04/14/2025
The Healing Path of Purpose: Why True Wellness Requires Mind, Body, and Spirit
In the world of therapy and wellness, we talk a lot about balance. Balancing the nervous system. Balancing thoughts. Balancing hormones. But real, lasting healingâespecially for those navigating trauma, chronic illness, anxiety, or depressionârequires more than balance. It requires wholeness.
At Happy and Free Healing, weâre deeply rooted in the belief that healing isnât just about rewiring the brain or regulating the body. Itâs about reclaiming the soul. And one of the most powerful frameworks Iâve discovered in this work is the Bodhisattva pathâa spiritual tradition that, when combined with modern therapeutic approaches like ACT, can guide us back to purpose, meaning, and embodied freedom.
What Is the Bodhisattva Path?
In Buddhist tradition, a Bodhisattva is someone who dedicates their life to awakeningânot only for themselves, but to ease the suffering of others. Itâs not about being a guru or a martyr. Itâs about being present. Compassionate. Courageous. Even when things feel broken. Especially when they do.
When clients feel stuck in hopelessness, identity loss, or chronic emotional or physical pain, I often introduce this ideaânot as a dogma, but as a way of being. A reminder that we are never just victims of our past. We can choose to walk a sacred path with our pain, not despite it.
The Missing Link: Spirit in Mental Health
Traditional psychotherapy often focuses on the mind. Holistic wellness often emphasizes the body. But we need a third thread: spirit.
And by spirit, I donât necessarily mean religion. I mean the felt sense that your life has meaning. That you are connected to something greater. That you matter. That your presence can help shift the world, even in the smallest of ways.
When we lose that connectionâwhether through trauma, illness, or the sheer burnout of modern lifeâour entire system suffers. Symptoms become louder. Anxiety feels endless. Healing becomes elusive.
But when we rekindle that sparkâthrough nature, creativity, prayer, purpose, or serviceâhealing deepens. Even if symptoms remain, our relationship to them changes. We stop asking, âHow do I fix myself?â and begin asking, âHow do I love myself and offer something meaningful, right here?â
How ACT Supports This Path
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is one of the most spiritually-aligned forms of psychotherapy available today. It teaches us to:
Accept the reality of our inner experience without resistance
Defuse from the stories that keep us stuck
Connect to our deepest values
Take committed action toward a life that matters
These steps are not unlike the yogic path. Or the Bodhisattva path. They ask us to stop fighting our humanity and instead transcend through compassion and alignment.
In our sessions and groups, we often explore how ACT practices can be enhanced with somatic tools from yoga therapy, mindfulness, and nature-based healing. When the nervous system is soothed, the spirit is more easily accessed. When the spirit is ignited, the mind and body begin to recalibrate.
Living with Purpose, Even When Youâre Hurting
Iâve sat with so many peopleâmothers navigating chronic fatigue, teenagers with autoimmune illness, veterans with trauma, healers who have lost their wayâwho feel like they canât live their purpose until theyâre âbetter.â
But what if healing is the purpose?
What if your presence, your gentleness, your willingness to keep showing upâfor your children, your community, the earth, your inner childâis the most sacred service of all?
The Bodhisattva path doesnât require perfection. It invites devotion. To healing. To love. To walking each day with intention, no matter what storms weâre weathering.
Simple Ways to Begin Walking This Path
Here are some simple practices we offer at Happy and Free Healing that you can try at home:
ACT Journal Prompts: âWhat truly matters to me?â âWhat pain am I willing to hold in service of something bigger?â
Metta Meditation (Loving-Kindness): Directing compassion first toward yourself, then expanding it outward
Somatic Yoga Sequences: Designed to regulate the nervous system while connecting to deeper purpose
Nature Altars & Earth-Based Rituals: Honoring the sacred through natural cycles and simplicity
Service Practices: Whether itâs helping a neighbor, caring for animals, or simply being kind when you feel brokenâthese are sacred acts.
You Are Not Broken. You Are Becoming.
The truth is, most of us donât need to be âfixed.â We need to remember who we are beneath the trauma, beneath the expectations, beneath the noise.
If you feel called to heal not just for yourself, but to help others heal through your presence, you are already walking the Bodhisattva path. And you are not alone.
Letâs keep walking together.
