Thursday, May 8, 2003

How to be a Good Holistic Health Client 1. Don't call yourself a patient. You're a client (under the care of another) or a partner-in-health. 2. Don't go to get your symptoms fixed. Holistic health is not about symptomatic relief. It is about healing the entire body. The holistic health practitioner (the good ones) will always respond to your complaints about symptoms with the same responses. a) They'll listen to you. b) They'll empathize. c) They'll ask questions. d) They'll proceed with a whole-body healing program that is not necessarily focused on fixing those symptoms immediately. It may make you mad if you're used to the "give me a pill" health protocol. But it works infinitely better. Trust the process and the practitioner. You hear me saying this now, but then when you try the holistic process, you'll still want to revert to your symptomatic way of thinking. I do it all the time. 3. Don't expect drama. Results in the holistic health process are subtle, always. "Oh Doctor, I feel 100% better after you did that thing to my leg!" Sometimes this happens, but don't expect it. 4. Expect things to get worse before they get better. This is like the body builder going to the gym. In order to build their muscles, they perform exercises that actually tear their muscles down. After the muscles are hurt, they heal and grow stronger than they ever were. Same with your body. I'm not saying that sore neck will turn into a broken neck or whatever, but expect some ups and downs, not only ups. 5. Expect "re-tracing." Okay, so after a few treatments of whatever type of holistic health practice, you start to feel better. Cool! Then the very same thing comes back again. Bummer! I guess it didn't work. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. Re-tracing is an effect where your body is going back over what the problem was in order to fix it. 6. Check out the doctor's qualifications. You want a doc who has attended the training for the profession. Rolfing, for instance, is very rigorous in the initial training and even what is required on-going. Many holistic health practices are the same. Make sure you have some assurance that this is not just a person who has hung out a shingle. Training of some kind is necessary, even if it is just apprenticeship with a master, like with energy healing or other more ethereal practices. 7. Notice the really small things. The practitioner was touching your knee and it felt abnormally cold. Hmmm. Mention it to the practitioner and sit with that thought for a while. Why would it be cold? Or, just as commonly, they do something and suddenly you have some urgent thought about another person. Are you harboring some emotion (anger, guilt, etc.) toward that person? Is your pain or problem a way of keeping that emotion inside you? Is there a way to let it go? 8. There is no "family doctor" style person in holistic health. Holistic health is a do-it-yourself thing. You research the practices. You figure out which to go to. You talk to your friends about the alternatives. You pay (forget about insurance paying for most of it.) You do the healing, the practitioner is just helping you do what you need to do. These are things I'm learning as I learn more about holistic health. I am not an expert. But I have experienced great things with many types of practices and I want to, in my lifetime, try them all. As a client. 1:21:13 PM

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