Ayurveda calls on us to have broad focus. It calls the healer to meet the whole person and treat the whole person. The challenge that most medicines do not address it by trying to understand the individual and tracking the development of disease in them. While all physicians have a standardized understanding of physiology, there is rarely any room to learn more about the patient doctor’s offices.
Ayurvedic language is designed to understand the individuality of each person from the physiological and personality perspective. Understanding this individuality is essential to map out how a particular individual ended up with a disease. It gives us how the disease may have taken advantage of individual’s behavioral and mental/emotional tendencies, their inherent physiological weaknesses, and their life circumstances to take hold of the body and mind.
From this perspective, treating the whole person begins with two factors: 1) removing the factors that promote the progress of disease, 2) begin addressing the cause of imbalance.
While they are simple, these factors are the hardest to establish. They require commitment and dedication from the individuals to change certain fundamental things in their lives that are contributing to disease. Such changes are not easy and take time to establish.
So, while these conditions are being worked on, we address the symptoms that cause impediment to the daily life of the individual. We address the imbalance by stimulating the natural healing systems of the body. Giving them therapeutic herbs, diet and daily routines to stimulate their physiology to move towards balance. We also work on structural and systemic imbalances through Ayurvedic therapies.
As the individual begins to feel better, they are more motivated. They have the energetic and emotional reserve to make the fundamental changes. These changes may include changing the way people think, what they believe, what they do on a daily basis, or how they do it.
The relationship between these things and the process of disease is ambiguous to most people and practitioners. Ayurveda is successful because it sees the subtle physiological and energetic pattern that result in permanent disease. In this way, Ayurveda seeks to achieve as complete healing transformation.
The most important aspect of this transformation is effort. The individual must understand that transformation is artful refinement of the personality. Many times, this effort is not available to us until we have understood, faced, and overcome the cause of our disease. Whether it is mental/emotional, behavioral, or environmental (which includes, people, places, and circumstances), we must understand the relationship of cause and effect. Additionally, we must understand how the cause is affecting them and contributing to the disease. Then, take a stand to work on counteracting, internally and externally this cause.
As an Ayurvedic-Naturopathic physician, it is my responsibility that my clients are well supported and shown the way to over come health challenges. Thus, the doctor-patient relationship is regarded as a partnership. It is a team effort to cultivate successful recovery and achieve optimal health. This healing transformation is a personal hero’s journey.
