The Hierarchical Nature of Healing
Not all inner work is created equally
Note: In my last article I announced I would be sharing more on Esoteric Christianity. Turns out Esoteric Christ is a large rabbit hole and I have not been able to explore to the depths I would like. I am currently between The Jesus Sutras and the Gnostic Gospels. So I will be researching a little more before sharing on this subject.
Did you know there is a hierarchy to health and vitality? And while it can often feel like there is a laundry list of ways we could work on ourselves, sometimes doing the most important thing will relieve challenges we face in other areas. I recently completed my first year in the Chek Academy, which included Holistic Lifestyle Coaching (HLC) and Integrated Movement Science (IMS). During this process one of my mentors Paul Chek, introduced me to the Chek Totem Pole.
This is a system that shows that the body and psyche has a hierarchy of survival reflexes, and that it will prioritise the health of specific systems based on that which will give you the best chance of survival. At the top we have the Psyche, which is inclusive of the Spirit and Mind, which is then followed by the breath being the number one thing a human being should prioritise for physical survival. What this means is if you have to compromise posture to take a breath, the body will do so, as it can stay in poor posture possibly for a persons entire lifetime, but a few minutes without breath would mean death.
The reason I mention this is that I have developed a hierarchy I use to work with people to understand the etymology of their challenges in 3 parts. At the top we have Spirituality, a level down Psychology and at the bottom we have the Physical body. What this means is that at the root of our suffering we have a spiritual problem, and if we can resolve this then the physical and mental can heal also. To put it differently, if you have a bad back, then your psychology is creating the posture for this, which is underlined by a spiritual misalignment. If you can heal spiritually, then you can heal the mental and physical, bringing them to their optimal. This does not necessarily mean that if you have a serious medical condition, healing the spiritual will cure the physical ailment, but it will heal the person to the best standard of living available.
This runs counter to the Westernised medical approach which usually starts with the physical for a physical issue and mental for a mental issue, and ignores the spiritual entirely.
I am going to go deeper into each of these sections in future articles, but as an overview and introduction we have:
Spirituality: This is the purpose of one's life in the form of our soul, and the connection to the collective in relation to spirit.
Soul is individual, and gives us our uniqueness, likes and dislikes. It is what connects us to our kin, and those we wish to spend time and evolve with. Soul is where our purpose resides and it is very specific. To know soul we have to go through the underworld, face our shadows and battle with dragons. To word differently, we know soul through making enough of our unconscious conscious, until we get to the level of self awareness when we can truly say we know who we are.
This is what a life of purpose is, and it is made real through the soul. Soul also works in groups, so a tribe will have song, dance and story, all related to their soul group. This is why disconnection from our tribe is metaphorical death, and being with our soul family will bring us growth and fulfilment.
You cannot escape who you are and your soul is constantly trying to communicate this to you, and while soul work is challenging, it is not the soul that actually challenges us, but the resistance to its call.
Spirit on the other hand is what unifies us. It is the soul of all. It could be thought of as the invisible hand of God. Through spirit we learn unconditional love and the forces that unify everyone. Soul is the individual slice of spirit, whereas spirit is universal. When we say “we are one” this is spirit. When we say I am from my tribe or a Warrior of the Heart or living in the way of the White Owl, this is soul.
Psychology: This is the Ego, Shadow, Conscious and Unconscious.
The Ego is our sense of self, and despite its bad rep (mainly through a misunderstanding of Eastern Mysticism) as something we must kill in order to be free, it is not this at all. An undeveloped ego does not know who it is. In adolescence this is normal, as we are still trying to understand who we are and what we are here to do. However, a healthy adult ego will know who they are, and have a peer group who accept them for their role in a wider community.
The Shadow is the part of ourselves we do not see. We have to be careful not to think we know our shadow, as this is not possible. We can bring the shadow to awareness, however, it is no longer the shadow once we do this. The Shadow is the parts of us that plays out unconsciously, and can have both positive and negative application.
The Collective Unconscious could be likened to spirit, as it belongs to everyone, it is the archetypal realms which exist cross culturally and beyond conditioning. The ego can be likened to the soul, as it is very much individual.
The Conscious Mind is which we are aware of, and what our attention is being placed upon.
The Unconscious Mind is that which we are not aware of, and running like a program in the background.
This is a simplification, and there are other aspects of the mind, but this is a simple introduction and I will expand on this in future articles.
Physicality:
This is the body, and there is a paradox at play, being that while a dysfunctional body is the result of a spiritual and mental problem, a healthy physical body is needed for good quality thinking and a spiritual connection. So everything is interconnected, and we should not neglect one for the other.
The bridge between mind and spirit is the Breath. So this is the fundamental need that takes precedence in the human body, as mentioned earlier your body will never prioritise the health of a limb at the expense of the breath.
This is then followed by Hydration or the need for Shelter. It is debatable which of these is the highest priority as it is circumstantial - you could live outside in moderate climate and hydration could become a pressing issue before shelter, however, if you are in extreme cold or heat, lack of shelter can become more important than hydration. Either way both are fundamental for our physical health.
Food is the next of our fundamental needs for survival, followed by Sleep and Movement.
All the above are important, but some people go years without adequate movement or sleep, which you obviously cannot do with breathing. The body is a very well designed machine and I think it offers us clues as to what we need to prioritise.
What this all points to is the importance of good breathing technique, hydration, nutrition, sleep, rest and movement.
Something important to note: Although I have offered this in a hierarchical way, this does not mean that simply having a spiritual practice will resolve all physical and mental issues, and a spiritual practice (no matter how deep) is different from a spiritual life. If you can easily visit the astral worlds, but do not have a strong sense of who you are, it is all just a firework show and can be a major source of distraction!
In a healthy person the mind, body and spirit integrate.
So where to start? While there is a hierarchical nature to self development, it is part art, part science and just because something has more bang for its buck, it does not mean it should be the place to start. It could be a large leap for an Atheist to accept their challenges as being rooted in a disconnection from God, so in many cases it is best to start with the mind or body.
Change generally happens very slowly, so sometimes it is simply about building good momentum by doing that which is accessible and allowing the momentum to slowly grow.
Are you finding yourself in a transitional phase of your life? Would you like to develop a connection to your soul? Or understand the gift you have for the world? If you answered yes to any of the above I can help. Recently I opened for online transformational coaching sessions and I would love to help you realise your goals. Want to see if we are a good fit? You can sign up for a free 20 minute consultation here.
Thank you this is a great starting point to a disregarded area: Breath and how it fits together with the other parts of the hierarchy. What you have shown is like when someone takes one vitamin and expects to heal when all the vitamins and minerals together work better, if you know how.
Hi, I noticed something in this phrase "At the top we have Spirituality, a level down Psychology and at the bottom we have the Physical body. What this means is that at the root of our suffering we have a spiritual problem". You've used "root" in its figurative sense of "source", yet you're positing a top-down source where the metaphor doesn't fit. I'm finding this meaningful because, while recognising both the upwards and downwards flows between systems, in the healing context I prefer hierarchical structures that work from the bottom up, using a gravitational metaphor (one needs a solid foundation before one can build the higher structures on it, or, the bottom half of a totem pole can exist without the top more readily than the reverse). A focus on the top remains useful in setting the direction to work upwards to.