Meditation
& Healing from Chronic Illness and Pain to Superior
Health
by Cynthia McMullen, LMT,
MQP
Superior Health
In my
healing practice, if you are one of my clients I will be asking
you to do some form of meditation. Why? Because at a certain
point in your healing process you are going to reach a state of
normal health. This is actually the borderline at which you must
be able to release the energy and emotions of the ill state that
you had become very used to being in for a long time. This is
the line you will need to cross to maintain normal health and
even move into superior health.
Chronic Illness
What
happens when we are sick or in pain for so long that this
becomes our normal state, or the state in which we are most used
to being in? Like any habit, it can be hard to break - even when
we want to do it. Think of a time when you had a bad cold or the
flu. In the middle of that sickness, it is almost impossible to
remember what it feels like to be healthy. A cold or flu lasts
maybe one or two weeks at the most. Chronic illness lasts for
any length of time beyond 60 days. It becomes habit and normal.
If you have a chronic
illness or pain, what would you do and who would you be without
it? How would your posture change? Would your voice become
stronger? How would your thoughts be different? Exactly how much
of your day-to-day life would change? How will you live without
the fear that something you do will bring the illness or pain
back?
Mind Strength
These are
some very real considerations. The thing that we want most - to
be rid of our illness and pain - is going to involve a great
deal of change. I like to think of the saying "If you
always do what you always did, you always get what you always
got". As human beings change is a thing we tend to resist,
yet it cannot be an option when dealing with our health. It
takes a lot of strength to change - what I call Mind Strength.
Our minds have enormous
capacity to affect our state of health. Look at what Western
Medicine calls "The Placebo Effect". I describe this
as Mind Strength directly being used to heal and it is not an
accident. It is a natural strength that we all have within, and
we can re-learn to apply it.
Mind Exercise
In order to
build Mind Strength so we can change and become the new person
without illness and pain, we must first know who we are now.
This is where meditation, or mind exercise, comes in. In
meditation, we relax our body. We regulate our breathing so that
it is slow, soft and even, sinking deeply into our abdomens. We
quiet our minds and find that the more we practice meditation
the quieter our minds become. We are Here Now, just breathing
and Being. This is a very healing state of self-awareness. We
begin to be aware of how our physical body feels, all of it,
everywhere. We begin to be aware of our thoughts; one at a time
they appear and we look at them, consciously looking at what it
is that enters our mind. We begin to be aware of our emotions
and how they are affecting us. We will see many direct
relationships between how our emotions affect us and the
physical symptoms that manifest.
The Habits of Disease
Once
the physical illness and pain actually heals, our bodies can
become confused and not know how to act without the disease. Our
body can maintain the habits of disease to the point we still
feel it. And why shouldn't we? We still act like we have it
because this is now the only way we know how to be, the only way
we know how to feel. It's our "normal" state and it
will require Mind Strength to release the old habits and change
into our new self.
Quiet Mind
So at this point
of change and release, I will need your mind to have the ability
to be quiet. I will need your mind to have the clarity to see
who you are without the illness and pain. I will need your mind
to have the strength to release the old patterns and make the
choice and decision to change into the new you. This is the
potential of true healing, one of the most beautiful, natural
and amazing things that exists right here in our world.
