THE PATH TO INTEGRAL HEALTH BEGINS BY RE-CHANNELING OUR ENERGY WITH FAITH

In today’s world, it is crucial for all professionals in the health and wellness field to incorporate integral health practices into their own lives before offering treatment to others. The reason for this is because it helps professionals offer a more expansive and beneficial health care plan to each individual patient. When professionals implement integral health in to their own lives, they will also "come to know that the alleviation of suffering and the ascent to human flourishing are more than ideas.” These individuals will than want to end needless suffering to the best of their ability and therefore, “the soul of medicine returns" (Dacher. 2006. p. 167).

When choosing to pursue the path to integral health, it must always "begin with specific preparations" (p. 49). The first and most crucial preparation is to use our inner faith to re-channel "energy from the exclusive pursuit of outer health and healing to a holistic and evolutionary integral approach" (p. 50). Once faith has been effectively implemented, further preparations that can be done to incorporate integral health in to our lives include:

Loving-Kindness - This is when an individual can willingly embrace others. It’s also considered to be the most powerful tool to avoid negative emotions like anger and jealousy, which prevent the mind from positive healthy development. This also relates to my own life because I have based some actions or decisions on negative emotions like anger, jealousy and/or biased thinking. These actions or decisions have then caused major negative turmoil in the relationships where I initially applied them. Therefore, I can implement the practice of loving-kindness by trying to embrace and meet the needs of others on a higher level. Completing this process may also ensure that I become a more loving kind human being and mentally develop in a positive healthy direction versus a negative unhealthy one. 

Skillfull Action - This is when an individual can learn how to replace unskillful behavior with skillful behavior. Behavior that may be classified as “unskillful” is that which prevents positive inner development of the mind due to creation of negative obstacles. This relates to my own life because from time to time I may possess or reveal factors which would be considered unskillful. This is because when I'm in uncompromising, unforgiving and/or dog-eat-dog situations, it can be difficult to reverse unskillful behavior to that of skillful in order to exhibit positive mental health. However, after learning more about the overall benefits of integral health, I am going to make a more conscious effort to develop a higher level of skillfill action.

Silence & Stillness - Three aspects of silence and stillness are the outer, the inner, and the innermost. This preparation will be successfully achieved when one can let go of unnecessary and/or trivial factors that may have a negative effect on positive mental development. For many, these negative factors can include everyday activities like watching television, playing in the cyber world, or listening to music. My personal health has also definitely been affected when taking part in these trivial and/or negative activities. This is because when these things occur, I don't always get more important things successfully accomplished. I have always known that daily factors like these may be considered to have little to no value in personal growth and they can distract me from more important things, but I sure do enjoy them very much. Therefore, acquiring a higher level of silence and stillness in my life may be a continuous struggle, but I will still try on a daily basis.

Unity Consciousness - [There is only one difference between this level of consciousness and primal consciousness, and it is a huge difference. This matured “innocence” - this very difficult and earned rebirth into a second oneness and simplicity-arrives with wisdom and consciousness. We now know our interconnectedness with all, and we can meaningfully use it to help others and, further, to assist in creating a better world] (Dacher. 2006. pgs. 61-62).

Reference:

Dacher, E. S. (2006). Integral Health. The Path To Human Flourishing