We continually see people in our practice with a host of different psychological and physical challenges who make amazing full recoveries when they have previously been told ‘once a certain way, always a certain way’ by other health care practitioners.
However, as practitioners of mind/body medicine this attitude leaves us bemused and our clients even worse off. However, the great news is that through an understanding of the mind/body connection along with the right support and action to go with it, there is so much that can always be positively achieved and focussed on…
“So what’s our physical health got to do with the way we think?”
Well the answer to that is everything! And it’s in no way exclusive to only certain conditions, dis-ease, or ailments.
Every single thought and emotion we have, affects every single cell in our body – That’s the mind and body connection. This is because the neurotransmitters that carry our thoughts, also bathe every single cell in the body thus we are effectively sending messages and talking to our bodies constantly, and without even realising it much of the time.
A familiar example of this is when a person might be stressed or angry and people consciously say to them ‘calm down or you’ll make yourself ill’ – well that’s actually true – it’s a classic example of the mind/ body connection, just as a doctor might enquire if you’ve been stressed if you have high blood pressure or are ‘run down’ if you have cold.
This piece of information is massively exciting and we would go as far as to say it’s one of the most powerful pieces of knowledge ever known to man (if it’s properly understood and acted upon).
This is because the way we think, the pictures, sounds and feelings we hold in our minds are reflected throughout our entire body and therefore directly affect our physical health.
A very small example of how the way we think affects our emotions and physical state is to try thinking of something sad whilst physically smilingand feeling good… it’s pretty challenging and that’s exactly the same principle with our health.
On the whole, if we think negative, we’ll feel negative emotions and then display or manifest them physically by either looking flat, crying, displaying negative emotion, and eventually, express this physically as ill health.
At some point you’ll have experienced this, such as when you may have been really nervous about something. It will have likely begun by you thinking about the situation in a worried or panicky way, thinking about all the negative ‘what if’s’, then consequently you would begin to feel worried, nervous, and anxious which would then cause you to behave differently (like forgetting your words, having mental blocks, saying something unintended, hiding or avoiding people etc.) and this would then begin to affect you physically, possibly displaying as nausea, shaking, sweating, headaches, shivers, butterflies, crying etc. and then you’d be thinking about feeling ill and the negative spiral would continue until eventually you had a positive distraction to break the cycle.
On that note, all health – good or bad, originates in some form from our thought patterns and emotions thus affecting how we physically manifest these. Quite literally our physical health reflects our thought process (from some point).
When too many of these thoughts or memories are negative, we then begin the escalation of various ailments or conditions. Naturally this is unintended because no one would consciously give themselves anything other than excellent health. However, the good news is that the more we are aware of this, the more we can do about it.
Personally I can give testament to this as I’ve lived with type 1 diabetes for over 22 years and from the work I have done myself, I’ve seen truly phenomenal results. We’ve also experienced this with many patients too across a broad spectrum of conditions and challenges.
The real key to all health begins with an awareness of the root emotional cause (the meta physical root) that has physically manifested either physically or psychologically.
Therefore, finding this awareness and engaging in various methods to let it go and re-program the cells in the body; can make all the difference when it comes to health and self-healing from deep within – which of course is what makes the real positive change, hence why we all respond to illness and the relevant treatments differently.
When studying the core scientific principles of mind/body medicine it soon becomes apparent that our outer health and behaviour is only a metaphorical reflection of our inner thought patterns; irrespective of whether we choose to acknowledge this or not – that generally takes balls and honesty with ourselves.
In this respect, when talking about something being ‘incurable’ or ‘inevitable’ – all this really means is that a particular condition can’t be treated/cured by outer medical means and we must therefore look deep within ourselves to do this from the inside. In this respect, if we are willing to change the way we think, believe and act; we can make deep positive change, therefore making the possibilities for full recovery, health and well-being truly infinite.
On that note, if you wish you can read about some truly amazing case studies documented in Mind Body Diabetes, Chapter 7.