This column will look at ten outstanding features found in the field of holistic health care practice. These aspects make for a very different experience and outcome from what is customary in many conventional medical settings. The results are increasingly valued and sought out by clients who are taking more responsibility and initiative in choosing their health care options. This issue will cover a brief overview of all ten features, while subsequent articles will offer more in-depth comments along with specific examples and cases to illustrate the impact of these qualities.

Ten Transformative Characteristics of Natural and Holistic Healing

1. Awakening to that which keeps us from attaining our true, full potential and capacity:
This may occur on a physical, emotional, or spiritual level. Perhaps one of the most challenging facts in the health field is that most of the time, critical or serious illnesses develop and progress without anyone — neither the person, nor his or her doctors – being aware of the problems. As much as we don’t like to hear it (or feel it or see it), an unrelieved pain or illness (symptom) on any level is sometimes the only way of getting our attention to the need for healing. It is only when we awaken to this that we can see and use it as an opportunity to seek the path that is signaled for our progress and greater development.

2. Seeking cause:
True understanding – and, therefore, effective, beneficial change – comes from investigating below the surface of things to discover the origin of illness and loss of health. This is the significant difference as contrasted with “just treating symptoms.” Further, discovering the cause promises to provide the necessary completion to health care (revealing the whole truth!), and may be the key to placing it on a truly scientific foundation.

3. Faith, conviction and commitment to the unalterable, indestructible capacity of the body/mind to heal:
Healing is an inherent aspect of life. It is inseparable from life and creation. It precedes and transcends the body/mind — in fact, one of the influences of the spirit (the “life force”) is the regulation and coordination of the body/mind. Here is insight into the question of what differentiates a lifeless lump of matter from a living, active, regenerating and conscious organism. It may also shed light on the close and constant relationship between healing and spirituality in religious teachings throughout history and all cultures. Many leaders in human potential fields go so far as to propose that consciousness is not as an expression or outgrowth of a complex state of development of matter – rather, it’s the other way around! Therefore, the concept of incurable, permanent illness or disease is becoming (both in the holistic as well as in the standard medical context) a thing of the past.

4. Physical healing seen as purification, and as parallel to and a reflection of spiritual healing:
This characteristic views the body/mind as a metaphor of the soul. The verse, “except as ye become as little children…” captures the objective and essence of natural healing. The trend of our health-seeking is steadily becoming not simply the elimination or suppression of pain and illness, but the attainment of a state of vitality, clarity, spontaneity and enthusiasm that we generally only see and associate with childhood. This goes hand-in-hand with our vision of health as the unobstructed radiance of the spirit (‘life-force”) expressing itself through the body (“temple of the spirit”). Contemporary, systematic holistic methods envision illness as blockages or impurities overlying or interfering with the pure, perfect expression of this radiance. The mission of a natural healer is to eliminate these interferences to the spirit’s expression and radiance.

5. Humility and the reconciliation of science and religion:
This characteristic reflects awe and humility in the face of the transcendent perfection and power that is reflected in the creation and continuous, innate regulation and functioning of the body/mind. It is connected with recognition of the healer’s or physician’s mission to respect, serve and restore this higher power. Healing has always been accepted as selfless dedication to service to others. Some would say science (in particular, medical science) has developed in a direction of arrogance and single-mindedness. As the harmonization of science and spirit takes place in all phases of life, medicine will follow (and in many ways already is following) suit.

6. Recognition of the connectedness of all things, inner as well as outer:
This is a core or central holistic viewpoint, for our very body/mind reflects this unity. Many teachings and traditions hold the awareness of this deep interconnectedness as the height of spiritual development and understanding. We are potentially affected by everything in our environment. Looking within the body/mind, this connectedness underlies a viewpoint which opposes the strong tendency in conventional medicine toward extreme specialization. Further, the holistic method approaches health problems by showing that the source or cause will often be found at a different location from the obvious pain or symptoms.

7. Recognition of the power and influence of subtle forces (energetic, mental, spiritual):
Life begins and is sustained in the realm of subtle, delicate processes and action. The inner cause of most illness often escapes standard medical detection or diagnosis. However, natural and holistic assessment utilizes subtle methods of detection. In the same vein, treatment usually occurs on subtle levels. Natural healing, thus, naturally fulfills the ancient medical ideal: First, do no harm. “Non-invasive” is the hallmark of such methods as acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy and nutrition.

8. Respect for the live, soul-full, unique individual, and recognition of his or her individuality in all respects:
This characteristic incorporates the vital importance of listening, touching and “attuning“ in personalized health care. This is in contrast to the sterile, cold, statistical and often inhumanizing approach that admittedly is too often encountered in conventional, “techno”-medicine. This is also the basis of the principle in natural health care, which states: Treat the person who has the illness, not the illness which has the person.

9. Unification of East and West
Incorporation of healing traditions, philosophies and methods of the Oriental, Native and other cultures is an aspect of the creation of a world culture and civilization. This is clearly reflected in the vital area of human health.

10. Ready, willing co-operation, collaboration and incorporation with other disciplines, particularly standard, Western medicine:
The greatest challenge many of us (both practitioners and clients) in the health care arena will likely face is how to combine or integrate a variety of differing, historically opposed, approaches. On the psychological and spiritual levels, this is for some an ego transcendence challenge.

In closing, I hope this summary and overview will assist your thinking about what is taking place in the full health-care spectrum. As you look for, ask for and seek out these features in the healing practices you investigate and patronize, may you experience the refreshing, encouraging and empowering effect of re-connecting your body/mind with its underlying healing forces!