Slow Medicine Wheel of Health

Slow Medicine is to the healthcare industry what Slow Food is to the restaurant industry: Against the backdrop of our assembly-line model of medical care, in which we receive cookie-cutter prescriptions for complex health matters, Slow Medicine provides the necessary time and asks the relevant questions for optimizing general wellness and healing chronic illness. In the Slow Medicine paradigm, we are recognized as the supreme authorities on our own bodies, and doctors serve as our guides – helping us navigate the maze of conventional, complementary, and alternative medicine options. In some cases, we may need to schedule a surgery. In other cases, we may need to cultivate loving relationships. In still other cases, we may need to engage in artistic self-expression – through dancing, painting, writing, or playing a musical instrument.

The Slow Medicine Wheel of Health encompasses seven aspects of wellness – the physical, the mental-emotional, our relationship to others, our relationship to the natural world, our community, our relationship to the Divine, and our life’s purpose work. Each “spoke” is a moving part with the potential to activate our innate healing response mechanism, and each spoke furthermore is dynamic – interacting with and amplifying the power of the other spokes. In other words, our wellness is not only the sum total of each spoke, or each moving part, but it is also the synergistic relationship between them. Through journaling, meditating, dancing, creating art, reading inspirational texts, walking through the woods, and otherwise activating and integrating the seven spokes of the Slow Medicine Wheel of Health, we proactively engage the interconnected web of wellness and channel a domino effect in a positive direction, through a bio-chemical cascade of wellness. Slow Medicine effectively offers a healthy twist on “multitasking,” one that results in a medical alchemy that in turn has the potential to heal chronic illness or keep us healthy to begin with.