Optimum Health and Happiness

To attain complete health and happiness, the following deserves our careful attention. Above all, spiritual health must be a person’s number one priority.

1. Spiritual Health

The first step is to believe in G-d and in the good that He does, and to build a spiritual relationship with Him. Worship G-d in the way of your own tradition, as your family has for generations. For example, someone born into the Jewish faith should follow Jewish tradition, as that is their heritage and responsibility. Anyone who has had no contact with Judaism can reach out to Chabad, a Jewish organization with over 2,000 branches worldwide, to begin that spiritual journey at no cost. Those of other faiths should follow their own path of spiritual connection. This brings calmness, comfort, security, and a sense of purpose. The main point is to acknowledge the one Creator and to serve Him according to one’s own religion and path in life.

One may ask: why is a person placed in a difficult situation, and why would the Almighty bring such suffering? We can never truly know the reason for anyone’s suffering in this world. But we do know the concept of reincarnation — that a person returns to this world to repair what they damaged in a past life. This is the cause of much of the suffering that seems to have no reason or purpose. When we understand that everything has a purpose, we can face suffering with far more positivity, seeing it as a way to perfect and cleanse our souls. It also lets us view anyone who causes us pain as a messenger from Above, bringing about a situation we need in order to fix something within ourselves. We grow spiritually from these experiences, and it becomes easier to forgive those who harm us.

Sometimes suffering or trauma is a test from Above — meant to bring us closer to G-d and to draw out an inner strength we never knew we had. When G-d is in the picture, our perception of suffering changes, and we no longer carry the same anger or resentment. Not everything in life can be resolved to our satisfaction, but everything can be dealt with in a way that lets us live happily despite our challenges. It is all a matter of mind and perspective.

2. Psychological and Emotional Health

The second aspect of health is psychological and emotional wellbeing. Without a balanced mind and emotions, a person cannot achieve true happiness — and happiness itself contributes to health.

Someone who experienced childhood trauma — the divorce of their parents (especially at a young age), a shattered home, or a lack of love and fairness — must take care to resolve that emotional turmoil. Such unresolved emotions and hurt feelings stay buried in the subconscious for years, quietly waiting to be relieved while they interfere with normal life and family relationships with a spouse, children, and others.

Emotional health also includes marriage and raising a family, which add greatly to one’s sense of wellbeing and purpose. But one must be emotionally balanced before marrying, and must work through conflicts afterward; otherwise true balance is hard to feel. A happy, healthy marriage is very important. Ongoing arguments, disagreements, and stress weigh on the emotions and must be addressed to reach real happiness. Marriage will often stir issues that have lain dormant in the subconscious for years.

Financial stress takes its own toll. Struggling to make an adequate living breeds worry and fear, strains a marriage, and harms our health. We cannot always fix our finances, but we can learn to cope and stay emotionally afloat, so that we can give to a marriage, to our children, and to our own lives in a productive, healthy way. Doing everything possible to improve the situation is essential — but beyond that, knowing how to cope, together with trust in the Almighty, removes much of the fear and insecurity. That in itself brings healing.

The Subconscious Mind

According to the theory, even in the mother’s womb the subconscious mind — the hidden part of the soul — is already aware of everything, and this plays a major role throughout a person’s life. The subconscious records everything automatically; it is always there, and it can be reached by various means. In sleep, or through hypnosis, one can tap into it and bring any past occurrence to the surface — under hypnosis a person can become aware of everything that happened in their life and even speak about it.

The conscious mind is the part we are aware of. Without going into the details of how the two work together, the subconscious rules the conscious, usually without our knowing it. Very often a person cannot say why they behave or think a certain way; it is the subconscious feeding the conscious in that direction.

When Emotions Become Physical Pain

On a physical level, the emotions that the brain decides are too powerful or painful to face will produce real physical pain or symptoms. For some, the symptoms are severe — yet there may be nothing actually wrong with the back, shoulder, knee, or foot; physically, the body is working normally. The pain is the result of a process the brain initiates to protect you from feelings it considers too painful, too sad, or too threatening to confront.

Ideally the brain would let you choose between the physical pain and the emotional pain, but it isn’t organized that way — it makes the decision for you. Remember, though, that the same brain that brings the pain on can also make it go away. That is what we are all seeking: self-awareness.

Freud and the Roots of Hypnoanalysis

Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, described the roles of the subconscious and conscious mind. What few people know is that Freud was Jewish, and that he first developed hypnoanalysis, which he called the jewel of therapy. The idea was — and still is — that through hypnosis you guide the patient back to the moment their emotional problem began, then resolve it: removing the negative emotions stored in the subconscious, replacing them with positive emotions and behavior, and giving the conscious mind a new instruction to guide thought and action from then on.

Before long, Freud abandoned hypnoanalysis for psychoanalysis, which takes far longer. On his deathbed he said he regretted two things: that he had not observed the laws of Moses and was not a practicing Jew, and that he had given up hypnoanalysis — which he admitted was far better than psychoanalysis.

Today, when analytical therapy is needed, it is Freud’s psychoanalysis that is used. There are many hypnotists, but very few — perhaps one percent — know how to do hypnoanalysis, and those who do were mostly students of Dave Elman or Dr. Bryan Jr., MD. Many newer methods now do much of this work consciously, helping patients recognize the negative energies created by the emotional mishaps in their lives. Those unresolved issues often surface as physical symptoms — even back pain or a stomach ulcer — whose true source is psychosomatic.

A person may even have a bulging or pressed disc, with a surgeon recommending surgery or a chiropractor recommending manipulation to reset the disc and strengthen its walls. Yet very often the pain remains after all these procedures, because its origin lies in unresolved emotions from childhood. Until those emotional wounds are addressed, the physical symptoms tend to return. Of course, if a person is still living with emotional or physical abuse, healing is not possible until they remove themselves from that situation or the abuse stops.

Is the Problem Physical or Emotional?

How can you tell whether a physical problem is truly physical, or an unresolved emotion that is simply too hard to face? Many people unconsciously prefer physical symptoms to confronting emotions they feel they cannot handle. The first step is to go through a full examination — lab tests and the usual checkup — to rule out a fracture, disease, or other structural cause. Once serious conditions such as cancer or a fracture have been ruled out, one should suspect that the real cause lies in unresolved emotions.

Common emotional traumas that lead to unresolved emotions include:

1. Lack of love or attention in childhood.
2. Parents divorcing, leaving the child raised by a single parent.
3. Physical abuse, including beatings, or neglect such as not being given proper nutrition and care.
4. Sexual abuse, molestation, or rape.
5. Psychological or emotional abuse: being denied fairness or justice, a parent favoring one child over another, constant criticism or shouting, being denied love and care, or living with a mentally ill parent or a cruel step-parent.
6. Living in a family touched by serious physical illness (an ill parent or sibling).
7. A home where both parents work and the child’s normal needs for attention and recognition go unmet.
8. A home with an alcoholic or drug-addicted parent, creating insecurity and an unstable environment.
9. For adults, being in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship (for example, a husband who beats, mistreats, or verbally abuses his wife).
10. The stress of caring for a child who is ill or handicapped.
11. Being married to someone addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling, or pornography.
12. Extreme poverty, which can create deep insecurity, fear, and depression.
13. Having a parent or close relative in prison.
14. Homelessness or the lack of a stable home, which creates tremendous insecurity.

A Gentler Path: Herbal Support

There is also a newer way to heal these unresolved emotions: through herbs. At BH Herbal Solutions, we have developed formulas devoted to exactly this problem.

You may wonder how an herbal formula could resolve emotional problems that may reach all the way back to birth — something quite different from hypnoanalysis. The answer: just as a psychiatrist treats psychological and emotional problems with medications that act on brain function or with anti-anxiety drugs, these herbs work in much the same way, but without the side effects. They act on both the conscious and subconscious mind to alter negative emotional energies. After a few months, a person can be free of internal emotional conflicts — without therapy — even though those same emotions had been producing physical symptoms for months or years. The herbs ease the most agonizing feelings by reducing their intensity.

This matters because, although methods like psychotherapy exist, some people simply cannot face reliving painful traumas such as rape or other sexual abuse; it is too much to relive consciously or subconsciously. A gentler path — a set of herbal products that bring tranquility without the pain of therapy — allows the trauma to fade over time, so the person can move forward and live a normal life, free of the agony they carried for years.

The four formulas are: Mental Emotional Balance, Relief from Chronic Emotional Turmoil, Unblock Suppressed Emotions, and Happy Times. Taken in combination, they have been known for years to help with deep emotional scars. They gently remove negative emotions from the subconscious and conscious mind, diminish the damage built up over the years, and let a person handle their emotions in a positive, comfortable way. They also lift worry and depression, and promote hope, confidence, self-esteem, enthusiasm, and a positive outlook on life. Browse our Mental Health blends to learn more — and, of course, one can combine the herbs with therapy if desired.

Either way, these negative emotional energies must be dealt with to achieve complete health. Without removing them, true happiness cannot be reached.

3. Physical Health

The third aspect of being healthy and happy is sound physical health, built on a real understanding of nutrition and a commitment to good dietary principles. Study nutrition and actively follow a healthy plan of eating — as much as possible, choose organic, non-GMO foods so the gut stays on the healthy side. There is a great deal of valuable knowledge available on YouTube and elsewhere, but the key is to actually change your diet in order to thrive physically. Only then can total health be achieved.

In Conclusion

If a person attends to all three of these matters — spiritual, emotional, and physical — they will, in the long run, achieve complete health and happiness.