Episode 3 - The Body-Soul Connection, Part 1

Show Notes

“You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body” - C.S. Lewis

We invite you to join Steve and Gwen in this two part interview with Dr. Randy James, a family practice doctor who specializes and is certified in functional medicine. Learn more about the functional medicine approach to well-being and the difference between treating symptoms and treating the body as an integrated whole, which includes the soul. You’ll hear about nutrition of course, but don’t be surprised if you also start hearing about what you watch on TV, scroll through on your smartphone, or the negative self-talk that you hear everyday. These ideas all get wrapped together in Dr. James 4 cornerstones: input, output, recovery, and relationships, which you will learn more about in Episode 4.  

Links and resources mentioned in the podcast

Awakening as the Beloved poem by Symeon the Theologian:

We awaken in Christ’s body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and there I look down and my poor hand is Christ,

He enters my foot, and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him

I move my foot, and at once
He appears in a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous to you? — Then
open your heart to Him

and let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ’s body

where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly real,

and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed

and in Him recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
We awaken as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.

by Symeon the New Theologian

‍

How Is Functional Medicine Different?

Download a worksheet on defining true life and the 4 cornerstones.

Other Books Mentioned

An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor

‍