The Inner Healing for Outer Health course was an online immersive course in Integrative Health for healthcare practitioners, which is now drawing to a close. Twelve curious practitioners from South Africa and Italy embarked on the 12-week journey that integrated theory, practice, and personal insights with application on the field.
“I feel so liberated that there are names for these things that I have always suspected were there. How wonderful that there are like-minded people here,” said one participant. And that was a prominent theme throughout – these seasoned practitioners in the healthcare field had been having glimpses all along of an integrated and expanded approach to healing and health, but the system in which they find themselves seem to discredit or ignore those experiences.
Healers want to heal, and yet we tend to fragment more than cultivate until we learn to facilitate spaces for our clients and patients that meld together perceptions of spirit, psychology, and allopathic medicine. This does not happen by accident: hence the study of Integrative Health as a discipline.
Together we explored basic concepts of transpersonal medicine, holding the space, psychosomatic phenomena, and an integral lifestyle for health. Through curated online resources, interactive forums, case scenarios, and live webinars, we experienced a mindset change and considered how we could honour that through our daily professional and personal practice.
We looked at the literature and the science. The course was equally experiential, with emphasis on experimentation with processes, meditations, and open awareness. We had much discussion on the role of placebo and nocebo in health, and ritual, and how much we project of ourselves into the therapeutic space. The work starts within, before it manifests outside.
This quote sums it up nicely: “What an eye-opener. It will never be the same again. My way of working with my patients has changed in small but important ways. I feel different when I consult with my clients, and I feel more rewarded and safer too.”
For me as a facilitator, all this was important but only a beginning. It feels as if future courses can be longer or more intensive to dig deeper and engender more examination and growth. There is still so much to explore, so much to discover and to research. I am left with unanswered questions.
But then, each course participant is like a change maker, a ripple-maker.
In each of the twelve, seeds have been planted, and who knows how many will be touched by them in turn, nourished from the fruits and blossoms that are sure to come.
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