Connecting Body and Soul

When seeking healing for physical ailments or other challenges, many people overlook a crucial component: the impact that our mindset, beliefs, and spirituality can have on our overall health and wellbeing.

While the standard in modern Western medicine is to focus on finding a cure for illness, optimal healing can only be achieved by nurturing the powerful mind-body-spirit connection.

As a healer and soul coach who utilizes a combination of Indigenous-inspired and Western methods to co-create lasting change for everyday modern problems, Bob Vetter has helped numerous people achieve greater wellness and fulfillment in different areas of their lives. He is also a cultural anthropologist who was adopted into a family of Comanche people, has conducted fieldwork on healing practices among the Southern Plains tribes of Oklahoma, and co-authored the book, “Big Bow: The Spiritual Life and Teachings of a Kiowa Family” along with his adopted uncle and Kiowa medicine man, Richard Tartsah.

In Episode 110 of The MINDSet Game® podcast, Bob discusses the relationship between spirituality, mindset, and healing.

What does “healing” mean in the spiritual sense?

Bob says that a person can be cured of a physical illness without being healed, and can also be healed without being cured. He describes healing as coming to a state of wholeness — it relates to your sense of self, who you are and how you act in the world, the relationship you have with yourself and the people around you, your connection to the earth, and your spiritual notions of a creator, if you believe in one. Bob believes that a person’s conception of what is larger than themselves — regardless of how they envision that — is important to healing because it gives them a higher power to rely on.

Bob also addresses the placebo effect, which he believes is incredibly underrated and miraculous. It reflects the fact that all healing is self-healing — while he may work with clients to help facilitate healing, true transformation begins when the individual reexamines their mindset and any self-imposed limitations they may have. It’s important to identify things you’d like to change about your situation, the obstacles that have stood in the way and the emotions surrounding them that you want to shift, in addition to your spiritual and religious beliefs and cultural practices that can support healing.

Bob then guides me through a four-step exercise that anyone can use to help shift their mindset and replace limiting beliefs with those that will expand possibilities. The exercise involves four directions, each of which has a 'guardian':

• The East represents a new beginning
• The North is our shadow self, the things that create a blind spot for us
• The West is called “flayed skin,” which involves releasing limiting beliefs and anything else that is no longer serving us
• The South is a hummingbird, a creature that can do the impossible.

When guiding clients through this exercise, Bob has them stop at each stage and examine their beliefs related to it and the surrounding emotions. When negative beliefs or emotions are identified, the exercise is designed to help individuals release those and replace them with more empowering beliefs or emotions.