Heal Yourself
Written by Lee Schneider, founder of DocuCinema
If your ear gets clogged does it mean that you are trying to avoid hearing something that you don’t want to hear? If you have a cough that won’t quit, could it be that you are “barking” for the world to pay attention?
Everybody knows that illnesses come from “germs” that we “catch.” You fly on a plane with a hundred other people and breathe their exhaust. 
You hang around a kid with green stuff coming out of his nose and soon you have green stuff coming out of your nose. But then, strangely enough, one day you go for a run in the rain, jump on a plane and later stop to wipe a few runny noses of strangers in the airport and come through just fine. What’s going on? Why do illnesses show up at certain times and not at others?
Could be that your mind is playing a role in the illness drama.
The term psychosomatic was coined in 1860 to define a disorder having physical symptoms, but originating from mental or emotional causes. This sounds like the illness I used to stay home from school. The symptoms included sore throat, dizziness and dementia and the cause was usually an upcoming test.
Can the same be said of a “real” illness? Can you heal with a shift in attitude? Consider this: If you think the same thought again and again it becomes a feedback loop in your mind. What if that feedback loop was not limited to your mind? What if you are programming your body as well without realizing it?
Louise Hay, a writer and lecturer, believes we’re programming ourselves to be ill or well. We have a choice. She claims to have cured her own cervical cancer by using affirmations and concluded that the cause of the cancer was her unwillingness to let go of resentment over a tragic childhood.
Hang on, before I lose you here, we need to track back to where Hay originally got her ideas. She read metaphysical essays by 1920s-era authors like Frances Scovel Shinn, who said that positive thinking could change people’s outward world. She also read the founder of the Religious Science movement, Ernest Holmes, who taught that positive thinking could heal the body.
At the time of these writings doctors were still administering whiskey as a painkiller. Medicine has changed a lot since then. But people haven’t evolved much. (Whiskey still works as a painkiller.) It’s intriguing to consider what attitudes Hay says contribute to illness. A sampling:
- Abdominal cramps, she says, are about fear, and “stopping the process.”
- Knee troubles are expressions of pride and ego.
- Post-nasal drip represents “Inner crying. Childish tears. Victim.”
- Stiff neck is the expression of unbending bullheadedness.
She even says that you might catch poison ivy when feeling defenseless and open to attack. My personal “BS” meter hits the red zone on that one, but I have to admit that Hay is giving us a tool to take control of our own wellness. She and others like medical intuitive Dr. Mona Lisa do not offer cures, but they suggest that the ability to heal has a lot to do with the way your mind interacts with your body. Could it be that the metaphysical religious thinkers of the 1920s may have pointed to a healthier future for everyone?
There is a lot of Louise Hay that is extraordinarily good and useful. But I agree, sometimes the BS Meter is swinging to the RED! Maybe we do create our own illnesses because of what’s going on in our emotional and psychological depths, but surely science plays a part. I mean if you brush up against poison ivy and you are allergic to it, you will get a rash! So, duh, don’t brush up against it!
Right! I think there are external events (like breathing smog or brushing up against a nasty plant) that account for a lot. But then you have to wonder why some lifelong cigarette smokers never get sick while others (such as my mother) die of lung cancer. You can get yourself fairly nuts asking yourself if that pimple forming is the result of anger or resentment or just a dirty face. Still, there are a lot deep things going on with illness and a lot to learn about it all. Thanks for commenting, Bobbi!
Dear Lee,
From my own experiences with cancer, I know the mind plays a role in disease. Before I was diagnosed in 1991 I was driving an hour to my corporate writing job, dealing with the bullshit for nine hours, then driving back home. I was intense pain from an exploded disk in my spine; the sciatica prevented me from sleeping more than two hours a night and I could barely keep my foot on the gas pedal. It was agony, and my immune system became compromised. But I couldn’t quit; my sons were infants and we had just built a new house. Mentally, I wanted to lie down and get out of pain. I didn’t in Bernie Siegel-fashion want to get cancer. I just wanted my back fixed.
I believe if you’re under tremendous stress it sets up the conditions for disease to take hold. That being said, if depression caused cancer we’d no longer need psychiatrists–just tens of thousands of more cancer clinics. Today we are under greater environmental stress than ever before in human history–poor diet, preservatives, pesticides, chemical spills, radiation, and so on. We are surrounded by devices that give off electro-magnetic radiation: computers, microwaves, televisions and even the electrical wiring in our homes and offices. No one knows the long-term impact this radiation has on our immune systems–and no one wants to know, as we’re not going to turn the clock back.
Researchers now say that up to one-half of all Americans will face cancer at some time in their lives. Twenty years ago it was one-quarter. I’m sure stress plays a part in this. But the human immune system is a fabulous machine; it is meant to take a lot of punishment and keep on ticking. I think Louise Hay and others offer simple solutions that often lead to a lot of guilt; “Did I cause my own disease? Then I must deserve to die.” That’s the last line of thinking you need when facing the fight of your life. And to every complex question there is a simple answer–and it’s always wrong.
On the flip side, my experience, and that of others I know, with Chinese mind/body diseases indicates that you can use your mind to help fight off disease. But not everyone is successful, despite equal amounts of practice time. I know of several people who have died who also practiced the same techniques as I and devoted an equal amount of time. Nothing is simple when it comes to human beings.
Bob
Great article! I can testify that I often catch a cold when there is something that I don’t want to do. Most often, if I admit to it and make a change, the cold will disappear.
As for more serious diseases, I am grateful to have not had to test my theory on these. But, your article brings them to point, and hopefully helps many people look at disease from another, deeper angle…Many thanks!
Ingrid
Thanks for commenting!
Thanks for this, Bob. I’m glad you bring the realist’s view to what can be an emotionally charged area. An old friend of mine, Henry Dreher, wrote a book about the connections between stress and cancer.