The definition of the word "heal" is "to make healthy, whole, or sound; restore to health; free from ailment". Since I have first hand experience in healing myself this word means a lot to me and not a day goes by when I don't say to myself "I am SO grateful for my healing and health". Since I have healed myself not only do I NOT have Fibromyalgia, Benign Hypermobility Syndrome or Chronic Mono anymore but I have only had two colds in the last 15 months. Even those 2 colds I can attribute to me not getting sleep, not treating my body well, getting caught up in the stress of the moment and falling into old patterns of behavior. Once you understand JUST how much the mind affects the body anyone can put into practice what I have done and obtain better health.
I gave a synopsis of the method I adopted (and coach from) in a guest post on Alex Blackwell's Blog "The Next 45 Years" and I go into more detail of "The Paging Me System" in my ebook. Today I want to talk a little about what we do know about how the mind affects the body, about how consciousness affects your health and also discuss the role of forgiveness in being healthy.
Your Body Is Always Creating New Cells
This knowledge was my "AHA moment" for me in the movie "The Secret". KNOWING that my body is always creating new cells and replaces itself continuously. Understanding that WHERE your mind is influences what kind of cells your body is creating hit me like a ton of bricks. Dr. Deepak Chopra goes into this in much more depth in his book "Ageless Body Timeless Mind". The following quote from the book lays out the facts clearly, "The skin replaces itself once a month, the stomach lining every five days, the liver every six weeks, and the skeleton every three months. To the naked eye, these organs look the same from moment to moment, but they are always in flux. By the end of this year, 98 percent of the atoms of your body will have been exchanged for new ones." Followed a few pages later by "A lifetime of unconscious living leads to numerous deteriorations, while a lifetime of conscious participation prevents them."
This totally rang true on so many levels. I WAS my illnesses. I had been going to doctors for years to get these diagnoses and doing tons of research on what having these diseases meant for my life and for the future of my family. The doctors confirmed that I WAS chronically ill and gave me many diagnoses. They told me I would not get better and would be getting worse. I had a multitude of medical tests over several years that proved it so. But yet with this new information something snapped in me and I knew "I COULD and WOULD heal myself".
What does Being Conscious Have to do with Illnesses Anyway?
EVERYTHING! Your body hears what your mind is saying and more importantly HOW those words are making you FEEL. Are you on auto-pilot through the day or are you aware of your self talk? How do you react to others? What is your general mood? What are your most common emotions? Are you holding onto some anger or blame so tight that it consumes your daily thoughts making you feel drained and "bad"? Or are you able to notice but "let go" of negative feelings and move on to something happier and more productive? Think about it for a minute.... how did you feel the last time something unexpected that you perceived as negative happened? Did you think about it for a few moments, recognize how it made you feel but then decide to move on? Did you attempt to try to find the "good" in the situation? Most people will take one thing that didn't go their way and let it spiral them downward. Some will let something eat them up so badly they start experiencing physical symptoms; a headache, tension in their back, aches....
Eckhart Tolle in "A New Earth" defines emotion as "the body's reaction to your mind or a thought". When you think something (even if it is subconsciously) your body FEELS the result of that thought. Tolle describes a negative emotion as "an emotion that is toxic to the body and interferes with its balance and harmonious functioning. " Fear, anxiety, anger, bearing a grudge, sadness, hatred or intense dislike, jealousy, envy -- all disrupt the energy flow through the body, affect the heart, the immune system, digestion, production of hormones, and so on. Even mainstream medicine ... is beginning to recognize the connection between negative emotional states and physical disease."
After you have just talked to someone -- does the emotion that person was feeling rub off on you? I know there are plenty of people and situations that I could put myself in (but choose not to anymore) that would leave me feeling drained and defeated and sometimes physically in pain. I am sure you know some people that do the following -- you ask "How are you?" and you either get a smirk, complaint or an "Okay, I guess". How does it make you feel when you hear them respond like that? Eckhart Tolle states, "An emotion that does harm to the body also infects the people you come into contact with and indirectly through a process of chain reaction, countless others you never meet."
Throughout life EVERYONE has experienced "let downs", "chaos", "difficult times" and Yes, MOST have experienced the "less than perfect childhood". It is what you have taken and learned from these experiences that will make you stronger inside and out. If there are issues you have not come to terms with whether it be anger, blame, fear, self-esteem issues -- they will manifest in other ways. Healing these issues, facing them head on MIGHT cause some discomfort (emotionally or physically) but it will allow you to release them and become aware of how they have affected you for so long. There are many methods of letting go of past issues such as EFT or The Sedona Method but the one I find most effective for me is good old forgiveness.
Forgiveness/Pardoning
Pardoning is the P of my Paging Me System and there is a reason it is first besides the fact that it worked for the acronym! I have written 2 posts so far about forgiveness, "Heal Pain by Saying I am Sorry" and "Heal Pain with Self-forgiveness". Aaron Potts of "Today is That Day" has a wonderful article on the Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono which is an easy yet powerful forgiveness technique to put into practice.
The thing that has helped me the MOST with forgiveness is really examining the situation I was hanging onto and coming up with WHAT I learned from that experience. Forgiveness of myself for bad judgment, mis-said things or actions I wish I could have taken back. Forgiveness of others for how I perceived what they said or what they did and what lessons I learned from the experience. Yes, even situations that when I would think back would make my blood boil -- those are exactly the experiences you need to revisit and learn from.
Dr. Deepak Chopra has one of my favorite quotes that I remind myself of often, 'Everyone is doing the best they can from their own state of consciousness". Most people that abuse were abused themselves, most people that spread gossip have grown up hearing gossip... these patterns repeat themselves and while it does NOT make what anyone did "okay" it makes it a little easier to wrap your head around and get yourself ready for forgiveness. A lot of "hard" life lessons result in us being stronger, some make us look a little closer at our life and we gain some insight as to what we will and won't allow to happen to ourselves. If you don't take some time to gain this insight in a way you are setting yourself up for the same things to be done to you again until you "get it".
Harboring anger costs you so much energy -- by letting it go you are telling yourself "I have spent enough of my life worrying, dwelling on this". You can choose to forgive and put the past behind you and decide to be present instead. The past can only hurt you if you keep bringing it up over and over again. If you figure out WHY what happened occurred and what you learned from it you can still have the memory but leave the emotions associated with the memory behind. It is by being PRESENT and not worrying about the past or the future that you can control your emotions and use them to bring you healing, health and happiness.
I have officially started as a mind/body mentor and my clients are seeing amazing results. I offer a free 1/2 hour consultation if you contact me at jennymannion.com or via Skype at jennifer.mannion
I gave a synopsis of the method I adopted (and coach from) in a guest post on Alex Blackwell's Blog "The Next 45 Years" and I go into more detail of "The Paging Me System" in my ebook. Today I want to talk a little about what we do know about how the mind affects the body, about how consciousness affects your health and also discuss the role of forgiveness in being healthy.
Your Body Is Always Creating New Cells
This knowledge was my "AHA moment" for me in the movie "The Secret". KNOWING that my body is always creating new cells and replaces itself continuously. Understanding that WHERE your mind is influences what kind of cells your body is creating hit me like a ton of bricks. Dr. Deepak Chopra goes into this in much more depth in his book "Ageless Body Timeless Mind". The following quote from the book lays out the facts clearly, "The skin replaces itself once a month, the stomach lining every five days, the liver every six weeks, and the skeleton every three months. To the naked eye, these organs look the same from moment to moment, but they are always in flux. By the end of this year, 98 percent of the atoms of your body will have been exchanged for new ones." Followed a few pages later by "A lifetime of unconscious living leads to numerous deteriorations, while a lifetime of conscious participation prevents them."
This totally rang true on so many levels. I WAS my illnesses. I had been going to doctors for years to get these diagnoses and doing tons of research on what having these diseases meant for my life and for the future of my family. The doctors confirmed that I WAS chronically ill and gave me many diagnoses. They told me I would not get better and would be getting worse. I had a multitude of medical tests over several years that proved it so. But yet with this new information something snapped in me and I knew "I COULD and WOULD heal myself".
What does Being Conscious Have to do with Illnesses Anyway?
EVERYTHING! Your body hears what your mind is saying and more importantly HOW those words are making you FEEL. Are you on auto-pilot through the day or are you aware of your self talk? How do you react to others? What is your general mood? What are your most common emotions? Are you holding onto some anger or blame so tight that it consumes your daily thoughts making you feel drained and "bad"? Or are you able to notice but "let go" of negative feelings and move on to something happier and more productive? Think about it for a minute.... how did you feel the last time something unexpected that you perceived as negative happened? Did you think about it for a few moments, recognize how it made you feel but then decide to move on? Did you attempt to try to find the "good" in the situation? Most people will take one thing that didn't go their way and let it spiral them downward. Some will let something eat them up so badly they start experiencing physical symptoms; a headache, tension in their back, aches....
Eckhart Tolle in "A New Earth" defines emotion as "the body's reaction to your mind or a thought". When you think something (even if it is subconsciously) your body FEELS the result of that thought. Tolle describes a negative emotion as "an emotion that is toxic to the body and interferes with its balance and harmonious functioning. " Fear, anxiety, anger, bearing a grudge, sadness, hatred or intense dislike, jealousy, envy -- all disrupt the energy flow through the body, affect the heart, the immune system, digestion, production of hormones, and so on. Even mainstream medicine ... is beginning to recognize the connection between negative emotional states and physical disease."
After you have just talked to someone -- does the emotion that person was feeling rub off on you? I know there are plenty of people and situations that I could put myself in (but choose not to anymore) that would leave me feeling drained and defeated and sometimes physically in pain. I am sure you know some people that do the following -- you ask "How are you?" and you either get a smirk, complaint or an "Okay, I guess". How does it make you feel when you hear them respond like that? Eckhart Tolle states, "An emotion that does harm to the body also infects the people you come into contact with and indirectly through a process of chain reaction, countless others you never meet."
Throughout life EVERYONE has experienced "let downs", "chaos", "difficult times" and Yes, MOST have experienced the "less than perfect childhood". It is what you have taken and learned from these experiences that will make you stronger inside and out. If there are issues you have not come to terms with whether it be anger, blame, fear, self-esteem issues -- they will manifest in other ways. Healing these issues, facing them head on MIGHT cause some discomfort (emotionally or physically) but it will allow you to release them and become aware of how they have affected you for so long. There are many methods of letting go of past issues such as EFT or The Sedona Method but the one I find most effective for me is good old forgiveness.
Forgiveness/Pardoning
Pardoning is the P of my Paging Me System and there is a reason it is first besides the fact that it worked for the acronym! I have written 2 posts so far about forgiveness, "Heal Pain by Saying I am Sorry" and "Heal Pain with Self-forgiveness". Aaron Potts of "Today is That Day" has a wonderful article on the Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono which is an easy yet powerful forgiveness technique to put into practice.
The thing that has helped me the MOST with forgiveness is really examining the situation I was hanging onto and coming up with WHAT I learned from that experience. Forgiveness of myself for bad judgment, mis-said things or actions I wish I could have taken back. Forgiveness of others for how I perceived what they said or what they did and what lessons I learned from the experience. Yes, even situations that when I would think back would make my blood boil -- those are exactly the experiences you need to revisit and learn from.
Dr. Deepak Chopra has one of my favorite quotes that I remind myself of often, 'Everyone is doing the best they can from their own state of consciousness". Most people that abuse were abused themselves, most people that spread gossip have grown up hearing gossip... these patterns repeat themselves and while it does NOT make what anyone did "okay" it makes it a little easier to wrap your head around and get yourself ready for forgiveness. A lot of "hard" life lessons result in us being stronger, some make us look a little closer at our life and we gain some insight as to what we will and won't allow to happen to ourselves. If you don't take some time to gain this insight in a way you are setting yourself up for the same things to be done to you again until you "get it".
Harboring anger costs you so much energy -- by letting it go you are telling yourself "I have spent enough of my life worrying, dwelling on this". You can choose to forgive and put the past behind you and decide to be present instead. The past can only hurt you if you keep bringing it up over and over again. If you figure out WHY what happened occurred and what you learned from it you can still have the memory but leave the emotions associated with the memory behind. It is by being PRESENT and not worrying about the past or the future that you can control your emotions and use them to bring you healing, health and happiness.
I have to reiterate that the Oprah/Eckhart Tolle FREE Webinar is nothing short of brilliant. Mr. Tolle is all about "awareness and consciousness and being in the now". This coming Monday, March 31 he will be discussing the Chapter 5 "The Pain Body" which is brilliant. In my post "Influences: People, Places and Things -- Make them Predominantly Positive", I have a short video of Mr. Tolle talking about "The Pain Body".
I have officially started as a mind/body mentor and my clients are seeing amazing results. I offer a free 1/2 hour consultation if you contact me at jennymannion.com or via Skype at jennifer.mannion
2 comments:
Hello Jenny, i was looking for a blog that had some good content to read and came across yours.
I have written about the mind body connection on my site also. Most people are skeptical when they here this, but it works.
Proper mind set is everything in life !
Hi Kiefer, Thank you for commenting. I know first hand it works and am very grateful for that fact! Thanks so much for coming by. I look forward to visiting your blog. Thanks again. Gratefully, Jenny
Post a Comment