INTEGRAL HEALING - WHAT I LEARNED FROM THIS CLASS - UNIT 10

First, the definition of the Integral Healing approach, can best be described by one of its pioneers,


Elliott Dacher. Dacher (2006), states that Integral Health is: “self-generated and self-cultivated, that leads to a comprehensive, holistic, and far-reaching healing of body, mind, and spirit and that is immune to life’s adversities, including disease, aging, and death” (p. 3).

The following meditation exercise from this class, were the most helpful to me and based on my professional
judgement, I think that they would be the most beneficial to my future clients because:

1) Subtle Mind Meditation - This helps for a person to learn how to calm the mind, so that you can see things from a non-judging point of view. This also helps, so that you can feel more united with the rest of humanity.

2) Integral Assessment - This helps for a person to be able to calm the mind and then ask “what is the source of my distress?” If you can calm your mind, the answers will arrive to you.

3) Loving Kindness Meditation - This helps for a person to be able to give and receive love for others, ourselves and even to our enemies. With all of the negativity in the world, this is very important (the Universal Loving Kindness Meditation is very similar to this one, but it works on a universal scale.)

The other meditations from this class were not quite as helpful for me, but I would definitely keep them in mind for the future. However, I would only recommend them for the advanced meditator. For instance:

1) The Crime of the Century - This could work well for someone, who would like to work through their chakras. Although, it would be the most helpful for the person to have an understanding of what each of the chakras centers and their corresponding colors meant, prior to the exercise. People who remain stuck in their healing, could benefit from this if they are unaware of the source of the problem.

2) The Meeting of Asclepius - This might be a good one for someone, who is asking for the guidance from a loved one or leader if they were stuck in a personality pattern or a problem cycle. For instance, many people in the world, would ask the leader of their faith. e.g. Jesus, Buddha, Moses or Mohammed to submerge their soul or heart with theirs, so that they can make the right decisions.

Then as far as learning about the basic information of the Integral Health philosophy, it was very helpful to learn about the following:

1) That this process is based on the “Five Guiding Principles of the Integral Approach to Healing” as follows:

a) Holistic
b) Evolutionary
c) Intentional
d) Person-Centered
e) Dynamic

2) That the four aspects of our “holistic” (whole) human healing experiences are based on:

a) Psychospiritual - Conative, Cognitive, Emotional
b) Biological - Fitness, Nutrition, Self-Regulation
c) Interpersonal - Personal, Family, Community
d) Worldly - Generatively, Social Activision, Work

3) Some very important websites to keep as a reference are:

a) Integral Institute - http://www.integralinstitute.org/
b) Integral Health and Human flourishing - http://www.elliottdacher.org/html/main.html
c) Integral Life - http://integrallife.com/

Last, it is very important to continue keeping our minds with the thoughts of well-being, love, kindness, joy, gratitude, optimission and health to promote ourselves as "Mental Olympians." The more that we continue to practice these positive thoughts, the more mentally integrated that our minds will become. Based on this gamma wave mind state, we should continue to state the motto “Go Gamma.”

Please feel free to keep in touch with me via this blog. Cheers to a Happy Precious Life!

Maria Lee Wey
Future BS, CTN and Writer
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References

Dacher, E.S. (2006). Integral health: The path to human flourishing. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, Inc.

Integral institute. (2010). Retrieved July 19, 2010 from http://www.integralinstitute.org/

Integral life: Free to be fully human. (2010). Retrieved July 19, 2010 from http://integrallife.com/

Ours is a precious human life. (2010). Retrieved July 19, 2010 from http://www.elliottdacher.org/html/main.html