Total Health Breakthroughs: Alternative Solutions for Mind, Body, and Spirit

Being truthful can sometimes be politically incorrect but it can also be helpful and even liberating. Today I want to share a dark truth about Holidays in America (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, add your own). I also want to offer a few tough-minded guidelines that will help you get through them.

Truth: The media loves to describe the Holidays as full of fun, family, good food, and even love. The fact is, however, for many people, the Holidays suck.

For many years, our family’s Christmas seemed to be about shopping, stuff, stress, and slush. There is not much we in the northeast can do about the slush, but our family has gotten away from the other three.

One Christmas morning I sat receiving hugs, kisses, and thanks from my two children as they unwrapped gifts “from Mom and Dad.” I was terribly unhappy. Why? I learned several years ago that the best place to look for that answer is within me. It’s not always easy to pin down the cause of unhappiness, but I’m pretty sure blaming someone else is not helpful.

As I write this article, the stock market continues its wild gyrations and the economic and other rampant stress of our times is beginning to take its toll on our health.

This is not just my opinion, it’s also been shown in a recent poll published by the American Psychological Association (APA).¹ Money and the economy topped the list of stressors for at least 80% of those surveyed. Finances now overshadow the more usual daily stressors of work and relationships, with 46% of people reporting that their stress is due to worries about providing for their family’s basic needs.

My own research clarifies that when you feel you have less control over your stress, it definitely causes you more concern. It raises your internal mind, body, and emotional threat level.²

Women Worse Off

Unfortunately, the brunt of this economic stress is falling upon women more than men. According to the APA’s poll, compared with men, more women say they are stressed about money, the economy, job stability, housing costs, and health problems affecting their families.

When was the last time you felt truly inspired?
Can you remember the physical sensations that went with it?
How about the intense emotions that accompanied it?
Did your mind join in with ideas, plans and
possibilities for creative action?
Did this experience lead to something amazing
and wonderful in your life?
Is it something you would like to experience more often?

Part 3 of a five-part series.

The myth that there is no mind-body connection tends to be perpetuated more than any other amongst physicians. Though if any one of us thought about it for awhile, I’m sure we would agree that the mind has a lot to do with a person’s propensity to get sick and ability to heal.

We tend instead to focus on the biological cause of disease such as the bacteria, the virus, or the cancer. We rarely ask, “yes, but why was this person affected by the organism at this time in their life?” Certainly we are all exposed to cancer cells, viruses, and bacteria on a daily basis, so why do some of them affect us, but not all of them?

Could it be that things we do or think make us more susceptible?

The word disease could also be spelled dis-ease. When the body is at dis-ease, it is more susceptible to outside influences that make it sick. We all know of someone who has gotten sick after being stressed out — or someone who just decided to give up and die after a spouse had died.

Our brain is constantly releasing modulating substances that help control our heart rate, breathing, cortisol levels, adrenaline, etc. It only makes sense that these substances can make us more immune or more susceptible to disease. Only now are we beginning to understand even the names of some of these modulating chemicals, let alone how they work or how they interact with each other.

But despite our lack of knowledge, we do know that a positive self image, good attitude, laughter, marriage (in most cases!), and a myriad of other “emotional” factors affect healing times and the ability to overcome disease.

Most heart attacks occur on Monday morning. Laughter has been shown to improve cancer survival. Loving a pet makes you live longer and happier. It would be naive to think the mind does not control the body. It turns out peace of mind may be as important to your health as anything else you can do.

One trap many people fall into, thanks to magazines, movies and television, is comparing themselves to others. We engage in all kinds of negative self-talk like, “These jeans make my butt look big,” or “I’ll never be as skinny as her.”

I finally realized that none of that matters. What matters to me is that I look the best that I can look and feel the best that I can feel. I started raising my own bar, not to anyone else’s standard, but to my own.

I decided to eat a healthier diet, add more veggies into my daily meals, and exercise more skip rope and skip the excuses! I’m not a movie star, so I don’t compare myself to them.

“I am not religious but I am spiritual!” This is a rather popular statement today. I hear it from students, clients, friends and family members and for years, I used to say it myself. In truth, it actually makes no sense.

Spirituality could be defined as the esoteric core of religion. OK, too vague for your taste? How about this: Spirituality is the essential energy and experience that connects us to God and/or the Divine. Spirituality moves us and makes us open to life and brings compassion and transformation. Simply said, it connects us to Spirit.

Is there a language of soul?

Is soul best expressed with certain words?

Is it possible to infuse our daily conversation with soul?

Dr. James Hillman (I love to quote this guy) states, “we recognize that there is a special relation between soul and word, between psyche and logos.” He goes on to say that humans are the “voice of soul.”

As a minister, I have always had great interest in soul. As a child, I was told that my soul needed to be saved. I took that message to heart and though I expanded and deepened my idea of what soul meant and means, I never lost my belief in its central importance to my life. Therefore, I want to continue my series of articles on the subject of soul by focusing on how it has been treated by the “new religion” of psychology. (More about “new religion” in later articles.)

In my recent articles about living a soul-full life I have taken an introductory stance. Today I want to leave the paved path and venture into rocky territory and the more intense and challenging aspects of soul-fullness.

Since very little cuts through so well and quickly to soul as great poetry here are brief soul-filled poems by two incredibly insightful poets, Rainer Maria Rilke and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.