Healing and Curing: What is the Difference?

The words 'healing' and 'curing' are often used alternately in the same context. However a person can be healed without being cured and vice versa. The word 'heal' literally means "to make sound, whole and well". People who work within energy healing systems interpret 'curing' as the method of eliminating the symptoms of a disease or illness. This is a different process from healing. Curing may refer to methods such as medicine or surgery to rid the body of illness or disease. Healing tends to make use of natural remedies to restore balance, harmony and the freeflowing circulation of energy in the body. It can be viewed as a process that involves the restoration of balance to the mind, body and spirit to create a feeling of wholeness and peace. People can be cured on a physical level but sometimes if the emotional origins of their symptoms have not been addressed, these emotional issues can manifest themselves again in the body as illness, in the same form, or as another ailment or disease. In Western cultures, the body is viewed as a biological mechanism. Symptoms and diseases are to be treated, eliminated or cured. Illnesses are isolated and seen as invaders to be conquered. Healing has a deeper meaning and can refer to acceptance, forgiveness or gaining self-understanding. In holistic forms of medical treatment, the whole person is treated. If you go to receive certain forms of complementary therapy, such as, for example, a shiatsu treatment, you may be asked a diverse range of questions about your lifestyle before the start of the treatment. This is because a physical or emotional symptom is not examined in isolation but as part of the person's entire pattern of being: their demeanour, mannerisms, clothes, posture, the sound of their voice, the level of vitality in the eyes, complexion and so on. The person's lifestyle, eating habits, sleeping patterns, job, domestic circumstances, ambitions will be examined in the light of their physical or emotional ailment. Their social attitudes, beliefs or memories may also be explored. In this worldview, a person's emotions and thoughts has a direct impact on their physical health. Changing negative thoughts into positive ones can influence the way that we feel. Our level of emotional well-being, in turn , has a beneficial impact on the health of the physical body. The human body has a consciousness or intelligence that helps us to breath and blink, that circulates the blood and heals our cuts and bruises without us consciously having to do anything about it. From a holistic viewpoint, an illness or symptom is a message, a communication from the body about a thinking, emotional or spiritual pattern that has moved out of balance. Holistic systems of healing help to restore or create that balance.