by Carol Bedrosian

MUSINGS

BY CAROL BEDROSIAN

Expect Your Body To Heal and It Can

"It’s not just disease that starts in the mind; everything starts in the mind,” says visionary leader and author Marianne Williamson in Heal a film about the power of the mind to heal the body. “We have more faith in the power of cancer to kill us than the possibility of our body , to heal itself,” she notes.

Unfortunately, she is right. Even though both facts are true — cancer can kill us and our bodies can heal themselves — humans are only just now beginning to realize they have a choice about that second fact: a belief in healing matters. The placebo effect, highlighting the powerful influence belief has on healing outcome, has already been documented in thousands of experiments from Harvard Medical School to the National Institutes of Health. What the science is telling us is that we can just as easily choose to believe we can heal ourselves, as believe that we can’t. Why not choose healing?! The secret is in how to get started.

People can make this decision with varying degrees of commitment and belief. Back in the early 1980s when I got my first full-time job with full medical, dental, and vision benefits, I soon realized I had nothing to use my benefits on because I was young and in robust health. I felt cheated! When I eventually developed a need for root canals, I actually felt vindicated by getting to use the benefits.

A few years later when I left the job and my medical benefits were about to expire unless I opted-in to continue, I had already discovered the effectiveness of acupuncture, herbs and alternative medicine. I remember receiving the insurance form in the mail and declaring, “Well, I’m not going to need this anymore!” And I tossed the envelope in the trash without a second thought. I began publishing Spirit of Change the very next year.

Thirty-five years of professional research and personal experience now confirm to me that humans are endowed with powerful, healing tools that we can learn to use on ourselves and others. The most powerful of these is the belief the body can heal itself. Once you decide this is true, it makes no difference what treatment method you choose — energy medicine, remote healing, acupuncture, herbs, prayer, yoga, or even surgery, chemotherapy or pharmaceuticals, if necessary. When you apply the treatment tool and expect your body to heal, it can.

This is not to say that all pain or disease will be eliminated. We will all die of something one day, and undoubtedly some illnesses serve an important purpose to redirect the course of our lives. But humans have the potential to alleviate huge amounts of pain and suffering from life on Earth when people are skilled in self-healing, and the body’s healing power becomes common knowledge.

I have come to believe that learning how to develop and manipulate this healing power is really just the warm-up gig for realizing our power to create every aspect of our lives on Earth. Because we are so motivated to heal when something is uncomfortable, healing projects are actually gifts that propel us to practice our powers of manifestation daily, and even passionately. Once a person discovers the power to heal is real, the shift to a new understanding of how we are creating our world and our state of well-being every second of every day with our thoughts, beliefs and actions is not far behind.

Studies show that meditation, compassion and loving thoughts release healing chemicals like oxytocin and dopamine into the body. This lowers stress and boosts overall immunity. Likewise, experiencing stress and indulging hateful or negative thoughts releases harmful chemicals like cortisol into the body, which prime the body to fight or flee. This defensive posture degrades the immune system, increases blood pressure and causes other physical imbalances. You can choose to spend time daily in meditation and add to your healing reserves. Each of us chooses our own thoughts and actions, and in this way contributes to either health or disease in the body.

In addition to our healing powers of belief and manifestation, humans are gifted with a unique superpower of love. Love has the power to instantly unite humans as one so they act transcendently for the purposes of greater good and transformation. It is also the force that connects each person individually to the body’s healing intelligence. Nothing feels better than sharing in the love of those around us because love is humanity’s secret healing ingredient that never runs out, and only increases. Forget about the supplements; the best and quickest way to boost your immune system is to flood yourself with love. Allow yourself to think of every person, animal, place and thing you love and bask in that warmth and tingly glow. Celebrate yourself and the light you shine. Loving and healing go hand in hand.

Carol Bedrosian is the publisher of Spirit of Change Magazine. www.spiritofchange.org.