Therapy Thursday: Heal-Whole-Holistic

The words heal, health and healthy all derive from the Proto-Germanic root word "khailaz," which meant literally "to make whole," and which also eventually gave us our English word "whole."

To be truly healed, we need to make ourselves whole, so a holistic approach to life (and counselling) is the only one that makes sense. This gives us lots to work with: mind, body, emotions, behaviours; our social life, imagination, sexuality, spirituality, and so on. Since all are inter-connected, any change we make to one will necessarily impact the others, creating a cascading (or domino) effect. Small changes can lead to big results. So if one aspect of your life seems too big to change, don't feel overwhelmed or hopeless: start by changing something else! You might create a shift, initiate an upward spiral, and eventually give yourself the energy needed to make that big change....if it still seems so important.

A holistic approach also encourages us to seek balance. A useful exercise, inspired by the Native American Medicine Wheel, is to divide a circle into five parts – labelled Physical, Mental, Emotional, Social and Spiritual – and list under each heading all the ways in which we nurture and satisfy this area of our life. If one or more of those domains seems lacking, well it's time to think about how to redress the balance.

The intention of the Therapy Thursday series is to share with others simple tools that I believe can improve people's lives. Please forward the link(s) to anybody you believe might find this information helpful. Thanks.