There's so many directions to go with this topic, and it's an important one. As always, my intent in sharing these posts is propose an opportunity to look at things from a different perspective.
The word relationship means, "The way in which two or more concepts, objects, people, events, and all variables interact with each other." It's the state of being connected to something.
What do relationships have to do with your health? In a nutshell....EVERYTHING!
You might we wondering why this is the case...well stay tuned, you are about to find out.
First, lets look at our understanding of health. The conventional and holistic view of health have some differences. The best way I can describe these differences is to use the Holistic Wellness Continuum model. The conventional health model is solely focused on alleviation of symptoms. When symptoms are gone, health is perceived. The Holistic model looks at the whole person, and the whole picture. It looks at the root of disease, and continues, past the point of neutral, or symptom alleviation, and into the thriving, optimal state of well-being. This system takes all facets and circumstances of the person into consideration. In fact, the 8 pillars of holistic health are; physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, emotional wellbeing, spiritual wellbeing, social wellbeing, environmental wellbeing, financial wellbeing, and occupational wellbeing.
The word holistic, actually means, "To make whole."
From the Yoga and Ayurveda perspective health is described as all the doshas in perfect balance, meaning the body and mind are in a good relationship with each other and with the world. Disease is described as the doshas being out of balance and not having appropriate relationships with the self, body, mind and world. Ayurveda is known as, "The science of life." The 4 pillars of health according to Ayurveda are Artha - meaning monetary stability for proper survival, Dharma - meaning our duty or purpose,
Kama - meaning the fulfillment of our biological needs as well as our psychological positive desire, and Moksha - meaning freedom or enlightenment. Also, the word Yoga means, "To yoke, or unite." The very word is signifying a relationship with the mind, body, and spirit.
So, if we look at the word "Relationship," from a holistic or eastern point of view, we can see that relationships are the key to EVERYTHING. Relationships with people, family, food, yourself, material things, the 5 senses, animals, the environment, pleasures, pains...literally EVERYTHING! Our relationships directly affect our health on every level! Still scratching your head...keep reading.
From the Yoga and Ayurvedic perspective, the root cause of a lot of our suffering comes from unhealthy relationships. This is often referred to as attachments. We can have an attachment to anything, a memory, a food, a car, a person, an item of clothing, and the list can go on forever. When we hold onto these attachments, we develop unhealthy relationships. It can become like a vice, that has a deadly grip on us, or like we are hording these things. We can even hoard memories. Improper relationships cause us to stay stuck, cause emotional disturbance, lack of clarity, physical weight gain or loss, addictions, excessive grief or just general confusion. It's never about the "thing," it's about the relationship we have with that "thing."
When you think about the word relationship, a romantic relationship is probably the first thing that comes to mind for most people. So, this a good place to dig in. There's so much cultural pressure, standards and expectations around this topic. There's age pressure, status pressure, financial pressure, baby pressure and all sorts of pressures. Tick Tok, says the time clock! Ok, so you go through the proper checklist, check all the boxes, did everything exactly the way it was expected, and you find your way in a relationship. It's fireworks! Everything seems to be going according to plan. Time goes on, maybe you live together, maybe there's a marriage, or maybe a child. Still going down the checklist and all seems well. For some, this is a blissful experience, not without ease, but with full life satisfaction. For some, it's very different. It seems more like an out of body experience. Things slowly start to feel weird. The blissful beginning doesn't seem so blissful anymore. What happened? Where did the relationship change? Or was the relationship imbalanced all along? It's something to look at.
Life has a funny way of presenting us with uncomfortable situations. This is life giving us the opportunity to look at the relationship with ourselves. Do we take the opportunity, or turn the other way? Whenever there is a relationship struggle with another human, it's never one sided. It's the relationship between the people involved. The first relationship we have to understand is the one with ourselves. If this isn't clear, it becomes wobbly to navigate through other human relationships. If we don't know who we are, then we don't know who we are putting out there into the relationship. If we don't know who we are putting out there, but become disappointed with what we get back, there's an imbalance in the relationship with ourselves, as well as the other person, or people.
How about our relationship with the material world? Yes, we are living in a material world full "things." When we have a balanced relationship with the material world, we understand that we can play in the world, but that the world doesn't have us trapped. We become trapped when we identify ourselves by material things or possessions. We have created an unhealthy relationship with something. For example, have you ever met people who feel like they have reached a certain level of status because they have acquired a certain car, or house, jewelry, or shoes, or anything. They feel they are able to "be" in the world in a certain way, because of these things. What would their relationship with themselves look like if all of these things were to disappear? Are we willing to bare it all for the sake of developing a relationship with our authentic selves?
How's the relationship with our senses? Our 5 senses are our primal method of communication. What is the relationship with our sight, taste, smell, touch, and hearing? Do we overstimulate our senses? Do we know how to give them a break? Remember, we are sensory beings so our brains, nervous systems, and all our bodily systems are continually responding to the stimulation from the senses. How much is too much? I was having this very conversation with a client the other day and the outcome was that she was so used to extreme overstimulation that she considered it "normal." Doing any less that that or changing that in any way, didn't seem necessary. Yet continuing the same way was depleting her more and more. It was cycles of, "This is how I've always been, this is how I have operated my entire life, this is just what it is." Over and over and over. However, her disease continued to progress. This is where life presents an opportunity to change the relationship with herself. If we are used to going 100 miles an hour, it can be really difficult to see things any other way. Even slowing down 10% can feel like we are giving up so much. In fact, when we balance out the relationship with our senses, it opens doors to living a completely different way. The relationship between gain vs. loss is the struggle in this situation. If we feel like we are giving up so much, that's an attachment. When there's any type of attachment, there's an imbalanced relationship.
On the other hand, are we operating from a place of deprivation? Have we gone too far the in the other direction? Sometimes we get so carried away with not doing something, that we completely deplete ourselves in the process. I'm never going to eat carbs again, or I'm never going to date again. Instead of going 100 miles an hour, we take it to 0. This could also create an imbalanced relationship with yourself.
The concept of "never" can be just as harmful as the concept of "must." They are both attachments, just in different directions.
What is our relationship to pleasure? What is our relationship to pain? Can we see where we have attachments to either one? There's plenty of people that chase the next pleasure high. What happens in between the highs? Most often the lows, right? There's not much difference between pleasure and pain in their extreme states. Where can we find a balance between the two? This becomes another relationship journey.
Relationships with anything are all about setting proper boundaries. Boundaries can be extreme if necessary, but more importantly they need to be clear. Without clear boundaries for yourself, or in any type of relationship, things are undefined and can become entangled without even realizing it. Boundaries always start with yourself first, but the only way to understand boundaries, is if you have an understanding of yourself. Without that, it's hard to know what boundaries to set, where to set them, and how to adjust them. Another reason why everything boils down to proper relationships.
Part of embracing a more holistic healthcare model, is looking at all the facets of your life from this perspective. It's something that takes practice, but it's a game changer. We aren't used to relating to ourselves, or to anything in this way. We are conditioned to look at everything through a fragmented lens, which is giving us only a fragmented picture of ourselves. Yoga and Ayurveda look at humans as WHOLE beings, not fragments. There are many ways to practice deepening the relationship with ourselves. Two of my favorite Yoga practices are Swadhyaya and Pratyahara. These are Sanskrit words. Swadhyaya means, "Self-Study, or Self-Inquiry." It is a practice of studying yourself, through self observation.
Pratyahara means withdrawing from the senses. These come from Patanjali's 8 limbs of yoga. They can be complex practices to understand, but they are great tools for developing a relationship with ourselves and with all of our senses. They can help break the patterns of being sensory junkies. These practices teach us to develop awareness without attachment. In order to make these concepts part of your lifestyle, they require a deeper explanation. I'm happy to provide that to anyone that is interested in learning about them.
So, how about those relationships? We just scratched the surface of this giant topic. Again, this is an opportunity to shift perspective, and think about the relationships that we have in our lives.
Where are they healthy and where are they imbalanced?
Our health boils down to the relationships we have with EVERYTHING!
~ Leelah Lakshmi ~
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