Holistic Approach to Wellness - November 2011

By Shari Montgomery

The link between mind, body and emotions can no longer be denied, and it’s critical to consider this three-fold approach for wellness and living your best life. It’s much like a loop between the physical, emotional and mental.

One aspect of your being affects the other. Poor physical health affects your thoughts, emotions, and vitality, and negative thoughts and emotions affect your physical health! Indeed, the psychosomatic cause of many diseases is just beginning to be understood, but on the flipside, the reality of how toxins and poor diet cause disease is undeniable as well.

Modern life can prove challenging for achieving and maintaining a state of balance and feeling our best. It has always been my natural passion to research, experiment, and coach others about nutrition, cleansing, and diet to better navigate life more empowered. And there’s always more to learn.

 I’ve observed rather clearly how people’s choices, lifestyles and eating habits contribute to not only their poor health, but their mental and emotional state. We all live in a stressful world of toxins keeping our immune systems bogged down, and some of us are under the weight of it more than others.

When someone wants to make changes in their life but feel stuck, I believe addressing their physical health and lifestyle habits is an ideal first step. Otherwise, the benefits of wonderful healing modalities potentially can’t take hold if the body is in a constant state of imbalance or toxic overload, or if they just return to their unhealthy habits.

There are several major issues of physical imbalance, of which one alone can create havoc on a person’s entire life on all levels, no matter how much other therapies they pursue. For example, toxins such as leaking mercury fillings in their mouth, imbalanced hormones, chronic dehydration or poor nutrition will have wide ranging effects on emotions, moods, energy levels and perception.

Beyond nutritional tips, I encourage many of my clients to visit a holistic dentist for mercury removal, get down to the health food store or make friends with their local Naturopath for addressing possible hormone imbalance or food allergies. While addressing the care of the body is a critical starting point; however it’s important to note that there may be subconscious beliefs or blocks to even pursuing physical health in the first place! Having the subconscious belief that you are unworthy of health, or that you benefit somehow from being sick is a starting place to address, and can greatly influence the entire process. Subconscious beliefs such as “not deserving to be healthy” or “it’s too hard to change” may need to be cleared first in order to make the necessary changes or to address addictions.

 Simply engaging the power of the subconscious mind to align with conscious goals is a crucial ingredient to any endeavor. In keeping with the loop model, when we begin working on ourselves at the emotional and mental levels, our physical health needs to keep up, to not only support us as our vehicle thru which we experience our earthly life, but to also hold the new energetic resonance we’re endeavoring to attain.

Your diet and lifestyle need to match the higher vibration that you are working to achieve with various healing modalities. We are holistic beings, not single parts, and if you don’t also incorporate healing and change at the physical level, you will be kept mired down in a fog of toxic and depleted energy, potentially offsetting all the work that you’re doing at the emotional and psychological levels.

One aspect of your being affects the other. Unless all components are addressed, personal growth and healing can be stunted by any number of factors, some of which you may not even be aware of how much you’re affected by. Invest in your holistic wellness!

Shari's Bio: Shari Montgomery has been working in the healing arts since 2003 and is an Advanced PSYCH-K® Facilitator, EFT and Massage Practitioner. With a passion for health, wellness and balance, she has worked with clients from all walks of life to help them make shifts in their lives, and keeps mobile by frequently working out of various locations. Shari has a column called ' Empowered Living ' and has written for OK In Health since June 2010. - Shari Montgomery Website - Email