It seems to me that people’s attitudes are changing as they become more conscious of the need for health goals to be achieved through interrelationships and world connectedness. People are finding that personal health goals like losing weight, eating better, exercising, and quitting smoking, while very important to the individual, also need to be considered in the context of world health issues.
For example, if an individual quits smoking, those who had been breathing second hand smoke are now benefited by that individual’s choice. This example shows how an individual and the members of society are interrelated. Improving these relationships improves the climate of health. The shift from experiencing health from the view of the world serving an individual’s needs to viewing the individual as being in service to the world requires a willingness to go beyond self-interest.
There is also a potential for spiritual resources to be used in promoting world health. Recent studies have shown that health includes a spiritual aspect. Development of a spiritual component to community health may be the key to reverse the downward trends in world health conditions.
Elliot Dacher, M.D., author of Integral Health, intended to present a comprehensive model of health and healing in his book, but found that integral health and healing was in psychospiritual development – the awakening and development of consciousness.
Many find this consciousness, or spiritual approach, benefits the whole person – both mind and body. Maybe Dacher said it best when he stated “As I could slowly see the glimmer of the gem of human flourishing I knew it was possible for everyone. And I also knew it was time to come home to my own culture and do what I could to help others see the truth, goodness, and beauty of life, much as I had been helped to see it for myself. I knew it was time to practice medicine again, but this time, an inner and outer whole medicine.”
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