Mind, Body, Spirit, Soul

I like this image because of the four categories that make up “you”, only one is actually your body. And yet so much of what we experience of our humanness is in our physical body.

According to the wisdom of Chinese Medicine, our body also manifests and is interconnected to all of the other aspects of “self”, inextricably. Which means it is possible to help to ease, balance, or release “issues” of the mind, spirit and soul simply through paying attention to what is going on in the body, and working with that.

One of my earliest Chinese teachers of TCM once shared a story, which I have shared with countless clients since:

One day the soul was talking to the body. “I can’t get her attention,” it complained. “She doesn’t listen! I send her all these signs, all these clues. She isn’t on a good path, but she’s not changing anything.”

“Leave it to me,” says the body, “I’ll get her attention.”

In Chinese Medicine we are trained to look at symptoms and signs as clues to the underlying patterns. One can not “see” the underlying imbalances, just like one can not see the wind. But when the wind acts upon the ocean, the desert, or the trees, the presence of the wind is made visible, the effects are clear.

I love how the body gives us the clues, in its beauty and in its brokeness, of what the WHOLE person really wants and needs - in mind, body, spirit and soul.