Spiritual healing is a relatively new form of medicine that is based around the belief that human illnesses spring from diseases of the spirit. Spiritual healing is often a treatment that people turn to when modern medicine fails, and spiritual healing does have its uses and advantages. Fortunately, spiritual healing is available for anyone and everyone to learn and practice – you don’t need a medical degree or certification to succeed at it.
Because spiritual healing is a practice guided by the body and soul, different practitioners can preach different ways of healing. Likewise, different types of spiritual healing follow different religions, too. While some spirit healers practice getting back into harmony with nature and the universe, others will teach that returning to your belief in a higher power is the source of healing.
Differing statistics exist because of the different sects of spiritual healing available out there. In this article, we’ll go over several of these, as well as the benefits of spiritual healing and how to achieve it in your life.
What Is Spiritual Healing?
Spiritual healing stems from the belief that we all should be in harmony with our god or with nature. When we disrupt this harmony, diseases of the body and mind can appear as a result. Moreover, when we have an infection of the body or mind that plagues us, that can manifest itself by disrupting our natural harmony.
Rather than a short-term medical fix like those we see in modern medicine, spiritual healing is a long-term commitment to finding the diseases of the soul and fixing them. While instant healing can be done through spiritual medicine, spiritual healing far more concerned with treating the underlying problem over a long period of time. For example, a person who has been abused in the past might need months or years of spiritual healing before their soul finally starts to recover.
Spiritual healing doesn’t have one single definition. It is a therapy that’s designed for those situations when modern medicine has not worked or to be used in conjunction with modern medicine, but it can take on many different shapes and forms.
Spiritual healing has another separate definition, too: the healing that people go through when a spiritual awakening or epiphany changes their lives for the better. This can be referred to as spiritual healing as well, even though it’s a very different phenomenon. In this article, we’ll mostly be dealing with the former definition of spiritual healing.
Types of Spiritual Healing
Spiritual healing for diseases comes in several different treatment types. These treatment types have come about by being defined in various ways and by various people, and we’ll explore them more below.
Contact Healing
Contact healing is a spiritual healing type used by the Aetherius Society and many other religions. With this technique, a practitioner sends energy into a patient’s chakras and problem areas to help alleviate a condition. This technique is unique because it is said to be doable by anyone; The Aetherius society maintains that with careful study the technique can “be learned in a single day.”
Essentially, contact healing is the equivalent of “laying on of hands.” This healing technique is common across history in many faiths and cultures, especially in Christianity. According to the Bible, Jesus Christ often laid his hands on the sick in order to heal them.
The idea of contact healing springs from thoughts about the healing power of touch. Indeed, science has shown that a lack of touching and intimacy can be intensely damaging for individuals, and this is suggestive of the power of contact healing.
Self-Healing
Self-healing relates closely to the other definition of spiritual healing that we defined; that is, having a religious epiphany or reconnecting yourself to your faith. Self-healing, as the name implies, involves healing yourself on your own without the help of a spiritual healer or another party.
Self-healing is far less regulated and defined than the other healing methods we mention here. We all require different things to find healing for ourselves, so the quest to self-healing for one person can be entirely different than it is for another. If we take the time to search ourselves and find what’s tainting our body and our faith, we can just as easily search for a solution with our god or with a professional spirit healer.
Absent Healing
Absent healing is essentially the equivalent of praying for someone. As the name implies, absent healing can be done over vast differences in time and space, as you don’t need to be in someone’s presence to pray for them. While absence healing can still be done in person, it’s more often used as a quick way to send healing energy towards someone who’s important to us.
Various spiritualities and societies approach absent healing in different ways. Some might prefer techniques like:
- Silent prayer
- Group prayer
- Chanting
- Ritual words
- Prostrations or actions
Healing vs. Curing
The distinction of healing versus curing is one that is frequently raised along with spiritual healing. While the focus of modern medicine is to cure when possible, spiritual medicine is more concerned with healing what’s broken or lacking in an individual. Spiritual healing recognizes that the diseases of the spirit can come from many sources and at many different times.
The spirit is a curious thing that’s beyond our comprehension, and as such, spiritual healing does not seek to “cure” what is right and good in the eyes of nature or our higher power. Instead, spiritual healing looks to heal the ailments of the spirit, bringing it back to its ideal state.
Healing in and of itself is not a permanent fix to a spiritual problem. Modern medicine often teaches that a quick, fool-proof cure to an ailment is possible and desirable, but medicine for the spirit does not exist in the same way. The soul, instead, benefits from healing whenever necessary. Instead of curing the symptoms of a disease, spiritual healing seeks to dive deep and find the source of the illness stemming from the soul.
Spiritual healing doesn’t stop with contact healing and absent healing. Much of the healing that we do is dependent on our own lifestyle changes in addition to what we realize through self-healing. While the aforementioned healing techniques can be especially helpful when we stumble and need an extra spiritual helping hand, the core of our spiritual healing lies with ourselves.
In order to heal our spirits and our bodies at the same time, it’s best to enact lifestyle changes that support self-healing and self-care. After all, diseases of the body can impact the spirit just as quickly as diseases of the spirit can affect the body. A struggling body makes it that much more difficult to heal a struggling spirit.
Healthy Eating
Healthy eating habits are the cornerstone of keeping a body and spirit healthy. If you aren’t putting good things into your body, your body isn’t going to feel good! However, healthy eating to heal your body and spirit doesn’t have to be a life-changing venture; just like many other aspects of faith, it’s a slow climb that can be accomplished in many small, simple steps.
Making the choice to go out to eat once less per week is an excellent start. You can also try things like:
- Replacing one junk snack with a healthy snack every day
- Carry a water bottle around with you so you drink more water
- Add a fresh vegetable to every homemade dinner you make
- Switch to a low-fat or low-sugar version of common foods that you eat
As long as you’re improving your diet just a little bit at a time, you’re making important progress, and progress is vital to the health and well-being of a human soul.
Self-Care
Self-care is definitely a buzzword when it comes to spiritual healing, as many ailments of the soul can come about from working ourselves too hard or neglecting our faith. Caring for yourself and keeping yourself happy and healthy is crucial to keeping both your body and soul in good health. However, self-care is a rather unspecific category with many definitions, all of which are relevant to spiritual healing, so there is a lot to cover.
Caring for your mental and spiritual state, of course, is the primary concern of spiritual healing. If we are feeling stressed or sad about work, people, or the news, that impacts our spirit and our mind negatively. Too many bad influences on the soul can cause it to rot and decay, which, if not addressed, can eventually turn into diseases of the mind.
Caring for the body, on the other hand, isn’t as much a priority in spiritual healing, but because the health of the body is linked so closely to the health of the mind, it is still necessary. Stress, for example, causes a multitude of different effects on our body, and while some of these effects can be good in moderation, being under constant stress can quickly wear out our bodies.
Proactive and reactive care are both critical to the long-term health of the body and the mind. However, with the right proactive care, we can prevent many of the issues that can befall us later, making it much more valuable. The appropriate proactive self-care differs from individual to individual, but some typical examples include:
- Regular visits with your doctor, healer, or therapist
- Spa days for rest and relaxation with friends
- Treating yourself to your favorite treats and rewards from time to time
- Confiding in a friend about the stresses of your life
If you can’t proactively prepare with self-care, then at least do your best to address issues as they arise instead of letting them fester. Confiding in someone when you’re feeling spiritually or emotionally drained, taking the time to rest and relax after you’ve had a hard week, and visiting a healer for anything that concerns you are all excellent ways to be reactive with your self-care.
Ample Sleep
Sleep is another vital lifestyle aspect that can be the source of spiritual and bodily disease if left unchecked. Science says that each human being has slightly different sleep requirements, but this doesn’t mean that we should throw caution to the wind and oversleep or undersleep constantly. Of course, the occasional late working night or morning spent in bed is just fine, even beneficial, but it’s important not to make these choices into a lifestyle.
Sleep plays an enormous role in the efficiency and health of our brain. As such, when we neglect our rest, our understanding of both the physical and spiritual worlds can become distorted, leading to wounds that otherwise might never have formed. Sleep plays a similar role in the health of our body; if we don’t get enough sleep, our body’s hormones fluctuate unpredictably, and we end up at an increased risk for various bodily diseases.
Good Exercise
Getting proper exercise is the fourth hurdle we list here that we must go over to assure the health of our body, and thus, our spirit. While different people need different amounts of exercise, especially if diet comes into play, we all function best if a certain minimum amount of activity is met. Exercise doesn’t just benefit our body, either; exercising regularly releases chemicals in the brain called endorphins that make us feel upbeat and happy.
When we feel happy with the world around us, we’re more likely to feel satisfied with our spirituality, too. Like sleep, if we don’t meet our minimum requirements for exercise, we can end up being more at risk for certain diseases. What’s more, a lack of exercise can actually contribute to feelings of depression, solitude, and loneliness, all of which can skew our perceptions of our faith and the world around us.
If you can’t do anything else, at least go out to a place of worship that goes along with your beliefs. If you are Christian, visit a Christian worship facility. If you attune yourself closely to nature but don’t have any specific faith, take yourself to a secluded, spiritual place and get close to nature. If you can go somewhere where other people are, that’s best, but not necessarily required.
If you can manage to get out to a place of worship, not only will you end up exercising a bit on the way, but you’ll meet other supportive people who can connect with your spirit, too.
Spiritual Relationships
Our relationships with other people can just as easily become a source of darkness in our hearts as physical problems can. If we’re to find spiritual balance and happiness, we may need to purge people from our lives that negatively impact this happiness. While helping your good friends through a hard time is all well and good, if a friend of yours only brings you down and lets darkness into your life, it may be time to move on.
Spiritual Support
Having a network of supporters who subscribe to the same (or similar) beliefs as you play a vital role in maintaining your psychological health. Even if you can’t find someone who shares your beliefs, someone who subscribes to spiritual healing and respects your beliefs is equally good.
A spiritual supporter, whether this is a friend, a priest or practitioner, or a family member, plays an integral role in helping you maintain your faith, pinpointing when something is lacking in your faith, and keeping you on the right spiritual track. A spiritual supporter can also provide you with some forms of spiritual healing, such as prayer when you’re feeling out of sorts.
Our need for a spiritual supporter is two-fold: it springs from our need for closeness in relationships as well as our need for affirmation in our chosen faith. The need for closeness with another is written into our very DNA, and not having that closeness with another person can wreak havoc on various aspects of our lives.
For one, a spiritual supporter provides affirmation for us, and we do the same for them. Just as we sometimes need a helping hand or some encouraging words when we’re anxious or when we’ve fallen down, our faiths need a boost every now and again, too. No human being is completely satisfied with their faith all the time; we’re prone to losing touch or understanding when we fall upon hard times or other happenings.
A supporter also helps fulfill another of our basic human needs: the need to provide love and support to someone else. While we might not initially think of this as a need, as human beings, we have an innate desire to love and support other people. When we can do this, we’re happier and healthier.
Besides what we listed above, a staunch spiritual supporter can bring the following benefits into your life:
- Peace and understanding when your faith is tested
- A “sounding board” to bounce ideas and worries off of
- A supportive voice when we’re feeling depressed and out of sorts
- A strong presence to embark on your spiritual journey with
Spiritual Balance
An essential part of a strong, supportive relationship, whether spiritual or not, is the balance between both parties. When a relationship isn’t balanced, it means that one party gives too much and one party receives too much. Every relationship will have different levels of giving and receiving between parties, of course, but if one side steps over the line for too long or too often, it can put undue stress on the other party.
Stress in a relationship is not good for us. Our relationships with others are supposed to be sources of happiness and healing, not stress. If someone is putting too much pressure on you, it is time to talk with them about righting the balancing issues between you. If your friend cannot honor your request, then it may be time to remove them from your life.
Like we talked about above, if someone in your life is bringing only darkness, then you may be better off removing them from the spiritual equation. Balance is the key here. People as a whole are made up of light and darkness, so understandably, anyone you are friends with will sometimes bring darkness and sometimes bring light into your life. These elements should always be in balance, because if you’re receiving too much of one or the other, that means the other party is suffering, too.
Spiritual Love
Love, of course, is an essential human need, both to give and to receive. However, the types of love that we give and receive can differ, and they can vary in terms of purity, too. The love between a mother and child is the definition of innocence, for example, while the love between two romantic partners can be fraught with disagreement and unsettled feelings.
If we’re to bring spirituality into our love (and vice versa), we need to practice a form of love that is compatible with it. The judgment of others, for example, is a prime example of a no-no according to many different faiths and beliefs. As such, learning to practice a form of love that’s pure and free of judgment is an excellent way to purify and heal our faith at the same time.
Judgment is just one of many ugly emotions that can taint our faith and infect other aspects of our lives, too, resulting in disease and bad health. Related examples of this are:
- Jealousy
- Contempt
- Anger
- Irritation
- Envy
- Covetousness
As we are flawed human beings, we have no place and no say in judging other humans as right or wrong. As Jesus Christ says in the bible, the man who is without blame can cast the first stone. We have no right to cast the first stone, but since we are flawed, we often attempt to without thinking anyway. Purifying this habit from our lives and replacing it with love for others regardless of their circumstances is another excellent way to purge infection from your body and spirit.
Purify Your Energy
Our own energy, as well as the energy around us, can affect our spirit, reflecting the people and things that we expose ourselves to. If we expose ourselves to positive energies, that will reflect on our body and our spirit. If we expose ourselves to negative energies, the same thing will happen, but we’ll end up carrying a negative burden instead of being lifted by the positive energy around us.
While it’s not possible to control every aspect of the energy around you, surrounding yourself with uplifting people and maximizing the positive energy in your life is an essential part of keeping our own energy clear and pure. However, when we need a bit of a pick-me-up, we can always look to spiritual healers and healing techniques to purge our energy once in a while.
If you can, adding something that brings you happiness to your routine is an excellent way to both dial back on the negative energy in your life and increase the positive energy you feel. Your positive activity can be something as simple as doing a crossword puzzle every day if these puzzles bring you happiness.
A person can qualify for this source of happiness, too, but be careful: the nature of people is impermanence, and people frequently enter and leave our lives as they grow and change. If you’re looking to receive light from another person, you must always keep balance in mind so that you don’t overburden them, and you must be prepared for them to walk away.
Identifying the Disease
Of course, if we’re looking to purge infection and disease from our body, mind, or soul, we eventually need to track down its source. While treating the existing infection and restoring ourselves takes precedence, our next step should be to do everything we can to find the cause of the disease. If we do not do so, the infection will return, after all.
Asking yourself questions is an excellent way to start finding the root of the problem. Ask yourself questions like:
- What am I struggling with in life right now?
- Is anything at my job stressing me out?
- Are any of my friends or family bringing more darkness into my life than light?
- Is there anything that I did a year ago that I enjoyed that I’ve now stopped doing?
Once you’ve asked yourself plenty of questions, another excellent exercise to attempt is to compare now with a time when you felt spiritually fulfilled and happy. What parts of your life are different now than they were then? Have you given up on any hobbies that you once enjoyed, or has a valuable source of light left your life? Maybe you’ve made a lifestyle change that has increased the amount of darkness in your life?
If you can pinpoint where the disease is coming from, you can begin to formulate a plan to cure the infection and prevent it from ever coming back. Of course, we must do this for every disease we experience, and this part of the long journey that is life.