Harnessing the Power of Mind-Body-Spirit

I know that God

(The Universe, Our Ancestors, Our Higher Power, The Transcendental Force, The Great Spirit/Force/God of your understanding)

is with us.

For tens of thousands of years, indigenous healing practices incorporated Mind-Body-Spirit approaches for healing and well being.  It seems that we are now beginning to integrate Mind-Body approaches as well.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), thee funders of scientific research in this country, established a National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) in 1999.  Its purposes are "the conduct and support of basic and applied research…research training, the dissemination of health information, and other programs with respect to identifying, investigating, and validating complementary and alternative treatment, diagnostic and prevention modalities, disciplines and systems."

If you check out their website, you will see a list of previously and currently funded studies, including:

Yoga as treatment for insomnia
Yoga, immune function and health
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Urban Youth
Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Adolescent Depression

Many of these "interventions" are components of whole systems of health care.  For instance, yoga is a component of ayurvedic medicine, an ancient spiritual healing system.  Acupuncture is a component of Traditional Chinese Medicine, another whole system that is ancient.  Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction comes from Buddhism.

In an effort to study the effectiveness of these approaches, sometimes components are secularized by separating them from their respective healing systems.  But is there something lost from studying components out of context?  That is, are we removing the spirit of spiritual healing?

I cannot imagine my life without relationship to spirit.  It is what juices my day, work, and life. 

Tangent Trigger:  When I was a sophomore in high school - a large, urban public school with the dubious distinction of having one of the highest dropout rates in the State of California - my English teacher told me that writers tap into the transcendental force for inspiration.  I filed it away and simultaneously blew it off as white people notions.  I attended a pentecostal church at the time and what he said sounded to me like blasphemy.  Then, in my senior year, another English teacher, Ms. Roundtree, referred to this concept in her explanation of one of Keats' poems (Ode to a Nightingale, still one of my favorites, read it when you are in love and see if you don't get it).  This time, I challenged her, "Do you really believe in this idea of a transcendental force?"  It still sounded hokey and abstract to me.  She said, in her best church-like accent, "Yes! I believe! I believe!"  I believed her.  Now I believe and experience the transcendental force as expansive, wise, powerful, juicy, generous and yummy - ready to meet you wherever you are if you are open.

Soul loss is a spiritual illness "indicating a fracture of a person’s sense of wholeness, is often characterized as not feeling in one’s body. Soul retrieval brings back those soul essences that dissociated, often during trauma, restoring the individual’s sense of wholeness or well-being."*

I think individuals, whole cultures, and our contemporary system of healing is suffering.  The spirit is willing, our ancestors are waiting, and the Universe is poised to help, heal and restore the balance of  things.


*FEASIBILITY AND SHORT-TERM OUTCOMES OF A SHAMANIC TREATMENT FOR TEMPOROMANDIBULAR JOINT DISORDERS, Nancy H. Vuckovic, PhD; Christina M. Gullion, PhD; Louise A. Williams, PhD; Michelle Ramirez, PhD; Jennifer Schneider, MPH.  ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES, NOV/DEC 2007, VOL. 13, NO. 6