(((COFFEE CHAT))) Mind-Body Connections
“You’ll see it when you believe it!” Dr. Wayne Dyer.
Matthew 17:21 in the Bible, Jesus told them, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, it is enough. You can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you”
The power of belief is strong enough to create changes in your physical body even when you aren’t ‘trying’. In fact when you ‘know’ something is true and there is no doubt otherwise, this ‘faith’ can even alter the chemistry of your body! There are external examples through case studies of multiple personalities, where one personality has diabetes and another personality sharing the same body mysteriously exhibits no symptoms of the disease. The ability of mind to effect the physical transformation of body is shown in the following simple example taken from my grandfather’s journal January, 1994.
“I had an unusual experience this am on my early cold walk. I put the heating pad in the wrong glove (right hand) by mistake. Temperature was 29 or 30 degrees and without a heating pad no gloves will keep my left hand warm enough to continue walking. So I unknowingly went out certain that my left hand had the heat. I put on an inner glove under the right hand mitten and on the walk my right hand which actually had the heating pad, felt normally cold as usual. The left hand got progressively warmer. When I came home I shook hands with Mim (wife) to show her how warm the heating pad had kept my left hand. But then when I went to take the pad out of the left mitten it was not there. I couldn't imagine how it could have come out of the little packet I had put it in. But I thought I felt something in the right hand glove, opened it up and there it was! I had demonstrated very powerfully how one's mind controls one's body. It seemed unbelievable to me when I first found the pad in the right hand glove and for a second or two my mind was scrambled. *Deepak (Dr.Chopra) says our own mind believes we must get old and die, and so our body obeys. But if we can re program our minds we need not get old and die as man's mind or spirit can control the life force that renews cells.”
Scientist Candice Pert, PhD exquisitely proves and explains the phenomena of mind- body connection in her book, Molecules of Emotion. You can see an interview with Candice and other mind-body teachers in a recent documentary: What the Bleep do we know? Other phenomenal authors who teach us about the mind-body connection include Louise Hay, Dr. Deepok Chopra and Dr. Wayne Dyer. Dyer is my personal favorite and I’ve read everything in print by him since his first book published in the seventies recommend his work as a great starting point for exploring mind-body connections.
Medical Doctor Andrew Weil, shares a funny example of mind-body connection in his book, Health and Healing in a section he’s written concerning the placebo effect. In a chapter entitled ‘why warts fall off’, he describes on page 201 a man covered with cutaneous warts. Here’s an excerpt:
“One doctor told me he had once treated a man in his late fifties who had lived for years with cutaneous warts over most of his body. The standard methods of removing them had only multiplied their numbers. Finally, on a whim, the doctor told the patient he would try out a new, experimental form of radiation what was somewhat risky but so powerful that it might knock out the problem. He and a radiologist colleague had the man remove his clothes and stand in a darkened X-ray room. Then they made the machines hum loudly without actually emitting any X-rays. The next day, all of the warts fell off. They did not grow back. The doctor was impressed, but it never occurred to him to try to find out what went on in the patient’s min-body or to consider the implications of what he had seen.”
You can think of examples in your own life of the mind-body connection, everyone can. As a nurse I see patients die ‘right on time’ after being told they have less than a month to live. Yet, I also see patients who buck the predictions by doctors and choose to live. I’ve grown a bit protective over the mind-body state ill people. Doctors who hand out a time predicted death sentences are on their own if I’m caring for their patients because I believe in following the lead of a person’s mind-body belief system, regardless of medical prognosis. I’m one of many nurses and health professionals who have seen and experienced the healing power of mind-body connection.