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Many of us spend a lifetime creating and listening to negative voices. Where do they come from? Why do they persist? To begin with, they echo the words of parents, teachers, and other authority figures as well as normal individual insecurities.
I appreciate from my own experience how tenacious negative voices can be. They feed on our apprehensions and on the part of ourselves that is reluctant to be large. Just when you think they’re gone-they’re ba-ack. Nonetheless, there comes a point when you must decide if you want a life that is fear-driven or one founded on love and hope.
Here’s a perspective to help you silence your negative voices from my book Guide to Intuitive Healing. The beliefs ensure that you will heal as speedily and painlessly as possible. If you are going through a healing crises or illness or simply want to feel more vibrant, I suggest that you embrace all of them.
Starting Points of a Positive Belief System That Promotes Healing
The Body Is Holy
Your body is a temple. It houses spirit and blood, light and the interweaving of the material you. Everything about your body is holy: every secretion, every orifice, every physiological function contributes to your survival and well-being. Why in our culture are parts of the body taboo? Reassess what evokes shame, self-loathing about your body. What is devalued, even unmentionable? Take an honest inventory. Whenever, even on an unconscious level, you abhor an aspect of your anatomy, you deprive it of energy and love, the essential fuel for healing. Create a more positive vision of your physical self. Then if illness comes, you won’t be trying to heal a body you may hate.
It’s Healthy to Express Your Emotions About Illness
If you get sick, express yourself. Feeling upset, angry, depressed or afraid about your illness or another’s can be stepping stones to compassion. Give yourself permission to be who you are. The patients I’m most concerned about are those who go numb, suffer in silence, or are stoic to the point of shutting down. Each of us is entitled to our own coping style, but we must ask ourselves: Does it bring peace? Will it facilitate healing? Give strength? Whatever your way is, be authentic. The goal is to shine light through darkness, never dwell in it. You have the right to voice even what may seem forbidden. We are human beings, not saints. Cut yourself some slack. Feelings are not facts, they’re energy. If your aim is compassion, releasing this energy productively can get you there. Believe in love that much.
Spirituality Will Help You Heal
Science and spirituality mix. An odd couple? Not at all. Over two hundred scientific studies have shown that spirituality is good for your health and promotes recovery from illness. Take cardiac disease. In 1995, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center found that for heart surgery patients a major predictor of survival was religious faith. For those without spiritual beliefs, the death rate was three times higher. As for blood pressure, another survey reveals that churchgoers have lower blood pressure than non-churchgoers, even when smoking and other risk factors are considered. Let’s also look at the elderly. The National Institute of Aging conducted a study which found that geriatric patients were physically healthier and less depressed if they attended regular spiritual services. Across the board, research underscores the necessity of not waiting until illness or pain comes to draw on spirituality as a resource for healing and health. Scientists conclude that the brain and spirituality are interrelated; if you cultivate a belief in something greater than yourself–traditionally religious or not–you’ll have a better chance of staying healthy longer and healing faster if you become ill.
You Don’t Have To Act Out Life’s Traumas In Your Body
It is not necessary to resolve an emotional trauma by getting sick. What happens is this: a trauma occurs–a heartbreak, death or loss–then your body intuitively encodes it as energy. If you do your best to deal with the difficulty, you can get a jump on resolving it. If not, the conflict will fester, may translate into physical symptoms or emotional distress. Without even realizing it, many of us wait for a health crisis to give a more lucid perspective on our lives, make long overdue changes, or motivate us to work through past traumas. We use the energy of crisis to create change. I’m asking you to reappraise this strategy. By doing so, you may spare your body much pain and suffering.
In all types of illness, from cancer to healing a cold, never fail to remember the mind’s capacity to heal, even what has been deemed unhealable. By lovingly learning to focus your intuition you can strive to cure or at least improve any health situation. Positive beliefs, emotions and actions are prime factors in our getting well, can even stimulate our immune response.
(Adapted from Guide to Intuitive Healing: 5 Steps to Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Wellness Harmony Books, 2001 by Judith Orloff MD)