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   Dr. Ric Chambers770-304-9500
Counselor, EdD, LPC
Above each blade of grass is an Angel that whispers, Grow. Grow. —The Talmud

People don't change: they grow. People don't need fixing: they need compassion.
People don't need treatment: they need dialogue. Carl Jung said the purpose…


   Rachel Murell678-633-0735
Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach
I am a Health and Happiness Partner in training! My name is Rachel Murell and I have
two amazing children Braxton and Wyatt. My heart could only hope they too will someday
lead people on a path of health and happiness. First, I am always seeking ways to…

A Holistic – Integral – Wholistic Health Club

What used to be called a gym is now called a health club, some are even called a wellness center but it is easy to see how this is different from what we now call the healthcare system or the practice of medicine. Both are concerned with improving health but the practice of medicine is concerned the medications and procedures necessary for the prevention, management, and treatment of disease, symptoms and syndromes. There is a similar focus on disease, symptoms, and dysfunction in what we call mental or behavioral health. You could say that health clubs, gyms, and studios are more directly concerned with the practice of health, especially facilitating the exercise necessary to maintain or improve the physical body. Receiving treatment from the medical system does not prevent participation in these health centers as some members have hardly any contact with the medical system while others exercise in spite of medical conditions or as part of a management or treatment plan. Most people join a health club to be able to work in an intentional, consistent, even social way toward physical health in a way not possible or affordable on their own. In the book Predictive Health: Kenneth Brigham and Michael Johns correctly point out that physical health is a human condition not just a biological fact that occurs at the intersection of biology, environment, and behavior. In 1946 The World Health Organization defined health as - a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. It is not possible to isolate physical health or the biological fact from the more complex human condition of health. We are proposing that a more adequate definition of health would include the physical, mental, emotional, vital (concerned with aesthetics and ethics), soul, and ego aspects of the self; embedded in relationships, environment (living and non-living) and Spirit (transcendent and eminent). This would allow us to talk separately about biological, environmental, behavioral, health without forgetting that these constantly interact as a gestalt. The adjectives holistic and integral before medicine or health indicate an attempt to address all the parts composing the whole and the whole; or to treat the whole person as a whole person. Think of your membership with us as joining not just a physical health club but a health club for the whole person where the emphasis is not on treatment of disease or dysfunction nor on controlling symptoms. Rather our purpose is to help you work in an intentional, consistent, persistent even social way on your journey toward integral or holistic health and happiness.

Your Health and Happiness Partner as your personal Healthcaring Coach

Many members of a physical health club increase their level of commitment, motivation, efficiency and effectiveness, and accountability by working with the staff or even a personal trainer through the health club. In the same way that most people have a primary care physician on the medical or treatment side of things it makes sense to have your individual health coach. The economics of the health crisis is leading insurance companies and employers to see the value of and invest in health coaching. We are advocating that health coaching be holistic or integral from the beginning. If health coaching is to really make a difference then our model maintains that it be built around actual relationships and face to face contact. It may make economic sense to handle health coaching through a call center but in our model it is as important that your health coach be a face to face real relationship as it is for your primary physician to be face to face and local. In the modern healthcare system; actually caring or even knowing the whole person took a back seat to procedures, technology, efficiency, productivity, professionalism, documentation, and billing. Caring was either too old school, an extra perk if you were lucky or an externalized cost because caring often requires non-billable human staff time. Actual relationship and human caring are so important to our model that we are selecting our staff and building our training around the capacity to be healthcaring; especially at the community level. Only individuals can actually care. It is not possible for groups, organization or institutions to care. Modern prevention and public health campaigns are built around distribution and delivery of information which is essential. However our model is built around the distribution and delivery of caring. Again, economics alone will move health coaching to the center of healthcare and most individuals will begin to have contact with their health coach. We are trying to give a holistic, personally caring, local structure and direction to the emerging field of health coaching.

Your Health and Happiness Partner as your local community Health Coach

Our Health and Happiness Partners have two main areas of focus that may seem contradictory at first: Your unique, individual, personal journey toward health and happiness and your actual local community. However, with experience in this field, it becomes obvious that the local community is the container, holding environment, or context for the personal journey. Individual and community can’t be separated just as our health and our environment can’t be separated. Our model is to build communities that encourage the individual and the individuals that build communities. One of the primary jobs of the Health and Happiness Partner is to learn about the resources available locally. HHP’s see the following as our community allies in creating paths toward health and happiness: 1. Health clubs, gyms, and studios 2. Faith based organizations 3. Non-profit organizations 4. Existing medical, mental and behavioral, allied, alternative, complimentary, holistic, and integral health practices and institutions. Learning about these separately and learning how they interact and helping our members navigate the local terrain is the basis of what we think of as our concierge service. There is no way a non-local person, especially a person located in a call center could have any idea of the local terrain and resources. The equivalent of the gym for our holistic health club is the local community. While there may be individuals or practices that are more integral, inclusive, or holistic; no single technique, individual, practice, or institution can be everything to everyone. Even the HHP’s work as a team. Our model envisions the personal journey as taking place within a community envisioned as a network or linked grid. Our job is to build social capital by making what is already available into a smart grid with adequate infrastructure, feedback, and learning. So again, we are trying to structure and direct the emerging field of health coaching toward holistic, personally healthcaring, local community focus from the beginning.

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