If we were to be honest about the current state of society’s health, we still have a long way to go. What do you think is missing? Maybe you have an idea, maybe you just have a sense that it’s lacking… but can’t determine exactly what that is.
Maybe you don’t think so… but if you’ve lost health & struggled to find it again, you’ll understand what I’m referring to.
I’ll share how I see the current circumstance…
We have a society that neither truly understands or values health. When I refer to health, I mean being in an interactive & beneficial relationship with our mind-body vehicle & all the intricacies that are involved with that.
Health is simple… and yet we are essentially complex and multi-faceted.
Bringing these things together in a genuinely heart felt way --- I don’t think we’re there yet.
We have a predominant and prominent medical system. Its model is towards black & white answers, determining certainty and avoiding death and disability, where it can.
We have holistic healing (I don’t use the terms alternative or complementary medicine, however I do like traditional medicine – but this leaves out more modern applications that have been brought through).
Its model is in (w)holism, and in a way, fundamentally includes health & healing on different levels working with the system to support itself into sustainability again. As well as consciousness expansion and our well-being internally and externally.
Like 2 sides of a coin, I don’t look at one model needing to compete over the other.
Maybe you don’t think so… but if you’ve lost health & struggled to find it again, you’ll understand what I’m referring to.
I’ll share how I see the current circumstance…
We have a society that neither truly understands or values health. When I refer to health, I mean being in an interactive & beneficial relationship with our mind-body vehicle & all the intricacies that are involved with that.
Health is simple… and yet we are essentially complex and multi-faceted.
Bringing these things together in a genuinely heart felt way --- I don’t think we’re there yet.
We have a predominant and prominent medical system. Its model is towards black & white answers, determining certainty and avoiding death and disability, where it can.
We have holistic healing (I don’t use the terms alternative or complementary medicine, however I do like traditional medicine – but this leaves out more modern applications that have been brought through).
Its model is in (w)holism, and in a way, fundamentally includes health & healing on different levels working with the system to support itself into sustainability again. As well as consciousness expansion and our well-being internally and externally.
Like 2 sides of a coin, I don’t look at one model needing to compete over the other.
The 2 Systems: Medical & Holistic
Within each system is a whole plethora of other models, concepts, premises and facets.
But both have problems… and I think this is largely because ultimately, they’re 2 aspects that need each other in balance. When society focuses on one side too much, imbalance and inherent issues occur.
While I do hold a vision for the 2 systems to be integrated eventually for society’s greater benefit, I also am not clear that it will happen in my lifetime.
Each system has its benefits & deficits at the moment.
For the medical system:
For the holistic healing industry:
Bringing the systems together
While both systems have a need for resolving deficits, my focus is mainly on the improvement and refinement of holistic healing as an industry. The medical system is already consolidated & the issues within that system need to be sorted by those who operate in it.
A balance between the 2 systems can only start with a consolidation first of the holistic healing industry. A critical missing factor is very much the loss of consolidation and a truly collaborative network.
How can an integration happen, when this is no united place for the medical system to connected with? Are we just expecting them to read our minds & show an interest, when we haven’t communicated our value or understood ourselves as a whole yet?
Consolidating the Holistic Healing Industry
The consolidations that do happen within holistic healing are limited and don’t quite fit a greater purpose (but are worthy in themselves). There are associations which join holistic healing modalities in one place, but we all essentially know that this is primarily to obtain approval for liability insurance &/or continuing education points.
Most expect that it is a way for clients to find them, but only a smaller fraction actually put the effort required for this to be viable.
There are associations or guilds for individual modalities. These tend to work more like a community with a common faction, however, most try to solve all health issues within the same modality and only a small number are good at cross referral. This is partially due to not understanding the scope of our own practice & the scope of others, so that we could meet the best needs of the client.
It also is a financial issue for many clients, with more financial reimbursement available for the medical system, than for holistic healing generally. At least this is true in Australia, I can’t speak for the whole world.
The client can often assume that there is a single modality that solves all their issues. And we as holistic professionals haven’t educated them, as we’ve failed to educate ourselves fully yet.
There are some free social media groups with the purpose of bringing holistic healers together. They work better as information and product exchanges. And sharing inspirational memes. Again, I don’t see them work as well unless within a community of the same modality.
So…. How to bring them all together?
1. We need to understand ourselves as a whole industry
This means understanding our scope & the general scope of other modalities, in a client centric model and application. This requires dropping competition between modalities and to stop trying to solve everything within the same modality.
It also means educating our clients, as we educate ourselves. If we propose to be truly holistic, then we need a multitude of holistic therapies that specialise in a variety of areas, to cater for the potential needs of each individual client.
This leads to point 2…
2. We need to work together, but in a way that works for us (carbon-copying the medical system is not the way)
This includes a cross referral system that works (in a client centric way). Therefore, we need to understand how to access root causes and determine those with the client, in order to match the potential modalities that would suit their needs.
We also need to find a way to consolidate ourselves in a method that doesn’t require a dogmatic, ‘follow our rules or get out’ type approach. We don’t have many examples of this in society, which is why we just continue to copy what has been done before.
I’ve learnt a synergistic approach that works and is far more advanced than a hierarchal/dogmatic model, however it is different & some adjustment is needed.
Most of society is slowly, slowly heading this way – which is why the monarchies are mostly a thing of the past now and even the power in many governments is waning.
We are gravitating to a new level of consciousness where there is no single ruler and even away from majority rules towards finding a synergistic consensus in the collective.
3. We need to consolidate our value
There are so many ways to do this, but falling back on research papers that mimics the medical model is so limited. This is somewhat devaluing modalities that don’t operate in that model. And yet, this seems to be the focus: trying to get approval from the medical system.
Rather, we need to approve of ourselves as a consolidated industry. Their approval can follow suite, after this.
And therefore, we need to find methods that determine our value in a way that fits our industry. Research papers will work for some healing modalities, but definitely not all. There are other frameworks of research that can be collated in order to concrete the industry’s value.
It’s Time For A New Type of Coming Together
It’s time for holistic healing to become a consolidated yet sovereign force.
This includes understanding the scope of practice within the holistic healing industry. Saying we help everyone and everybody is not actually helpful, even if it is inclusive. And once we understand our scope of practice and communicate it clearly, this helps other systems interface appropriately with their own scope. No client needs to be left in the dark and each healer doesn’t need to solve everything for everyone.
They say – a rising tide elevates all ships.
They say – many hands make light work.
Helen Keller said – “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
We have tried doing it alone or as disjointed modalities – it’s time to come together and influence the health & well-being in society much more.
Within each system is a whole plethora of other models, concepts, premises and facets.
But both have problems… and I think this is largely because ultimately, they’re 2 aspects that need each other in balance. When society focuses on one side too much, imbalance and inherent issues occur.
While I do hold a vision for the 2 systems to be integrated eventually for society’s greater benefit, I also am not clear that it will happen in my lifetime.
Each system has its benefits & deficits at the moment.
For the medical system:
- Benefits: a well consolidated cross-referral network, a solid and common framework and system, strong knowledge sharing & research, advanced technology & resources
- Deficits: reducing the humanity & uniqueness in healing, dogmatic principles, arrogance, distrusting natural processes, overly reliant on pharmaceuticals and surgery
For the holistic healing industry:
- Benefits: allowance for expression & diversity, seeing the human as a multi-faceted and unique being, nurture & care in healing, focus on holistic self-sustainability
- Deficits: many individuals working alone or within their modality associations only, disjointed modality network with poor cross-referrals, little cross sharing of knowledge unless personal study in another field
Bringing the systems together
While both systems have a need for resolving deficits, my focus is mainly on the improvement and refinement of holistic healing as an industry. The medical system is already consolidated & the issues within that system need to be sorted by those who operate in it.
A balance between the 2 systems can only start with a consolidation first of the holistic healing industry. A critical missing factor is very much the loss of consolidation and a truly collaborative network.
How can an integration happen, when this is no united place for the medical system to connected with? Are we just expecting them to read our minds & show an interest, when we haven’t communicated our value or understood ourselves as a whole yet?
Consolidating the Holistic Healing Industry
The consolidations that do happen within holistic healing are limited and don’t quite fit a greater purpose (but are worthy in themselves). There are associations which join holistic healing modalities in one place, but we all essentially know that this is primarily to obtain approval for liability insurance &/or continuing education points.
Most expect that it is a way for clients to find them, but only a smaller fraction actually put the effort required for this to be viable.
There are associations or guilds for individual modalities. These tend to work more like a community with a common faction, however, most try to solve all health issues within the same modality and only a small number are good at cross referral. This is partially due to not understanding the scope of our own practice & the scope of others, so that we could meet the best needs of the client.
It also is a financial issue for many clients, with more financial reimbursement available for the medical system, than for holistic healing generally. At least this is true in Australia, I can’t speak for the whole world.
The client can often assume that there is a single modality that solves all their issues. And we as holistic professionals haven’t educated them, as we’ve failed to educate ourselves fully yet.
There are some free social media groups with the purpose of bringing holistic healers together. They work better as information and product exchanges. And sharing inspirational memes. Again, I don’t see them work as well unless within a community of the same modality.
So…. How to bring them all together?
1. We need to understand ourselves as a whole industry
This means understanding our scope & the general scope of other modalities, in a client centric model and application. This requires dropping competition between modalities and to stop trying to solve everything within the same modality.
It also means educating our clients, as we educate ourselves. If we propose to be truly holistic, then we need a multitude of holistic therapies that specialise in a variety of areas, to cater for the potential needs of each individual client.
This leads to point 2…
2. We need to work together, but in a way that works for us (carbon-copying the medical system is not the way)
This includes a cross referral system that works (in a client centric way). Therefore, we need to understand how to access root causes and determine those with the client, in order to match the potential modalities that would suit their needs.
We also need to find a way to consolidate ourselves in a method that doesn’t require a dogmatic, ‘follow our rules or get out’ type approach. We don’t have many examples of this in society, which is why we just continue to copy what has been done before.
I’ve learnt a synergistic approach that works and is far more advanced than a hierarchal/dogmatic model, however it is different & some adjustment is needed.
Most of society is slowly, slowly heading this way – which is why the monarchies are mostly a thing of the past now and even the power in many governments is waning.
We are gravitating to a new level of consciousness where there is no single ruler and even away from majority rules towards finding a synergistic consensus in the collective.
3. We need to consolidate our value
There are so many ways to do this, but falling back on research papers that mimics the medical model is so limited. This is somewhat devaluing modalities that don’t operate in that model. And yet, this seems to be the focus: trying to get approval from the medical system.
Rather, we need to approve of ourselves as a consolidated industry. Their approval can follow suite, after this.
And therefore, we need to find methods that determine our value in a way that fits our industry. Research papers will work for some healing modalities, but definitely not all. There are other frameworks of research that can be collated in order to concrete the industry’s value.
It’s Time For A New Type of Coming Together
It’s time for holistic healing to become a consolidated yet sovereign force.
This includes understanding the scope of practice within the holistic healing industry. Saying we help everyone and everybody is not actually helpful, even if it is inclusive. And once we understand our scope of practice and communicate it clearly, this helps other systems interface appropriately with their own scope. No client needs to be left in the dark and each healer doesn’t need to solve everything for everyone.
They say – a rising tide elevates all ships.
They say – many hands make light work.
Helen Keller said – “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
We have tried doing it alone or as disjointed modalities – it’s time to come together and influence the health & well-being in society much more.
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