Holistic Healing: Is the practice of health and wellness that considers the entire person and all of the internal and external factors affecting them. Holistic healing considers the whole person by including their mind, body, spirit, and heart in treatment considerations. This website by Val Silver about holistic healing is very comprehensive and offers a wide array of healing techniques.
Vision: Please picture this with me if you will.
We are so excited in our community to be finally opening up a holistic healing center. We started out by simply practicing all the holistic healing practices that we could think of, and now our life style. The community’s values and goals attracted holistic health practitioners who from the start wanted to have a place where people could come for healing.
We love the location of the healing center which is in the quiet valley. Although people who come to the center can join in activities in the larger community, the healing center is self sufficient in that it has its own common house which includes many different rooms where people get massages and other treatments.
With the large input of money which a billionaire chose to donate, we have been able to do phenomenal things.
We created a clay bath similar to that which Glen Ivy offers which you can learn about here.
The center serves a 100% raw food diet so that people who have cancer and other chronic diseases can heal faster.
We have every holistic modality that works offered. You can find a list here:
The great thing about having this healing center is that everyone who lives in the community has access to all that is offered, and thus we all stay optimally healthy! Even though we don’t all work in the Center, we meet the people who are attending, We are able to offer all services on a “pay it forward” principle. People who are well-off give generously and those who can’t pay anything can have services for free. And we have everyone in between. No one is turned away
People who are healed are so grateful that they want to give back, and we even are poised to work with places like the Gesundheit Institute to spread this concept to every neighborhood. Churches are really excited about offering this service and we are on the brink of having several successful projects in churches which will then spread all over the world.
People are having miraculous healings from every kind of disease, and the word is spreading around our neighborhood, county, state and the world. We are building such good will with our neighbors, and because of their experience with raw vegan diet, they are adopting versions of plant based diet as their daily fare.
We are so grateful for this opportunity to serve.
Resources
Patch Adams and his life long project: “The Gesundheit Hospital Project is an experiment in holism with a medical focus, a sociopolitical act that grows out of our deep concern for the quality of people’s lives and health in a society dominated by the values inherent in greed and power. It consists of three distinct initiatives which address the yearning for a world that meets human needs unconditionally. There are countless opportunities to volunteer and support at least one of these initiatives.” Learn more here.
Holistic-Mind-Body Healing: This website by Val Silver, a passionate lover of animals, is very comprehensive with resources about many healing modalities. Look here.
Sacred Soul Holistics/ List of holistic modalities from A-Z is excellent. Look for the list here.
I looked into this about 17 years ago, and was glad to see a Christian promoting a raw-food vegan diet. I think they promote their products a little too much, but they have great resources and something that Christians can relate to. And maybe for people who have the money, the products will work out just fine. From the website:
“The Hallelujah Diet exists to help you live a healthy, vibrant life. It’s a plant-based, clean food diet based on scientifically proven principles and research. Our mission is based on Genesis 1:29:”
Optimum Health Institute: I stayed here for 3 weeks when I was about 26 in 1980. It was a life changing experience. The purpose of coming to the center is:
- Inspire and motivate you to make healthy choices in life
- Explore physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being
- Integrate helpful tools and teachings in your daily life
- Enable transformation so that you can achieve optimum health.
Gesundheit Institute: Cliff (former husband, neighbor, father of our son Chris, and great friend) visited this community in about 1984 when we toured intentional communities. I’m glad to see that Patch Adams and his community are still going strong. From the website:
“We are a model of holistic medical care based on the belief that the health of the individual cannot be separated from the health of the family, the community, the society and the world.”
Gerson Institute: This was one of the first cancer treatment centers and had to be moved out of the country because natural cancer treatment was outlawed in the US. When I was 38, in 1987, I demonstrated Norwalk Juicers at the Gerson Clinic in Tiajuana. I had the added privilege of singing to the patients. Then, crude liver extract (and if I recall, that came from juicing liver-yuck!) but now the entire regimen is plant-based I am happy to say. From the website:
“With its whole-body approach to healing, the Gerson Therapy™ naturally reactivates your body’s magnificent ability to heal itself – with no damaging side effects. This a powerful, natural treatment boosts the body’s own immune system to heal cancer, arthritis, heart disease, allergies, and many other degenerative diseases. Dr. Max Gerson developed the Gerson Therapy™ in the 1930s, initially as a treatment for his own debilitating” migraines, and eventually as a treatment for degenerative diseases such as skin tuberculosis, diabetes and, most famously, cancer.”
Return to Nature: by Adolph Just. Cliff, (mentioned above) had many books about natural healing that were very old and yet very relevant. This book especially influenced us, and I am glad to see that it is still available to buy because it was written in 1903. From the book:
“The author, who was the owner of a natural health clinic in Germany, demonstrated with many instances of healing that his method is able to bring restoration of health through sunbathing in the buff, barefoot contact with the ground, air baths and fruitarianism. It includes: The true natural method of healing and living, and the true salvation of the soul; Paradise Regained; The Care of the Body; Water; Human Curative Power; Light; Air; Earth; Food; Fruit Culture.”
Learn more about Adolph Just here.
My story
I grew up as a fairly healthy child. I had one problem–what the doctors diagnosed as sinus headaches. The interesting thing is that I would get the headaches almost always on the night before I had to go to school after having an extended time off. I hated school. So did I get them to give me an excuse to stay home?
My diet was a typical SAD diet, with meat, eggs and dairy at lunch and dinner, sometimes breakfast. However, my parents did believe in having fresh vegetables, and my mom made dishes from scratch for the most part.
I remember craving fruit. But fruit was expensive, and my parents were constantly budgeting on my dad’s Navy wages. I didn’t like my Grandpa Chobot very much, but I did love the way he would lavish us with gifts including grapes, oranges, and apples.
One time around age 16 I went on a diet (for what reason I have no idea–I was so skinny!) and my main diet was hardboiled eggs and meat. That was yucky!
Even when I became a vegetarian at age 17 or 18, (1972)I didn’t know much about healthy eating. The cookbooks I bought used primarily cheese as the protein ingredient, and because I didn’t know they were bad for my body and the animals, I ate a lot of dairy and egg products until I met Cliff (former husband, good friend and neighbor) about 4 years later because he knew a lot more about health than I did.
I did not hear about holistic healing until I met Cliff when I was 21, in 1975. I recall offering him a sandwich made of mayonnaise mixed with ground up soybeans. He politely refused, and I felt hurt. After all, I was offering him vegetarian fare. And he was a vegetarian. I later learned that he is a rather picky eater and prefers to eat what he makes.
Cliff introduced me to the concept of eating raw foods. I met Cliff at the Garden of Eden, a transformed barren hillside overlooking the freeway on the San Diego State University Campus. Cliff was helping Quincy John Workman, who had diligently worked to make a food forest with fruit trees, herbs, berries and vegetables when he received permission from the university to work the land. (Sadly, it was destroyed–I visited there about five years ago wanting to find it.)
Quincy John was a raw foodist in his 80’s and had more energy than most of the college students who came to volunteer on the farm. Cliff was volunteering there, and thus I was inspired to learn about gardening and raw food.
I read the book “Return to Nature” by Adolph Just, and I was sold on natural living including raw food, taking cold showers, and using clay as my primary healing modality. I still have on my bookshelf today (and I only have high priority books around since I move often) the book, Our Earth Our Cure: A hand book of Natural Medicine for Today. Much of this book was inspired by Just. If I ever get desperate, I will not sell this book, even though used copies sell for $54!
Cliff and I got married, and had raw vegan refreshments at our wedding. Moving to Arkansas in 1977, soon after we were married, we lived on a 99% raw food diet and gleaned many wild foods like persimmons and blue berries, and food that farmers gave away including watermelons that were culls, apples, and pears. We did dumpster diving at grocery stores when we got a ride to Russelville, Arkansas, and loved the papayas, mangoes and bananas that were just the right ripeness for us!
I heard from some source–I still don’t know where–that if I didn’t wear glasses and ate raw foods, that my eyes would heal. I had worn glasses from age 8. After 22 years, my eyes returned to 20/20, and I have passed my driver’s license test every time. I do need glasses to read teensy tiny print, but that is it.
Cliff and I got off our strict raw diet when we lived in the loft of a community building in the hippie community of Chimes, Arkansas, where we were paid a very small stipend to run one of the first natural foods co-ops in Arkansas. Supplied by the Ozark Cooperative Warehouse in Fayetteville, Arkansas, we learned how to make a newsletter and order sheets on a mimeograph machine which a church paster in a nearby town let us use.
People came from as far a hundred miles away on the monthly pick up day where they would find their orders all filled by Cliff, volunteers, and I. We supplied cheese as one of the staples, and succumbed to eating the cheese we sold. But we were able to eat healthy living out in the sticks, including the year before, because of this amazing co-op.
After two years, (total of 3 years in Arkansas) we moved back to California to live in North San Diego County. There was a fantastic natural foods co-op in Leucadia where we got most of our food. We were primarily eating organic, with about 20-30% of our diet being cooked. I’ve learned from one raw-foodist that eating 70% raw can classify you as a raw foodist!
Living in Leucadia, we also had easy access to eat the best vegetarian food we could ever want at a little cafe called the Shepherd. Encinitas was the home of Self Realization, founded by Paramahansa Yogananda. We were members of SRF, and although the Indian feasts were scrumptious, they were not all that healthy. They were big treats for us, though.
Cliff loved to prepare food for both of us. For almost our entire marriage of 15 years, we would have fruit salad in the morning. Various fruits, always with papaya, would be combined with Cliff’s secret sauce of flax, sesame, almonds, and sunflower seeds ground in a coffee grinder. Mixed with soaked raisins and the fruit, it was creamy and delicious. We never tired of it. We snacked for lunch, and dinner was usually his secret sauce of blended cooked and raw veggies over millet. Cliff absolutely loved millet and still does.
I would my ride moped about an hour to a vegetarian deli in San Marcos where a mother-son duo made delicious vegetarian burgers and other yummy comfort food as well as salads and juice. The mother was very healthy conscious, and was vibrantly healthy in her 60’s.
I also worked for Baba’s Burgers, which was run by Jerry ? and Paul Friedman, SRF devotees. These vegan burgers had been developed by them, and I helped stir the whole food ingredients in giant mixing bowls which also had giant stirring things.
Meals on Moped (M.O.M) was a company I started because even back then in around 1978, single people were having trouble making healthy food. I was surprised when I easily got customers for my delivery of delicious foods, including Mexican, Indian (spices made from scratch) and (unfortunately) my signature dish made of rice, cheese, sour cream and banana peppers.
My hand made menu (which is still in my stuff-to-be-scrapbooked) was so cute! I am pretty sure I figured out a way to re-use the containers. Even back then I was environmentally conscious.
I am not sure if I made salads–I hope so! My company never got that big–I had no idea if I made a profit, but I loved the feeling of supplying my friends with home made food.
Just before I was pregnant with my son, Chris, I had started selling Norwalk Juicers(one of the most expensive juicers in the world) at the Gerson Clinic in Tijuana. My friend, Richard Boger, hired me to do this job. One of the prerequisites was that I needed to own a juicer, and so he let me pay of the juicer which cost $1600! That was a lot in 1988.
I made juice diligently and learned even more about health going to 3 different cancer treatment centers in Tijuana. Thus, when I was pregnant with Chris, I already was on an even healthier diet than before.
I learned the effectiveness of eating tree ripened fruit straight from the tree when I was a nursing mom. I sat under the apricot tree just outside of our cottage, and ate 3 delicious mouthwatering apricots. I felt satisfied–much more than eating cooked food.
I had a 6 hour long labor at home and Chris was born super healthy.
I encouraged Robert (present friend and former husband #2) on our second conversation to give up his job as a contractor and become a holistic health practitioner as he wanted to do. Two weeks later his job ended, and he attended a holistic healing school in the San Diego area. Massage was one of the courses. The first time he gave me a massage, my headaches, which had still plagued me (although less than when I was a child) went away for good. I haven’t had such a headache since that day, about 30 years ago in 1990.
The one health health problem that I could not solve was my teeth. No matter what natural remedies I tried, I could not save them. That might be a story for another time. For now I will say that my teeth have always been my weakness, even growing up. Dentists started telling me about 18 years ago, 2000, that I would need to have them all pulled. 2 years ago, I finally gave up trying to save any of them, and I now have dentures. I do believe that even teeth can be regenerated, and I look forward to that day.
After I divorced Cliff and married Robert, my diet was not as pure except for the times when Robert got really sick and wanted to go on a vegan raw food diet did I return to my healthier eating. I was still vegetarian, and Robert for the most part went along with that diet. But I ate more cheese and dairy. That may have contributed to my teeth not healing.
When I learned about green smoothies around a decade ago, I was hooked. I tried to go raw again, and didn’t quite succeed. But green smoothies have been a staple for my breakfast all these years.
I also loved the book Fit for Life, which recommended not eating anything except fruit (and I counted my green smoothie as fruit) because then the body could go into an extended detox, since at night, according to their theory, the body does go into cleansing mode. About 34 years ago was when I adopted that theory. The book came out in 1985, and I think I got the book soon after it was published because I remember reading before my 31 year old son was born.
Fast forward to become vegan, in 2014. That was the best decision of my life. I didn’t have dramatic health changes because I had been easing off of dairy and eggs for the past 5 years having divorced Robert and living on my own. But I know I felt better and lighter. And of course my conscience was clearer!
I’ve never been super overweight. I reached 140 pounds when I traveled abroad at age 19, people I stayed with practically forced me to eat a lot! And food was so cheap! The only time I have been sick in the hospital was when I was traveling. I was diagnosed with Hepatitis B, probably obtained by a dirty needle from a vaccination, or dirty water. But I was out of the hospital within 2 weeks and doing great–so it was not that serious.
I’ve had a few emergency room visits–but I always healed quickly. When I sprained my ankle a year ago, Robert and Cliff put clay poultices on my ankle. Clay continues to be my go to for healing. My ankle hurt very little, and healed up well in a month or so.
Cliff and I, who are on similar diets, continue to be healthier and have more energy than most people, including young people we know. At 75, born in 1944, Cliff plays volleyball with the best of them, paints houses for a living at least 40 hours a week, and does other physical labor in his home which is located right next to the community land. Strong and fit, he is a great example of a whole food 70% raw diet.
I continue to be fit and healthy, but not as trim as I would like. I know I need to focus on eliminating belly fat and some varicose veins. I don’t feel impeded by those things, and have plenty of energy to do everything I want to do.
I have described mostly diet in this story, but included in my health protocol is
- almost daily exercise–long walks, gardening and swimming in the near by lake is blissful
- plenty of sleep (ideally!),
- pure water, (except when I lived in Berkeley),
- yoga (ideally daily),
- cultivating mindfulness with the help of Jesus
- sending love and forgiveness to all (even enemies),
- doing deep grieving and crying as often as needed (these days, almost daily),
- keeping close relationships with my former husbands and our children, being in nature as much as possible,
- staying grounded–standing on the earth daily and walking barefoot as much as possible
- Protecting myself from negative effects of computers and cell phones (what I do is another article)
- Keeping the vagus nerve healthy
- Stretching my brain by doing new things
- traveling and being exposed to different cultures and people
- wearing natural fibers
- meditation and prayer
- staying connected to friends
- watching uplifting media
- sleeping with windows open, or ideally, outside (which I am doing now, and I love it!)
- Fasting (finally I am fasting on the master cleanse, which has been my go-to fast, besides smoothie fasts, for decades. I am on day 19, and my intention is to go 40 days)
- Emotional healing/Inner Child healing: I regularly–almost daily–go to Jesus to help me heal hurtful memories.
Some things I want to start or do more of:
- cold showers even in the winter
- laughter yoga
- sleep on the bare ground
- dry brushing
- dry off after shower with hands, no towel
- buy a Em Wave gadget and monitor myself for increased coherence.
- Swim in the cold lake and be completely immune to cold
- fast more regularly
- drink more herbal teas
- eat more wild edibles
- adopt a raw, oil-less, whole-food diet (after my fast)
I hope this article was helpful for you. I enjoyed looking back over my history and sharing this. One thing that jumps out at me is that often Cliff and I were at the cutting edge of things like permaculture, raw-food eating, part of the co-op movement and others things as well. I have always been an early adopter and I believe that almost of all of the health practices that Cliff and I adopted and that we continue to have, are beginning to be more widely accepted as well as scientifically proven to be beneficial.
Let me know what you thought of this article about the value of holistic healing. I would love to hear your experiences as well.
Other blog posts by Patricia
Vaccinations: I wrote this article in 2016. We did not vaccinate our kids during a time when almost everyone else did.
