Holistic Spiritual Healing: Returning to Wholeness from the Inside Out

Some mornings, before everything begins, I sit by the window with a cup of tea and watch the light shift across the trees. It’s in those quiet minutes that I often realize how much noise I’ve been carrying inside. My plans, to-dos, and the undercurrent of trying to keep everything in order. Even when life looks calm, there’s really a part of me that forgets how to rest when I in fact really need to.

That’s when I know it’s time to return to the garden. To walk the paths of Morikami... because here, stillness has its own language.

When I first started visiting Morikami, I thought it was just about the beauty. Here, you will see the pine trees leaning gently over the water, the ripples from a koi surfacing for a breath, the sound of wind threading through bamboo. I realized it was more than that. It became a mirror for how I was feeling inside. Some days, I would walk briskly. Other days, I would find myself slowing down without meaning to. The rhythm of the garden would remind me that healing doesn’t happen through effort but through allowing.

For me, holistic spiritual healing isn’t really "fixing what’s broken." It’s rather remembering what’s whole. It’s the practice of coming back to what’s already peaceful within us, which we have buried under layers of doing and striving and surviving.

I used to think healing meant getting better at life. That, for example, if I meditated long enough, journaled more deeply, ate cleanly, and loved kindly, I’d reach a kind of emotional perfection. But healing is actually about sitting down with what’s real. With the sadness you thought you’d outgrown, the joy that catches you off guard, the restlessness that refuses to be ignored.

Over the years, I’ve learned that peace is found by letting discomfort speak. Healing asks for courage, which doesn’t always look graceful. Sometimes it’s an “I don’t know,” sometimes it’s letting yourself cry in the car after holding it together, and sometimes it’s saying no when everything in you wants to please.

When I lead meditation circles or small retreats, I often begin by asking people to take a slow, deliberate breath. I tell them to notice where their bodies tighten, where their hearts resist softening. And then I say, “That’s where your healing lives.” We tend to think healing is a lofty destination. Like it's some faraway state of clarity, but it’s really found in these small moments of awareness. The moment you unclench your jaw, in the pause between your thoughts, and in the breath you finally let out.

I’ve learned that the body holds the truth long before the mind does. Each ache, each flutter, each tension has a message. When I started listening to my body rather than overriding it, my healing deepened. I began to realize that fatigue was a boundary trying to be noticed.

The more I walk this path, the more I understand that holistic spiritual healing is less about changing who you are and more about remembering who you’ve always been. It’s seeing yourself as one. Meaning, the body, mind, and spirit move together rather than competing for attention.

There was a time when stillness scared me. It felt like emptiness, like I was wasting time. But stillness, I’ve learned, is actually where life begins to make sense. When I’m at Morikami, I often sit by the lake and just breathe. Sometimes I close my eyes. Sometimes I watch the ripples on the surface and imagine that every circle widening outward is an old thought being released.

You don’t need hours of meditation to touch peace. You just need presence. Even five minutes of true presence can reset the nervous system. A quiet walk, a gentle breath, a moment of genuine, authentic listening. That’s already enough.

I think a lot about what it means to live whole. For me, it’s learning to trust life even when I don’t understand it. To believe that things aren’t happening to me, but FOR me. Meaning, for my becoming, for my awareness, for my growth. Healing has taught me that trust is the foundation of peace. You can’t hold both control and surrender in the same hand. One has to allow the other to happen.

For years, I waited for peace to arrive after things settled down like after the project ended, after the children were older, after the next milestone. But peace doesn’t really come AFTER. Rather, it comes THROUGH. It shows up the moment you stop postponing your presence for a future version of yourself.

When I walk the loop at Morikami, I always notice how the path circles back to where it began. There’s something profoundly comforting in that. You never really “arrive”, you just keep returning. That’s how healing works, too. You circle back to your breath, your awareness, your heart. Over and over.

Sometimes, while walking that loop, I remember the seasons of my own life. The times I’ve been certain and the times I’ve been lost. The moments I’ve prayed for direction and the moments I’ve simply stopped trying to know. Healing, I think, is learning to walk both the clarity and the confusion with equal reverence.

People often think spirituality means rising above emotion, but I’ve found the opposite to be true. It’s about going through emotion, and not really around it. Every feeling, no matter how uncomfortable, has wisdom. Anger reveals boundaries. Grief shows us what mattered. Joy teaches us to stay open. Even loneliness carries its own form of grace a reminder of our need for connection, for tenderness.

Over time, I’ve built small rituals that keep me connected to this practice. In the morning, before reaching for my phone, I sit in silence, even if it’s just for a minute. I breathe and remind myself that peace starts within. Sometimes I journal. Sometimes I stretch. Sometimes I simply stare out the window and let the light remind me that everything, including me, keeps changing.

Nature continues to be one of my greatest teachers. Watching the waves move, the trees sway, or even the way light shifts throughout the day reminds me that healing has its own pace. You can’t rush a sunrise, and you can’t rush the heart either.

At night, before bed, I sometimes whisper a quiet thank you, and not because the day was perfect, but because I was present for it. Gratitude, for me, is a form of prayer. It doesn’t erase pain, but it brings perspective. It reminds me that even on hard days, something good remains.

What I love most about this work, this life of returning to wholeness, is that it’s about remembering. Remembering your worth, your tenderness, your enoughness. Remembering that peace isn’t something you earn; it’s something you uncover.

When I think about holistic spiritual healing, I think about coming home. And home is where your breath lives. It’s where your soul exhales and says, “I’m safe here.”

That’s what I want for everyone who crosses my path: to know that wholeness isn’t a destination. It’s your nature. Healing is about returning to who you’ve always been. Who you’ve been before the noise, before the rush, before the striving.

So wherever you are, start there. Sit quietly for a few moments. Breathe. Listen.

You may just find that the peace you’ve been searching for has been waiting for you all along.