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.

Excitedly I arrived at yoga teacher school extra early for my first day.  My teacher is someone that I respect and consider a friend. I feel totally honored to be taking this journey with her at the helm of my ship.  There are 11 soon to be yoga teachers sharing this experience. Though we are together, each persons path is truly solitary. This morning we were fully immersed in challenging asanas. In the mid afternoon our minds were stimulated with a yoga discourse on the history and types of yoga……

Ellyn Gray works at Irene’s Myomassology Institute, she is a graduate of Irene’s, a Reiki Master Practitioner, and currently in school to become a yoga teacher.   You can follow her experience by clicking the link below.  Subscribe to her blog to get regular updates.

The full blog

Irene’s

Every one of the centers that are called chakras corresponds to an area of the body, certain behavioral characteristics and a stage of spiritual growth. Chakras represent specific psychophysical energies that are activated one by one through the breath along with the flow of the elements throughout daily life. Aroused by the practices of Tantra Yoga, the dormant spiritual Kundalini energy can be made to leave the first chakra and pierce the chakras above, causing various spiritual experiences to occur.

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