Different writers on holistic health all have their way of carving up the different faculties of human consciousness. Some favor the standard model of mind, body, and emotions. Some are willing to recognize the spiritual dimension and thus add that into the mix. Still others, like myself, recognize how tightly knitted the body and mind are to one another and honor that connection by using the term “body-mind”. I will attempt such a division of consciousness to add the flurry of models in hopes that it will clarify one particular experience (intuition) that is most helpful to pay attention to as we seek to heal with cheap medicine.
The physical body comprises all your cells, the collection of cells known as tissues, the combination of tissues known as organs, and the collaboration of organs into organ systems. Your body too has a language, a means to communicate with the other aspects of your self. The body, which I believe to be the container of the subconscious mind as it is understood in Western psychology, speaks to us with emotions. Visceral feeling – butterflies in our gut, flutters in our heart, even a pain in our neck, are all messages from our body as to its state and condition. You therefore can’t separate the emotions you are feeling, the stress you are under and the way your body feels. Often a patient with a pain in their neck will concede that someone in their life at the moment is acting as a source of irritation. That doesn’t necessarily mean that this irritating person is the cause of their neck pain, but it is a factor that requires our attention if the patient is to fully heal.
Our mind, which overlays the physical body, is the domain of the conscious thinking part of our being. This is the part of you that is reading this text and contemplating its meaning. The language of the mind is thought and it is a powerful driver of human experience. The body and our emotions give us important feedback as to whether our human experience is favorable or not, but it is our thoughts which have the power to change our experience, or at least, our perception of our experience. Thoughts are a creative force and your body will follow suit to whatever are your dominant thought patterns. A thought you keep thinking then becomes a belief. A thought combined with positive emotion equals passion, a powerful combination with which to alter the course of your life.
Finally there is the spirit which also has its own language. Spirit can be defined as the superconscious and communicates to us through the language of insight and intuition. Insight comes in a flash and intuition will pop in your head as a novel thought or idea. In this lies the key to differentiating what is a superconscious message and what is a thought coming from your waking conscious state. When you think a thought, it comes in your own native language. For most of us reading this, thoughts come as a string of sentences in english. Intuitions come as discreet block of knowing, as if the idea pops into your head with all the trimmings attached. You don’t hear a intuition in your head, it shows up without the aid of language and is often accompanied by feelings of rightness. Dreams speak to us in a similar manner, conveying huge swaths of information without speaking or thinking. This is important to recognize because vast amounts of healing advice are “downloaded” into us all the time if we care to listen.
No amount of separation can account for the total sum of the human experience. The categories that we do make are more for our convenience as we rationally try to understand these varied experience. Furthermore, it is rare for any human experience to be in the domain of only one of these areas. Your body has a sensation that triggers a thought, emotion, memory, etc. – all these different “bodies” overlap into an integrated whole that color the human experience. That being said, I wish you many bright vivid colors on your palette with which to paint the story of your life. Thanks for reading.
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