Transforming health vs. fixing Illness
I am using the Phrase “Transforming Health” to mean something very specific. I mean to take the state of health and wellbeing and not just fix something, not just improve it or reduce some undesirable experience, but to cause a state change where something that was there, no longer is, or something that was not available, is. I am not suggesting that if your client comes in with pain in their lower back that by treating them they will never have lower back pain ever again! All of us have had aches and pains in pretty much every part of our body at some point or another. That does not mean that you have a “bad Back” or “problem knee” Consider there is a fundamental mental shift required to have someone who relates to themselves as having a weak point in their body to alter their relationship to that part of themselves. For them to not automatically think they are going back to how they have been when they wake up with a sensation in their back or knee takes more than just physical work.
As I said earlier most of us don’t meet our clients until they are “ill”. Western attitudes to health and wellbeing is generally, wait til its broke then fix it! It relates to health and wellbeing as being “good” and Illness being “bad”. The problem is that we tend to hold on to and even covet the good and reject or avoid the bad. How many of you see feeling ill as being a good thing and how many clients would admit that having a problem buys them something or gets them out of something?
I want you to consider that feeling ill(- at ease) is a good thing! By that I mean that right now it is virtually guaranteed that your body is not working at 100% optimum capacity. It would be difficult even to know what the true potential of your body is right now. Your body is dealing with a multitude of minor and more substantial Dis- eases and it just goes along not telling you about it! Often serious illness occurs in the body over weeks, months or even years without the client getting pain or a reduction in quality of life. This has led us to centre our treatment around removing pain or fixing whatever is reducing our physical quality of life. What if Pain and illness is the body’s way of alerting us to some Dis-function which we (the part of us that is not our body) is not dealing with, ignoring or tolerating?
What if pain and dysfunction is the body’s way of letting us know where we should concentrate our efforts in order to maximise or even expand our potential to experience health and wellbeing? Rather like growing pains in the adolescent, symptoms can be used to identify the most immediate opportunity to expand ourselves! Instead of something to avoid and remove sensations in the body become something to get interested in and listen to!
We tend to think of ourselves as being an individual when it comes to health and well being. Consider that both Science at a fundamental quantum level and Holistic or Complementary thinking both say that everything in the universe is connected to everything else. If it’s true that we are all one, is it possible to catch something from yourself? What happens to the normal models of therapy and treatment when you begin to look at the extended body? Where does the subtle body end and the outside world begin? If there is no real separation, can anything ever really happen by accident?
If you step out of the world of fixing your clients and into the world of being able to expand their experience of health and wellbeing, a question arises; how far can you take this? Can the chronically “in pain” be pain free? Can the average become the exceptional?
My personal experience has been that I have been able to dramatically reduce knee and lower back pain sensation within a few minutes of my client beginning their session. This had not only allowed me to work on clients who have not been able to have effective physical therapy in the past but to give clients the tools to manage their own pain.
I have been able to increase my own flexibility and reduce my response to injury.
The information in this book can be use within exercise practices such as Yoga, Pilates and gym work. It can be used in real time to clear discomfort in the body during exercise, through visualisation. I have had clients who, as an accidental by product of their treatments with me have been pushing their personal trainers to work out at higher and higher levels!
I have also been able to have clients speed up and expand their ability to cause results in their life! From winning competitions to selling their house! Given that their life ( and yours) occurs in their emotional and mental body this is not so miraculous, but think of the implications. Imagine being able to locate where disempowering beliefs are being held in their body, being able to feel and alter the effect of them on your client and then reinforce the physical work you are doing with them on a mental level, aligning the thoughts of your client with the work you are doing. Instead of trying to distract your client’s mind, you can align them mentally and emotionally with whatever goal you and your client create together. My client’s choose how they want to feel at the end of their treatments. Not just relaxed or more flexible, but things like “FREE” or “confident” or “energised” and they leave with the experience of feeling whatever they create. This is something that it is possible to consistently and specifically create with your client’s every single treatment!
If you step out of the world of separation and into the world of connection and communication, every experience, every person and every sensation can tell you something about you, your health and ways to expand your potential. In the world of connection EVERY emotion and every thought has an effect on the physical body. You can empower your clients to transform their health and wellbeing by understanding the relationship between their Thoughts, Emotions and their Physical body.
This is a section from the forthcoming Book for Health Professionals and their clients
Words can be a weapon or a sheild, a key to unlocking the future. My words are designed to empower your health and wellbeing, to have you know yourself and have you be known in the world as your words.
Holistic therapies by Ben Barnett 