posted July 07, 2012 12:17 AM            

PART ONE: Preparing the Way for Instant Healing
Chapter Three: Imagination, the Mind, and Healing

Part One - Chapter Three: Section Excerpt:

Mind and Body Together, or not

The mind and the body work together all the time. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that they interact all the time, because some of their behavior could not be called togetherness. In the sections above, I have purposely avoided discussion of many interactive areas in order to talk about them here.

When the mind thinks a thought, the body responds. Every thought sets off neurochemical activity that corresponds to the nature of the thought. Here's a simple experiment: take a moment and imagine you are a beggar in medieval London. You have no money, so you dip your bowl in an open sewer and take a drink. Go ahead and smell it and taste it. Stop! I don't want you to gag all over the book. You probably didn't go through with it anyway. But even the thought of doing it would have initiated neurological, chemical, and even muscular activity in your body, even if all you did was set the book down in disgust. If you did go through with it, you may have tasted foul stuff in your mouth, experienced your body growing heavy or contracted, and felt unhappy.

Now, imagine yourself as the king or queen of Atlantis, sitting on your throne of gold and velvet while the ambassador of Lemuria presents you with a box made of amber and filled with rubies, diamonds, and emeralds. Hold the box and feel the jewels while all the court applauds your wise diplomacy. Stop when you want to, but don't forget you are reading a book. Whether you were thrilled, amused, or bored with the little story, it will still have induced physical changes in your body. You may have felt the sensation of the jewels, experienced pleasure, a sense of lightness and expansion, or other very physical effects.

If you imagine you are going to get sick, your body will scour its memory and begin to produce the physical reactions and substances to generate the appropriate symptoms. And if you imagine yourself getting well, the body will start the healing process. If you don't hold your focus for long enough, however, you will only get partial effects.

The body accepts the mind as an authority, but it also accepts memory, energy, and other people, too. I've seen many elderly people who are still slaves to their dead parents' wishes, and too many people with such low self-esteem that they don't even dare tell their bodies how to behave.

The Emotional Link

The link between the mind and the body is emotion. Emotions are waves of energy that carry messages. When the mind communicates with the body, the latter reacts according to the degree of emotion stimulated by the thought, while it carries elements of the thought along with it, similar to the way radio waves carry information. When the body communicates with the mind, it uses memory to get the same effect.

Emotions exist only as they are felt. They are not stored, any more than the waves of the ocean are. When you think a joyful thought or when an experience triggers a joyful memory, the body generates a joyful emotion. When you think an anxious thought or an experience triggers an anxious memory, the body generates an anxious emotion. The emotion occurs right there in the moment. When the stimulus of thought or experience is gone, then so is the emotion. Emotions are not stored; emotions are not suppressed; you do not walk around like a warehouse of old emotions; you do not breathe yesterday's air or surf yesterday's wave.

Well, if you aren't carrying suppressed emotions, why do emotions based on old events break out so strongly in a crisis? The answer has to do with a combination of stimulus response and tension energy. Tension is the body's way of suppressing the ideas it learned from the mind that would, if acknowledged, generate an unpleasant emotion. On its own, the body just expresses emotions as they come up, regardless of the consequences. But if the mind creates a belief that certain kinds of emotions are not to be expressed, or certain ideas or memories are not to be acknowledged because that would be painful or dangerous, the body will suppress them in the only way it can - by tensing muscles so that they can't move. If the cells can't move, the memories will not transmit and emotions won't exist. Think of this as setting up a barrier so the waves can't form in the first place, or as a mountain that blocks the north wind and leaves the southern ocean nice and calm. But mountains erode under the pressure of constant wind, and the body erodes under the pressure of constant tension. When the stimulus of additional, related ideas or experience becomes so strong that the body cannot produce enough additional tension to suppress a reaction, or when the amount of tension present is so great it cannot be held anymore, the result is an outburst of emotion amplified by the release of tension energy.

Emotions are the means by which the mind and body communicate with each other. When the mind experiences pleasure or pain, there is an emotional response in the body. When the body experiences pleasure or pain, there is an emotional response in the mind. Every thought produces a disturbance or excitement in the body's physiology. Thoughts that don't relate to the important issues of pain or pleasure cause little disturbance or excitement and little in the way of behavioral change. The dates of the terms of office of U.S. presidents usually go in one ear and out the other unless a test grade is involved, and the moment that the test is over, they usually disappear. Thoughts that relate directly to mental or physical pain or pleasure may cause great disturbance or excitement, depending on the degree of potential pain or pleasure involved. Thoughts of a burglar being in the house or of picking up a grand prize that has been won may cause massive energetic and behavioral changes.

Likewise, every physiological change, however stimulated, produces a disturbance or excitement in the mind's thinking process. (Consider what goes on in the mind at puberty.) Accordingly, physiological changes that are not related to the mental pain or pleasure of most people (for example, cell division), may have no noticeable effect on the mind. On the other hand, behavior experienced or perceived that challenges or strongly reinforces cherished assumptions and rules of the mind (for example, being forced to do something against your will or hearing a political idea that you don't believe in), may cause massive thinking activity.

To summarize: you can use the mind to bring pleasure or pain to the body, and you can use the body to bring pleasure or pain to the mind. This also means that you can use either to help in healing the other. The rest of the book is about doing just that.

PART TWO: Walking the Path of Instant Healing
Chapter Four: Instant Healing with the Power of Words

Part Two - Chapter Four: Section Excerpts:

Abracadabra! This is probably the most well known magical word in the world. It is based on the first four letters of the alphabet, plus a couple of extra syllables to give it rhythm, but it is supposed to produce instant results. Why do people believe in magical words? Why do they sometimes work, but not all the time? How can we make words produce magical instant healing? In this chapter you will learn the answers to all of these questions.

MAGICAL WORDS

If you enjoy fairy tales, if you read sword and sorcery novels, or if you like movies and television series with magicians and wizards, you know how important magical words are. They are the major component of magical spells. After all, anyone can gather a few newts' eyes and lizards' tongues, but if you don't know the right words to say you're nowhere. By the way, isn't it interesting that the word "spell" means a magical chant as well as the naming of the letters in a word? It's also part of magical tradition that spells have to be memorized or recited from books. In Western lore, at least, they are not part of an oral tradition.

In former times, cave paintings and petroglyphs were symbols of magical import with meanings that were known only to a select few. As these symbols became more abstract, less like pictures, they seemed to be endowed with even more power. A person with the secret knowledge of reading could look at scratches on a tablet, a papyrus, or a piece of paper and tell you about the battles of yesteryear, could "see" what lay hidden in the hold of a ship, could predict the coming of the seasons and even an eclipse. This was real clairvoyance! And other papers full of scratches with magical seals or signatures could even give orders that made people do things. Here was psychokinesis, or influence at a distance! Still others could reveal the intentions of the gods, or God. Magic of the highest degree. Small wonder that the written word, and the spoken word derived from it, were thought to have such magical power. The magic came from the mystery.

As writing became more popularized, it lost a lot of its mystery, and therefore its magic, though some poets and a very few novelists can still evoke it. But where there is mystery, there is still magic. The less well known a language is, the more magical power it is thought to have. Imagine a powerful magician with a pointy little beard wearing a black cloak with red lining. He raises his arms, lightning flashes from his fingers, and he says in a commanding voice, "Do what I want!" Not too exciting. But if he says "Alakazam!" Wow, impressive!

As shown by the above example, mystery grants authority. If someone speaks gobbledygook with confidence, people who don't know that it's gobbledygook will be impressed. A friend once gave me a tape recording of a man speaking on some esoteric subject. My friend thought I should listen to it because it was extremely good. Now, my vocabulary is fairly extensive and I studied logic in college. The man on the tape was a strong, confident speaker, but what he said was nonsense. It wasn't that I didn't agree with him. There was nothing to agree or disagree with. Most of what he said was rampant, inconsistent nonsense, and he randomly threw in big words for their sound and not their meaning. As gently as possible I analyzed this man's talk for my friend, and he was amazed that he had been so gullible.

If words are said in a certain way or in a certain context, that can also give them more authority than their actual meaning would warrant. The words of a prayer or a political speech, or those of a doctor or a hypnotist may have an impact far beyond their meaning because of when and how and by whom they are spoken.

Fundamentally, words are sounds or arbitrary marks to which you give meaning, and languages are organizations of sounds and marks used by particular groups of people. That's all there is to it. Any power that words have is given to them by you. The more power you give them, the greater their effect on you, but the power comes from you and not the words. Speak the most powerful magical incantation in ancient Hebrew to a twelve-year-old Chinese schoolboy and you'll get puzzlement, not awe. And you won't be able to turn him into a frog, either.

With that said, words are still an incredibly useful tool for healing. The most powerful use they have, as long as you understand their meaning and/or give them authority, is to help you direct your attention, to assist you in sharpening and sustaining your focus. The more clearly and consistently you can focus your attention on a healing thought or intent, the more quickly and thoroughly the body will respond in a healing way. Now let's see how to use ordinary words to get magical effects.

HEALING BY INTERPRETATION

Look for the good in the past event or the present result and make that the center of attention
Once when I was teaching a class, a regular member of the group arrived late, quite breathless and very agitated. After a few moments she calmed down just enough to tell us of a near-accident she'd had on the way to the class. In considerable detail she described how a car had come out of a side street and had almost run right into her. If she hadn't slammed on the brakes as soon as she had, she would have been killed instantly. On and on she went about how she had almost been killed and she was in a state of great fear and stress. Suddenly I interrupted and said, "But you're here and alive, aren't you?" "What?" she said, with a startled look. I repeated my statement with an added touch. "I said, you survived, you're here with us now, and that's wonderful, isn't it?" After a momentary confusion, her body relaxed, she smiled and looked around, and said "You're right!" And she was happy for the rest of the evening.

This woman had been locked into an interpretation of the event as a near-death experience. The words she used kept reinforcing that interpretation and the resulting focus maintained and even exaggerated her fear and stress. Instead of a tranquilizer, however, all she needed was a shift of focus. A few words based on observable experience led her away from imagined pain and injury to the experiential reality of being alive and well. Her emotional trauma was healed in less than a minute.

Reinterpreting experience is one of the most powerful healing methods there is. It can heal emotional wounds as well as physical ones. And it's all based on a choice of words. I'll describe some variations in more detail.

The Positive Twist

The positive twist is the simplest variation. It's what I used with the woman mentioned above. All you do is look for the good in the past event or the present result and make that the center of attention. You don't try to deny any negative experience. You just make the positive aspect more important. To the degree you can do this, you will relieve a lot of stress that may have accumulated from dwelling on the negative side of whatever happened. The more quickly that stress can be relieved, the more quickly a healing will result. Even physical symptoms caused by such stress can disappear with amazing speed.

The Skinny Description

The facts are the same, but they are reduced to the bare essentials without the loaded words
Very often the negative effects of negative events are sustained and aggravated by repeatedly using "loaded" words in describing the events. A "loaded" word is one that provokes a strong, negative emotional reaction in a particular individual. Frequently, such words are abstract. That is, they don't actually describe anything specific, but they do intensify feelings.

For example, I have been called upon to help a good number of people who experienced child abuse in various forms. Often the only good that can be found is the fact that they survived, and this may not be enough of a positive focus to effect a healing. If you cannot find a sufficiently strong positive focus, another approach is to weaken the negative focus, In every case I've found where the effect of child abuse is an ongoing problem, there is always an emotionally loaded recall of the event or events. Regardless of whether or not this may be justified, if it isn't helping the person to be healthier and happier then it doesn't need to be maintained.

In one typical case, a woman described her experience like this: "My father violated me. He destroyed my self-esteem with his abuse and then he abandoned me." Translated into a skinny description, it came out like this: "My father touched me when and where I didn't want him to. I didn't like it. He left and I never saw him again." The facts are the same, but they are reduced to the bare essentials without the loaded words. The new description may lack the charge of righteous anger, but, on the other hand, it doesn't keep increasing tension. By consistently using this new description of her experience, the woman in question soon (in less than a week) was able to change many habits that had prevented her from moving toward the success and happiness she wanted.

To translate something into a skinny description, first remove all the adjectives you can, then change any other emotionally stimulating words into their neutral equivalents while keeping the basic facts the same.

Creative Translation

The value of an interpretation, for healing purposes, in how well it aids the healing. You can interpret symptoms and conditions in any way you like …
My favorite definition of truth is this: "truth is." If you assume that the universe is infinite, then anything you add to that statement would also be true, including anything you make up. Thus, each individual decides what is true and what is not, based on his or her own background, experience, habits, beliefs, and inclinations. A fact has been described as an opinion that two or more people agree on. Whenever something happens, it is interpreted, and often the interpretation is treated as a fact itself. You may say "The sky is blue." That seems obvious at first, but a scientist may say, "No, the sky is colorless and what you see is the blue end of the spectrum of refracted sunlight." And then a mystic may say, "There is no sky. That is an illusion." Anything can be interpreted in any way one chooses.

Where healing is concerned, interpretation can be critical, because the treatment of a symptom is usually determined by an interpretation of its cause. The value of an interpretation, for healing purposes, is in how well it aids the healing. You can interpret symptoms and conditions in any way you like, or you can go along with the interpretation of a trusted authority. However, from a very practical point of view, the most useful interpretation of unhealthy symptoms and conditions I have found is that they are all related to levels of internal stress-physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. The advantage of this interpretation is that you can immediately start working on something by whatever means and with whatever help you have available. Additionally, it tends to relieve a lot fear and helplessness, and allows you to incorporate any form of treatment in the healing process. Whether you use this interpretation or not, remember that you can choose an interpretation that will make you feel helpless or you can choose one that will increase your effectiveness.

To cite a specific example, there was a time when I came down with what the doctor diagnosed as advanced pneumonia. I choose to interpret it as the result of server internal stress. I still took the antibiotics he prescribed because I knew they would help me relieve the stress. I also used a lot of other approaches and techniques, but all with the intent to relieve the stress. The final effect was that in three weeks the pneumonia symptoms were completely gone and I felt better than I had in years.

HEALING BY AFFIRMATION

Affirmations … have the same power as other words - they help to keep your attention focused on what you want
Affirmations are statements you make that sound like facts, but which may or may not be so in the present moment. The objective is to say them in such a way that they become facts, or to reinforce facts that are only weakly believed. Affirmations are often treated like magical spells, but they only have the same power as other words-they help to keep your attention focused on what you want.

A successful affirmation is one that is incorporated by your body as a belief. A very successful affirmation is one which helps your body to do what it knows how to do. The ones we are interested in now are those that help your body to heal itself.

Many affirmations fail because they are too abstract or intellectual. The body just can't relate to them. There is a world of difference in the effect of an affirmation such as this: "Universal energy is flowing through me now and my body is perfect in every way" and one such as this: "Every day in every way I'm feeling better and better." "Universal energy" and "perfect in every way" are not part of most people's experience, but the body understands "feeling better" very well.

A good affirmation calls on the body's memory to evoke or strengthen existing skills. "I am healthy" is too abstract unless the word "healthy" evokes a very specific memory. "I'm feeling as good as I did when I use to play basketball" is very good, especially if you did play basketball and did feel good while doing it. You can also make reinforcing affirmations: "My body knows how to get rid of cancer cells and it's doing so now .. .. My body remembers how to move this arm and it does it well."

How many times do you do an affirmation? As many times as it takes to get an effect. An affirmation is not like taking vitamins once a day. It's more like developing a new habit of mind that translates into a new habit of the body. The more quickly you want the effect, the more often you need to focus on what you want. Some variations on basic affirmative statements follow.

Similes

Wonderful healing effects can come from using similes that call up familiar memories. "My mind is as calm as a mountain lake." "My body relaxes like a resting cat." "My mind is as clear as my Mom's glass table." The act of compaii4 such memories to effects that you want evokes a body response in the direction of simulating those effects. When you compare yourself to a resting cat, the body tries to relax like the cat. The better, stronger, or more pleasurable the memory, the better the response.

Metaphors

I am a tree, full of life and strength
The body responds powerfully to imagery, and words are excellent tools for evoking images that will assist a healing. A metaphor is a phrase that describes a symbol, most effectively in the form of a memory enhanced by imagination, which likens one thing to another. A metaphor like this: "I am a tree, full of life and strength. My roots receive nourishment from the earth; my leaves receive energy from the sun. I am a tree, full of life and strength," can stimulate the body to start making itself the human equivalent of a strong and healthy tree. Anything that has qualities or characteristics that you admire can be used for metaphorical healing.

Rapidisms

A rapidism is a type of affirmation that consists of repeating a short word or phrase over and over again very rapidly until a change occurs. The first time I used this was on a chair lift at a ski resort when my hands were freezing. I imagined a fire in a fireplace and said to myself, "Myhandsarewarm-myhandsarewarm-myhandsarewarm-myhandsarewarm," for about five minutes and my hands got toasty warm. Since then I've used it for a lot of minor ailments as well as emotional states and mental qualities, and it works very well. In workshops I have people silently repeat "I'mfeelinggood" for one minute and they are always amazed at the results. I don't know how well it would work on major illnesses, but in theory it should help, and it certainly won't hurt.

Radical Affirmation

With intensive repetition, a "lie" became a truth
Radical affirmations take a lot of courage because you'll be saying something that is clearly not true. I first learned this from a man who used it for his asthma. He had tried every conventional and alternative approach available and nothing had helped him. Finally he got so frustrated he decided to tell himself "I do not have asthma! I never have had asthma! I never will have asthma!" He broke all the rules of "good affirmations." But he kept it up, every day, all day long, for six months, and at the end of that time his, asthma was gone. You may notice that he used a negative in every sentence. Some people say that the subconscious doesn't hear negatives, which is silly because it hears everything. What they probably mean is that saying "I don't have asthma" is like saying "Don't think of a pink elephant." In order not to think of it you have to think of it. Maybe that's why it took six months for the man's body to get the message. Even so, the important thing is that, with intensive repetition, a "lie" became a truth.

That statement deserves a little more attention. Certain people have trouble with affirmations because they feel as though they are lying to themselves, even with the most simple kinds of statements. They may ask, "How can I say I'm feeling good when I'm not?" This is a problem with interpretation and intent. If you interpret an affirmation as a lie and think you are trying to trick your body into getting well, that's "bad" and it won't work. If you interpret healing affirmations as guidelines and think you are trying to help your body to get well, that's "good" and it will work.

HEALING BY DIRECTION

Directions will work better if they evoke some kind of visual image. "Okay bod, I want you to jazz up the immune system. Get those lymphocytes in there … and clear out the rubbish."
Directions are commands, orders, or instructions that you give to your body. In this case, instead of giving your body a statement, you tell it what to do and, in some cases, how to do it. You are probably already familiar with the idea if you've ever told yourself to "Relax!" or "Stay cairn!" You could also say, "Heal!" or "Get well!" or "Feel Good!" The really amazing thing is that to the degree you give your directions with confident expectations and right at the, onset of symptoms, your body will respond faster than you thought possible. Many times my body has started to produce cold symptoms, back pain, muscle pain or stiffness, nausea, or headache and all I've had to say is "Stop that!" or "Drop that!" and the symptoms have instantly gone away. One time my wife began to get serious flu symptoms and she said, "You stop that, body! I don't have time for that, so you just stay healthy!" And the symptoms disappeared instantly. Of course, my wife is a strong woman and I'm not surprised that her body obeyed without hesitation. I would have, too.

Short directions are fine, but you can be more creative than that. As with affirmations, directions will work better if they evoke some kind of visual image. "Okay, bod, I want you to jazz up the immune system, Get those lymphocytes in there (you can imagine them as vacuum cleaners or anything else) and clean out the rubbish, and make sure those antibodies clean up and keep out the invaders. I want an immune system that's in good working order. You know what to do. If you need any supplies just ask. Call on the brain for anything you need. Just get the job done. Thanks a mill." You don't have to be formal with your own body.

Indirect Directions

Indirect directions are simply pairs of words designed to direct your body's attention to memories or images that will help produce beneficial sensations and feelings.

Examples are:

water flowing
rain dripping
cool breezes
warm sunshine
ice melting
snow falling
birds singing
lions roaring
They have the best effect when said slowly with a pause afterward, giving time for the image to form itself. If you like, you can add more imagery: "birds singing in a garden when the sun comes out after a rain." They are really just brief descriptions of evocative moments, and the body responds to them by creating the associated feelings and sensations. For more specific effects, focus the conscious attention on a particular part of the body while doing this. Think "ice melting," for instance, while you hold your attention on an area of tension in your body.

HEALING BY BLESSING

Blessings are words that have the effect of increasing one's focus of awareness or intent. They may take the form of affirmations or of directions, but they are not quite the same as either of those.

Affirmational Blessings

The more you consciously appreciate what your body does, the more it does of what you appreciate and the better it does it
Affirmational blessings are like compliments. They can take the form of appreciation (thank you), acknowledgment (good job!), and admiration (you sure are a clever body). Both you and your body are motivated to repeat and improve behavior that brings pleasure, and compliments feel good. You can bless your body for regrowing cells, mending wounds, breathing, circulating blood, cleansing itself, cooperating with medicine or other intervention, and whatever you can acknowledge as a good action on its part. It may seem a bit strange at first to say "thank you" to your own body for doing something that is natural to it. However, a great deal of experience by a great many people has shown that the more you consciously appreciate what your body does, the more it 'does of what you appreciate and the better it does it. Essentially, you are rewarding good behavior, and this is always the best way to train animals and children, as well as bodies.

In showing appreciation, mentally or vocally, don't be afraid to be extravagant, either. "Hey! You lost two pounds. That's great, keep it up!" Praise is its own reward. I know it sounds peculiar, but your body really does like to be praised. To use this for healing, you praise every single, tiny, itsy bitsy movement in the direction of the healing that you want, and you rigorously refrain from ever, ever criticizing your body for not doing a good enough job. The results may or may not be immediately apparent, but over a period of time (determined by how often you do it) you will start to notice definite improvements.

You don't have to limit yourself to blessing your body. Just as your body responds to a metaphor, so it will respond to a blessing or compliment that you give to anyone or anything. It is as if your body takes every compliment you give personally, and feels better and does better because of it. In a variation I call "saturation blessing" you bless every good thing you can remember and every good thing around you with- out a break for as long as you can sustain it. If you do take a break you go back to the blessing as soon as you can. One man I introduced to this technique was able to rid himself of a long-time pattern of asthma in less than a week, and I used it for myself to heal a knee injury in less than fifteen minutes.

Can you use blessings for emotional healing? Yes, but in this case you show appreciation to your own mind for noticing any good in yourself, the world, or other people and for any positive displays of mental abilities or faculties. For example, "Hey mind, you solved that problem very well, thank you for noticing the beauty of those flowers; it's good that you're able to forgive that person at least a little bit," and so on. The effect of this is to lower mental stress, thereby making emotional conflicts easier to resolve. This might even seem stranger than talking to your body, but it works, even if you never figure out who's doing the blessing.

Directional Blessing

Tell your body or mind what you want it to do, and then give it a good reason for doing it
Directional blessing can be compared to wishing someone well. "Bon Voyage!" is a directional blessing, as is "Bon appetit" and "Enjoy!" "May the wind be always at your back" is part of an Irish blessing for good fortune on a journey, and "get well" cards are a form of directional blessing for health.

To apply this kind of blessing for self-healing in the most effective way, you use the form "do this ... so that , . . ." To your body you might say, "Take this medicine and use it to help strengthen our immune system so that we can feel stronger and enjoy a walk in the woods." To your mind you might say, "Settle down and keep your attention on the present moment so we can feel more peaceful and think more clearly." The exact wording is up to you, but the essential part is to tell your body or mind what you want it to do, and then give it a good reason for doing it.

posted August 08, 2012 08:32 AM            

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Remember, love can conquer the influences of the planets....It can even eliminate karma.

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