In ancient times, physical and spiritual healing were not considered separately, as they are nowadays. When a person was ill, he was treated holistically, meaning that his whole being was treated - body, mind and spirit.

We all know what body and mind mean, but the 'spirit' bit is probably a bit vague to most of us. Although ignored by the medical profession, our spirit is what inspires us to continue and what makes our lives worth living. It is the creative, imaginative part of us, and if this side of us is ignored, we can feel worthless and hopeless.

Disease was considered to be and out of balance situation in the person's energy field, meaning the body was in a state of being "not at ease". Dis-ease was caused by blocked energy in the body and personal environment. The healer aimed to bring balance back into the person's energy field, so that healing could take place.

There is a big difference between holistic healing and modern curing. Our orthodox medical system defines 'health'as 'absence of disease', treating the symptom of the illness rather than the cause of it. So the problem is relieved or suppressed for a while, but will possibly re-appear later on, either in the same form or in a different one. How many of us rush for the painkillers when we have a headache without any thought of what could have caused it? We have learnt to relieve our problem rather than establishing and healing the cause of it.

An ill person is not referred to as 'out of balance', and rarely will the doctor make reference to how our attitude or mind could be causing our illness or dis-ease. Yet how many of us refer to a person's problem as being 'mind over matter', or 'it's all in the mind', implying that we are causing our own problems? Do we ever stop to consider what we actually mean by this? Yes, we really can be casuing our own problems. Our mind can make us ill. But if we have the power to make ourselves ill, we also have the power to make ourselves well.

If our energy is not in balance, this can bring us all sorts of problems - ill health, lack of well-being, tireness, depression, stress, lack of self-esteem, lack of confidence, inability to cope with ourselves and our life, just not feeling good. We are in a state of dis-ease. When we are in this state, things can start going wrong for us, so we begin to feel worse, and then things around us begin to get worse.

Holistic healing methods like acupuncture, shiatsu, chakra balancing, crystal healing, colour healing, Chinese traditional medicine, and many others, define health as more than just an 'absence of disease'. Real health is total unification and balance of mind, body and spirit. If one of these is out of balance, then all three are unhealthy. They all interact with each other, and are one with each other. If we focus on improving one area and neglect the other two, we will be creating an imbalance. With imbalance in our being, we cannot achieve a state of total well-being. We-being means balance, harmony and health in all three areas. Anything hess than this and real healing has not taken place.

You can help yourself to health, happiness and well-being - for yourself and by yourself, with some help from us to get you started.

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