In western thinking we tend to separate and segregate things into compartments.  This can be detrimental to us.  Oriental or Eastern orientations, including the Bible, focus on the synergy of a person, taking into account the connectedness between the spirit, the mind and the body.  All too often in the West we dissociate our bodies from our spirits or minds from the rest of our being.  We treat different parts of us as though it does not affect the others.  We like parts.  We like separation.  It often gives the illusion of control and/or a false feeling that we aren’t responsible for what is happening in our lives.  When we take personal responsibility, we are able to respond and this gives us the power of choice and the power for positive change.  To affect change that brings health and wholeness, we need to look at ourselves as a unity in which each part affects the other parts.

In a study conducted involving individual heart cells in a Petri dish, it was discovered that when separated these cells each had a beating rhythm out of sync with the others.  When they were brought into close proximity of each other they began to all beat together, in sync.[1] That biological example reveals to us quite clearly how important it is to understand that though we may have separate parts to our being yet each are affected by the other; first with the spirit (unconscious mind), then with the mind (soul), then the body.

Here are 12 easy steps that we can take to support each area of our being:

1. Allow God (Creator) to be in your life; giving the Creator the control so that you can rest – it’s called trust.
2. Join a fellowship of believers and become involved.
3. Meditate, read scripture and pray daily.
4. Take note of your emotions on a daily basis consciously (with mindfulness) embracing them – accepting all of you.
5. Daily do some personal work emotionally through spiritual practice and meridian point tapping like EFT.
6. Make regular visits to a psychotherapist/counsellor or Life Coach.
7. Listen to your body; don’t ignore what it is trying to tell you about your health.
8. Exercise daily for at least 30 minutes with elevated breath rate – where you can talk but not sing.
9. Get holistic nutritional guidance and therapy that is best suited for you.
10. With a qualified practitioner detoxify on a regular basis.
11. Develop healthy relationships.
12. Obtain personal financial training and skills.

Health begins from the inside out.  Taking care of yourself is the wisest thing you can do in life.  Remember if you are healthy then life will be full of rich rewards!

[1] Source: Servan-Schreiber, David, M.D. Ph.D., The Instinct to Heal: Curing Stress, Anxiety, and Depression Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy. Rodale Books; First Edition, (February 21, 2004).

The first time I can remember being aware of the spirit, mind, body connection was when I was 15 years of age.  My parents would be in constant conflict, my school experience was no less with being bullied by teacher and students alike.  At 15 everything came to a climax, my mother was seeking a way out of her marriage, I was entertaining suicidal thoughts and I had developed a condition in my body called oesophagitis, or also known as an inflammation of the gullet.  My family physician told me that I had developed this condition because of the stress that was in my life, so he prescribed some antacid and sent me home.  First thing in the morning the pressure in my chest was so strong that when I took a deep breath I felt like my chest was caving in and I would usually pass out momentarily.  This would be something that I carried in my body throughout the day…taking a deep breath would cause me excruciating pain.  It wasn’t until my encounter with Jesus Christ that this condition disappeared.

This life’s experience, though it had a happy ending, revealed to me the close connection that we have between spirit (unconscious), mind (conscious), and body.  Our body is a great indicator when things aren’t right in our lives.  Our body can tell us when we are off in mind or spirit, it can also tell us when we need to stop and take care of it before we develop an illness.  The body is an amazing thing and has a voice that we need to listen to.  Now saying that, it is important for me to qualify my last statement.  The body’s voice is different than what I call appetite.  Appetite is belief and emotional based, its strong voice can mislead us to believe it is the voice of our body.  When we understand that appetite activates various bodily functions then we can begin to distinguish the differences between the voice of appetite and voice of the body.

The voice of the body is most visible when we have had personal coaching in this field.  The body’s voice often involves the following (though not necessarily limited to): when you’ve worked and the day is done the body will tell you it is tired and wants you to rest, it can tell you when it is hungry, when something is toxic or something is healthy, your body can tell you when you are overworking it, when you need to give it exercise, nutritional interventions, and when it is ill.

Often the body voices what the spirit and the soul are trying to tell you.  The body is always speaking to us whether we are awake or asleep.  At times it speaks for itself, but more often than not it speaks on behalf of the soul and spirit.

When we experience neglect or abuse our body most always takes in these experiences as well as the happy healthy safe ones.  This directly affects our body and in some people it may later develop into an ailment or disease in the body.  The body is sacred and should be regarded as such.  Too often people neglect, abuse the body.  The ancient Gnostics believed the body to be inherently evil and restrictive so some would take punitive action against it while others would simply give into all of the appetites they had.[1]

Most people simply regard the body as a machine.  Atheistic thought is that the person is nothing more than a mechanical physiological function.  I for one understand the body to be a spiritual temple, a container that carries within it an eternal being.

Too often our society regards the body as an isolated entity.  That is why we even talk as though we are not responsible for our body’s illnesses, sleeplessness, or tiredness.  We not only need to own our emotions but we need to take responsibility for our body.  Don Colbert, M.D. in one of his television broadcasts once stated that about 95% of all illnesses are due to spiritual and emotional issues that have not been resolved.  There are many other physicians that make similar claims.  Too often do people say, “I just need a pill, a surgery or some other medical procedure to cure me.”  I do believe in modern medicine but not at the expense of truth.  All physical problems have their origin in the spirit which trickles through the soul and eventually lands in the body as an illness be it acute or chronic.  Medical intervention is great because it can save lives but it doesn’t fix lives!

In 1892 William Osler, a Canadian physician, stated that rheumatoid arthritis was a stress related disorder.  In spite of his published findings this information was discarded and ignored.  Noel B. Hershfield, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Calgary, stated: ‘”The new discipline of psychoneuroimmunology has now matured to the point where there is compelling evidence, advanced by scientists from many fields, that an intimate relationship exists between the brain and the immune system… An individual’s emotional makeup, and the response to continued stress, may indeed be causative in the many diseases that medicine treats but whose [origin] is not yet known – diseases such as scleroderma, and the vast majority of rheumatic disorders, the inflammatory bowel disorders, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and legions of other conditions which are represented in each medical subspecialty…”’[2] Psychoneuroimmunology is the science of relating to the interactions of the mind and body.

The connection of the threesome is what makes us who we are and this interconnectivity is really quite mind boggling, but that’s ok because to try and figure out the synergy, intricacies of our very composition probably will take all eternity.  Suffice it to understand this basic principle: the spirit, mind, and body is very much intertwined and each depends on each other for energy, support, protection, nutrition and a host of other necessities.  So, we need to do ourselves a favour and learn to distinguish the different voices within and in particular the voice of the body because it will tell you what you need to know.  Listen to it, what is it telling you?

In my practice I use a therapy that very quickly reveals the body’s strong voice and connectivity to the rest of our being.  This therapy is called Sensorimotor Psychotherapy which was developed by Pat Ogden, Ph.D., .  Sensorimotor Psychotherapy or SP for short is a breakthrough therapy in the field of psychology that addresses the body’s voice through the minutest of sensations uncovering and discovering the voice of the body and processing through the unresolved issues of developmental origin, neglect and trauma.  I have found this therapy to be a revelation of truly understanding oneself and therefore have begun to honour my body as the temple of God in a much deeper way.  My prayer is that you too discover the voice of your body and begin to discover yourself in a new healthy way.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism

[2] Mate, Gabor M.D., When The Body Says No: the cost of hidden stress (Toronto: Random House of Canada Ltd. 2003) 5.

Last time I began with explaining the spirit and its connection to the spirit, mind, body continuum.  Today, I would like to look at the mind’s role in this threesome.

In my own spiritual journey I very quickly came up against the struggles of my mind. The great Apostle Paul once wrote, “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.”[1] In essence we have two minds.  The mind that reacts and wants to do things that are unhealthy and irrational and the other mind that wants to do the just things, the compassionate things, the truthful things.  Think back to the time when you were a child and your mother told you not to touch the cookies before supper and when she wasn’t looking, or so you thought, you sneaked one.  This childhood behaviour is in every human being even if you are 100 years of age!

The more I sought to follow spiritual principles and sought to practice spiritual disciplines I found that there was a part of me that rejoiced and experienced the abundant life but there was another part that at times wanted to throw it away!  The rebel versus the saint!  Now some are just rebels and some are saints that have a rebel inside of them that is looking for some unhealthy action!

Though the words of Paul can be discussed in great depth, but suffice it for now to look at the mental/emotional struggles that is inherent in all human beings.  We want to do right, make the right choices – at least those that are self-aware do.

I found in my journey through life that I have repeatedly from time to time done what I hate, that I do!  In 1999 I decided, after a few years of soul searching, to go back to school to better myself.  While in my Master’s year I changed my course of studies to psychology.  I was not so conscious that I myself needed some help as I was conscious that my counselling abilities as a pastor was not very successful.  All I knew is that I wanted to be in a better position to help people.  Through the course of these studies I discovered that I needed some help myself – to better myself.  My wife once told me that studying psychology really helped me to be a more understanding person.

The two minds, unconscious (subconscious) and the conscious, involve spiritual and elements to them.  On a level the two minds, involve the two hemispheres of the brain.  The right hemisphere of the brain is the emotional side and the left hemisphere of the brain is the logical side.  Often when new clients come in they tell me about how they don’t understand why they are having their particular struggles and they believe they should be over it, or shouldn’t be thinking or feeling a particular way.  I tell them “It’s simple.  The right brain stores emotional information which is the part that feels, acts, and thinks in ways that our left brain says isn’t right.”

Our emotional brain functions so fast that it can and often does over-ride the logical, rational brain.  The emotional brain usually responds in about a ½ a millisecond, where the logical rational brain takes about 2 seconds to respond.  That is an eternity when you think about the differences in time response.  This is the natural process of brain function.  For example a war veteran, particularly the Vietnam War veterans have been known to be particularly resistant to traditional talk therapy approaches.  These war veterans may hear a car backfire and within a second they hit the deck!  This is dangerous especially if you are driving a car on a highway.  Now, you don’t need to be a war veteran to have unwanted reactions all it takes is some incidences in your life, some even that you may not be able to remember.  For example, if you were an infant in a crib with a messy diaper crying for 20 minutes before someone came to assist and comfort you this could create PTSD in the brain.  Through Dr. Ruth Lanius’ research, out of Western University in London, Ontario, Canada, she and her colleagues have been able to substantiate such findings through modern tools like neuroimaging, in particular fMRI brain scans.  As in the above mentioned example, brain scans have shown the child to develop PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

When in life we have consciously or unconsciously experienced trauma and/or neglect of which some can go back as far as prior to ovulation, according to cellular biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton[2], we end up developing a warped perception of the world around us in which we live.  This perception he refers to as the perception of belief. These beliefs are based on our perception of our environment – life’s experiences.  No human has gone untouched; we all have some kind of issues to work through.  Some people are successful to some degree in repressing the past while others notice their inner struggles more readily.

In my own journey I further discovered that mere talk therapies only have limited effect.  Even in my own life, I discovered that knowing something does not equate to solving the problem.  Much like when a person goes to their family physician and discovers that they have some disease, the discovery doesn’t equate to the answer it simply unmasks the problem so that an intervention can take place, so it is with our mental/emotional struggles.  As I have personally received therapy, I have learned that I can only do so much for myself; I need other qualified people to help me.  I believe that is true spiritually, mentally, and physically for everyone.

In my last article I spoke of the spirit as being the unconscious mind and the soul the conscious mind.  The connection is so intertwined that to be able to totally separate and distinguish the intricate differences between the two is much like trying to unravel the neural networks of the brain, or the encoding of our DNA, it is a much too complicated thing to do.  It is best to simply understand that we are a unity of parts that make up the whole – the “us”.

Don’t worry about being normal or crazy; just remember that normal is a setting on your wash machine.  Only God is normal the rest of us need to be working on it with divine aid and through qualified human agency.  We owe it to ourselves to transform, to heal, and to better ourselves.

[1] Romans 7:15, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Inc., 1982.

[2] Lipton, Bruce; DVD & Video : Nature, Nurture, & the Power of Love: The Biology of Conscious Parenting, Spirit 2000 Inc., 2002.

As a teenager at the age of 15 I felt alone, bewildered and lost.  Often teenagers feel this way and like most people they wouldn’t want to relive that time of their life again – especially with the raging hormones!  At 15 is when I began my spiritual journey that I am on now, but before I touch on that I want us to understand the significant role that our spirit plays in our life.

In many languages the word used for spirit is very different in its connotation than it is in the English language.  As an ordained minister I have studied, meditated, pondered, and prayed concerning much of this.  Both in the Hebrew and Greek languages the word for spirit has a underlying meaning of air, breeze or wind.  The Greek word is pneuma from where we get the word pneumatic, as in pneumatic tires.  So we could fairly easily understand that our spirit is the breath of our being, the essence of life, the core, our life force that goes beyond the soul and the body , but yet is so intrinsically connected and almost without seams.

As a minister, psychotherapist, and holistic nutritionist which may appear to be a bit much, but in more distant times or distant lands often the spiritual leader, though maybe quite archaic, was all of those things.  The spiritual leader was the priest, the rabbi, the witch doctor, etc., which people would go to get help for their spiritual needs, counselling needs, and physical pathologies.  This was because of the spiritual understanding of how we as people synergistically function.

Now, based on the premise that we are a spirit, we have a soul and we live in a body we can possibly understand a bit more clearly that the spirit is the primary, the life, the true us – the essence of our being.  Why is this important?  Well, when we look at problems in our life, be they emotional or physical that is when we need to be looking at the condition of our spirit.  Our spirit’s condition determines the well-being of the rest.  In terms, the unconscious or subconscious mind is actually our spirit.  This further gives us a clue about where to look and how to begin to resolve our problems or ailments.

In psychotherapy we often want to uncover the hidden self beliefs that we call negative cognitions that sabotage our well-being.  These negative beliefs are not simply surface or conscious beliefs but much deeper!  They are core beliefs that our spirit holds.  These beliefs can cripple even our very bodies.  For example, have you ever heard of a person who is put in a position where they don’t want to do something or be somewhere and they get sick or have an accident or circumstantially get bogged down to the point they can’t do or be?  Is it coincidental or does our spirit cause inner and outer sabotage?  I do realize this may not hold true 100% of the time but probably much of the time.

To be honest with ourselves, to truly speak truth in our hearts with our selves, takes courage!  But, we usually can’t do it alone.  We usually need a qualified individual who can help us make this inner journey of discovery and not leave us in the abyss of our own beings but rather we need that person to go with us and help us to discover, to transform, to heal in order that we might truly live the abundant life.

To be the best we can be, as you probably have already figured out, isn’t easily done, we need help, and most important of  all, it’s a journey.  We are all looking for hope, desiring to be loved and loveable, to be worthy and capable of healthy choices – the freedom to choose!

Our spirit (unconscious mind) is always reaching out to be satisfied but what it embraces is what filters into our minds, and our bodies.  In my personal journey I was physically ill and emotionally distressed with a deep sense of emptiness that I knew needed to be filled but did not know how.  Through a series of events that I believe were the result of divine guidance I had an opportunity to go to a church service that led to an encounter of Jesus Christ for me and in that encounter it became more than an encounter it became a covenant union that brought me healing for the body, peace to my distressed mind.  I may be daily confronted with opportunities of distress but because of my spirituality and healthy core beliefs they have unleashed for me a way out, hope, and peace.  My core beliefs have been transformed and as I continue on my journey through life I continue to work on my core beliefs using spiritual tools, sessions with my therapist, and with help from my holistic nutritional therapist  my life finds some healthy balance.

If we don’t work on our core beliefs that are obscurely hidden in our spirit (unconscious mind), then we can never achieve the highest and best for our lives!