Philosophy Of Body, Mind, Spirit Therapy

Our Integrative Healing Body/Mind/Spirit Therapies are a complementary set of modalities to a traditional Cognitive Behavioural Therapy approach. Issues such as chronic pain, anxiety, depression and trauma reactions affect a client both on a physiological and emotional level. This is rarely resolved using cognitive therapy alone. Therefore, the therapists at CrossRoads have trained to integrate energetic mind/bodywork, deep relaxation techniques, guided imagery, Reiki - Natural Healing, Acupressure, Acu-massage, The Kruger Healing Technique, Hypnosis and Client-Centred Dialog into their healing practice.

CrossRoads have developed a process of Jé-Joh Shén Therapy (Japanese) for deep muscle relaxation, tension and stress release which are the major causes of physiological imbalance. The process developed and used at CrossRoads is to heighten the body/mind/spirit communication of the client. Thus opening the client's personal inner self in order to reconnect the client with their internal resources and assist the client in shifting their internal frame of reference to a healthier, more proactive stance. In doing so, we draw on components from Acu-massage, Jé-Joh Shén Acupressure, Kruger/Somatic-hypnosis, Reiki and Client-Centred Dialog. The direct purpose of this therapeutic process is to assist the client in bringing their body/mind/spirit systems into a sense of well-being and balance.

The integrative healing process includes focussed breathing, body scans, deep progressive relaxation, centring, energy field and body balance. The client is also trained in self-care which includes, breath control, centring and relaxation techniques.

It is amazing how our health is something that most of us take for granted until it’s gone. Many of the clients we work with think of good health as simply the absence of illness or living in a pain-free state. We tend to believe we are in good health when we can sleep, eat, breathe, move and perform our daily routines with comfort and ease. However, good health is much more. Good health means freedom. Freedom on all three levels that make up a whole person: the physical level (body), the soul level (mental, emotional) and the spiritual level. Integration of these three levels is the CrossRoads body/mind/spirit philosophy for good health. It means having the ability to live your life to the fullest. You can be incapacitated by pain (body) or incapacitated by fear (emotional) or incapacitated by hopelessness (spiritual). Incapacity at any one of the three human levels will prevent you from moving forward in life. But if you can restore balance and wholeness, you will create true freedom in your life. And in this, you will create a sense of well-being into your life.

Many times people separate the mind from the body. We think of our minds as being in our heads and our bodies beginning from the neck down. Therefore, when we become ill, we think that it has to do only with our body and not with our emotional state. We could not be further from the truth. One of the main keys to good health is emotional well-being, which then equates to physical well-being. For example: Joy enhances health while stress exhausts it. There is scientific research to confirm that the state of our emotions does affect our health. Our mind, body and spirit are part of a single interconnected whole. Each is interwoven into the fabric of our personhood.

Support of this theory is the foundation to all philosophical, spiritual and medical understanding in the near east (India, China, Japan, Israel etc.). It is also supported by western scientific research today. For example: Hans Selye M.D.,a pioneer in stress research, revealed that stress lowers immunity and depletes our adrenal glands, eventually resulting in illness. "Stress" is a general term for an emotional and physical response to a trauma event. In his book “Quantum Healing”, Deepak Chopra M.D. discusses research which states that emotions are felt in every cell of our bodies. Dr. Josh Kruger, the developer of the Kruger Omni Healing Therapy, stresses that the body uniquely knows and communicates what is required for healing. It comes then, of no surprise that Traditional Chinese Medical teachings tell us that certain emotions have phylogenetic (systemic) relation to certain areas of our bodies. Thus, anger can produce headaches, digestive disturbances, muscle and joint pain and menstrual disturbances. Fear can produce urinary tract and bone problems. Sadness and grief can produce respiratory problems.

What we have discovered in our clinical work here at CrossRoads is that it is not the feeling of emotions that result in illness but rather the suppression of those emotions. In short, suppressing your emotions makes you sick. We see this continuously with our clients who do not have the inner strength to cope with the stressor's of today. One of the effects is the modern epidemic of depression. We see it in our clients who suppress their anger or grief - they then become depressed and physically (emotionally and spiritually) ill.

It’s not unusual for clients to state that they are really uncomfortable with their feelings. The emotional hurt of feelings can be very overwhelming at times. Many of our clients have been brought up in a Family of Origin where feelings were not respected and so as adults, clients cannot effectively cope or process their feelings. What happens is that when an emotion tries to surface, it is denied or a person refuses to deal with it through distractions of overwork and/or exercise. Some people will even attempt to meditate emotions away. The dangerous model that is followed is, "don't feel it, control it."

A simple illustration of this body/mind philosophy can be seen in the simulation of a balloon filled with gel. Allow half of the balloon to represent your physical self and the other half to represent your emotional self. If you press down one part of the balloon (representing emotional/physical suppression), the gel gets redistributed to the other side. The scientific term for this is homeostasis, i.e., the body's attempt to come back to a state of balance in order to keep us alive. If we push down one part of us, it will resurface somewhere else. In order to fully heal our physical bodies, we need to heal and release the emotional stressor's and hurts stored there.

The therapists at CrossRoads do not diagnose conditions, nor do they prescribe substances or perform medical treatment, nor interfere with the treatment of medical professionals. What we offer is a complementary modality to traditional medical practice. Our primary focus is stress reduction and deep relaxation, which we believe promotes physical, emotional and spiritual healing to take place. We, at CrossRoads, believe that we are each responsible for our own state of health and that we have the power to heal ourselves. While the Medical Health Care Professionals (Doctors, Chiropractors, Therapists etc.) are a valuable support system - ultimately, it is you who is doing your own healing. It is your body, your mind, your spirit. Because our mind, body and spirit are interconnected and interwoven together, without addressing the entire system, full healing will not take place. We all know this intuitively. We have the answers within us. We just need to learn to trust ourselves again. And because we are complete beings, we need our healing to be complete as well.