The Second Stage of Wellness

(For the "First Stage of Wellness," please see yesterday's post.)

Although achievements pertaining to the first stage are very productive and most adapted to the level of the greatest amount of people in search of wellness, it is nevertheless incomplete.  There is a deeper dimension to our being that needs to be included for more complete and lasting wellness. This aspect, call it spiritual if you want, exists outside of religious beliefs and can be found also in atheists and agnostics.

Energy medicine supported by ancient holistic philosophies knows that just as there are generally invisible energy fields surrounding the physical body (the ethereal, the emotional and the mental, there is also an outer spiritual field and envelops the whole. It is called the causal field because it is intended to because over all other aspects of our being that are effects.

The human experience reflects the sequence through which we discover ourselves and the world: learning first about and through the body, then our emotions and later our intellect, never going beyond, for most humans. It is insufficient if we subscribe to the notion that our spirit has primacy, even dominion, over all other aspects of our being. Our spiritual self projects an energy field that directs and maintains the harmony of the other fields only when we have a conscious awareness of it. Its most direct effect is intended to be on the mental which in turn should control the emotional, the ethereal and finally, the physical. That alignment is the highest wellness goal.

The ideal integration from spirit to the material body is extremely rare yet possible. It is exemplified by the white or golden aura depicted by artists to convey the perfection of spiritual masters. Auras are generally visible only to the attuned few that have that special gift.

Wellness and wisdom are intertwined and wisdom is expected to be gained with age. Ultimately, for those of a certain age, wellness requires an acceptance of the cycle of life with death as its natural conclusion. Acceptance and surrender become part of our emotional, mental and spiritual evolution. It is a pre-condition to maintaining wellness for older people.