Mindbody

Good morning!

Over the years I have read and talked a lot about our minds and how our behavior reflects what we think. Our 21-year-old daughter and I have been reading the book we started and paused last summer (school years get so busy for her so we read together in the summers!). I have talked about this before but it is such a jaw-dropping book that I had to share about it again. The book is called The Mindbody Prescription by Dr. Sarno.

The doctor who wrote the book was treating patients with back problems. Some people had findings on their MRIs and some did not. Regardless of what the “evidence” showed, many people got better without surgery, physical therapy or exercises to strengthen their backs. Interestingly, the evidence didn’t really point to a solution in most cases. In fact, the evidence prolonged or inhibited healing!

How could that be? Well, in many chronic cases of pain and other diseases, the problem is not in the physical but it is a mind condition. This is not to say that the people were crazy or making things up. The unconscious part of their minds found a way to divert unpleasant emotions into physical symptoms. The mind is very intricate and can be a bit tricky it seems! As a way to handle repressed rage, anger and other emotions that it doesn’t feel “safe” to express, it will manifest in a physical condition. 

What fascinated me even further is that the brain will subtly deprive an area of the body of oxygen which actually produces the physical symptom. In this way it creates the pain and therefore the uncomfortable emotion doesn’t have to be expressed.  This happens in many different personality types but more often in the “goodist” types who want to “do good”, “be good”, be the good guy, be the nice person, get along with everyone, etc.

There is nothing wrong with having an agreeable personality type but if emotions get buried, it can manifest in other ways. Many many people have been healed of all kinds of health problems through this awareness! And you don’t have to start “raging” to fix the mindbody divergence plan. You can journal about it. You can pray and talk to God about it. You can be aware of it and work through it with a therapist. But it is the process of bringing to the surface these things that can start and complete healing!

Why do I bring all this up?  

Because I think God is so incredible that He would create these minds, bodies, emotions, and the whole connection process! He says in His Word that we can renew our minds! We are not stuck in the way we think or even in bodies with disease or chronic pain. Sometimes the pain could lead us into deeper healing! Praise God!

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will".