The Profound Meaning of BODY, MIND and SPIRT

There are many commercial entities using the words body, mind, and spirit, particularly in the booming spa, wellness and retreat industry as if it communicated a reality evident to all. The terms make for almost impossible combination to decipher.  Yet, it seems to mean something to a lot of people. Intuitively, there is an acceptance of a reality worth knowing more about that could yield benefit for our state of wellness.

Clearly, the body is the easiest part to define although it includes many mechanisms that still escape clear comprehension. Nevertheless, it is the visible part of the individual and consequently that which most people accept as their real self. The five senses are the critical portals through which we experience the world. All our perceptions originate through our body.

The mind is a faculty with which we become acquainted later in our childhood. For some, its activity becomes so important as they grow into teenagers or young adults that they think of themselves mostly as a thinking entity. They see the body as what includes, protects, and carries around the brain.

Our Western civilization has a long-standing philosophical tradition that sees man as two parts: the visible body and the invisible mind. In eastern religions and philosophies, there is the view that man has a third and critical part that is also invisible – the spirit. For them, the nature of man is that of a trilogy.

In the West, the term soul is often considered similar to the term spirit, but for most, there is a muddy notion that the soul has to do with emotions. In reality, emotions are a byproduct of the activity of our mind and body. Many people live from their center of emotions just as others live from their physical center or their intellectual center as if that were there real and exclusive self.

Emotions stem from the body's experiences and it's mental interpretation. As a result, emotions are closely related to our body of which they are an extension. This notion is increasingly accepted by a growing part of the medical community. All emotions, pain in particular, are recorded at the cellular level. There is also evidence that mental pain and anguish have an impact on the body as if it were a bodily pain. Many massage therapists have experienced how their work might trigger an involuntary emotional reaction on the part of their customer such as unexplainable cries and sorrows revealed. This occurs as there is a release of some painful events stored in the body that has created a number of emotional and physical blockages.

More on how this applies to Traditional Chinese Medicine and YOU in tomorrow's post!