Embracing Healing Naturally
Natural Health is just that: our bodies are running “programs” 24/7 that regulate and sustain our life. Our bodies are truly amazing. When my sister was attending nursing school one of her instructors said: “If you ever want to know if there is a God, study human anatomy and physiology.”
These wonderous processes have fascinated western minds for centuries, eastern minds for millennia. Our nervous system has functions that govern our senses and response to our environment and functions that continue “behind the scenes.”
The autonomic nervous system is remarkable: while sleeping it keeps your breathing consistent. Asleep or awake, it keeps your heart pumping, your alimentary system (entire digestive tract) working, blood pressure, skin temperature, hormone balance and a myriad of other functions that we really never think about.
Until eastern and western medicine had became more widely known, the functions of our body-mind-spirit were a mystery to us. There are discoveries made daily that reveal more of the eloquent intricacies of our being. And the benefit of today is the intersection, more importantly the interweaving of eastern and western approaches to Integral Wellness.
Medical science tells us that the body functions are governed by the Central Nervous System (CNS). An adult male has around 36 trillion cells (that’s 36 followed by 12 zeros) in the body. Yet, the CNS is not connected directly to all those cells. Imagine, how is it you are alive if your nervous system is not directly connected to each and every cell? How is communication between cells maintained? Chemical exchange? Mind-body-spirit?
How is it, then, that a single cell ‘knows’ how to allow nutrients in and expel waste matter? Is there some other force of intelligence at work that maintains the balance of life in each cell in your body?
There are elements of life-force energy (subtle energy) that power our bodies. More today, we are coming into a general understanding that this type of energy, while beyond time and space, is a very real, integral component of life itself! This is why the merging of eastern and western medicine is so important; that there is much more to you than just chemical exchanges and nervous electrical impulses.
Science has shown that the nervous system “moves” at about 1 meter per second (1m/s). That is, if you stub your toe it takes a little over a second for the signal of pain to reach your brain. The meridians of the body (channels of subtle energy that are referred to as “Qi,” “chi,” “ki,” “prana,” and many other names for the same thing) are channels that conduct the subtle energy and research has shown it to travel at about 10-20 centimeters per second (10-20cm/s).
So if you visit an acupuncturist for instance who is trained in the manipulation of Qi energy, they will place needles at specific points to stimulate or sedate a pattern of points that bring you back to balance, and a session may take an hour to an hour and a half.
Our bodies “know” what to do. Chiropractors famously have a poster in their clinic that states “The energy that made the body restores the body.” Chiropractic adjustments can restore the balance of energy in your body.
Pranic healers (energy medicine) are conduits of Qi energy and allow the life force to flow through (not from) them to restore balance.
It should be noted that these three methods are only a few of many, and that the effects are not just balance in the body, but help balance mental, emotional and spiritual states!
Nutrition, diet, exercise, healthy mental attitudes, emotional balance, spiritual practices, meditation all play a part.
Integral (mind-body-spirit) holistic wellness practitioners are versed in understanding these subtle energies and engaging in their respective methods to facilitate the Whole Human Being to balance. This is the age where we will see more and more of the merging of eastern and western healing, with practitioners who are more awakened to the integral essence of our being.
Blessings,
Dr. Richard Jelusich, Ph.D.
