What Does Holistic Health Care Really Mean?

Holistic health, or holism, means your whole (wholistic) body. The parts are intimately interconnected, they cannot exist without the whole, which is greater than the sum of the parts. Your big toe is attached to your head. As far as holistic health care goes this means that, for example, your gout should be considered in conjunction with your headache, which should be considered alongside your emotions - one of the intangible parts of you.

Interestingly, the opposite of holism is atomism. Humans have become very good at splitting the atom, but most remain ignorant of holism.

Holism is not the medical way, where everything is reduced to ever smaller minutiae. This reductionist way of thinking has dominated the human world for a few centuries. And it does have some advantages. You can isolate nutrients and discover what the effect on the body is without them.

The results are then written up in a specific way, with references back to other learned authors, and published as scientific. The holy (no pun intended) grail of the modern day.

However, what this lacks is the overall feeling, the bigger picture, the whole.

And I’m not sure you have to be very wise to make the same connection, without research. Common sense tells us that nutrients come from good food. The emphasis is on good. If you don’t eat proper food, how can your health ever be good?

This means that YOU are responsible for your health. You can’t blame anyone else for the food you are currently eating. You can try to justify why you eat badly. You can complain about the price of food, or the lack of good cafes close to work, or your lack of time to make good food. But all that does is to reflect the onus away from the culprit - you.

You have choices. You need to take responsibility for those, because you are the only one who can.

Some weeks ago, I wrote about how the medical model is based on the concept that ill health comes from outside you, according to Pasteur’s germ theory. This meant that you could bask in the (in)security that anything you did would not affect your health. Although the thread remains, no thinking person still believes this to be true. But the thread does remain. And the automatic response of most is to accept this.

By taking responsibility for your health (and your life), you are able to learn and grow.  Once you start down the path of taking ownership for your life, new senses develop. You become aware of what your body has always tried to tell you. You start to listen to your intuition, your inner wisdom. You instinctively crave healthy foods, healthy actions. You instinctively know, and start to avoid, those people who do not support you.

Current human thinking, the reductionist way, the “I’m not responsible” concept has made slaves out of everyone. By blaming our parents, the government, our school, it keeps us firmly routed in the past, recreating the exact same scenario over and over again.

If you are brave enough to jump off the wheel, to be different from everyone else, to take responsibility for you, then your life can be transformed. This is also the only way to transform the world. One of my biggest passions is to change the world. But I know this has to start with me.

Bad news of a health disorder can inspire one person to take positive action to change direction, to find healthier choices, new alternatives. It can leave another feeling powerless and sad. It is up to you to seek out and support the means that empower and informs you, and to say no to those ways that drains your energy and your hope.

Homeopathic treatment is a true holistic medicine and probably the one with the deepest and broadest action. Everything is considered before a prescription is made - your gout, your headaches, your fears and anxieties, your reason to live. Get you treated, not the parts of you.

What is Holistic Health?

The term holistic health relates to treating you as a whole person, rather than the sum of your different parts. For example, how can an operation (or any other major event) you had several years ago not be connected to your problems now? ALL your life experiences make up who you are and how you deal with life, from the genetic imprint from your parents, onwards.

EVERYTHING is your life is relevant. Some aspects simply show how you deal with events. Other aspects show a problem in the making.

Homeopaths are taught to look at everything, to judge nothing, but to consider even the smallest detail that may have been a contributing factor of your current health issue. As far as I am aware, there is no other modality of health care that is so thorough.

Things that happen to children are particularly traumatic and can have a huge effect. Things that seem silly or insignificant to an adult, can be enormous to a child.

So holistic health is all about looking at you as a whole person and looking for areas that was the start of your problem.

However, I feel that holistic health goes further than that. I feel it needs to take into consideration our whole environment, even the whole world. What do I mean by this?

I don’t believe that you can expect to have good health when you eat food that is devoid of nutrients. Not only does factory farming harm the environment, it also harms you. In reality, how can a system that harms the world that supports you, be beneficial to your health? The impact of this may not be immediate, but it is there.

On a much deeper note, the cruelty and misery humans inflict on animals must have an impact on the world. I see no justification in any acts of cruelty, but none less than in the entertainment industry.

Circuses have long used animals (both wild and domestic) to entertain the public, in particular children. However, their training methods have long been suspect. Quite apart from this, what does it do to a growing mind to see a dignified, wild animal performing silly tricks? Teaching a child to be insensitive makes for an insensitive adult.

I recently watched a couple of yourtubes on how elephants are trained in a circus. Although one particular circus was the culprit in these links, none are exempt from the cruelty. I was profoundly disturbed by this, and couldn’t work the rest of the day (luckily I didn’t have any consultations booked).

But this is simply the tip of the iceberg.

If you feel that circuses are fun for children, please check this link out, to see first hand how elephants are trained. Is it acceptable to take your children to this, a product of extreme cruelty and insensitivity?

Just as we are connected to all parts of our bodies, so we are also connected to every other living being in the world. By respecting and treasuring all life, we will also be respected and treasured back ourselves.

If animals suffer so much at the hands of humanity, how can this contribute to a healthy world? We are all connected, so even if we don’t actively engage in the acts of cruelty ourselves, they will affect us.

A small contribution from everyone (such as not going to circuses) is all that is needed to effect a change. Please think twice before visiting a circus with animals. Instead, actively support those who only have human performers, which is much more about acts of skill.

I’m very pleased to say that homeopathy does not engage in any animal experiments, relying on the much more accurate human trials.