Healing on All Levels – What are the stages in the holistic healing process?
When you understand and implement the strategies required for holistic healing, your individual healing process will unfold naturally. Here is a brief insight into the five stages of holistic healing that you can prepare yourself for:
- Cleanse
The cleansing stage is about creating a physical environment (starting with your body) that is conducive to healing on all levels. These areas can include:
- Physical detoxification – removing toxins from your body through organic supplements and changing your diet.
- Removing environmental toxins – abstaining from the use of chemicals in the home, alleviating pollution in the environment whether it be air pollution, noise pollution or water pollution.
- Any other physical factor that could hinder healing – this includes healing or removing relationships in your life that do not support your healing process.
When we cleanse our bodies and our environment, we begin the detoxification process whereby chemicals, heavy metals, pollution etc that have accumulated in our bodies over time, are slowly removed from our systems.
A healthy body and a healthy environment provide the necessary foundation for healing and so should be maintained at least for the duration of the healing process.
- Psychodynamics
Psychodynamics refers to exploring the initiating causes of our illness. It includes the negative beliefs, old wounds, regrets and unresolved relationships which have contributed to our disease process. This is when we acknowledge somewhere along the line that, you experienced pain and made a decision about yourself based on an illusion.
Start by being honest with yourself about the following:
- What emotional memories from the past do you need to heal?
- What relationships in your life require healing?
- Is there anyone in your life that you haven’t forgiven, including yourself?
This process ultimately leads to identifying beliefs that have undermined our natural state of wellbeing.
- Release
The release process is the most cathartic experience of the healing process. It is when you release yourself and others from the pain of an experience through forgiveness. Release only occurs when you see the situation for what it is: an opportunity and a blessing.
Once you feel blessed, you shift into a state of gratitude and forgiveness becomes easy. It is absolutely necessary to release any thoughts or feelings that you might have that make you a victim of your situation. You will know when you have truly forgiven because you will feel the lightness of your spirit.
- Redefine
When you redefine yourself, you adopt a new, more positive image of yourself. Your negative beliefs are replaced with new ones that uplift your spirit and support who you truly are. This involves making a statement to yourself about how you wish to be, rather than how you currently see yourself. These statements have the power to rewire your brain and change your physical and emotional reality.
- Integrate
Integration is about aligning the newly discovered and redefined aspects of yourself with the whole of your being. It is living and breathing the ‘new you’ as though you have stepped into a new body of total health
The keys to integration are reinforcement and consistency. Reinforce the good and let go of the bad by putting it down to learning. Be consistent in your efforts. Be determined with your goal clearly in sight. When you fall off the wagon (and you will!) get back on and be patient and kind to yourself.
When you begin to see yourself differently as the picture of health, you will start to experience life through this new ‘filter’, in the vein of ‘I am learning to invite joy and positivity into my life’. But old habits will do their best to interfere so you must continually bring your focus back to your new filter.
As you visualise your ‘new self’ more frequently, the momentum builds and your new filter starts to take hold from the roots and your old habitual ways of thinking will eventually lose their hold over you. But it takes practice and dedication. Reinforce your new filter by rewarding yourself each time you shift your focus back to it.