Balancing your medicine wheel

Page 5

I have made numerous references to balancing your medicine wheel in this column. Achieving this balance can aid you in so many ways, but most importantly, it will help you to be more grounded, centered and at ease with yourself.

The four parts to our medicine wheel are: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual.

For the mental aspect of the medicine wheel, learn to enjoy learning. Seek mental stimulation - read the newspaper, watch an educational TV program, stop and analyze what you just read or saw. Your mind is a very powerful resource - use it. It is amazing what can come out of just a little thought process. It can change the way you view things, taking you out of your traditional mindset and allowing you to become more open-minded.

For the physical part, you should try and stay active and eat a nutritious, healthy diet. Through proper eating habits you give your body all the nutrients, vitamins and minerals it needs in order to sustain itself in a healthy manner. If you are just going to start an exercise regime, please be careful not to over-extend yourself and your capabilities. Start slow and slowly build up. Talk to a fitness trainer and a nutritionist before starting any exercise regime. They will work with you to ensure you are not harming your body.

For the spiritual part, you should try and be in conscious contact with our Creator on a daily basis. It doesn't matter who your Creator is: whether it be Buddha, Jesus Christ, Dhali Lama or the Creator, speak to him. Through contact with your Creator, you bring hope, faith, love and understanding more into your life on a conscious level. Peace and serenity within yourself will appear.

For the emotional part, you should try to share your feelings openly and honestly on a daily basis. Emotional maturity comes when you are able to speak from your heart, own your statements and be true to yourself and those around you. Find a person with whom you can share your most intimate thoughts. As a professional counsellor, I have not met one person who does not have some skeleton hidden in the closet. That is why it is important for you to have a counsellor/therapist with whom you can share your most intimate thoughts and feelings.

For a long time there has been a stigma attached to people who see a counsellor. This, however, is now changing. People are becoming aware of the effective use of a therapist. You don't have to have some sort of "problem" to see a therapist.

There are reasons for "shopping" around for your therapeutic helper. It can be dangerous for your emotional health if you choose an unhealthy counsellor.

No one better understands you than you. It is your life experiences that have made you who you are today. And no one can pass judgment on you because they have not lived your life. A good therapist allows you to come to your own conclusions by giving you suggestions on the particular issue that you are dealing with. Life is about choices and consequences and a helpful therapist will walk you through this process. This therapeutic environment allows you to be honest with yourself, your true emotions, thoughts and behaviors.

A primary example of a bad counsellor is given by one of my two-spirited clients. He went into her office and after about 15 minutes he disclosed to her that he was gay. She immediately told him that he had a father issue and that deep down he was in love with his father and that when they worked through his unhealthy love for his father, he would be free of his gayness.

Let's take a look at the errors this therapist made.

She gave her own judgment that all gay men have an unhealthy love for their fathers, that homosexuality can be cured. My client's main purpose for seeking a therapist was for his chemical dependency and sexual abuse, not for his homosexuality.

This counsellor made it her issue to deal with his homosexuality. If he would have continued seeing her, he would have been dealing with her perceptions and her issue, not his.

I hope I've given you a lot to think about in balancing your medicine wheel and bringing you to more awareness about yourself. As you become more aware of yourself, you become more aware of others and your surroundings.

Until next month . . .