When discussing healing the body, it’s important to begin with concepts that we’re surrounded by daily. It’s understood that healthcare generally takes a strong focus on healing and helping with health issues we encounter. However, it’s not as well-known that parts are missing from the overall wellness view that is preferred with healing.
Physicians are trained specialists in their field. They can address numerous health situations and give good insight and advice for steps to remedy our ailments. Healthcare is a multi-billion-dollar industry. So, expectations are high when it comes to assuming healing for the body.
What’s often missed is the concept of whole-body health. Since areas of medicine are predominantly specialized, it’s difficult to readily address all parts together. Insurance even dictates that doctors shouldn’t mix “problem” and “well” visits. It’s readily accepted as the required method, but it creates issues when attempting to address the whole body or overall wellness. Instead of addressing your entire being, they are trained to focus on the issue at hand when you enter with a situation.
In This Article
General Healing Overview
Due to insurance parameters, lack of overlap, and recording limitations, it’s important to maintain the right perspective when addressing healing. This correction begins with the idea that you are the best advocate for your medical needs, healthcare, and wellness. Your personal knowledge and recognition of your body is a superior point of view to that of any medical professional.
Before joining with anyone or focusing on an issue, it’s vital to have a baseline of your own body. While this will change over time, and with any medical onset, you’re still the best source to maintain full perspective of situations.
Too often we fail to realize that most of the information which drives the initial point of treatment is based on our input anyway. Medical testing is possible, but your description and report are used to initiate action steps.
Let’s look at an example that highlights the importance of personal advocacy. Patient A has been feeling occasional pressure in her chest, sporadic shortness of breath, lightheadedness, blurred vision, and stomach aches. She occasionally notices some aching in her neck. Patient A is fearful to visit the doctor because she expects bad news. She continues to feel bad but notes that her symptoms aren’t continuous.
She decided to visit her doctor who couldn’t find an immediate issue. He wanted to refer her to a cardiologist based on the symptoms. After telling a friend the story, they discussed that she felt worse early mornings and late evenings. After assessing the full picture, patient A realized that she feels extremely stressed at home but less pressured at work. She decided to speak to a therapist. After several sessions, and learning some coping skills for her stress, she noticed that many of her symptoms were subsiding.
This is one example and should not be used to determine your need for medical care, but it makes a good point. Let’s continue by looking at the importance of viewing your body as a whole entity.
Physical
Physical ailments more commonly receive attention simply because they are usually the first and most notable when there’s an issue. This could include aches, pains, musculoskeletal disorders, skin situations/wounds, heart and lungs, and joint/tissue inflammation just a name a few. We’ll consider anything that is detectable physically within your body systems as a part this category. It may be seen by you, or internally via scan, bloodwork, or test. Check out this article for more information on physical healing.
Mental and Emotional
This category is sometimes more difficult to recognize but is of equal importance to your physical being. We’ll consider mental situations as stemming from the brain. This may affect your thinking, mood, and/or behavior. It could include hormone imbalance, neuropathway interruptions, and brain function among many other things. Since our emotions stem from thoughts, we will include them here as well. Some terms you may have heard associated with this category are anxiety, depression, personality disorders, dementia, etc. In addition, it is possible to experience degrees of these situations without having a clinical diagnosis. We’ll take a closer look at mental and emotional healing in this article.
Spiritual
The spiritual category is not recognized in traditional medicine but plays an important role. Although opinions abound with this idea, it’s impossible to leave off the concept of being grounded at your core when addressing whole body health. While a variety of beliefs exist, the point that we are part of a bigger entity is vital when looking at healing. Your spiritual being can be “injured” or “ill” just as the rest of your body. If we only focus on the mind and physical aspects, we miss foundational concepts that exist for clarity and overall wellness. You can view this article about spiritual healing for a deeper understanding.

What to Recognize for Healing
We’ve looked at three areas that are each a part of your whole body. Here, we will address the category of mental healing. (This includes the emotional aspect also.) You’ve seen an example of this category and have likely leaned into any issue you currently recognize.
In this section, we’ll go over points for attention, how you view them, and action steps to begin taking for healing.
What’s Your Healing Focus?
As we’ve determined, it’s impossible to address the angles of healing without first focusing on your mindset. Your brain is intricately wired and is the computer that runs your body. While your heart and lungs can work mechanically with medical intervention, quality of life and continued healing is determined by whether the brain is functioning or not. With the absence of this organ—and its vital actions—your physical and spiritual healing are changed. This is the case for all bodily functions as well.
With that considered, it’s easier to understand why the brain has such an impact on your daily activities, subconscious body system workings, choices, and feelings. Since we’re looking at mental situations and emotional healing altogether, we’ll discuss these simultaneously.
Thoughts drive your feelings so it’s important to realize that the mindset you have while you’re attempting healing is vital. A defeated mentality can birth slow growth and even negative emotions. Beginning a focus on your daily mindset is a great way to gain deeper understanding of what is taking place in your body. Let’s take a closer look at how to identify and even change mental aspects for healing and a better quality of life.
Symptoms and Interruptions Before Healing
Let’s consider things that you might experience daily. Even a few of these can weigh on you mentally. However, the more situations that surface create an even greater difficulty to cope.
Each of us is different based on prior circumstances, environmental situations, and physical/social/ spiritual involvement. That’s why it’s necessary for us to advocate for our own health. This is never truer than with mental health. More than physical needs, your mindset is only known when you express it. This often creates difficulty with healing due to subjective information, views, training of medical professionals, and constantly changing environmental effects.
Since there are already challenges that exist, you should oversee your personal situations. As the best advocate, an honest willingness to address a need for healing is the best place to begin. As you assess your current mindset, stress levels, involvement in emotional situations, and your reactions/choices, use an honest approach. Not everyone needs professional intervention, but if so, don’t hesitate to lean into it. Realizing the truth about emotions also assists in healing.
Waiting or Acting?
It’s natural for us to assess physical situations and decide if it’s time to seek out medical help. People are more apt to see a doctor for a physical need due to stigmas and hesitations regarding mental health. Although this has changed over time, it is still a problem in certain cultures and geographical areas.
We’re generally more willing to focus on a need that we’re fearful may cause a chronic issue or could be a terminal problem. However, when considering mental health, it’s often overlooked, excused away, determined as “imagination”, or assumed to be untreatable.
It’s important to maintain a continuous assessment of your thoughts, views, choices, reactions, and your emotional status. Nothing that falls into these categories should be overlooked, but rather consciously considered as a part of your health. It is the initial drive for what goes on in your body.
With this view, one point to make is to never hesitate when you feel there is a need for professional intervention. While we learn to cope throughout life, there’s no reason to suffer alone or assume we have it under control. Along with medication/medical intervention from psychiatrists, there are multiple avenues to take that can fill a need for additional support. Some of these are school counselors, church leaders, psychologists, therapists, and life/health coaches.
When deciding to wait or act, it should be an easy determination if you’re even posing the question. Taking time to try this route can be beneficial and create great outcomes. Most importantly, it’s never a debate if there is an emergency regarding your mindset or emotions. This should be acted on immediately.

Steps for Change when Healing
We’ve addressed overall mindset for a healthy approach. Now let’s look at action steps that can be used for mental healing.
1. Be Proactive
We’ve established that being your own advocate is a necessary and vital part of your mental health. One way to view this is that discouraging yourself from taking steps is not preserving your wellness.
As you make the choice to lean into your overall health, mental and emotional awareness is important. Maintaining that you should increase your attention to thoughts, and then feelings or reactions, creates the understanding that you’re not accepting being tossed around by either of these areas of your mind.
It’s a choice and a necessary first step to make a change to your current situation. When healing is considered as increasing your current level of health, it becomes apparent that you play a vital role.
2. Assess Your Mental Needs
Just as it’s important to acknowledge your role in taking action, you should understand how to do that. Beyond deciding to improve mental health, it’s great to condition yourself to assess your mental status and needs continuously.
This can be done by noticing your thoughts, recognizing when things upset you, or if you feel overwhelmed. Take note of what was happening at the time. If you can narrow down any areas of difficulty, or triggers, it allows for improved mental and emotional awareness. Once you have greater understanding of the situation, it increases your success for change. There’s no way to break a habit if you don’t realize it exists.
3. Follow Through for Mental Healing
Although staying proactive and recognizing your needs are necessary in healing mentally, taking action steps and following through are what make lasting change. Have you ever heard a saying about best intentions? Without action, your thoughts and realizations about mental and emotional health are only that, thoughts. Leaning in and making a change is what creates successful steps. This takes daily intention for desired healing.
Remember, your mind is powerful. Staying proactive and making the choice to take a step will give you a sense of accomplishment, confidence, show willingness, and a desire for an excellent outcome.
One point to mention is that healing takes time. It’s not an overnight or quick response. Also, once you begin your own healing steps, and assessment, you may realize you don’t want to take steps alone. It is often the case that mental/emotional healing shifts from a personal healing journey to including a healthcare worker or additional professional. This is still a part of advocacy and should be viewed as such.

Goals for a Successful Mental Healing Outcome
Since we’ve addressed assessment and action steps about mindset, let’s look at some ways to gain successful outcomes.
1. Make and Keep a Plan
As with other ideas of healing, establishing a plan and intentional steps for mental healing helps increase success.
One point that should be practiced from the start is consistency. Setting yourself up for success includes progressing when you focus on and stick with your plan. Even if steps are not always perfect, don’t give up.
So how do you set goals for mental and emotional healing? A great place to start is with increased mindfulness. This article about being mindful explains more specifically how to focus on and accomplish this concept.
Part of successful healing, especially mental, is with optimistic affirmations. When you control the thoughts that enter your mind, you’re more apt to have a better outcome. Other ideas for clarity and strength with mindset are maintaining good sleep and eating brain foods. These help with acuity which plays a role in mental health.
2. Assess Your Mental Progress
Just as with any fitness plan, assessment helps you identify what is working and what should be adjusted. This is one of the keys for maintaining balance and forward propulsion.
We’ve discussed the importance of your own advocacy. Assessment is one point that helps you realize the needed information for successful decisions. How can you know what might work if you’re not in tune to your body? How can you make changes during assessment if you don’t have ideas what might work? These two ideas go together.
Even with this knowledge, it’s important to remember that healing is often a slow journey. There are numerous aspects that go into the steps involved and don’t usually happen immediately. Acceptance of this is one way to keep from feeling defeated, disgruntled, upset, or disappointed. Remember, your brain is intricate. There may be multiple areas that are addressed during healing for mental and emotional health.
3. Allow Others to Motivate Not Enable
It’s good throughout life to have people on your side for motivation. Mental and emotional healing are no different. It’s not uncommon to hear the comment that healing takes much longer than expected. Along with the actual steps, this realization creates difficulty with mindset and emotions when addressing healing.
Motivation from others helps boost confidence and continue steps used to walk out a plan. It’s even beneficial to have assistance with your continued assessment. However, even with this input, it’s important to remember that you are the best advocate for your mental health decisions. Especially where emotional wellness is concerned, you can maintain emotional control.
Final Thoughts About Mental and Emotional Healing
Having a need for mental or emotional healing is often difficult and can even be overlooked in everyday life. It’s important to recognize needs as they arise and take control of the situation.
Never allow excuses, other people, ulterior motives, or distractions to keep you from acting with your own mental and emotional health. As we discussed, there are multiple arenas for intervention. In addition, it’s good to maintain awareness of your needs prior to taking any steps, large or small.
Your personal health is important, and goals should be set and maintained to ensure your wellness. Assessment is vital to understanding what’s working and any additional needs you have.
Healing doesn’t involve an immediate path to success. It can be achieved with recognition of need, setting a plan, and assessing your progress. It’s possible to have great health outcomes when you follow these steps.