Daniella Saunders - Philosophy Hub

Mind

Spirituality

Health

Personal transformation
Exploring consciousness
Philosophy of mind

Philosophical questions
Spiritual experience
Awakening & self-realization

Reflections on healing
Holistic philosophy
Influences on wellbeing

What is self-realization?

There are two inter-related, yet fundamentally different, interpretations of self-realization.  To summarise very briefly these are:

Western perspective: Self-realization is viewed as the process of optimising your mind, beliefs, and habits,  so that you can live your life to the very highest level of your own potential, and be the best version of yourself.

Eastern perspective: Self-realization is often associated with the wisdom traditions, and concepts such as spiritual awakening or enlightenment. These concepts are more concerned with experiential insights into the nature of reality, the primacy of consciousness, and the unified nature of existence. These pathways also encompass topics around life and death, ethical behaviour, and the relief suffering.

I work with people who are exploring both of these pathways. They are not mutually exclusive. But I do so from a grounded perspective where we question many of the popular beliefs which surround these topics.

Why is health also a path of evolving wisdom?

This is an important journey because how we interpret the world around us, and approach health and wellbeing can impact not only ourselves, but also impact our ability to help others.

Encountering illness, suffering, trauma, loss, or bereavement are often catalysts for an increased interest in all things spiritual or existential. So, when we are supporting people in these situations, it's important to be able to provide high quality, rational, and heart-centred care.

We all have our own philosophy for health - a set of beliefs, ideas, and habits which directly impacts our approach to wellbeing.  Usually these beliefs are things we have learnt from other people - either through college, university, or a professional training programme.  Once we have learnt these ideas, we naturally assume that they are correct, and proceed to teach them to other people through our work.  But what if there is a deeper level of insight that we haven't accessed yet?

What happens when we view health and healing through the lens of consciousness instead of a materialistic worldview? When we have a perspective that consciousness is the underlying nature of reality, where health and illness can be deeply influenced by your own mind? How does this consciousness-based viewpoint impact our beliefs about health, illness, the placebo effect, and spontaneous healing?

Why is this important for healers?

Individuals who support the wellbeing of others often have deeper questions about life and health.  Like existential questions about the meaning of life, why suffering exists, and what happens after death. Contemplations on how spirituality relates to health and wellbeing. Or questions around social inequalities and ethical issues which lead to human suffering.

So, healing practitioners are already committed to the process of exploring life on a deeper level themselves.  Their life experiences mean that they are more likely to question things which are often not on the radar for other people. Plus, their work automatically puts them in a better position to integrate their insights more fully, and to make changes which will also improve the lives of others.

With this in mind, I work with all types of wellbeing service providers who are genuinely interested in exploring holistic philosophy. This also includes people who work in mainstream healthcare: nurses, social workers, caregivers, health assistants.  Or those who are already involved in holistic health: spiritual workers, health coaches, bodyworkers, and holistic therapists.  These practitioners are usually already aware of the energetic, or consciousness-based levels of existence which align with Eastern approaches to self-realization or awakening.

My aim for this programme is to support the evolution of deeper insights into consciousness for people who work in a wellbeing.  So that together we can elevate the perception of holistic health, the services that we offer, and the support that we provide for people in our care.

The 3 stages of evolving wisdom

There are three levels of insight that are needed to work through in order to understand human experience, and to allow more wisdom to evolve in your life:

Individual: Developing your own philosophy for health is an important component of self-realization for anyone who provides health services for others. Most therapies and wellbeing services focus on the individual level, where you are generally held fully accountable for your experience of life. But once you reach a certain level of self-awareness, you begin to recognise that whilst there are many benefits to these approaches, they are also incomplete. People do not live in a vacuum - they are constantly exposed to a variety of other influences which impact their wellbeing, and over which they have little or no control.

Collective: Sufficient consideration of the collective influences on an individuals wellbeing is not always taken into account.  Things like cultural beliefs, social norms, political influences, or environmental issues often have a much deeper impact on us than we may initially realise. Because we are so accustomed to their presence, these things may be virtually invisible to us, or exist beneath our conscious awareness. As an example, the medicalisation of normal human experiences can also have an adverse impact on some people, rather than a purely beneficial one as is commonly believed.

Existential: The spiritual nature of our existence and how this can impact the level of suffering we experience is another area which is often overlooked within mainstream healthcare. Usually considered as something which is more superficial, or non-scientific, spirituality can take on a primary level of importance when it comes to dealing with problems like loss, bereavement or life-threatening illness. But unfortunately, this aspect of wellbeing is often treated with dismissal, or perceived as being irrelevant by many healthcare workers. By taking a more grounded approach to spirituality, developing our own insights, and approaching this topic from a deeper perspective, it becomes possible to really help people in their time of spiritual need.

The 4 stages of holistic philosophy

The second pathway is developing your own awareness of the levels of consciousness which make up who you are on a deeper level.  This involves working through each of these on an experiential level, and understanding the key differences between medical and holistic views.

The four dimensions of holistic health are:

Physical: In mainstream healthcare, the focus lies mainly with physical health interventions, and includes things like biochemistry, medication, surgery, lifestyle habits, and physical support.  From a holistic viewpoint, this physical dimension is quite real, and it still exists, so all treatments are still relevant and important. In this model, physical ailments are often treated as being separate (to varying degrees) from other areas of life.

Mental: Mental health in most Western healthcare usually approaches the mind from a dualistic perspective - where mind and body interact with each other in some way (which has yet to be found). Whereas from a holistic perspective, mind is associated with the mental level of consciousness.  So this is where the difference between begins to become apparent, and this is one of the main reasons why people get confused - because both views are referring to the level of mind.

Energetic: This dimension is where the split between medical and holistic approaches to wellbeing occurs. Many holistic health practitioners offer services to include an energetic level of healing with the use of therapies such as Reiki, acupressure, or reflexology. Spiritual workers also work on this level when they offer services such as mediumship or soul readings. This is the level where many holistic practitioners stop their own enquiries. They realise that this energetic level exists, but may not fully recognise the deeper level of consciousness.

Consciousness: This level relates to the primacy of consciousness - the space where no-thing exists. It is associated with the arising of personal awareness, in addition to all of life. You can choose to view this dimension within a spiritual context, and associate it with awakening, union, enlightenment, or self-realization.  You can also view it purely through the lens of consciousness, and without having any spiritual context at all.

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