Life isn’t always easy. It can be raw, overwhelming, and confusing at times. The older we grow, the more experiences we have, and the more challenging it can become to achieve the happy and healthy life we desire. Have you ever felt that? A sense that you aren’t living your best self?
Maybe you have feelings of despair or anxiety that are hard to share with your friends and family. Maybe you have experienced loss, abuse, or trauma in the past that seems to keep bubbling up. Or, maybe you are having relationship issues that just don’t seem to be getting better. These are just a few of the difficulties we may be living with on a daily basis and not quite sure how to heal.
Whether you are questioning if your concerns are “important enough” to seek guidance or are looking for an alternative to traditional western mental health counseling, holistic counseling could be the perfect option for a happier, healthier life.
Our Perspective
A relatively new mental health approach in western culture, holistic counseling focuses on three aspects of overall mental health: the mind, the body, and spirituality.
At Colorado Natural Medicine + Acupuncture, we look at holistic counseling as a 3-piece pie. Each of the pieces: mind, body, and spirituality, must be whole to form a complete pie. If one, two, or all of the pieces aren’t completely in-tact, then our holistic counselor works to make them full again to regain one’s best self. We believe each piece is vital to obtaining your optimal health and happiness.
Holistic counseling can help a wide variety of mental health matters including, but not limited to:
Stress & Anxiety: having feelings of being overwhelmed, burnt-out, unsafe, and scared
Depression: experiencing distressing thoughts, despair, guilt, shame, and sadness
Loss & Grief: a loss of identity and perception of the world, sadness, anger, guilt, pain and sorrow
Trauma or Abuse: a loss of how to process an experience(s) and the debilitating feelings hindering moving forward
Addiction & Compulsiveness: anxiety and fears of the uncontrollable
Relationship Issues: a sense of uneasiness or lack of understanding leading to difficult questions and concerns
So how is holistic counseling different from traditional western counseling in helping with mental health concerns? Let us explain…
Holistic counseling combines traditional western talk therapy (discussing your concerns and issues with your counselor one on one) with functional medicine therapies (such as acupuncture, nutrition planning, exercise outlines, naturopathic herbs, and/or essential oils). It’s an integrated approach for whole health, treating the entire self rather than just one piece.
Let’s take the pie example above to illustrate it further. If one (or more) of the pieces isn’t completely whole, the pie isn’t whole either, such as this:
This incompleteness can lead to many symptoms such as anxiety, depression, fear, instability, addiction, and an overall sense of just not feeling like yourself.
To make it whole again, a variety of functional medicine therapies may be recommended to heal the piece(s). Depending upon what the physical and mental symptoms are, results from testing that may be involved, and future goals, our holistic counselor creates a personalized plan focused on the areas needed.
Need an example?
Even though every situation is different, many times our mental health concern we first discuss is only a part of what is treated.
Did you know that something as simple as a vitamin deficiency or candida overgrowth can cause mental health difficulties? Or that some types of exercise can be counterintuitive in certain circumstances? There are even foods that can alter our behaviors that project less us than our best. Holistic counseling looks at all of these aspects, plus more, in helping determine the root cause of an issue and then how best to heal it.
If you have tried traditional talk therapy and are still in search of health and healing, we encourage you to speak with our holistic counselor with a free 15 minute phone consultation. We want to hear about your challenges and answer any questions you may have. Because holistic counseling may be just the option to lead you to the life you want to achieve.
Schedule your complimentary phone consultation now.
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