importantly, What is sustaining her in her trials? That is her spirit.

As you can see from the list on my home page I am skilled in a variety of modalities that can all work together to support you as a whole being. Let’s look at how those modalities roughly fit into a discussion of body, mind, and spirit.

Body: In a way you can say that my Reiki practice deals primarily with the body—working with the flow of life-force energy within your body. The blockage or imbalance of energy within your body can contribute to illness, and freeing up that flow can improve health.
Mind: Hypnotherapy uses guided imagery to help heal and balance the subconscious mind so that you can be more mentally and emotionally integrated and therefore more capable of living effectively in the world. Guided imagery also works with the power of the mind/body connection to allow you to make changes in your body through visualization.
Spirit: As a Spiritual Director, I can help you find meaning in your life and discern that which sustains you through the hard times. Tools such as meditation, walking the labyrinth, and ritual can help you find that quiet place within you where you can listen to your guiding wisdom, whether for you it is your own inner wisdom or the voice of God or Spirit.

Not surprisingly, just as the division of each of us into body, mind, and spirit is really artificial— each of us is a whole being, not a collection of parts—all of these modalities interrelate.

Reiki can help bring about inner peace as well as helping bring symptom reduction or even full healing to your body. Since Reiki began as a spiritual practice, it can also be beneficial in aiding your connection to Spirit.
Hypnotherapy, like Reiki, can help with physical symptoms and can also help with connection to Spirit through guided meditation, as well as helping you find mental and emotional balance.
Through spiritual direction you can, of course, find your connection to Spirit, but in addition, spiritual direction can help you make corrections in the course your life has been taking. Finding your spiritual compass can help you achieve inner peace and sometimes physical healing, as well as finding deeper meaning in your life.

My skills in intuitive counseling work with all of these to help you find that which you seek. And ritual can be an excellent way to achieve full balance in body, mind, and spirit.

My preferred approach to my holistic healing work is to use any or all of these modalities, interchangeably or combined, to help you bring about the changes you wish in your life. Contact me for more information or to arrange a free consultation to discuss how I might aid you in whatever change you are wishing to make in your life.

Rev. Jenny Sill-Holeman, CHt, RM
Contact Jenny
650-369-6215 (phone & fax)
Redwood City, California