What Heals?

Medicine is a continuously evolving field, and there are plenty of approaches to healing that have yet to be proven or quantified by the scientific community. But this doesn’t mean that we need to wait for researchers to catch up. We know that a mother’s kiss can make a skinned knee hurt less, that a phone call from a loved one can elevate our mood, a powerful experience in nature can shift us, or a new relationship can energize the body. In this mind-opening and heart-opening new video from IPEtv, Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, explores the frontier of healing and how we can go beyond conventional medicine to find what truly heals us when it comes to both body and soul. We think you’ll find this video uplifting and inspiring.

Here is a transcript of this week’s video:

Greetings, friends. I’m Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. Let’s talk about what heals. Have you ever asked that question? Like, “What actually heals me when I feel healed?” When anybody feels healed, what heals?

Now, to me, this is a fantastically important question and one that we seldom directly ask because there are so many of us with so many symptoms and diseases, unwanted health complaints and more. And we’re wisely searching for solutions.

But we seldom look at the big picture.

So I’ve been asking this question over the years of people. I say, “People, what heals?” Like, if I’m teaching a workshop or in a lecture.

Now, initially when you say “What heals,” a group of people, they might think drugs or supplements or surgery or maybe diet. But then oftentimes people feel a little bit perplexed by their own answers. And when I ask people, “Hey, can you drop in a little more? What has healed you over the course of your life really?” the answers start to become more poetic and more poignant, more surprising, and quite frankly, more amazing.

So in answer to what truly heals, let me share with you some of the things that I’ve heard over the years that people will speak with conviction from their core.

What heals? People will say love.

They’ll say hope. Telling the truth. Having an epiphany. Leaving a toxic job. Leaving a toxic relationship. Finding a soul mate. Forgiving someone. Making peace with my parents. Having a spiritual realization. Finding God. Being more real and authentic. Spending time in nature. A breakthrough sexual relationship. Letting go of an old belief that doesn’t work anymore. Saying no. Saying yes. Having a child. Giving birth. Discovering your true purpose.

I think you get the idea here. These are things that heal us. And we’re busy looking for the medicines and the drugs and the vitamins and the diet. And the good news is there’s more to healing than just the pure science alone that we’ve been taught.

And indeed, many of the examples I’ve just given likely have their own scientific underpinnings, but we just haven’t figured it out yet. Science has yet to discover the scientific basis of things such as love, forgiveness, intimacy. Just because science can’t prove it exists doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. We all know forgiveness is real or intimacy is real or love is real.

You can’t see it in a microscope.

But you can see its weight. You can see its effects.

The Native Americans have a beautiful way of speaking to this. They’ll often say the word “medicine” after anything they can experience or imagine. They’ll talk about tree medicine. Or they’ll talk about rock medicine or coyote medicine. They’ll even describe someone, “That person is good medicine,” meaning everyone and everything and every experience can have a medicine to it or a healing quality to it. Right now, hopefully, this is video medicine.

So a big part of our task is to continue to push the pedal to the metal on researching all the traditional medical strategies for healing, sure. But at the same time, you can’t lose sight of what your soul knows, what your heart knows. You’ve got to believe in that because that heals, too. We need to reclaim what truly heals and sustains us.

Sometimes that knowledge lives in the realm of science, for sure. Sometimes that knowledge simply dwells deep inside of us. And our job is to welcome all of what heals to the table and to be brave enough to trust what you indeed know deep inside, because when you do, the magic of the world is born, my friends.

Warmly,
Marc David

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