Holistic Healing

Holistic medicine is based on the belief that unconditional love and support is the most powerful healer and a person is ultimately responsible for his or her own health and well-being. It is important to look at the totality of a person: mind, body and spirit. Other principles of holistic medicine include the following:

All people have innate healing powers.
The patient is a person, not a disease.
Treatment involves fixing the cause of the condition, not just alleviating the symptoms.

(Excerpted from: WebMD)

Listed below are some natural ways to optimize your body, mind and spirit. These methods can be used in conjunction with traditional western medicine and do not replace advice from a trusted physician.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese medicine-based approach to treating a variety of conditions by triggering specific points on the skin with needles. Paul Kempisty, licensed acupuncturist with a MS in traditional Oriental medicine, explains, “It a minimally invasive method to stimulate nerve-rich areas of the skin surface in order to influence tissues, gland, organs, and various functions of the body.”“Each acupuncture needle produces a tiny injury at the insertion site, and although it’s slight enough to cause little to no discomfort, it’s enough of a signal to let the body know it needs to respond,” Kempisty says. “This response involves stimulation of the immune system, promoting circulation to the area, wound healing, and pain modulation.” Source: Healthline.com

Ayrveda

Considered by many scholars to be the oldest healing science, Ayurveda places great emphasis on prevention and encourages the maintenance of health through close attention to balance in one’s life, right thinking, diet, lifestyle and the use of herbs. Ayurveda identifies three basic types of energy or functional principles that are present in everyone and everything; vata, pitta and kapha. Vata is the energy of movement; pitta is the energy of digestion or metabolism and kapha, the energy of lubrication and structure. The cause of disease is viewed as a lack of proper cellular function due to an excess or deficiency of vata, pitta or kapha, or by the presence of toxins. Ayurveda maintains that all life must be supported by energy in balance. When there is minimal stress and the flow of energy within a person is balanced, the body’s natural defense systems will be strong and can more easily defend against disease. Source: Ayurveda.com

BodyMind Coaching

BodyMind Coaching is the process of tuning into the body, its intuition, and its gut feeling so one can truly listen to what it is saying. The objective of BodyMind coaching is to support clients in identifying the root cause of stress and help them create new daily habits or patterns to better manage the stress and pain in their life. During BodyMind Coaching sessions, practitioners evaluate the current habits or patterns that are keeping individuals stuck in a negative feedback loop and use physiology and intuition to establish new neural pathways. It is often combined with therapeutic massage, nutrition and lifestyle recommendations. Source: Honumn.com. Contact Business Member Gail Cooper-Turner at Align Health, under the Practitioners tab, to learn more.

Breathwork

Breathwork is a gentle yet powerful breathing technique that releases stress and toxins from the body. The purpose of breathwork is to increase your energy level for the purpose of experiencing more ease and pleasure in your life. This breathing technique taps into 4 parts of the mind and body: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. A Breathwork Coach is; a professionally trained facilitator who will guide your breath in a way that enables you to process what occurs during a session, will guide and support you through memories that surface or physical sensations you may experience during a session, is highly skilled at helping you trace complex issues in your life to the origins of your subconscious mind, can suggest tools that will help you find solutions and resolutions to issues that arise in your life. Each session with a breathwork coach involves a consultation and approximately an hour of connected breathing. In the consultation your breathwork coach can discuss with you where you are in your life now and how to best support you. Your breathwork coach will collect information from you with the goal of supporting you in resolving current issues and changing undesirable patterns in your life. Source: Breathworkers.com. Check out Kelly Walden at Breathworkers.com, under the Practitioners tab, to learn more.

Compassionate Integrity Training (CIT)

Compassionate Integrity Training (CIT) is a multi-part training program that cultivates basic human values as skills for the purpose of increasing individual, social and environmental flourishing. By covering a range of skills from self-regulation and self-compassion to compassion for others and engagement with complex systems, CIT focuses on and builds towards compassionate integrity: the ability to live one’s life in accordance with one’s values with a recognition of common humanity, our basic orientation to kindness, and reciprocity. Source: Compassionateintegrity.org. Check out Compassionate Atlanta under the Practitioners tab to learn more.

EMDR

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. It is widely assumed that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes. Source: emdr.com

Energy Healing

Depending on the method, energy healing focuses on the life force that flows through all of us; that force that dictates our mood, health, energy, and ability to connect with other beings. The learnings and breakthroughs in quantum physics have brought the understanding of the pervasiveness of energy to the forefront of western thought. Not only do our bodies consist of and run on energy in every aspect of their function, but there is an omnipresent field of energy throughout the universe that is now being studied via quantum field theory. This universal energy known to eastern cultures and the newly discovered quantum field are talking about the same thing, disagreeing simply over semantics. Influencing this flow of energy by implementing physical and mental awareness and intention, can bring about profound and replicable results. Through meditation, physical touch, and exercise our energy bodies can be altered to provide higher states of health, consciousness and, you guessed it, energy. Energy healing techniques can help you find an approach that is right for you and lead you on a path to healing and sustained health, either as a primary or supplemental modality. Some examples include qigong, acupuncture, reflexology, chakra healing and reiki. Source: Gaia. Contact our Business Members Becca Wineka with Just Be Wellness, Laura Cardwell at Quantum Integrative Solutions and Robert Novak in our Practitioners section to learn more.

EPR Biofeedback

EPR (Electro-Physiological Reactivity) Biofeedback is an advanced technology that detects and harmonizes imbalances in the body brought on by physical, chemical, toxin, pathogen, emotional stress and/or nutritional deficiency. EPR Biofeedback is unique among bioenergetic devices in that it provides an intelligent auto-focusing aspect to the two-way flow of energy and information. For instance, as a training program is in progress, the system will monitor your responses and automatically adjust and balance for maximum benefit and minimal stress. The following is a sampling of training programs one can expect to experience during a EPR Biofeedback session: Electro-Acupuncture, Reflexology, & Cranial Sacral, Spinal Muscular-Education & Pain Management, Vagus Nerve & Brainwave Balancing, Allergy Desensitization, Nutritional Balancing, Homeopathy, & Stress Reduction, Detoxification Stim & AutoRife, Orgone & Scalar Energy Generator, NLP Emotional Growth & Spiritual Healing, Iridology, Aura Cleansing, & Chakra Balancing. Contact Business Member Eli English, ND, in our Practitioners section, to learn more.

HeartMath®

HeartMath Founder Doc Childre believes the intelligence of the human heart is a powerful force that can lead humanity away from the destructive cycles of stress and discord toward a future of lasting peace and harmony. The HeartMath Institute (HMI) researches heart-brain communication and its relationship to managing stress, increasing coherence and deepening our connection to self and others. HMI’s scientists also explore the electrophysiology of intuition and how all things are interconnected (Source: heartmath.org). Contact Business Member Tricia Livermore, in our Practitioners section, to learn more.

Holistic Skin Care

A person’s skin is a reflection of his or her inner health. These philosophies, as well as others like homeopathy and naturopathy, state that conditions such as rosacea, acne, seborrhea, eczema, keratosis pilaris, psoriasis, loss of collagen and elastin, et cetera all begin inside of the body, like the digestive tract, or due to other issues like stress. Simply treating the skin itself as a separate unit from the whole might make short-term improvements, but without addressing the cause of the problem, true resolution will never occur. Depending on his or her education, an aesthetician might be able to treat the skin in this way, she might need to draw on the expertise of a certified or licensed nutritionist, TCM/acupuncturist, Ayurvedic, naturopathic or other type of holistic practitioner. In terms of skin care products, holistic might refer to topical products or internal supplements termed nutriceuticals. Ingredients for holistic products, whether topical or internal, aim to be sourced from all-natural, organic, cruelty-free, wildcrafted, sustainably grown/processed, and often vegan origins. Source: Dermascope.com. See Susan Gonzalez, with Moon Organics, in our Practitioners section for more information or to obtain services. Click here to view Susan Gonzalez's pdf on skincare.

Homeopathy

Homeopathy, also known as homeopathic medicine, is a medical system that was developed in Germany more than 200 years ago. It’s based on two unconventional theories: “Like cures like”— the notion that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people and the "Law of minimum dose”— the notion that the lower the dose of the medication, the greater its effectiveness. Many homeopathic products are so diluted that no molecules of the original substance remain. Homeopathic products come from plants, minerals, or animals. Source: nccih.nih.gov. Contact Business Member Eli English, ND, in our Practitioners section, to learn more.

Internal Family Systems

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an evidence-based form of healing that focuses on the subconscious. By going deep into your psyche, we can discover the various parts where certain behaviors come from and begin by getting down to the core problem. A comprehensive approach that includes guidelines for working with individuals, couples, and families using the principles and techniques from Dr. Richard Schwartz's model. IFS advances wellness in a number of unique ways: By showing respect and appreciation for the client's protective parts, it reduces resistance and backlash. It helps clients fully unburden the extreme beliefs and emotions accrued from trauma so they often leave sessions feeling lighter rather than labile. The affect is regulated in a simple and effective way so clients are not overwhelmed during sessions. It is the client's Self that is leading the healing, transference is reduced and clients do much of the work on their own between sessions. Clients feel empowered and the work is often briefer than more traditional approaches. Source: Ursulalentine.com. See Ursula Lentine in our Practitioners section for more information or to obtain services.

Naturopathic Medicine

Naturopathic Medicine is a distinct primary health care profession that combines the wisdom of nature with the rigors of modern science. While Medical Doctors are trained as primary care providers who diagnose, treat and prescribe, Naturopaths are trained to assist clients in finding the root cause. Naturopaths use a wide array of modalities, devices and supplements to address disease and dysfunction at the level of body, mind and spirit. They concentrate on wellness of the whole person through health promotion and disease prevention, attempting to find the underlying cause of the client’s symptoms. Naturopaths provide individualized evidence-informed therapies that balance the least harmful and most effective approaches to help facilitate the body’s inherent ability to restore and maintain optimal health. Contact Business Member Eli English, ND, in our Practitioners section, to learn more.

Parts Therapy

Parts-therapy or parts work therapy is the concept that our personality is composed of a number of various parts from our subconscious. The goal of parts-therapy is to help people have all the parts of the self ready to show up when needed. This treatment is particularly useful for someone who has experienced unresolved trauma. More therapists around the world are discovering the benefits of parts-therapy for helping clients overcome personal barriers. Parts therapy can also help resolve internal conflicts, even after a client fails to respond to traditional techniques. The patient-centered approach uses the patient’s own ability to resolve their inner conflicts. A parts-therapy facilitator acts as a mediator to help clients resolve their inner conflicts. The facilitator communicates directly with the parts of the subconscious involved in a person’s inner conflict. The facilitator then employs mediation to help resolve the inner conflict, hopefully achieving the desired result by: identifying the part, establishing rapport with the part, calling out the part, thanking the part for emerging, discovering the part’s purpose, calling out to other appropriate parts, negotiating and mediating an agreement between the parts, and integrating the parts together. Source: therapeutic-solutions.com

Pranic Healing

Pranic healing is the science of energy healing drawn from traditional practices. Thoughts and emotions are measurable energy waves. Energy can be transformed. Pranic healing is a no-touch healing method with the side effect of a peaceful state of being. It works on physical, emotional, and mental conditions by using available resource energy. It improves your healthy and physical energy, stimulates your immune system, and decreases pain and suffering. Normal physical problems like headaches, toothaches, coughs, sore throats, fever, stomach aches, diarrhea, muscle pain, and more can be treated. Severe ailments like heart problems, migraines, arthritis, and more can also be addressed. Emotional and mental disorders like stress, tension, anxiety, depression, phobias, manias, paranoia, schizophrenia, and other related ailments Pranic Healing is not intended to replace modern medicine. However, it can complement conventional medicine as well as other healing methods. Source: Ursulalentine.com. See Ursula Lentine in our Practitioners section to obtain services or learn more.

Psychic Mediums

A psychic isn't necessarily a medium, but a medium is a psychic. Psychics tune into the energy of people or objects by feeling or sensing elements of their past, present and future. Simply put, psychics rely on their basic sense of intuition and psychic ability to gather information for the person being read. Mediums take it a step further. A medium uses his or her psychic or intuitive abilities to see the past, present and future events of a person by tuning into the spirit energy surrounding that person. This means mediums rely on the presence of non-physical energy outside of themselves for the information relevant to the person being read. Source: Oprah.com

Reiki

Reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. It is administered by "laying on hands" and is based on the idea that an unseen "life force energy" flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's "life force energy" is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy. Reiki is a simple, natural and safe method of spiritual healing and self-improvement that everyone can use. It has been effective in helping virtually every known illness and malady and always creates a beneficial effect. While Reiki is spiritual in nature, it is not a religion. It has no dogma, and there is nothing you must believe in order to learn and use Reiki. In fact, Reiki is not dependent on belief at all and will work whether you believe in it or not. Source: www.reiki.org. For more information or services, contact Gail Turner-Cooper at Align Health Coaching, (see Practitioners section).

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. – The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) Source: Apertureed.com

Sound Healing

Skilled sound healers use certain frequencies to balance our chakras and heal us. When sound waves reach our ears, they are converted into electrical signals that travel up the auditory nerve and trigger responses in our body. This process alters our emotions, releases hormones and builds a stronger connection between the right and left hemispheres or our brains. For more information or services, contact Dr. Demetry under Practitioners tab.

Specialized Kinesiology

Specialized Kinesiology is based on the belief that the body stores all information, like a computer. Much of this information is subconscious — we often react to things without really having any idea why we feel the way we do. A muscle test is used as an indicator of what is happening on a deeper level in the body. This information can be accessed if the right question is asked and, simultaneously, the right muscle monitor is done. The body always knows what’s wrong and usually knows how to fix it — we just need to listen. Source: Medium.com. Contact our Business Members Becca Wineka with Just Be Wellness or Laura Cardwell at Quantum Integrative Solutions to learn more. (See Practitioners section.)

These Raising the Vibe Speakers share insights on some holistic healing modalities.

Author Jill Blakeway discusses her book, Energy Medicine

The first comprehensive look at the groundbreaking field of energy medicine and how it can be used to diagnose and treat illness, from one of the world’s foremost practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine. View Jill’s discussion with Raising the Vibe, September 2020.