Spirit The Key To True Holistic Wellbeing

By Lorraine Rimando, RN, BSN, RA

Holistic health practitioners like to emphasize the importance of taking care of the mind, body and spirit. While it is common to hear about how balancing your mental and physical health is key to overall wellbeing, we don't hear much about the “spiritual” aspect of it all. However, our spirit may play the most important role in reaching our highest possible level of health.

Spirit, defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is “an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms.” Our spiritual wellbeing is what determines our driving force towards better health or, even, towards acceptance, which may be death for those who are terminally ill. The role of spirit is not limited to these examples given. In holistic care, addressing the person's spirit, along with mind and body, is needed before an appropriate plan of care can be made. Not including the spiritual health of an individual in planning care can make for a weak outcome or unreachable goal. Imagine a practitioner coming up with a perfect plan to get a person's pain under control with psychological counseling and aromatherapy treatments to ease the pain, but the person's spirit is broken and not addressed. How effective would that treatment be? It's like putting the pieces of a puzzle together with a piece missing or building a house with a missing brick the foundation would be weak and things can come tumbling down eventually.

Now that we've established the importance of “spirit” in holistic care, what exactly determines the health of a person's spirit? Well, as mentioned, it is the person's driving force and what animates them in life. It is the ability to hope, to love, to have faith, to feel, to connect and so much more. For some, it may be tied to their religion or core beliefs. It is unique and individual to each human being. When a person's spirit feels “broken,” they may feel a sense of hopelessness, disconnected from others or lack a sense of faith in what they used to have faith in. Ways in which people have found spiritual health is through church, connecting to others or a being bigger than themselves and finding what speaks to their hearts.

There are many ways to cultivate spiritual health; the effectiveness depends on the individual person. Just remember to include spirit in your holistic plan of care for better health this year.