How the Mind Heals:
You may or may not be familiar with this idea, but the mind has a powerful influence on your emotions which affects your immune system and your hormonal system, which in turn strongly influences the manifestation of disease or illness. Likewise, the reverse is also true and your thoughts and emotions can equally determine the promotion of health and healing. If you would like to better understand how the mind heals, then this article is for you.
The New Concept That Can Change Your Life:
I first became aware of this concept many years ago while reading a book called, “Getting Well Again,” by O. Carl Simonton, M.D., Stephanie Matthews-Simonton and James L. Creighton. Since then, I have studied a lot of these 
ideas in college and have studied the course by Dr. Joe Dispenza called, “Making Your Mind Matter,” which also goes into detail about this subject.
The long and the short of it is that we have a lot more influence over our health than what was once accepted as fact, just a few short decades ago. The discoveries made in the past few decades have been astounding and quite frankly, somewhat earth-shattering in some very positive ways! This is exciting news indeed and some of us want the world to know!
The Evolution from Genetics to Epigenetics:
Illnesses that used to be accepted as being solely genetic, predetermined and progressive are now known to be impacted and strongly influenced by the environment, and much more under our control than we ever dared to realize. The scientific paradigm has shifted in recent years from static, genetic predetermination to epigenetic possibilities, which means that the environment plays a role in turning disease genes on or off, triggering them into or out of your experience. If a disease gene is turned on, then healing genes are turned off and vice versa.
The Karmic Pathway of Our Brains:
Here is the short version of how this works – Our thoughts and perceptions of ourselves and our problems send a message to the Limbic System which records stress, feelings, and other self-preservation clues. The Limbic System then sends a message down the pathway of the Hypothalamus which controls the immune system and the endocrine system (which regulates hormonal control.)
If we are under stress, the Limbic System receives a message of despair and warning, and the hypothalamus directs the immune system to shut down and the pituitary gland (part of the endocrine system) to get out of balance. Over time, this becomes the perfect storm for illness and disease to develop.
The reversal of this scenario would be for us to have positive thoughts and feelings which would send the limbic system a message of love, hope, and anticipation, telling the hypothalamus to deliver the message that will turn the immune system on and directing the pituitary gland to balance the hormonal system. This is the perfect sunny day that promotes healing!
Why This Is Not Pollyanna Nonsense:
Now, I know what you are probably thinking, “How the heck do we eliminate stress and live in Mayberry for the rest of our lives? That is Pollyanna nonsense!” Well, this is true and false at the same time. It is true that we live in a world filled with constant stressors and are dealing with survival issues more often than we would like to admit. However, it is also true that we can change our perception and interpretation of stress and learn more effective coping strategies.
What The Medical Community Has Missed:
For many years, the focus of the medical community has been to eliminate the symptoms, or abnormal cells, or numb the pain, or whatever the case may be. Don’t get me wrong – these principles definitely have their 
useful functions. But more and more, scientific studies are beginning to recognize the role of the environment and its influence over the CAUSE of the problem, which has been unbelievably ignored.
An environmental causal factor may be exposed to certain chemicals, which would be obvious. But here is the main environmental factor that has been vastly ignored – the internal environmental influence of our thoughts and feelings! If despairing thoughts and emotions can promote disease, and joyful thoughts and emotions can promote healing, then maybe we should give thought more thought as a primary method of prevention and treatment of disease! (Pun intended.)
Change Now Or Change Later:
You may be thinking, “Well, I am under stress every day and I am still functioning just fine.” But here’s the thing – it is the cumulative effect of stress over time that eventually catches up. As Joe Dispenza says, “You can learn to change in a state of pain and suffering, or you can learn to change in a state of joy. Why wait?”
What Is The Turning Point?
For those of you who are already experiencing the effects of long term stress on your health, you may be wondering when the turning point for the worse occurred. As the Simonton’s point out in their book (mentioned above), whenever a person is in a chronic state of despair and they have developed feelings of helplessness or hopelessness, they are sending their body a relentless message over and over again.
That message is this, “There is no escape. Death or illness is the only solution.” What happens is that eventually, the body responds to those strong feelings and thoughts. The Simonton’s point out that whether the person realizes it or not, they have lost the will to live and the only effective way to reverse the cycle is to get that will to live back!!!
The Main Point of This Article:
Just in case you missed it, this is an important point so I will repeat it: In order to reverse disease and illness and turn the body’s natural defense system back on to promote healing, a person needs to regain the WILL TO LIVE. Dr. Joe Dispenza and Bruce Lipton refer to it as, “Falling in love with life.”
How Do You Escape Your Stress?
So now you may be thinking, “But what if there is no escape? What if my situation is helpless or hopeless?” My answer to that is that I do not have the authority to tell you what to do about your own situation. There are far too many variables and everyone’s situation is unique.
But as a general rule, the Serenity Prayer comes to mind – if you have the ability and the courage to change it, then do so and if you can’t change it, then you must accept it. But in the meantime, pray for the wisdom to know the difference.
So, How Do You Accept It (Your Situation)?
What if you don’t want to accept it? In that case, you would need to change your perception of it – give it a new meaning, look at the problem differently, look at yourself differently! In Psychology, this is called “Cognitive Reframing” and these are just a few of the inspiring ideas that we will be talking about on this site.
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I hope you have enjoyed this article and that it has helped you in some way! If so, please leave a comment below or share what you love about life! All comments and feedback are welcome!
