Human beings are more than just physical beings. We are conscious, thinking, feeling beings. We are also spiritual beings with spiritual capacities and awareness. Every so often we notice glimpses of this spiritual layer – through all kinds of experiences.

When you just somehow “know” that someone is looking at you before you can even see them, or that a distant loved one is that moment in danger or distress, or that a family member far away has just died, or that you are being talked about, or that a friend is about to call or bump into you; those are moments of spiritual awareness. These are things you know in your spirit.

If you have ever been with a loved after they have died, or been at their side the moment that they pass away and you can “see” and “feel” that they are no longer there; that too is something you know in your spirit. When we know things through dreams, déjà vu, or hunches, these are all gentle reminders that we are spiritual beings as well as physical and intellectual.

Anyone who has had an out of body experience during a sickness or an operation discovers that their mind is not their brain, their eyes are not their sight, and their bodies are not their consciousness. Suddenly they have experienced that we all are spirit.

Sometimes when a person needs healing the key component needing fixing may not be physical – even if there are physical symptoms. As spiritual beings sometimes it is our spirit that needs nurture and healing.

When Denise first walked into our office she was a in a sad place in her life. She spoke with nostalgia of a glamorous and fast-paced youth. Now in mid-life, her heart, kidneys and liver were all sick. This reflected in poor skin and hair and a perpetual mental fog. She and her husband were out of work and struggling on benefits. The stress had depleted their relationship to the point that her husband was speaking with us about the best way of dissolving their marriage of 25 years.

Denise’s GP was managing her various health problems with 11 concurrent courses of medication. “How,” Denise asked, “can you help me?” It was really a testament to Denise’s great resilience that she was able to put that question to us at all after a long sequence of discouragement in her life. But under the surface her challenging question expressed a little remnant of hope. It was a mustard seed of faith.

11 courses of medication might suggest and insoluble and multi-layered problem. Yet the modality we reached for was a simple one. After little more than 12 months on the receiving end of this modality Denise’s brain chemistry had clearly shifted and her mental fog had completely lifted.

Her heart, liver and kidneys were all returning healthy counts. Her skin looked healthy and radiant and her hair was like hair in a TV commercial! She and her husband both had secured part-time jobs and had been able to afford to buy a house together. They looked happy and walked with a spring in their step and at their 25th wedding anniversary it was our joy to share in a beautiful ceremony as they renewed their marriage vows.

In response to the amazing changes in her health, Denise’s GP reduced her medical regimen from 11 concurrent medications to just 1! “I am glad we did this review,” he said. “Clearly something has changed and you just don’t need these other medications anymore. Just keep doing whatever it is you’re doing!”

The healing in Denise’s life was so rapid, so radical and so beyond conventional explanation that her two sons, both in their 20s, refused ever to talk about it. They acted as if nothing strange had happened. This was because they had no grid to explain it. For them it was a supernatural miracle. And they had no frame of reference for the supernatural or for miracles.

In fact the modality we reached for to enable Denise to heal was one which enabled her spirit to heal. Once her spirit was experiencing good health, her thoughts, emotions, and body gradually became congruent with her more ordered spirit and…healed themselves!

You want to know how! Over that 12 month period Denise’s spirit was nurtured and healed through 7 Iterations of Love. These iterations were:

• Mindful Recognition of Others
• Positive Intention towards others and life itself
• Altruistic Action
• Forgiveness of Self, Others and Past
• Daily Practice of Gratitude and Hope which Denise expressed in prayer
• Practices of Contentment and Joy-seeking in a Rhythm of Life
• Practices of Inclusion and Soul Friendship (Denise found this in her community of faith)

These 7 Iterations of Love did not directly target Denise’s brain chemistry, or hormones, or internal organs, skin or hair. They addressed the needs of a depleted spirit. When her spirit became healed all those other layers realigned themselves in healthy ways and the transformation in Denise as a person was visible and unmistakable.

That is why honoring the person seeking healing as a spiritual being is not an abstract or theoretical notion. It is something that has become fundamental to my own approach to healing. It is about having a mindset that is not about curing conditions, but rather helping the person to heal.

So while Denise’s boys were pretending nothing had happened – though they were sincerely thrilled to have their mum back – we who had worked with her through those transformational 12 months were giving thanks to God for the amazing changes that follow when a beautiful human spirit gets healed!