How are you Feeling?



“Never affirm or repeat about your health what you do not wish to be true.”                      Ralph Waldo Trine.

Have you, or someone you know, ever said things like this?

• I feel a headache coming on.
• I didn’t get enough sleep last night; so today I’ll be tired and worthless.
• I always get allergies this time of year.
• I think I’m getting sick. 
• My grandmother had Alzheimer’s and so did my mother, so I’ll probably get it too.
• Whenever I travel I get sick.
• I feel so old; my body aches all over, and I know it’s only going to get worse. 
• If there’s a bug going around you can be sure I’ll get it.
• This indigestion is killing me

As you can see, our thoughts, feelings, and words often affirm something about the status of our health…sadly, something we don’t wish to be true.

You know, I’ve long believed this statement: ‘The thoughts I have, and the words I say create my reality’. I’ve used this mantra with myself and my children. And I’ve been heard to repeat it many times over a semester to my college students. But I continue to be amazed; and stopped in my footsteps at the rock hard truth behind it. So I was particularly focused in when I began reading the first few pages of a book titled Mind Over Medicine.  

 Author and Medical Doctor Lissa Rankins shares this statement, worthy of being repeated: “Change your thoughts, change your behaviors; change your behaviors, change your biochemistry.”

This once traditional physician for over 10 years takes the reader on a journey through her evolution into integrated medicine as she takes on this question we should all be asking ourselves. “What if you have the power to heal your body just by changing how your mind thinks and feels?”

Dr. Rankin confides that her traditional medical education didn’t in any way train her to practice or support this notion.  “It’s no wonder,” Rankin writes, “the notion that the mind might have the power to heal the body would be threatening to many mainstream Doctors. After all,” she says, “ we spend a decade learning the tools that supposedly give us mastery over other people’s bodies…..As doctors we like to believe we know your body better than you do. The whole medical establishment is based on such a notion.” Lissa Rankin shares her personal experiences of her past patients, “Most people are happy to function within this paradigm. The alternative—that you have more power to heal your own body than you’ve ever imagined—lobs the responsibility for health back onto your court, and many people feel like that’s just too much responsibility. It’s much easier to hand over your power and hope to someone smarter, wiser, and with more experience to ‘fix you’."


Dr. Rankin words took me back to Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s statements that I had heard just the week before, in his presentation about nutrition. He too shared his concerns about how we too readily seek out doctor visits, in hopes that a bottle filled with legalized drugs will treat the ‘whatever is ailing us’. He agreed that physicians were too quick to pass out what he called ‘permission slips’ for pills and procedures. He instead wanted physicians to help their patients learn to take responsibility for their health.

There is was again…that word ‘responsibility’.

I wonder … if we do shirk our duty of taking responsibility for our own health, is it because we don’t believe we can actually make a difference, or that we have the power. Or do we pretend to ignore it because the realization that we actually have the means to control it is just too scary and mind-blowing to think about. We cry out, “You mean, what you’re saying is I’m supposed to learn how to fix myself? But I can’t…It’s just too much work, it’s too hard, and besides, I can’t be bothered! Can’t I just get a prescription; an out-patient procedure, or a body replacement instead?”

Hmmmm…..

Like any change of behavior we wish to pursue, it first requires that we take this first step: The step of awareness. I think we should all rise to a challenge this week of becoming more aware of the words we speak, and the thoughts we have about our own health. What are others around us saying about their health? I’d love to share what you come up with. Post it on Facebook, my blog or my email at smallsteps4bigresults@yahoo.com.

Next time I plan to share more from Dr. Lissa Rankin and the plethora of scientific proof she found about how our thoughts affect our health.