Holistic Health and WellBeing, LLC

Embrace Spiritual Wellness and Thrive

Are you motivated to rise each morning and choose behaviors that support your optimum health and well-being? In my experience, understanding the body, mind, and spirit is important and life altering. Practicing innovative holistic-health and well-being techniques allows you to explore and understand your inner world and become more conscious of peeling away layers of dis-ease. Now is the time to focus your intention on reaching a place of optimum physical and spiritual health in natural and conscious ways. 

We tend to divide ourselves into two parts: physical and spiritual. The physical part -- the body -- is an outstanding source of strength and an incredible source of intelligence. The spiritual heart and the content soul are remarkable sources of power. When aligned through self-consciousness, the body creates optimal well-being.

Connect Body and Spirit

Joel Smith wrote, “Human beings are conscious not only of the world around them but also of themselves: their activities, their bodies, and their mental lives. They are, that is, self-conscious (or, equivalently, self-aware). Self-consciousness can be understood as an awareness of oneself”. 

Spirituality is a broad concept that can be perceived from countless perspectives. It includes a connection to something greater than your self-consciousness. Finding that connection requires a search for the true meaning of life and your purpose for being on Earth at this time. This is a universal human experience -- something that touches us all. 

The physical aspect includes your body, which is influenced by your spirituality. That is the emphasis of this process. The connection between body and spirit can be easily disrupted when you experience negative outside influences or traumas to your mental or emotional state. For example, a cold or flu can diminish concentration. Energy and lifestyle changes due to a poor diet can cause high stress levels.

Placing greater emphasis on managing stress level through diet and lifestyle regimes can prevent disease and restore health by balancing both the physical and spiritual bodies. Body-mind-spirit is a complex genetic formulation; each depends on the other to maintain optimum health. 

The body is a vehicle -- through its senses and motor functions -- for the mind to perceive, express, and understand itself. Since the imprints of your world influence the mind and you receive information from the mind through the body’s meridians and organs, it is important that both communicate in harmony. What gives you the sense of who you are does not come from the physical body but from what you think, feel, perceive, and experience and the resulting conscious or unconscious choices you make. When the mind focuses where you direct your attention, the body acts on what you believe is true.

Focus on Spiritual Hygiene

Are you ready to recognize there is nothing separating you from better health and well-being than your perceptions and experiences? You get up every morning and clean your body by shaving, showering, brushing your teeth and so on. You might put on makeup and fix your hair to face the world looking your best. I call this essential personal hygiene.

Just as you clothe your physical body, it is also important that you put on psychological and spiritual clothing. This is spiritual hygiene. How can you rush headlong into the vastness of the earthly realm without first making adequate preparations for your physical body and your emotional, mental, and spiritual health? The simple things you can do for yourself are often the most challenging and most neglected parts of everyday living.

You must also focus on spiritual hygiene to feel your best. When you nurture and love yourself and care enough to make healthy choices, then negative clutter, pain, and sadness are automatically eliminated from the body-mind-spirit.

Take a Spiritual Inventory

To do this, you need to become more aware of -- and take inventory of -- what you are feeling, sensing, and thinking. The key is to make life work for you, not work for life. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Who or what are you giving your energy to?

• Are you following your divine guidance?

• What is the significance of the life you are leading?

• Are you honoring yourself by taking the time to care about what is happening around you and inside you?

The real challenge is using spiritual perceptions to see what is true in your life and what is illusion. The goal is to live an authentic life and not react as a victim when facing negative life situations. It is important to take time and learn to live consciously for your physical health and peace of mind. This reprograms the subconscious mind and allows you to be present in every moment. Doing this can take heart-centered discipline but clothing the self in positive psychological attributes and choosing what you want to see, sense, and feel in each moment is well worth the effort.

You can do this consciously by settling intentions when you wake up in the morning. Deliberately setting positive objectives keeps negative energy from influencing your day. Recognize what creates negative situations in your life; then you can release unhealthy attachments. You do this by finding another way of thinking and feeling.

When you focus on healthy choices and outcomes, you are in the present, and positive results can happen. By choosing consciously, your positive energy and good health are not depleted. Begin by understanding that you have choices, and ask, “Does this thought, opinion, or action add to or take away from my intention of creating good health and well-being?” Through mindful intention, you can regain your health and stay centered by practicing good spiritual hygiene.

Choose Optimal Health and Well-Being

How you choose to treat your-self physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually has profound affects on how you feel in your daily life. Finding a healthy balance determines the quality of your life. One cannot exist without the other. Bodies tend to be the dominant -- and often only -- focus when thinking about how to live a healthy lifestyle. The mind and spirit connection is consistently forgotten.

Through this process, you can become more aware and integrate this newfound wisdom in your inner and outer reality to become healthier in body, mind, and spirit. You can overcome negative patterns and find ways to improve and incorporate your emotional and physical health in your everyday experience.

As you knowingly continue to accept the importance of choosing a conscious understanding of what is healthy and you treat your body respectfully and lovingly, you embrace your true self, spiritual values, and inspired beliefs with integrity and positive intentions. By practicing spiritual and physical hygiene, you experience optimal health and well-being.

1. Joel Smith, “Self-Consciousness” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017)

Cathleen L. Balfour, owner of Holistic Health and WellBeing, is a holistic health practitioner, medical intuitive, craniosacral therapist, spiritual teacher and published author for the past 28 years. Her office is based in Liberty Lake Washington. Cathleen’s practice is founded on the principal, that by approaching wellness from a holistic perspective will lead to optimal health in body, mind, and spirit. She teaches through focused intention you have the power to overcome anything