The Holistic Awakening

OK, I admit it: I'm the weird guy at most dinner parties, weddings, in fact - most social gatherings. I'm the one living "out of the box" (not literally, of course).

Sure, my views on complementary therapies and holistic living don't cause too much trouble these days; if anything, they might stir up a whiff of disbelief and cynicism. But at the other end of the scale – when I speak of energy work, hands-on healing and esoteric spirituality – I suspect, for some, that's all just a bridge too far.

But what, I wonder, is that far bridge taking me to? And where is it coming from? After a few weeks working with the CB team, as well as operating in the alternative, complementary and holistic world for over fifteen years, I feel it's time for a bit of reflection and soul-searching to address these fundamental questions. Please bear with me while I ponder what it's all about.

Don't worry - I'm not anxious or depressed and it's (no longer) an existential crisis that I'm dragginging you through here; quite the opposite in fact. I love my work, and in taking many of its joys for granted, am just wondering what the central force is that compels me – and increasing numbers of other alternatively-minded individuals - to see the world from a more holistic point of view.

Now this is where it might get a bit tricky for the more reasonable and rationally-minded reader. I warn you now, if you think that all you see is all there is and that everything can be explained using reason, that I shall be using words like "positivity", "consciousness" and "joy" freely and with little regard for the consequences!

You see, in recent weeks I've been meeting more and more people who know that there's more to life than what we have been conditioned to believe; much more than people tend to talk about in everyday conversation and much, much more than is represented through the mass media, mainstream education, the conventional world of work and modern medicine.

Take the nutritional therapist who left school at sixteen and had her world blown apart by the power of nutrition and holistic health aged thirty. She went "back to school" inspired to change career path and help others with her new-found knowledge. Then there's my mate Nick the plasterer whose cancer diagnosis set him on a new path of positivity and potential. And, only yesterday, the financial consultant I met, who plans to leave a job that doesn't meet with her personal ethics to practice as a holistic stress management consultant. She had her consciousness blown open at a natural health and healing festival.

For my part, many years ago, I sought a solution to what could be called mental ill-health – at best a background anxiety that knew there must be more to life; at worst, mild bouts of depression and dysfunctional behaviour. Through counselling, and an impassioned concern for the environment brought about by my now eighteen-year-old daughter, I discovered that there was indeed more to life and that everything was in some way connected – a new way of life, living and loving.

Now certain that I, and the aforementioned holistic converts, are just the tip of a massive iceberg of more conscious living, I invite you too to honour any uncertainty and difficulty in your life as a sign that there might be more going on than a pain, pang or situation that can be merely rationalised away or brushed under the carpet. It might just be the wake-up call for a more fulfilling life.

Through my holistic awareness I now know – at the deepest and most re-assuring level – that though the world is sometimes challenging and cruel, the life behind, within and beyond it, is absolutely beautiful. Only through what I call a spiritual awakening, a magical holistic moment and the subsequent holistic worldview left in its wake, can I claim to know this deep joy. For some, the holistic awakening is sudden, for others, more gradual.

For all, there's no turning back.