This conceptual framework keys off the word “health,” which shares roots with the words “whole” and “holy.” Thus, to be healthy (a condition of your being) means to be whole and this is further a statement about holiness.
Holiness is a concept that we think of in spiritual terms. If we accept that the creation of a unique human being is an expression of divine consciousness, then the realization of holiness in the embodiment of that human being makes sense. Thus, the concept of embodied spirituality is a way to think about a human being. We are each a sacred vessel carrying the essence of divinity (soul) within the form of that vessel. The energetic manifestation of this human form includes physical (body) and mental (mind) aspects. This is a somewhat artificial distinction and it makes more sense to think of the body-mind and include the subtle energies (etheric, auric, etc.) within this pairing. Thus, the unique soul and unique body-mind are all packaged together and expressed in the context of a life on earth.
How does this relate to health?
Premise 1: The soul chooses to incarnate into human form and the body-mind is the sacred vessel for the soul.
Premise 2: This soul-choice is to enable a particular set of experiences in this lifetime.
Premise 3: The fullest, most complete expression of the soul-body-mind experience is determined by the level to which spirituality is embodied within this “unit.”
Premise 4: The body-mind can facilitate or impede the expression of the incarnated soul.
Premise 5: The level of wholeness of an incarnated soul is the extent to which it is integrated across all multidimensional planes of existence.
Conclusion 1: The more integrated a soul is, the higher the level of health/wholeness/holiness.
Conclusion 2: The rejection of an aspect of the body-mind in effect separates or distances a part of ourselves from the soul connection and subtracts from the full expression of embodied spirituality.
Efforts such as shadow work can help to integrate the disowned or rejected parts of ourselves. Efforts to improve our physical health will not facilitate integration if they are undertaken with the mindset that “something is wrong with me that I need to fix.” That mental attitude is built upon rejection of self and is often predicated on some negative self-judgement (too fat, ugly, disabled, diseased, etc.). The same is true of psychological efforts to improve one’s health. If they are undertaken with the attitude of “fixing what’s wrong with me,” these efforts are potentially going to distance the body-mind from the soul. Guilt and shame are typically predicated upon some negative self-judgement. Attempts to expunge such negativity do not facilitate soul integration with the body-mind; instead, they attempt to remove a part of the self deemed to be undesirable. The effect is to diminish wholeness. The alternative to the attempt to remove a part of our self is to transform that portion of the self and integrate it into the whole.
Premise 5: The soul expresses itself through love.
Conclusion 3: Efforts to improve health by making changes to the body-mind (whether physical, mental, emotional, or etheric) will be most successful when they come from a place of love, specifically self-love.
Remember that the soul chooses to incarnate into the body-mind and that it does so in order to have a particular experience. Rather than having a conceptual framework that views health as an attempt to fix something, one could think of health in terms of integration.
Consider this conversation between the soul and body-mind:
Body-mind: How can I facilitate the full experience of embodied spirituality?
Soul: Love yourself.
Body-mind: How can I love the parts of myself that I do not like?
Soul: Do not reject them, accept them as part of the experience I chose when I incarnated. Thank them for the lessons these “undesirable” (as you view them) aspects of yourself provide. Learn from them and embrace these “undesirables” with love, not hate, anger, fear, etc. Love these parts of yourself.
Body-mind: That seems like a cop out. If I simply accept these areas that need improvement, isn’t that passive? Doesn’t that allow them to continue? How does this help me to be healthier?
Soul: The reason they continue is that you view them as a part of yourself that you should not love; in so doing, you attempt to separate part of yourself from yourself. You judge a part of yourself as unworthy and do not see yourself from the perspective of wholeness. When you reject part of yourself by saying it needs improvement, you feed it the energy that sustains it in separation. Instead, love these parts of yourself without judgement. Unconditional love is just that–unconditional. Loving yourself fully transcends separation.
Body-mind: So, you are saying I don’t need to lose weight and go to the gym? That I should be happy with having diabetes, or cancer, or depression, or any other ailment?
Soul: No. I’m saying that you should embrace yourself with full and unconditional love. In doing so, your entire self will be transformed into a more whole and integrated state. Your efforts to improve the health of your body-mind should come from a place of love acceptance, and gratitude, not rejection and condemnation. Self-love, warts and all, is the key to self-transformation.
Body-mind: And this will result in better health?
Soul: Yes. We are healthiest when we are expressing love. The full experience of embodied spirituality occurs when we are fully integrated and whole. This requires love.
I realize this soul-centered perspective might be difficult for people with a mechanistic and materialistic view of health to accept. Such a view favors a “fix something that is broken” in the body or the mind as a way to achieve better health. I would suggest that brokenness, damage, illness (in the body or the mind) as we typically consider, are but steppingstones on the path to complete health.
As we discard old paradigms based upon separation and incorporate new paradigms based on integration, what emerges? A soul-centered conceptual framework for health provides an alternative perspective on how we can achieve better health.
The experience of a soul incarnated within a body-mind that has achieved fully realized embodied spirituality is an experience of integrated wholeness and is therefore both healthy and holy.
Be all that you are…
