You are more than the sum of your parts

You’re in another health practitioner’s office hearing yet another perspective on your mysterious, persistent symptoms. Before you receive what’s being said, ask yourself: What kind of practitioner am I seeing right now? Does your practitioner subscribe to a holistic or reductionist philosophy?

There’s quite a divide between the practitioners that inherently believe in your wholeness and see their job as guiding you back to your centre and those that list and categorize everything that’s wrong with you. I can’t hide my prejudice.

Here’s the truth. I can no longer accept being reduced to the sum of my parts. I don’t believe in looking at any symptom in isolation. To clarify, of course, if you cut your finger, get a Band-Aid. But if you are dealing with chronic conditions, a whole person lens is needed.

Each symptom, even across different body parts, is interconnected. I once argued with an MD who told me, “How can those things be related? There’s a completely different specialty of medicine that deals with each of those body systems!” When she got out her computer to try and prove it to me, I knew I had to step away.

Back to you and your body-mind. Look at the whole. Find practitioners that understand that whole. Advocate to include all of you in your healing. Healing is a whole person endeavour. It’s hard to come back to authentic balance when parts of you are excluded. .

Make sense?