A Community For Massage Therapists

What does Holistic Health mean to you? In our modern age, it seems like it has come to mean any form of healthcare that isn’t 100% focused on the physical body and whatever immediate crisis it may be experiencing. Which, when you put it that way, just sounds like Common Sense Health.

Hasn’t our concept of health always been holistic? Even back when everyday survival was a challenge, health wasn’t simply an absence of physical symptoms; it was the ability to thrive. Illness was a sign of systemic unbalance, often indicating that something was amiss with the mind, body, and spirit. Our early ancestors may not have understood the mechanisms of disease, and often had little success treating it, but their model of health makes sense. A happy, fulfilled, physically vibrant person is truly healthy.

Of course we’ve made a lot of progress since then. Our life expectancy is longer. We’re generally taller, most of us have plenty to eat, and we can survive diseases that used to ravage populations. But we seem to define health exclusively in terms of subtraction: fight disease, lose the weight, kick that habit. And these are all good ideas, certainly, but if that’s all we do something is still missing. To nourish your mind, body, and spirit you must embrace positive things as well as reject the negative. That’s what makes health holistic.

We have something else that our ancestors lacked, though, and it is the key. We have knowledge. It’s easier for us to access information than it has ever been for any generation in history. We can learn about different healing modalities, theories, spiritual directions, tools, and perspectives. Indeed, sometimes with so many options it can be overwhelming. It’s hard to know which of them is right for us, but the pursuit of true full-being health is the most important adventure we can possibly undertake. It’s worth beginning the journey, and it’s worth sticking with it.

At Holistic Palooza 2011, a free natural health festival at Irene’s this weekend, you can spend all day exploring. You can participate in yoga classes or watch vegetarian cooking demonstrations. You can get a free massage, or attend classes about the Golden Rule, Muscle Testing, Healthy Relationships, and much more. You can meet other people who are also on their own personal quests to become as magnificently healthy as possible. You can choose your own path, and experience whatever you feel nourishes you. That’s what holistic health is really about.

We hope to see you there. We hope you find something there that changes your life, even if it’s just a little bit, for the better.

Years ago, in a simpler time when my joints were happier and my energy much less exhaustible, I began practicing kung fu. My goals were very concrete: I wanted to get into the best shape of my life, learn to protect myself should the need arise, and, above all, to look like a character from a kung fu movie while doing both these things. I wanted the moves, the great hair, and eventually the flowing robes and flying skills.

With these priorities, it shouldn’t be too surprising that the meditations we did at the beginning of every class didn’t interest me much. I tried, I truly did: I sat still with everyone else, trying to focus on being, you know, meditative. Serene. I didn’t even fidget… much. But my mind was always scurrying around, getting into things. I’d think about the oil change I had to remember to get later that day, then wonder what was going on right that second in the Bermuda Triangle. Then I’d think how nice it would be if I could fidget more. In short, I was terrible at meditating, which frustrated me, which made me want to do it even less. After months of meditation failure, I basically considered it a waste of time. I was just going through the motions until I could start working on my kicking skills again. Kicking looks cooler and burns a lot more calories.

But according to my instructors, meditation was supposed to be an integral part of kung fu. This is a martial art that was developed by monks, after all. We didn’t just meditate every class, students would have to meditate for a set amount of time as part of their “belt tests”, to advance to higher levels. Before getting your black belt, for instance, you had to sit completely still for an entire hour. If you moved, you failed. All that this made me realize was that I was never getting a black belt.

But now, years later and without any particular “shoulds” or “supposed to” involved, I’ve started to become interested in meditation. I’m not even sure why, but suddenly and out of the blue one day it seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t because I wanted to reap the clinically proven health benefits, or the (admittedly true) fact that I need to learn how to focus better, or any other logical reason. For the first time in my life, it has just felt right. Maybe deep down I know that it’s finally time for me to get to know myself better. Maybe it’s something else. But it’s different now. Now I want to meditate for me.

Child of the information age that I am, I went straight to the internet to find youtube videos and websites to give me tips on how to do it right. Remembering back on my previous attempts I knew I could use all the help I could get, even with my new motivation. I decided to start with one of the simplest methods I could find: consciously relaxing, then counting down from one hundred to zero and intending to be in a meditative state when I hit the bottom.

This was about a week ago, and I’ve been practicing every day. So far I’m still not good at meditation. Sometimes I lose count and have to start over. My thoughts still wander to the mundane and the ridiculous every time, but I’m getting better at acknowledging them and sending them on their way. I think that’s a good beginning. I guess this just proves that we can never grow until we’re truly ready to do it for ourselves.

Do you meditate? If so, what do you feel it does for you? And, the all-important question: Do you have any tips for a newbie?

Visit this link to view our July issue of our monthly newsletter.