The way
the conscious mind can help or hurt the healing process is by being aligned
with the healing process or being opposed to it. By believing in the healing process, by taking as much of an active role
as possible in the care of one's body,
by having a positive attitude, and by focusing on the goal of healing, the
conscious mind aligns itself with the healing process and does what it can to
aid the body's natural healing intelligence. By having the mindset of illness
and defeat, the conscious mind can become an obstacle to healing.
But
how does one attain the positive outlook that contributes to healing? One
attains it by working on it. While illness can make
one feel out of control- a passive victim- the truth is that there are several
extremely important things that are in
one's control and that will alter the course of one's illness.
First,
one controls what goes into the body: food and drink. We create a lot of
illness by giving our body poor fuel, and we frustrate our bodies' efforts to
heal us when we are sick. The body has the knowledge to heal us, but it is up to us to give
the body the building blocks of healing.
Second,
we can move our bodies. There are many healing processes that cannot take place
without movement. For example, someone with joint pain uses the pain as an excuse
to stop moving the joint. But that is a mistake. Movement is essential to the
healing of joints. They cannot heal without movement. For one thing, the fluid
inside joints needs to be replenished just as the blood inside of our arteries
needs to be replenished. For this to happen, it needs to be physically moved
around. In the case of the blood, the heart does the moving, but in the case of
the fluid in joints, only moving the joint will pump the fluid through the
joint. We can't escape the essential physicality of our bodies. Our bodies
evolved to heal through motion.
Third,
we can change our thinking patterns. It is a scientific fact that people with positive attitudes toward the healing process
actually heal better than those with a
defeatist attitude. But it may seem like these attitudes are just a matter of personality- that they are fixed. Not so. We can
change our attitudes by working on them, by acting as if we have a positive
attitude, even if we don't feel it yet,
by helping others, and by meditating.
Meditation-reflection
on the positive, or
even just mindful reflection on any negative thought process that one has, can
help calm destructive thinking patterns and will eventually allow one to focus
on the positive, on a path to healing.
Helping others can also help us develop positive attitudes by giving one a
general sense of well-being. Helping others makes people happy.
And finally,
one simple tool is just to go through the motions of having a positive
attitude. For example, one can actually become happier by smiling, even when
one does not, at first, feel like smiling.
By
developing a positive attitude, giving one's body the right nutrition, and by moving it around, one can
align oneself with the healing process and let the brain and body do what they
already know, how to heal.
Asghar
Ghorbani 3/7/13
