Ep 129 – Wholeness Within: Health, Illness and the Journey of the Self

Ep 129 – Wholeness Within: Health, Illness and the Journey of the Self

Hello everyone. Welcome to Psychology and Spirituality, a bridge to a better life discussion. During our weekly episodes, we explore the intersection of spirituality and psychology. And as a result, we are able to capture timeless wisdom containing both fields. I am so happy and quite honored to be here with Dr. Sonia Doy and we’re going Sonia I’m proposing that we explore uh ideas of wholeness within right and what I mean by that Sonia is that doing our next minutes together we perhaps can explore the actually subtle or even invisible to some threads between mind, body, spirit and we can even say the idea of destiny that long journey of our spirit. Sonia, how you doing? Hi Marsha, I’m doing well and I’m very happy to participate in this discussion. Hello everyone. It’s an honor. It’s um such a wonderful opportunity that Marsha is giving me to participate in the discussions of spirituality in psychology. Very good. So I’m proposing Sonia that we dive into this rich and in my opinion quite transformative perspective brought to us by spiritist psychology through the teachings of Joanna D’Angelus. Shall we? Sure. And there’s so much to learn through all the teachings that Joanna brings to us through the psych psychography of devout Franco. Yes. Yes. So developed a Franco uh collaborated as we know with Jonah D’Angelus to bring a quite prolific number of works right and uh uh during our podcast we we we dive into some of the thoughts from her but also from many other uh teachings in in psychology in the medical field in in spiritism and uh I just wanted to maybe we and start Sonia because we um often this is all of us right we often think of health as merely the absence of of of disease of illness but uh if true health is a state of equilibrium right that harmony that we talk about inner internal harmony we talk about that should reflect our um journey as spirits across lifetimes. I wonder if we could talk a little bit about how illnesses might actually be a kind of message to our souls. And again, what I mean by that is that the the signs of imbalance may actually be opportunities, right, for growing, for healing. What are your thoughts? Can you can you go over any of your thoughts from your perspective, Sonia? Sure. Uh you’re so right, Marcia. Um health is not just the merily absence of of uh disease and that was established by the World Health Organization in 1946 long time ago. uh that uh health is encompasses a complete um state a state of complete emotional mental physical and social well-being and to that effect that’s basically how Shana defines integral health in in the book seeking the truth more recently A lot of studies have incorporated spiritual well-being to all those other factors. So there are many factors that contribute to this state of health and otherwise to the appearance of a illness I would say. Yes. So um there are many points where we can work as we understand all these factors that impact on our health. There are many options, opportunities as you said that we can improve, we can act uh actively to improve our own health, to improve our own way of living and achieving what we call integral health. Oh, that’s beautiful. And and we all look for that. I think that if you were and I don’t have the statistics in front of me, but if you were to perhaps dive into how many of us are seeking self-help uh and looking for different perspectives, not just the physical health, but I wonder if you if you have any additional um ideas or statistics that can highlight us this lack of health, if you will, or how to contribute health in a in a world that is so fraught with trauma, with diseases, with epidemics, not just a co 19 epidemic for example, but uh the so-called epidemic of anxiety etc etc. Do you have anything that you could perhaps illustrate? Uh Sonia? Yeah. Um there are many many um u publications, many studies, scientific studies that have been published and I would like to stress something that was brought by Joanna in the book that I just mentioned and in which she emphasizes that moral behavior is one of the major facts that impact on health. Yeah. And and she says that this even influences the genetic inheritance. And this sounds a little bit counterintuitive. Yeah. I’m almost cooky. What? What? Because you know we know that that moral flaws uh bad habits impact on our health. If we uh you know uh have excesses of all kinds, eating too much, drinking, um any other uh excesses, vices that um like pride, envy, greed, anger, all that causes stress. Yeah. And I if I may interrupt you uh just to add something that has um made quite a impactful u effect on me uh when reading John the some other books but she she stresses and this is nothing new to everyone but culturally speaking right we we are uh you are in Brazil I in the US uh western society we are largely driven driven by a very individualistic type of culture that uh it matches quite well a capitalist consumerrist society and uh enhanced by technology, right? Enhanced by the fact that for most of us uh utter poverty is no longer what we we experience. So we have access to to money, access to and actually incentivized to um to purchase things and that feeds that uh immediate need for immediate gratification, right? I I don’t feel so good. Oh, let’s just go online and and shop something that will be here in two hours. It’s becoming like that. So we mask our needs with a context that really allows that masking through immediate gratification. And at the same time, um, Sonia, it it moves away from the need for silence, if you will, for reflection, for looking at what is behind my lack of comfort or my distress or my illness or lack of well-being, right? So she does that but then you have this whole other aspect of u so many different publications on the topic right that’s right if we dive into all the causes of diseases you know not not just the biological causes but social cultural all these studies show that for example there are uh culturally um there are differences between populationations that are more uh uh that have more risk of developing some diseases that are more vulnerable. Uh the same thing people who are in a higher social level may get like you said trapped into trying to balance their emotional distress into excesses of buying things of drinking of u you know several other ways to try to balance that emotional distress. So it’s all like interconnected the moral behaviors, the cultural differences, the uh social economic situations. These are all kind of interrelated. They play a role uh balancing each other. Sometimes it’s truly a web, right? If you if you think about it where one uh movement in any direction impacts the rest of the web. Exactly. It’s a network there. All these factors are not isolated. So uh you know it it’s not just the social be social uh econ so social economic uh condition that makes a person or a group of people more vulnerable to diseases. But it’s all a context of all these factors that impact on each other and at the end they impact on mental health. Yeah. Which actually uh sometimes is expressed in in physical disease. So it it’s very complex. There is this study that was done, you know, you see how all this is is of interest to several uh researchers. Uh there’s a study that was done by a group um it’s an initiative of veteran uh affairs to look into a uh how we can improve the health of not only veterans but in population in general. They published a study in 2022 uh that was titled perspective associations between strengths of moral character and health. And and the results of that study suggested that persons who live life uh according to high moral standards have substantially le lower frequency of depression and they also showed an association between moral character and mental and physical health. So this is to call the attention of public health in general. Yeah. And and health care providers uh to look into that aspect uh because that see impact on both that depression is something that’s quite prevalent these days. Yes. So there’s so many ways that we can change and we’re talking here about psychology of Joanna D’Angelus who you know basically uh leads us into improve our moral standards. So I think that’s quite impressive that we see researchers looking into that too. They’re not there are not many studies but there are very interesting studies. Yeah. And and it’s it’s interesting because when we we think about of course the study is zooming in into veterans in the US, right? And and and veterans if we were to think of what is the problem behind the problem, we we we see that uh especially those that return from combat or even long deployments away from their family, etc., etc. uh physically and mentally they experience PTSD, right? They they experience depression, anxiety, um um they also experience pain, fatigue, autoimmune issues, uh isolation, um difficulty in reintegrating society. And I I’m thinking Sonia, this is not particular of that subgroup of people. Most of us, and I’m talking about 8 billion of of us uh here on earth today, we are uh perhaps not suffering post-traumatic disorder, right? But um we are going through as you mentioned depression, anxiety, uh fatigued all the time, pain in in muscular pain, all sorts of pains, but also autoimmune diseases. So from that perspective, we are in this together. And um and uh just to counter to that um I’m talking about traditional right not traditional uh say eastern or Chinese medicine but tradition western uh medicine and traditional systems of care. We often all of us including we do that including to our family members we often focus heavily on medication or systems management right symptom manage I’m sorry symptom management so we we do this or I have a headache let’s let’s kill the headache or the symptom in this case but I’m not looking is there I don’t know an underlying emotional wound that is being expressed or summatized by that headache or is there something in my um I I would say family system right is there any um imbalance in how we’re managing just the the the living dayto-day with my family what is on an individual aspect what are the deep spiritual I I I could say longing Right. I I I long for healing, but I also long for purpose. And of course, I always whenever I I think about purpose. I I immediately think about Victor Frankle, but that’s for another conversation. But I just wanted to know maybe if you could uh perhaps bring some um aspect that specifically you referenced the the book uh transl it’s not translated to English. So the English uh title could be something in search of truth, right? Which is in itself a great title. But how would uh some of the topics that she brings in the book brings uh an additional perspective that would uh add uh um a comfort or even a broader perspective on this topic. Let me start by going back in one of the things that you just said. Traditional healthcare. Yeah. Traditional. Yeah. Not all of them. Looks into treating the physical body. Yeah. Nothing else. But recently there’s even you know I think in the United States we have a great service uh at the George Washington Institute of Spirituality and Health led by Dr. Christina Bhowski that is teaching uh physicians to treat their patients from a much deeper aspect. looking into spirituality as the source of emotions of uh physical diseases at all. And excuse me and and I think this will I hope that this develops into a much better health care system. Yeah. And that’s what is proposed. Yeah. It made me think when you said, “I’d love to hear more if if you if you want to share more um Sonia, but uh you immediately triggered my mind um when you mentioned traditional treating the physical body.” I know I I I I brought it up a little bit, but uh when you said that, it just triggered my mind to to the the work that is so profound by Elizabeth Kubler Ross, right? uh her book I read recently. I’ve known about that uh the curve that the emotional curve right it’s it’s like a roller coaster sometimes uh on on u dying death and dying but her book um I just just recently maybe three four months ago I read uh her book that was published in 1969 and what was so amazing to me and I hope for anyone who is interested in not t taking the time to read it please go ahead it is really uh a mindshifting uh and it did right it really impacted the uh the entire medical or healthc care providers uh viewpoint on how to treat because and uh that book highlighted the fact that when in the case of terminal patients right when there’s nothing else nothing else to do to actually bring the body that was uh ill, right? It was dying into any intervention or medical uh pharmaceutical treatments. If there’s nothing else to do, the patient was left alone as if I right I I give up. There’s nothing to do. Let the patient be there on in a bed and dying. And what uh Elizabeth Kler Ross highlighted was in the emotional response to die in this case. Um there was a need to to talk to discuss to be embraced because um emotionally speaking and I would even go on even though she doesn’t call it that but spiritually speaking that dying patient needed to talk to address uh issues to revisit uh find meaning again but by revisiting issues that have been somehow buried inside. So I think it’s very interesting. I’d love to to to know more about the study in George Washington um and uh and seeing that indeed it’s a it’s a new way of looking into holistic health. Right. Right. And I find that those this program that is currently being carried by the JW Institute of Hospitality and Health uh gets spread into more uh healthcare programs because they teach compassion uh and and that’s what you know the work of Joanna D’Angelo says She inspires to look into ourselves, to know ourselves and learn from our errors, from our mistakes, from our uh flaws and and to improve. Yeah. But on the other hand, there’s the other person that uh that interacts with us. And in this case, I’m kind of looking more from the medical perspective. Yeah. The physicians that treat the person who is ill. And sometimes like you you mention it’s very important the dying person. Uh the dying person is suffering from what we call total health. Total uh pain. Total pain is a pain that brings all together everything that impacts health. the social well-being, the isolation, you know, the social well-being, the suffering, the uh they are afraid what is that I’m going to face as I die. Yeah. Uh so the spiritual being they need somebody there to kind of bring consolation to bring some light into what they are looking as the end of everything right and not only that patient or that person who is uh suffering through that dying process but all the family that is there. that’s also in need of consolation, in need of u assistance I would say. So that’s where emotional spiritual care comes into play and that’s what uh Dr. Bhowski talks so much about and I think it’s so interesting. She’s not a spiritist but all she talks about is compassion which is the basis of Jesus teachings right yeah yeah I I I’m also reminded because when you talk about the health care provider and you mentioned um Sonia the family right and it’s if I am dying I am fearing right I am afraid of the unknown Especially if I have a very materialistic uh view. That’s my belief system. Therefore, I’m facing the cliff of nothingness. I spent however many years I lived and now nothing. And and what is that enormous fear of of this abyss that’s coming? Um and uh as family members of those who are dying, we need to be aware on how to best approach that person, right? How to best uh uh you know, I’m putting air quote here uh uh hold the hand o of that person and walk with him or her through that process. But it’s not so easy. it. I I’m reminded um Sonia of a movie I think it was oh about 20 plus years ago um and the actress the main actress I can see her in my mind’s eye Emma Wat Thompson Emma Thompson who uh was there uh it’s called wit right and wit because she had incredible wit but the underlying story of it was the fact that that she was uh uh uh incredibly intelligent and uh you know uh British a bit removed distant but she taught literature and so she was renowned for all the work that she did so her life was very impactful but then she’s diagnosed with an advanced stage cancer of some sort and the movie explore her her experience with the an experimental treatment and how she’s left alone, right? And and how her wit no longer worked. But it took one nurse to reconnect, to give her um a sense of belonging to to to to really look into how vulnerable she was and her body was deteriorating, right? And uh and facing death in her case was really emotionally demanding. So this this nurse works with her and it’s just beautiful beautiful done. Um it’s difficult. It’s not for everybody to watch but I I think uh this just brings um us the idea of uh what can we do? I’m not the the the physician providing the care. I’m not even a nurse. But how can I hold the hand of that person? And you don’t have to be dying, but the person who’s suffering and I don’t have to be suffering PTSD as our veterans in the US, but maybe I’m just suffering. How can we do that to to lead to that uh integral health that you talked about earlier? That’s beautiful because that reminds me of the definition of compassion. Okay. Yeah. Compassion is when we feel at somebody else’s place. Yeah. But has an additional part is you feel that but you want to help. You step in to give a hand. You step in to do something for that person who is suffering. So you not only uh is you know feeling the the for that person but you stepping to help and to help as you said you don’t need to be a physician. If you’re a physician or a nurse or somebody in the health care uh it’s almost your duty to do that. Yeah, not everybody can is is educated has learned how to do that. But is your duty to do that? Uh but if you are just a friend, a family member, there’s so many ways you can be present. Yeah. And again, I’m referring so much to Dr. Baskki because I I That’s so beautiful. Yeah. Of the work. Yeah. Yeah, I completely love training with her with her group. So, so I learned so much and she teaches they teach about a concept of being present. What being present is not there physically. That’s not being present. Being present is to come in at that time and make the person feel your connection. Feel that you’re connected. So the physician being present is the physician that when the person is facing the end of uh of uh medical treatment let’s say there’s there’s no more medical treatment available. You just don’t come there and say I’m sorry there’s nothing else I can do for you. I there I have learned that I have heard that many many times. Yeah. And and that’s cruel to the patient to hear something. I have nothing else to do for you. Yes, I do have things to do for you. I can hold your hands. I can be there. I can listen to you. And listening is such has such a great power. Uh because if you are listening to one who is suffering, you are kind of easing out that suffering and that’s the way we can offer so much help. Yeah. I I imagine that is listening with empathy, right? So I I am the caregiver, therefore I’m the stronger. I have the reputation, the cred the credentials to treat you. But now my credentials mean nothing. They they’re gone. There’s no additional physical treatment. But I can be here as a human being and I can treat you with compassion. Meaning I recognize your pain. Right, Sonia? I see that you’re suffering and I’m going to alleviate. That’s compassion. I’m going to alleviate your pain and I can alleviate with you in addition to treatment, medical treatment if that’s no longer an alternative, I can be there by listening as you mentioned. I I love it and uh um just for all of us who don’t know the definition of compassion, I’m just going to give a a a little bit of a hint. Uh it’s really important listening without judgment, right? It’s it’s really listening listening and and responding with the kindness that uh that that person vulnerable as that person is needs. Right? Yeah, one of the things that I I I have to remember and I did this without uh really this is long time ago by the way but without any inkling I it just came to me as an inspiration but uh I um was sought by a friend uh who could not speak English well right and needed a a translator of sorts and I I got training as an interpreter before uh this is long long long long ago when I I I worked as a volunteer at a hospital. So I I had the training and so I said okay I I’ll go and what happened with this person was her husband uh was uh diagnosed and with a rare tropical disease but he was living in the US and no everybody was really uh dumbfounded by we can’t treat you we can treat you we can treat you and she asked me to to go with her to get another doctor and everybody was just brush I can’t do it like you said right let let me move on to the next or go home and and die if you will and uh so I go there and as I said inspired I was quite young I I looked at this guy as as uh uh this is unlike any interpreter because an interpreter is not supposed to interfere with the message but I said to him can Can you please look at this man as if he was your father and please help this woman as if she was your mother to understand the impact of what he’s going through and that’s all it took uh Sonia this just this his his mannerisms changed completely he was a young doctor younger than everybody present uh and uh he just completely changed and he went to this person the the man who who was going through this disease and the first thing he did is he touched his heart as he was talking to him and I thought it was quite quite beautiful and he said the impact he was a cardiologist so the impact of the disease to his heart and as he talked in English and I interpreted that moment was pivotal in the whole family getting back into a better position and eventually treating what was ailing the person. So, it’s it’s interesting how at the end of the day, it’s all about humanity, right? It’s all about how we go down to or maybe go up to becoming humans again, right? And I think that’s beautiful. That’s that’s what compassion means is not only it requires empathy, but it requires more. It requires more than just sharing that feeling. It requires that you really Yeah. get into it and and and try to help the person. Yeah. Um I think you mentioned earlier something about uh how uh ancestral healing, right? How can um the genetic code can be changed um with a trauma of or or or something? Can you talk a little bit more about it? I don’t know if you if you if you have any thoughts to it because I I think it’d be interesting to talk about depending on what I’m going through uh a veteran in this case or in another case the the the the man with a suffering right a a tropical disease in a non-tropical country that nobody could diagnose and impacting the family or there’s so many different ways. How can we be aware of those uh forms of genetically inherited disease of others? Marshall there I think there are two aspects that we can talk about that um they’re quite let’s say let’s let’s begin with the impact okay of of uh traumas or um sufferings that we go through and and that may cause disturbances uh changes in our uh what is called genetic code. We are born with some genetic genetic code that basically kind of determines the way we are our features how our health is or health status and how we are going to live whatever. This at some years and years some years ago was uh was he looked at the like a definitive uh pattern that that would would govern our some you know our you’re born with it you’re going to die with it right die with it. Yeah that’s it. It was so determined. Yeah. With time we learned that this is not so true that DNA does not really determine uh you know everything in your life but things can be changed and things can be changed for example by chronic trauma me being that emotional or physical and so for example you uh have a genetic trait to to have a perfect uh liver health. Nothing wrong there but or heart and but a a a chronic trauma, chronic emotional trauma or some bad habits like drinking may damage your organs. Yes. So whatever you know the genetic code dictated that it it would be perfect liver perfect heart perfect may be changed by what we have done. Now there’s another aspect. So a as we learn that we we ourselves can uh uh be aware that by by uh a better improving our habits improving our the way we act during our life will impact in in in this what called genetic code. Mhm. But there’s another aspect. Our bad actions. Yeah. Um if we do things that uh hurt somebody else that that impact on somebody else’s life uh especially if something really severe that will be we are responsible for every act we do good or bad but the especially the Bad actions will be imprinted in what we learn in spiritism as the spiritual body or per spirit especially guilt because you do something bad that causes pain to somebody else and you know that you did something wrong. Yeah. you’re that that’s you know we have a code inside of ourselves of of uh uh how we should behave. When we step out of that there’s like something that is recorded. Hey that’s not right. Even if nobody is judging us there is a judgment inside of ourselves. you my my my very childish uh memory here now is that lost in space where the robot said danger danger this is this is triggered in in in our mind hey something is wrong but it’s up to us to listen to the trigger right when we step out of that uh the code of conduct the moral code of conduct or not right right we have an internal Yeah. Judgment I would say that may be apparent or not even sometimes it’s not apparent to even ourselves. Yeah. But anyways that is there when we become aware that we did something wrong that may create guilt. Yeah. And guilt really uh makes an aprint makes a mark in our phys in our perpetual body. Yeah. So that will impact in our in the genetic code of our next incarnation. Yeah. And that’s what I was talking about. You know there there two ways that we can look at how we act and how that impacts on on genetic code. It could impact on our own lives now, present life or could impact in our future life as a way that the divine laws Yeah. are set to uh impose on our um in our improvement, moral improvement, on our spiritual improvement in our progress. It’s a way that we can repair the bad actions of past lives. So, this is this is interesting because and I go back to some of these uh scientific Yeah. studies. There’s one study that was published in 2013. uh it was called prioritizing health disparities in medical education to improve care. So that was basically looking at several factors that uh could improve medical care. But they looked to to do that study. They looked into what were the factors that impact on health so that they could improve it. And they saw that healthc care had a kind of low impact 10% impact on that is so interesting isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. So they looked at premature death health status and the causes of premature death there was only 10% impact environment exposure 5% impact. What was the major impact? Behavior pattern. Oh wow. More than genetic predisposition which was 30%. Behavioral pattern was 40%. So that said this is this is just you know a look into patterns that impacted so of so on. But uh I think that illustrates how important is moral um conduct. Yeah. Again, and and that how that impacts on genetic uh code. I I I love it because um this is an optimistic view and I think this I I think you mentioned in passing that this is impacting public health right for example. So if you look at uh uh population health uh uh for subgroups or entire groups of people then we start to say hey you’re prone to this but think of it 40% not uh which is the predominant uh factor right so for that yeah this is awesome so in in in that paper in that publication they don’t explain you know where where this comes from nothing. I I’m just using this as an illustration. Yes. To say that to comment again on what Joanna proposed that moral conduct plays a bigger role than genetic code and she is not looking uh at the present life. She is actually referring to the effect of moral conduct on the genetic code of your next life. I love it. It’s not just a passion today. It’s the future everyone. In the future. So, so I think that gives us a a a prospect of what can I do now to live better in the future. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it it’s so this is is a a yield that transcends our focus on the present life. And I think that’s important as we understand spirit the spirit as being immortal, right? And that we just have many existences with the objective of improving. So let’s try to do something now and improve our exist next existence right and I I want to mention the gospel according to spiritism chapter five blessed are the afflicted and there’s a part of the chapter that talks about present and and previous tribulations or the causes of of uh tribulations, the causes of suffering and the causes maybe in the present life or in the past life. And if we look, you know, the the the chapter talks about several things on the present life, especially if we don’t really follow Yeah. the the u common sense, right? And if we make bad choices, all that would will be a cause of afflictions in the present life. But if we look at afflictions now, something that is afflicting us now, including diseases, illnesses of all kinds, and we don’t find a cause, an explanation in the present life, we should look into a cause in the past lives because there’s no effect without a cause. So it must if there’s a cause, if we don’t find here, it’s in the is in the past life. Yeah. So Sonia, we are at the end of our time. I can’t believe Oh my god, it just went so fast. But why don’t you wrap up your thoughts so that we can conclude. But I I love our conversation today, Sonia. I absolutely do. But go ahead. Uh well, there’s so much that I I thought that we could talk about, but um maybe we have another opportunity in the future. There you go. But you are absolutely invited to return. Absolutely. Um I I think that the message is to reflect on what Jonah thoughts in in the book that we just mentioned at the beginning of today’s discussion that we reflect upon ourselves um know thyself look at how we are acting uh try to be better so that we can not only impact on our uh health status during this life but also in future lives because we are uh immortal spirits and we can live our a life of integral health now even if we are uh We are confronting diseases. If we are confronting death which is actually a natural process where you know our cells and nervous system is becoming scesscent. We are losing um our um um forces uh power. Yeah. Our vitality if you will. There is a and I love if you Yeah. And maybe we can talk about it later just for that process of uh aging perhaps and and and losing that sense of vitality and death, right? As something that is very natural, but maybe you can provide us that what’s behind it all. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s a natural process and even you know confronting all that suffering we find healing. Yes. If we can actually uh look into all this as a divine process of reparation of repairing our bad actions and that serves to promote more progress. Yeah. So we can find ways to balance our emotions, endure suffering with resignation and gratitude. Yeah. So that we become healed from inside even if we are you know uh facing difficult times now. Yeah. Joanna calls it dynamic resignation. It’s not just I resign to whatever happens to me passively. I do nothing. It’s very dynamic. But we we are at times. So I would like to to take a moment to perhaps uh say thank you. Thank you to you and uh Sonia, thank you to all of you who are here. But to just uh leave with my own uh perhaps thought that is suffering is not random, right? It is also not divine punishment as many of us especially from a uh religious cultural perspective some of us keep thinking oh it’s divine punishment it is not um it’s it’s really that sense of continuation as you put so well uh Sonia of uh it is a even a a sense of refinement uh on how how our moral or emotional uh response to to life to to everything that we go through. Um and uh and I I echo with you whether it’s physical illness, emotional pain or mental health challenges uh maybe all of those are actually part of your spiritual healing plan, right? where we we are doing this today so that we can heal some uh uh ancestral wounds that we’re carrying with us and um and this in my opinion Sonia completely changes how we approach healing right again instead of asking why why me we can we can start thinking what can I learn or how can I transform through this learning so Um I think um we we are here and uh with the conclusion that maybe physical health, integrated health um is not that perfect body or even disease-free life, but it’s the the the the health of your soul, if you will. So with that, I want to say thank you. Thank you everyone once again. And uh I need to also thank our sponsors uh Mansandu Camino, the United States Spiritist Federation, the International Spiritist Council and AMI Brazil, the Brazilian army of the medical spiritist association. I have to ask you Sonia, are you still involved with the International Medical Spiritist Association? Yes, I am. In fact, uh met week there’s going to be the med nest which is the biggest spiritist medical congress in the world is the bra is sponsored by the Brazilian spiritist medical association and uh we are bringing Dr. Christina to speak. Oh, there we go. This is this is so so tight in the in how all comes together, right? But we’ll be back next week with another episode. I invite all of you to stay tuned and until then, embrace life, embrace the present, be be intentional in all your moments. Thanks everyone. Thank you.

Psychology and Spirituality – Wholeness Within: Health, Illness, and the Journey of the Self

What if illness wasn’t just a biological accident, but a spiritual message?

In this powerful conversation, Marcia Trajano welcomes Dr. Sonia Doi to explore the Health–Disease duality through the lens of spirituality, psychology, reincarnation, and the soul’s journey.

They discuss how family dynamics, emotions, and personal growth shape our health far beyond what medicine explains.

Joanna de Ângelis states that integral health should be a target accessible to everyone. She defines integral health as emotional well-being, mental balance, physiological stability, and socioeconomic comfort. whole health is not just about the conventional “medical” well-being that health care currently addresses, nor is it merely the absence, prevention, or control of disease. Instead, it is about a whole state of well-being that spans physical, behavioral, spiritual, and socioeconomic well-being.

Join us for insights, examples, and inspiration about healing from the inside out

References & Inspirations:
• On Death and Dying – Elizabeth Kübler-Ross
• Plenitude – Joanna de Angelis | Divaldo Pereira Franco
• The Gospel According to Spiritism | Allan Kardec
• The Psychology of Gratitude – Joanna de Angelis | Divaldo Pereira Franco

Currently Available in Portuguese:
• Amor, Imbatível Amor – Joanna de Angelis | Divaldo Pereira Franco
• Em Busca da Verdade – Joanna de Angelis | Divaldo Pereira Franco

Other references:

• George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences – Gwish – Integrating Spirituality into Health Care

• Wit – Mike Nichols (2001)
“Wit” follows the story of Dr. Vivian Bearing, a fiercely intelligent and somewhat emotionally distant professor of English literature, renowned for her work on the metaphysical poetry of John Donne. She is diagnosed with advanced stage ovarian cancer, and the film explores her experience as she undergoes aggressive experimental treatment.

As her illness progresses, Vivian reflects on her life, her teaching style, her intellectual pride, and her lack of emotional connection with others. The film contrasts her rigorous academic mind with the raw vulnerability of her deteriorating body and the emotional demands of facing death.

• Lost in Space. TV Series – Irwin Allen (1965-1968)
“Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” — spoken by the Robot, became an iconic phrase associated with the show, especially in warning scenes involving young Will Robinson. The phrase was popularized culturally as a shorthand for the Robot’s frequent warnings and it has since been widely referenced in films, television, and media as a meme for imminent threat or malfunction.

• Mednesp – is the Brazilian Spiritist Medical Association (AME-Brasil) biannual conference bringing together over 60 local and regional AME chapters.

• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Health Care Services; Committee on Transforming Health Care to Create Whole Health: Strategies to Assess, Scale, and Spread the Whole Person Approach to Health; Editors: Marc Meisnere, Jeannette South-Paul, and Alex H. Krist.
Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2023 Feb 15.

• The Case for More Active Policy Attention to Health Promotion – Health Affairs – J Michale McGinnis, Pamera Williams- Russo, and Jams R Knickman

• World Health Organization. Constitution of the World Health Organization. 1946.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

This episode is presented by:
• Mansão de Caminho – https://mansaodocaminho.com.br
• United States Spiritist Federation – https://spiritist.us
• International Spiritist Council – https://cei-spiritistcouncil.com
• AME Brasil – https://amebrasil.org.br

#SpiritualHealth #JoannaDeAngelis #PsychospiritualHealing #WholenessJourney #IntegralHealth #psychology #podcast #DivaldoPereiraFranco #whowillbemylifepartnerta

*Discover EspiritismoPLAY — your digital Spiritist platform.*
Access exclusive content: historical lectures with Divaldo Franco, events, films, music, audiobooks, digital magazine, and much more.
👉 http://www.espiritismoplay.com