The four pathways to healing

When you start looking at natural approaches to healing disease, you quickly realise that there are hundreds of options and it can get pretty overwhelming.

But what you might not know is there are actually patterns to the effects that each treatment has, and understanding those patterns can simplify your choices greatly.

I’ve developed a framework to help you see the four key things that almost all-natural treatments do in the body, to help create health.

Read on to discover how to use the “Four Pathways to Healing” framework in your own healing journey.

Healing Diseases Naturally

There are so many different ways to activate the body’s natural ability to prevent and heal illnesses that it can get a bit overwhelming.

But I’ve come up with something that I call the “Four Pathways to Healing” framework that can help you figure out where each of those activities fits into your overall healing approach.

This is an overview of the “Four Pathways to Healing” framework:

The “Four Pathways to Healing” framework

So as I was looking through the hundreds of natural remedies and treatments that are available to activate your body’s natural ability to prevent and heal illnesses, I saw some really strong themes coming out about how these treatments have their effects on disease or how they support the body to heal naturally.

And I developed what I call the “Four Pathways to Healing” framework and I want to share that with you now.

Balance creates health

So the first concept that I want to discuss is the idea of balance and that when the body is in balance it’s healthy.

It can fix problems as they crop up, it can deal with whatever’s coming along, all the processes are humming along really nicely and the body is healthy.

When the body gets out of balance that’s what leads to disease.

It can’t deal with things that are bombarding it.

It can’t fix problems as they occur. It’s just not working very well.

So when the body is out of balance it’s unhealthy.

The two things that create balance

So what creates balance?

Well from my perspective there really are two main things that contribute to this balance in the body.

There are toxins, which are things that harm the body in some way.

And there are what I call nurtrients which are things that help or heal the body.

Now nurtrients is a made-up word but it encompasses the description of everything that supports and nurtures the body in order for it to create health.

A healthy body versus illness

So when a body’s in balance it has the resources it needs to deal with whatever’s going on.

We can never have a perfect toxin-free experience because we have lives, busy lives, where we’re dealing with all sorts of stressful situations.

We have an environment where there are lots of things bombarding us.

There is just a lot going on.

So we will always have things for our body to deal with and our body knows how to do that.

When it’s in balance it has the resources to do that successfully.

But, when it goes out of balance the toxins overwhelm the nurtrients and the body just simply can’t deal with everything that’s coming in.

All the things that are harming the body are crowding out all of the things that are there that can help or heal the body and it simply can’t deal with it.

And that’s what can lead to disease.

The two things we need to do to shift the body towards healing

So if we have a body that’s out of balance and dealing with disease there are really only two things that we can do to shift it back to a state of balance and health.

1. The first one is to reduce the toxin load on the body.
2. And the second one is to increase the availability of nurtrients to the body.

It seems pretty simple on the face of it and as a model it gives you a way of seeing how to bring the body back into balance so it can be healthy.

The four ways to fix an unbalanced body

And there are really just four things you can do to shift this balance in the body.

1. Add fewer toxins

The first one is to add fewer toxins into the body in the first place.

2. Remove more toxins

We can also increase the removal of toxins from the body.

And both of those things together will reduce the toxin load on the body.

3. Reduce nurtrient robbers

On the other side of the equation we can reduce nurtrient robbers.

Things that remove the things that help the body.

4. Add more nurtrients

And we can also add more nurtrients into the body.

And both of those things will increase the nurtrient availability.

And that is the essence of the “Four Pathways to Healing” framework.

Those four actions describe so many of the different things that we can do to shift the body back into balance and to promote healing.

How to create balance

So let’s look at some examples of some of the things that we can do.

1. How to add fewer toxins

So we can add fewer toxins to the body.

We can choose to eat organic foods and avoid the pesticides that would otherwise be going into our body.

We can filter our water and remove contaminants.

We can use natural beauty products on our skins so we’re not absorbing all of those synthetic chemicals.

We can also get rid of synthetic household cleaners and products.

We can minimise volatile organic compounds, also called VOCs, that come from things like new furniture, new carpet, paint and they can be quite harmful to the body as well.

And we can avoid things like smoke, or smoking, and pollution.

2. How to remove more toxins

We can also increase the rate at which our body removes toxins by doing things like drinking more water.

Water is a really powerful way for the body to remove toxins so the more water we drink the more toxins our body can remove.

Breathing deeply also allows our body to remove toxins, not only through breathing fresh air into our lungs and oxygenating the blood which can then help with detoxification, but it also moves the muscles and our bodies which also helps with toxin removal.

We can eat foods that promote detoxification, things like turmeric, garlic, leafy greens and so many more, can help our bodies to speed up the rate of toxin removal.

Exercise is another great way because it moves our muscles, gets us breathing more, but it also gets the lymph system working more effectively and that’s one of the primary ways that our body clears out toxins from our body.

And something like a massage can also help with that because it’s getting things moving and speeding up the rate of detoxification in the body.

3. How to reduce nurtrient robbers

When it comes to nurtrients we can reduce things that rob us of those important nurtrients.

Now many medications strip our bodies of nutrients that our bodies need.

Things like antibiotics, painkillers, antacids and more.

Now I’m not suggesting you stop your medication but just be aware that those medications can be robbing you of important nutrients.

Processed foods, which are devoid of many essential nutrients, require nutrients for our bodies to process them.

So they don’t add nutrients they actually rob us of nutrients.

So the more of those we eat, the more we strip those essential nutrients out of our body.

Fizzy drinks and alcohol and caffeine all have a similar effect.

They require certain substances from our body in order to be processed and it just deprives our body of the resources it needs.

And stressful situations or people or relationships can also rob us of essential nurtrients.

We don’t feel good, it takes energy and resources to deal with those stressful situations, so those things rob us of essential nurtrients.

4. How to add more nurtrients

And we can add in more nurtrients to our experience.

We can eat nutrient-dense foods especially plant-based wholefoods which are packed with life-giving, health-giving nutrients that just support our body in healing.

Getting enough sleep can be really key because so much happens while we sleep at night in healing in our bodies.

Making time for fun and for doing things that we enjoy can be really powerful.

And catching up with friends has been proven time and time again to be really powerful in helping our bodies to move into a state where it’s able to heal.

Listening to your body and the cues it’s giving you about what it needs.

Whether it needs to rest, whether it needs to move, whether it needs to eat, whether it needs to do whatever.

By listening to your body you’re actually taking care of your body and giving it the resources it needs to heal.

And again setting boundaries and speaking up for yourself.

It gives you that space to feel safe, to put your body into a state where it’s able to heal.

And being kind to yourself does a lot of that as well because when you are kind yourself and you say nice things to yourself, you reduce the the stress levels, the cortisol, the inflammation, all of those things that actually can harm your body.

So by being kind to yourself you’re actually nurturing your body and moving into a state where it can heal.

Use the “Four Pathways to Healing” framework to evaluate your options

So, that is the essence of the “Four Pathways” framework.

There’s a balance in our body that we can shift by reducing the toxin load and increasing nutrient availability and the four ways that we can do that are by adding fewer toxins, increasing toxin removal, reducing nurtrient robbers and adding more nurtrients.

Now this is a simplification.

It’s not going to cover every situation and explain everything but what I wanted to give you was a mental model so that when you are faced with all these options for healing, for treatment, for remedies, you can ask yourself which of these that particular approach is doing.

• Is it adding toxins?
• Is it removing toxins?
• Is it increasing availability of nurtrients?
• Or is it robbing you of important nurtrients?

And by having this simple frame of reference for looking at all those options you can start to put together an approach to your healing that helps to shift that balance in your body back towards health and healing.

Your turn

So that was an overview of what I call the “Four Pathways to Healing” framework.

I hope you found this idea useful, and now I’d love to hear from you.

What are your favourite tips for taking care of you?

Many of us are not very good at taking care of ourselves so I’d love it if you’d share your favourite tips and tricks in the comments for taking care of yourself so that we can all benefit from what you’ve learned.