I was just reading a Telegraph article today entitled “Socialising with others ‘can help fight cancer’”. The headline led me to ‘put pen to paper’.
From my clinical experience, one of the most prevalent causes of disease, whether it be a bad back or whether it be heart disease, is the unconscious refusal or inability to freely and honestly express ourselves as we truly are. The most common example of this is in the work we choose to engage in to earn a living.
The whole idea of recovering from a life-threatening disease, like cancer, being a ‘fight’, I find difficult to get my mind round. My appreciation of disease processes is clearly influenced by my style of medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with its range of therapeutic techniques, such as acupuncture. TCM is holistic in its approach to healthcare. Holism states that body and mind are inextricably linked so what happens to one will have an inevitable knock-on effect on the function of the other. Holism understands that disease is not some random, chance occurrence that we have little or no control over. Even geneticists attribute only 25% of our state of health to our inheritance. My own personal experience of scrutinising my state of health, and intermittent fall from good health over the years, has yielded a clear connection between this and my thought processes. Scrutinising the health of thousands of others in my professional capacity, and studying research and the clinical experience of others far more experienced and talented than me, has corroborated my conclusions.
Gradually, modern medicine is starting to fully appreciate the huge influence our state of mind has on our health. This is really well summarised in Adrian Leader and book “Why do People get Ill?” ), available from our online shop. Literally, we are what we think. It is becoming increasingly evident that our thought processes create our diseases, whether they involve physical or mental symptoms, or both. We can say that our heart condition has been brought on by working intensely under stressful circumstances for a prolonged period of time, but what thought processes have led us to work like this in the first place. For example, if during our upbringing, we have thought, for whatever reason, that we needed to ‘achieve’ in order to gain ‘acceptance’ or ‘love’ from our parents, then this might have trained the habit of ‘flogging’ ourselves in our work life.
Holistic healthcare is about helping each individual bring their unconscious motivations into conscious awareness whilst using tried and tested techniques to facilitate recovery from the current disease-state. We do this by stimulating the body’s own, already amazingly well-equipped self-preservation systems. When an individual understands their disease process as part of who they are, they see that there can be no ‘fight’ against cancer because the cancer is a part of them. There is no external ‘enemy’ to fight. They have literally created their circumstances by their thoughts words and deeds in their life to date. Therefore, the only long-term, sustainable solution is through new thoughts, words and deeds. So, in my mind, self-understanding is the key. As far as I can see, achieving self-understanding is a process, often long and arduous, which is why we are often well-advised to seek external help when experiencing a life-threatening disease state.
The word ‘fight’ often implies a struggle. Because of the negative connotations this idea holds, this is just likely to make the process of recovery that much more difficult. So, I believe that our best chance of survival is to embrace the symptoms we are suffering as messages sent from deep inside us as an aid to reaching fullness. This way we can utilise the healing power of love, love of our self and the people around us and of life. Being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness is probably one of the best wake-up calls we will ever get in helping us to express ourselves as we truly are. So let’s embrace it. Or, as the motif on one of the Tai Chi students in my class says: “make tea, not war!”
Tags: Acupuncture, cancer, Chinese Medicine, clinical, deeds, disease, fight, health, Health Expert Body Awareness Healing Symptoms, healthcare, heart disease, holism, holistic, illness, life, life-threatening, mind, motivation, personal growth, Sean Barkes, self, self-development, self-expression, self-preservation, self-understanding, socialising, stress, sustainability, Sustainable, tai chi, TCM, thought processes, thoughts, TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE, why do people get ill, words
Read the Telegraph Article as well as your own. Both very interesting. Interesting that the Telegraph uses the word stressful in relation to socialising, surely that’s down to personal perception. Human beings are probably more individualistic than mice and what maybe stressful for one human being is not for another. However challenging situations do indeed extend personal growth but it depends on personal perception and the level of ‘self’ awareness whether that person sees challenging situations in a negative or positive way. I agree with your view of health to a certain degree. My view is that thought processes or beliefs we have about ourselves certainly effect our emotional state and negative emotions over time can certainly manifest themselves physically or make us more susceptible to disease. Once that disease or illness has taken hold however I am not sure if just the changing of thought processes or emotional state can cure or significantly reverse the growth of a cancer or eliminate the symptons of a disease. My mum is 80 and has lung cancer. She is very set in her ways and holds very negative views of her illness and is quite resistant to the idea of change let alone putting herself into challenging situations. I would welcome any suggestions though. My friend has had M.E. for 8 years and is extremely self aware and open to the idea of challenge expanding her personal growth. She manages her illness very positively but accepts that she will always have to live with it. Surely one of the factors of expressing who we are and accepting who we are with love is to accept our limitations and to live positively knowing them.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment on my blog Janet. I think your point is well made that learning to live with our current limitations makes for a very much more positive experience than ‘fighting’ them. I think the difficulty of drawing broad conclusions from the two examples you give is, firstly, that they are anecdotal and so do not necessarily shine light on the common processes involved in cancer or ME. What enables a clinician to provide much in the way of effective assistance in such cases is the accumulation of clinical knowledge and critical review of research. Indeed, there are plentiful examples of similar situations where the individuals have indeed turned things round, largely as a result in a shift of perspective. In turn, this shift of perspective triggers a cascade of other changes e.g. dietary and lifestyle changes. With a life-threatening disease, it is rather like someone asking us to change our behaviours with a gun in our back. It does make the issue that much more pressing. I am reminded of the scene in the film ‘Fight Club’ where Brad Pit does just that with the 24/7 checkout chap who is not following his dreams.
Secondly, it is difficult to objectively assess the dynamics in people we are close to due to the emotional element of our relationship. In our relationships we can hide a lot from each other, which is why suicide is often met with shock by the people who knew the diseased. Indeed, I wonder how long it would take a seasoned clinician to put their finger on the dynamics that hold your friend back from recovery. Having said that, how necessary would that be if your friend is truly accepting of her circumstances? I highly recommend the book “Why do people get ill?” in order to explore the dynamics further without having to embark upon what has taken me over a decade of clinical experience with thousands of people to learn. I guess the burning question is why I believe someone can change their lot by changing their thinking. The simple answer is that I have observed it in countless cases in the clinic over the years. Seeing is often believing. Over time, one can spot the differences between those that will find a way to change their thought processes and those that won’t.
Here’s the catch, though: old habits die hard. The individual has to desire the alternative, on every level, to their current state of status quo. That’s not easy when we literally have invested in our current state over many years. Whilst being honest with others may be easy for most, being honest with ourselves is a much taller order. Me included!