Linkage between mental thoughts and healing

There is a great link between the mind and the body's health and well being, and one does not have to be a new age kook to think that. I mentioned yesterday a concern that I had when I blogged about the tumors, some cancerous and some not, where some people are so unbalanced that they blame cancer on other people using freaky concepts such as karma, past lives and so forth. While these are ridiculous, dangerous and mean accusations (and show no more civilization than people in Africa who accuse schoolchildren of being 'witches') do not underestimate the connection between one's own mind and one's own matter. Here are a few thoughts that I hope are good guidelines for healthy mind to body connections.

We all know that there is an Eastern medicine known as acupuncture. Acupuncture theorizes that there are meridians (channels) in the body through which energy, called "chi" flows, much like currents of water within the ocean. An acupuncture therapist uses needles to intercept or manage the flow of this chi in order to remedy physical disorders or as pain management. Sometimes it works really well and other times it's not so helpful. That's because it correctly understands that there is a flow of energy in the body, and a body to mind connection, but it is not a precise physical phenomenon that can be medically relied upon, such as blood pressure. Everyone has blood pressure and it is reliably measured. Chi flow is more of a stance or position that the body has rather than a literal physical quality or quantity. Another example I can give is that it's like how the same pain feels different if you are doing well or if you are doing poorly. If you hit your finger with a hammer but you are otherwise in a splendid mood and good health it is painful but not devastating. But if you are sickly or depressed, that same hammer hit with the same force and potential pain can be devastating, even leading to a heart attack in the most extreme of situations. It is the same pain on the same nerve endings, but for someone who is doing fine it is an "Ouch!" while for someone doing poorly it could be "the last straw." This is an example of the real but unmeasurable and highly individual linkage between mind and body.

That is why people who have poor attitude or wicked thoughts can have a real literal impact on their own body or that of others. Many scientific studies have shown a correlation between mental outlook and physical health. However it is not as simple as being about someone's "mood." For many years people who are sad when they are sick are blamed and "studies" were cited that those who were feisty or "positive" were more likely to survive their illnesses. Many of those studies, though, turned out to be bogus. Not so long ago there were some articles detailing how it was an unfair added pressure on people to tell them that they should be strong happy campers when "fighting" an illness, as if they are somehow to blame for being sad. And in fact scientific studies showed that there was actually no difference in survivability between people who were sad by their illness and those who were more "positive" or combative. So while there is a linkage there cannot be a simplified formula to describe this linkage. This is the crux of what I am concerned about as people have some strange attitudes and misunderstandings about this body to mind connection. A poor attitude is not necessarily a sad attitude. A poor attitude might actually be a combative or overly energetic attitude.

Here is an example. I received a head wound (on my forehead) during a very sad time in my life. I did not get stitches and there was some discussion about whether I'd have a scar there, and my workplace doctor wondered about a little plastic surgery needed. What I did not tell anyone, though, is that very soon after my injury I spent a regular amount of time every few hours visualizing that area of wound "knitting and healing." So even though I was "sad" I was sending soothing and steady signals to the skin and muscle cells around the wound encouraging them to heal. I healed in no time and people were astonished that I had no scar at all only weeks after the injury. So while my "mood" was "sad" my mind to body linkage regarding this wound was soothing and positive. I did not have a combative attitude toward the wound or overly dramatic. Every few hours when I'd think of it I'd spend a few seconds in soothing thought about the wound knitting itself together using its normal biological functions and capabilities.

So one of my concerns is to convey to you that "being a fighter" and having a combative attitude toward your own body when you suffer from a condition such as cancer may not be of benefit and may in fact be detrimental. Virus illnesses and conditions such as cancer are, by definition, situations where the body is already under attack, from either a virus or the cancerous cells. If you stimulate your mind to be combative in turn you might actually stimulate rather than diminish that physical response in your body. If you are going to have a conscious attitude toward your condition or illness you should gain as much factual information from your doctor as possible and then visualize support for your body's hoped for natural response. I mean, with my forehead scar example, I'd hardly envision smacking around the scar more. I had a soothing and supportive attitude toward how the body naturally heals wounds. So I caution people who are interested in this topic to guide your mind in less dramatic and more natural and supportive responses according to what your doctor tells you your body is trying to achieve on its own (or with treatment) to regain health. Statistics show that "fighters" do not heal better than those who are sad or neutral. Giving up is another matter entirely and that is what I was conveying in the hammered finger example. Sometimes people just go through too much and their ability to be resilient and to heal is severely compromised.

I mentioned wicked thoughts up above. Let me go back to the acupuncture example. When I was learning kung fu of course all the young men want to know about the dark stuff, even if they'd never do it. For example there are stories of kung fu masters who had "the death touch" called Dim Mak or something like that. According to the legends and stories these masters could kill a person just by touching them with a finger strike on one or more certain spots on the body. Books treat it as a big secret taught over years to the elect, blah blah blah. My ex husband was curious enough to buy a Chinese book on the subject. It only took me one glance to see what it was, even though they would never discuss (if they even know) "how it works" in theory. It's negative acupuncture. Just as an acupuncturist can place a therapeutic needle to encourage and manage chi flow and to manage pain, it's obvious that some people somewhere would have the thought occur to them that they can use the meridians and chi as points of attack. So I believe that where the stories of "death touch" masters were true and not bogus legends that the way they achieved this capability (and get themselves hell for it, by the way) is to attack the points of the body where chi flow can be harmed or stopped rather than encouraged and healed or managed. It's really no different than a doctor who goes wrong and uses his or her medical knowledge to harm rather than heal.

It's then not a large step to realize that while death touch masters use a finger to touch or poke their victim in order to disrupt chi flow that some people can direct their malicious thoughts in that direction to harm another person. I myself have a lump on my right knee since 1996 that puzzled me because I could tell that the body "thought" it was being injured in that spot. I saw a dermotologist and had the lump removed since I had recently had surgery and was in a very alert mode, but the spot refuses to heal. Later I realized that the reason that spot of my knee "thinks" it is being harmed is because someone very close to me had continual angry thoughts of harming my chi in that area. And so it goes.

This is why I want to caution people about their own mindsets toward their own or family healing. Forget even open hostility as I describe above. Subliminal feelings can interfere with your own or your loved one's healing. It is better if you do not have this type of thinking AT ALL. I really worry about the proliferation of reiki and other so called spiritual and mental cures. I believe that they are doing a huge amount of mostly unintentional damage. I know for a fact that "what goes around comes around" in that people who emit interfering thoughts and energies may find to their surprise that they do not just reach their target, but also rebound back to where they came from or to others in one's family, community, around the world, or in one's own "coven" (LOL). Leave medical matters to doctors and spiritual matters to genuine religions that believe in one true and good God. It could save your own life (to say nothing of your actual soul).