From a Western perspective, health is described in terms of disease states that can be ameliorated through drugs, surgery, and other invasive techniques to suppress the symptoms (not the cure!). However, health should be viewed from a holistic perspective.
A major focus of health and healing concerns itself with the vitality and integrity of the life-force which is chiefly governed by the breath and cycles. The life-force is the part of you that animates your physical body. It’s analogous to the current that flows through an electric circuit that powers all electrical devices.
If you’re going to heal yourself, it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of biology. Let’s begin with psycho-biology – when you’re emotional, certain chemicals are activated – namely adrenaline and cortisol — which stimulate the fight or flight response. Much of your blood flow is diverted from the brain and major organs and dispersed into the muscles. You are reacting as if you are being assaulted by an animal. That shortage of blood flow and life-force is what makes you sick because you are depriving your brain and vital organs of blood and nutrients.
Emotionalism is the chief cause of illness. Indulging incorrect thoughts and actions that make your health worse because your body cannot rejuvenate itself. You go to sleep with worry, anger, and fear in your mind.
Emotions are expressions of erratic irregular, devitalized, excessive, or deficient flow of the life-force. Emotions are a diagnostic tool to show you how the energy is flowing within you. For example, if you tend to get angry often, you may need to nurture the liver meridian with herbs, qi gong, meditations, etc. Whenever you are sick, there’s a disturbance in your life-force. Holistic healing requires changing your thoughts because your mind controls the life-force. In other words, your mind is making you sick!
You cannot control your life-force directly. Your life-force is involuntary, but your mind is voluntary. Since you decide what you think, you are in full control of your mind. Through reasoning, you must learn to recognize what kind of thoughts imbalance your life-force and which ones balance the life-force.
The first cause of illness is adopting an erroneous self-image. The human self-image lays the foundation for reacting emotionally in life. Humans believe it is natural to behave emotionally. It is the acceptance and the perpetuation of these emotions that indicate that you are ill. The ultimate approach to healing is to adopt a divine self-image. A divine self-image is when you are peaceful and joyful no matter what is going on in your life.
God allowed only two emotions for man – peace and joy (we call it happiness). If you can hold onto peace and joy in all situations, you will be healthy. Thus, the key to healing is to eliminate negative emotional responses in your life.
Some people can’t enjoy a good thing because they’re afraid they’ll lose it. Tension (or stress) is the opposite of peace. A major source of stress is a false belief that your physical circumstances cannot be changed, which leads to low self-esteem, depression, etc. Once we eliminate the stress, all that remains is peace and the enjoyment of peace. Of course, many of us have one or more diseases or illnesses that we must overcome. Ultimately, however, good health can be achieved by establishing peace and joy in your life. It’s a choice you always have.
