Triune Health: Body, Soul, and Spiritual Health

In today's fast-paced world, many of us are juggling multiple responsibilities, and we run out of time to prioritize health. We find ourselves settling for lesser things that bring us comfort rather than the better things that make us healthy. Our society has focused a lot of its time and energy on reminding us that our physical health is a critical aspect of how we are functioning, but there has been very little focus on how to keep our soul and spirit healthy as well. Because you are a triune being, it is critical that we recognize the health needs of every aspect of our being. When we only focus on our physical health, or even worse, don’t focus on our health at all, we can open doorways for negative things to take root and trauma to start ruling our background. As we move toward a healthy triune being we must examine how we keep all our body, soul, and spirit healthy. In this blog post, we will explore practical ways to nurture each aspect of our health, helping you eliminate the sickness that is wreaking havoc on you in the forms of poor physical health, trauma, and spiritual malaise.

Body - Physical Health

Our body is the easiest and most simple to understand. It is our physical form that moves, and breathes, and holds our being. Much of health is focused on our body and keeping it in good shape tends to outweigh a lot of our other health. When we look at the health of our body, we consider a few aspects of things we can address to make our body healthier and more whole. 

• Nutrition: Eating a balanced diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins is essential. Make sure you are putting into your body the things that nourish it the best. 

  
  

• Exercise: Regular physical activity is crucial for maintaining a healthy body. This can look different for everyone, and learning to listen to your body to understand what it needs is critical for maintaining a healthy body. Often exercise can become a form of punishment for our bodies, and I find this to be less productive in creating a holistically healthy being. 

  
  

• Rest/Sleep: Knowing when to rest our bodies and when to go to bed is an incredibly important aspect of physical health. Quality sleep is often overlooked but is vital for recovery and overall health. Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night, and establish a calming bedtime routine to improve sleep quality. If you are someone who often has sleep issues this can indicate problems in the body, what you have taken in, or problems in the spirit or soul. When we look at sleep health, we will address all aspects of your being. While sleep is important so is rest. Resting your body between workouts, not pushing yourself physically when your body is telling you it is done is also super important. I find that if you allow your body to rest when it needs it, this can also help it to sleep when it is time. 

  
  

• Hydration: Staying hydrated is essential for bodily functions. Aim to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day, adjusting for activity level and climate. Listen to your body and work to give it the hydration it needs. 

  
  

• Trauma Reduction: When you are coming in with a lot of unexplainable physical problems, i.e., heart racing, stomach pain, bowel issues, etc. and the physical things you are doing to help are not making a difference, we want to look at the possibility that trauma is the source of the physical ailment. When you have trauma, your body is where that frequency is stored and it needs to be addressed just like the extra couple of pounds you want to lose. Carrying around unprocessed trauma can be more detrimental to your body than you realize. 

  
  

Soul Health

Soul health focuses on our emotional and psychological well-being. It involves understanding our feelings, building relationships, and finding joy in life. Our soul is in charge of how we think and feel and what we think and feel about. Similar to our bodies our souls also need to receive proper care. If we don't care for it, feed it and nourish it, it will also grow unhealthy. 

• Nutrition: The things that you feed your soul are just as important as to what you feed your body. If you are living on a diet of foul language, music, shows, and aps your soul will grow fat with the temptations to have foul thoughts. If you fill your soul with sinful practices, like watching movies, reading books and listening to music that is centered on sin, your soul will become lethargic to the things that feed it well. It will grow fat and lazy and will develop into a portion of your being that is satisfied with the lesser things. It will begin to become immune to things that are bad for it and it will become satisfied with things like sex, power, and greed. Nourishing our bodies with Godly things will shift our appetite and will create in us a desire and need to think, feel, and act like God. The opposite is also true, if we feed it evil, those are the things we can expect to come out of our soul.

• Exercise: Regularly exercising your soul is just as crucial for maintaining a healthy being as exercising your body. Many people only think of exercise as things that you do for your body, but in the same way if we aren't working out our thought patterns, beliefs, and emotions, we are not able to maintain a healthy soul. Much like exercising, this can also look different for everyone. Reading something that challenges your thoughts, seeking out counseling to help process emotions, brainstorming, studying, and asking yourself to process the greater things of this world can truly exercise your soul. If something makes you think or feel critically, it is just as important as something making your muscles stretch and burn. 

• Rest/Sleep: Rest for our souls is a vital part of having a healthy being. Giving our minds and our emotions reprieves from the heavy lifting it does throughout the day can really help us to feel more balanced. This can look like pausing to sit and listen, meditating on the Lord, or mentally choosing to get up and walk away from the problems you are processing. When we run our stresses on repeat in our mind, and force ourselves to feel the hard emotions without breaks, it can be extremely detrimental to our souls. Taking a pause from working out our thoughts and emotions can be really helpful for maintaining a healthy soul and can also allow better sleep in our bodies. Practicing rest will give you the skills you need to be able to let go and go to sleep at night. 

• Hydration: Staying hydrated in our soul is just as important as in our body. Things that hydrate the soul are bucket fillers. Weather it is a walk in nature, being creative, taking a bath, or having deep conversations with friends. We each have a variety of things that refresh our soul, and make us feel more like ourselves. Unlike the nutrition that we take in that allows us to eat on things that stretch us and grow us, hydration isn't typically a stretching but more of a refilling. Make sure to prioritize time to do things that fill your bucket. 

• Trauma Reduction: Cognitive awareness therapy is vital for reducing trauma and allowing us to have a healthier soul. Verbally processing the things, you are struggling with can be a helpful way to reduce trauma. This can be with a friend, a spouse, a pastor, or a counselor. Really it can be with anyone that allows you to process the hurts and helps you critically think about ways you can move forward from the hurt you have been living in. Another great way to reduce trauma in our souls is by journaling. Sometimes just getting our emotions and thoughts out on paper can provide clarity and is enough to help us reduce the trauma we are feeling.

  
  

Spiritual Health

Spiritual health is the least socially acceptable part of our triune self to talk about. Especially in Christian circles our spirit has been minimized and often completely ignored. However, when our spiritual being is unhealthy it can affect every part of us. Spiritual health is about connecting ourselves to our creator and growing in our abilities to seek Him, Love Him, and follow Him. When our spiritual health is off, it is like our compass no longer points to North and we begin to see our sin nature take over. In Roman’s 7:15-20 Paul talks about this. “15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”  When we are not intentional about our spiritual health sin will take over and the agreements, we have made to keep ourselves protected will become our operating system instead of the Holy Spirit partnering with us. Spiritual health affects every part of you and needs to be taken into consideration as much as every other part of your being.

• Nutrition: Feeding our spirit is very similar to feeding our soul however it relies on spiritual food to grow. A daily practice of reading your Bible, listening to Godly teaching, and learning from other believers can nourish your spirit in fantastic ways. If we are not giving our spirit proper food to eat it will begin to crave things of darkness. It will grow more and more attracted to dark things, like death, sin, evil spirits, etc. Unlike our soul, your spirit does not grow fat and lazy when starved of good spiritual food, it develops an insatiable hunger for food that takes it to darker and darker places. Be careful what you feed your spirit as it will eat up whatever it is you are consuming and will desire more and more of the same. 

• Exercise: Regularly stretching our spirit with spiritual things can be a healthy way to exercise your spirit. Since your spirit's job is to handle the spiritual things that come your way, you need to work it out so that it is trained. Praying over and for people can be a great exercise for your spirit. Reading things that challenge your spiritual beliefs, wrestling with the Lord over things that are hurting you, doing deliverances for other people, all of these can exercise your spirit. Your spirit will be able to handle the spiritual warfare to the degree in which you train. If you never spend time in prayer, in your Bible, or understanding the spiritual realm, you will likely be woefully unprepared to handle the spiritual attacks that come your way.

• Rest/Sleep: Giving our spirit time and space to rest is critical for having a healthy spirit. Things like trauma are hard on our spirit, demonic interactions, being around other people with unhealthy spirits, these can all bring weariness to our spirit. The Bible tells us that our rest comes from the Lord. Spending time in meditation on God, and allowing our spirit to enter the presence of the Lord will bring us rest. Being around other believers who have healthy spirits is restful for our spirit. Being in nature can bring rest for your spirit. Make sure to you are doing things regularly that allow your spirit to rest.  

• Hydration: The ways we hydrate our spirit is through things that reach the deepest parts of us and bring our spirits alive. I think one of the best and most accessible methods of hydrating our spirit is to sing or listen to worship music. Some of the bucket fillers we mentioned for the soul can also hydrate the spirit. For me personally creating holy things can bring my spirit alive. But unlike crafting something silly and fun, the kind of creating that hydrates my spirit requires it to be activated and involved. When I paint something based on a deeper thought that connects me to God, my spirit comes alive. Taking time to turn on the deeper part of you can help tremendously in having a healthy spirit. 

• Trauma Reduction: Reducing trauma in the spirit takes work. While there are many practices that I know can be helpful like healing prayer, sozo, etc. I have found Splankna to be the most powerful and effective method of clearing out trauma stored in the spirit. Taking time to address the spirit is something that is counter to our culture and often ignored. However, when we ignore the spirit and do not do the things that allow for a healthy spirit, we set ourselves up to do the things we do not want to do and to not do the things we want to. 

  
  

Conclusion

While everyone’s 24 hours are very full and it isn’t always easy to focus on our health, I find that when we do a better job of balancing the focus we do have across every aspect of our being, it is far more sustainable. Finding balance among body, soul, and spiritual health is a lifelong journey that requires commitment and correction as we get off-balance. Learning that you are triune, and working toward better health in every aspect of your being, will be something that you see pays back in life giving ways and transforms who you are becoming.