All health is in balance.
In neuroscience there are now a number of theories (e.g. the somatic marker hypothesis – SMH – to name just one) which suggest that our faculties of reason are just as impaired by lack of emotion as by an excess of emotion. Frequently, people who suffer damage to the ’emotion centres’ of the brain – while maintaining highly functional reasoning abilities – make very poor rational decisions. The theory is that the lack of ‘feed’ from the emotions (as it’s the only thing that has changed) is responsible for this poor decision making. So, it seems, that in order to make decisions based on logic and reason it is necessary to include input from processes which would which would appear to be the direct opposite of this process – namely feelings. (1)
The principle is clear in this study – even at an individual level we are systems of oneness, cohesive units in which every part and process has a contribution to make to the whole. Whenever this is not possible, an imbalance is necessarily created.
In other words, the question is not if the functioning of the whole will be affected by leaving out one of our faculties but rather how it will be affected.
Excluding any of our faculties, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual has exactly the same type of outcome. Relative to the circumstances, some parts will present more obviously than others but all need to be in good running order if we are to achieve optimum efficiency in any of our systems. It isn’t a good idea to be run by any one of our ‘dimensions’ – not even our much prized Western intellectualism – coherence between all of our dimensions will always bring the best results. In other words, we need coherence between all of our systems to be effective in any one area of our functioning.
All health is in balance and coherence. Inside as well as out…
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Related articles
- Economics and the Brain: How People Really Make Decisions in Turbulent Times (neurosciencenews.com)
- The Heart Has Its Own “Brain” and Consciousness (2012indyinfo.com)
- The Pleasure Dimension (prmarketingcommunication.com)
Interesting that you come to talk about the subject of holistic health. I just gave several talks on the holistic aspects of disease and conditions and how to approach them on the various levels of being. There is one level though which I always include when talking about this – and thats the energetic realm. This is where all the information – physical, mental, emotional – is represented and can be diagnosed as well as balanced. There is nothing “esoteric” about it (in the derogatory sense of the word) -as we all are beings made of atoms and their vibrating sub-particles. Each thought, each feeling, anything we do or say or put in our mouth does contributes to our energetic field and this is how we are connected to everything else. The spiritual level, the level of soul if you will, is the place of our greater purpose in this life and this is what ultimately steers us through life. The more we are in alignment with the greater plan, the better our sense of well-being (health) will be. If we are resisting on any of the lower levels – this is what is causing stress and ultimately it is stress that is bringing our oct of balance and causing symptoms of disease.
I feel inspired…;-)
I wasn’t just referring to physical health but that too! Thank you so much for your comprehensive and insightful comment. I completely agree and might have tried to say it but you put it much better! Thanks again!
I am not an professional in anything but…life, and there I haven’t always followed my own precepts. I think we are so many beings in one body is not even funny :). But on the other hand me, only me I could depend upon, without limit, and no matter what. I am the same me that I’ve always known, more or less, I’ll be the only one who will be with me to the end. Sometimes i respect my inner child, and it is then when I am in harmony with my own needs. When my meager needs are met, my wants are implicitly met. It is true that beyond the realm of oneness, our needs are constantly challenged and others’ wants try to take away what we need. Socially, it is designed that way, it is the golden chain…and ball. I’ve always been open to change, willing the change, always ready…Well, in the end, while it almost impossible the even understand what internal balance is, I know that I always had an internal compass.
I enjoy reading your thought enticing writings, Creating Reciprocity, and hope that what I suggested here is not totally off the wall. George.
Thanks you for your comment, George – it is very insightful (though it went to my spam folder by the way – that could be happening you with other blogs as well). I agree with you about the internal compass, I truly believe we all have one of those and the problem is that we have been taught to look outside ourselves rather than inside to understand everything – even our own personal experiences. I also agree that no matter how beloved we are there is a way in which we are all alone in a very real sense and so we need to reconcile that fact – maybe if we thought about it more it might stop us bending ourselves out of shape to try to ‘fit’ someone else’s expectation of us?
Thanks again for your comment – it’s not even slightly off the wall!
Thanks for your comment, creating reciproticity, and yes, I check my spam, regularly, one of your comments went there, and the same few of my friend bloggers. But most of the time Akismet really filters things out. I got about 9,000 spams, in 14 months! and only about ten were not spam.
You’ve inspired people today 😉
This is major problem with a materialist philosophy, it doesn’t understand or speak to the world of emotion/somatic experiencing. It is not easy to integrate difficult like experiences, and the resulting emotions into our materialistic view. In fact is it often seems nearly impossible. For instance, clients will often say to me, “I want to get back to the way I was before…” Before meaning whatever bad thing that happened to the person. The materialist view will not refute this wish, this notion that it is possible to return to a prior state. It’s completely doable in the materialist view. But in reality, it is not at all doable. Yet I fully understand the desire for such, as it is the only way acceptable. In the materialistic culture, there is nothing to be learned by experience. In the materialistic culture we value what is whole, the freshest fruit. We see no value in the product once it has been marred. In the materialistic culture, we come to view our own selves as merchandise.
But our experiences do change us…they rewire our bodies, they sensitize us, wake us up. If we are uncomfortable with being awakened, if we have been taught there is an optimal way to feel in life and this awakened state isn’t it….well, we must shut down this aspect of ourselves. We must do everything in our power to remain untouched.
Part of the problem I’ve seen is that when bad things happen to people they feel deeply shamed. Perhaps this accounts for why so many illnesses, syndromes, disorders, conditions, whatever unpleasant life event that might occur must now rely upon marketing campaigns to clear the good name of their sufferers. We need official folks to stand up and say, don’t look down upon that person who has x,y, z. I guess that’s a good thing, but it also speaks to our natural tendency to judge/fear/condemn people who have been touched by life, who have reminded us all that we are not so much in control.
So…if you have experiences that in fact endanger your primal and fundemental need to belong, how do you process those? You have the original bad experience…that is hard enough. But then you have the emotions that linger from it, the sense of isolation that comes when you are not back to your former self, as you are told you should be. What happens is you have the knowledge that you are not the same, but the culture persists in believing you should be? A great many people fall into this limbo. This is a despairing place filled with cynicism – hardly a great resource for a society. Unless of course you are creating consumers. In this sense, unhappiness is the fuel of a materialistic culture.
In a culture that values meaning and man/woman’s quest for it, all our experiences become valuable. All our experiences are allowed out into the light. There is no false belief that you will be untouched by life, but rather that you will be touched by it and you will become something quite unique in the process…you will become you.
OK…I told you inspired me…ooxx
Patrice I love that comment and I can’t thank you enough for making it – it is humanly impossible for me to agree more and you have put it beautifully. There is clearly a value – and I believe an adaptive power – in suffering as even if we all had magic wands and could eliminate the evil – as in pain caused intentionally – we still couldn’t eliminate suffering (I know I keep saying this, sorry, but it’s true) – which then begs the question – what is the value of suffering? What does it mean? What can we learn? What happens to a human being who has suffered and put that suffering to productive use? How powerful is that person – ploughed field, pruned tree, tempered steel.
I wonder if our obsession with youth and beauty is connected to this? All ancient cultures admire youth and beauty for what it has to bring to the table – energy, enthusiasm etc but they equally admire age and experience (usually a lot more wrinkled and worn) because they saw a valuable benefit in that too. Maybe our modern obsession with looking young forever is tied to our loss of appreciation for suffering and our inability to see that it has a useful purpose?
Viktor Frankl had the most amazing understanding of this very issue and he certainly earned his stripes in the suffering department. He believed that suffering was of great value to human development – not self-inflicted masochistic suffering which is a treatable disorder but ordinary and not so ordinary suffering.
Apart from that it has been my experience that when we try to suppress our feelings they don’t go away, just mutate into something else. It’s ironic that acknowledging feelings – something that frightens us – has the effect of reducing not increasing their power. If we are afraid of the power of feelings then, we’d be better served if we named and acknowledged them – it’s the best way to actually neutralise them.
As for the fear that victims have of being found to be broken – I think it is a very real problem especially as it moves the attentional spotlight off the perpetrators and onto the victims and teaches us that we are to blame for what happens to us and not what we do – this isn’t even logical but it does seem to be the prevailing notion. We really, really, really need to learn to take responsibility for what we do – even if our actions are ‘provoked’ or ’caused’ by abusive or upsetting experiences we ourselves have had. Maybe if we learn to square up to ourselves and call ourselves to account for all of our own actions and not let ourselves off any hooks by blaming others then we’ll expect all perpetrators of all actions to take the responsibility and stop blaming victims?
As for the judging thing – it just needs to stop. It has no useful or productive application. We all need to stop – if you think Americans judge a lot they are pussy cats and quite encouraging in comparison to most Europeans – including the Irish!
Thanks again – I’m glad you were inspired – it went both ways! xxx
Thank you so much for putting those folks in their place who say,”This is not a time for emotions”! I have always wanted to respond, “So, you are saying it is a time for robots?” Hooray for this correct teaching about keeping proper balance between all aspects of our humanity in order to keep healthy!
All health is definitely in balance. Thanks.