Trust
Your Body and Reconnect to Its Healing
Power
|
Western medicine has proceeded on
the assumption that the mind is intelligent but
that the body isn't. In effect, the body is
a machine made of meat. This machine needs fixing
at times, and being deviously complicated, with
billions of interconnected parts, it has
innumerable ways to break down.
Medical
research doesn't so much deny the body's
intelligence as ignore it. The next new drug
and surgical procedure is pursued independent of
anything resembling the mind-body connection. The
fact that millions of patients have objections to
this approach is scientifically and commercially
irrelevant.
In
the face of this opposition, it's amazing how far
mind-body medicine has gotten. How far the
mind-body revolution can go is uncertain, but it
seems clear that each of us as individuals must
reconnect to the body's wisdom on our own -- on
that point all of alternative medicine agrees.
How
do you know if the connection was broken in the
first place? Look at your basic attitudes
and beliefs about your body. If you are
connected to your body, the following beliefs
would be present.
You respect
and trust your body. In a
state of disconnection, the body is seen
as inert, subject to constant threats,
and capable of betraying you by falling
sick at any moment.
You rely on inner
healing and know how to help it when
needed. In a state of
disconnection, you are baffled and
alarmed when something goes wrong and
feel that only doctors know what to do.
You see the body
as a balanced organism living in a
balanced ecology. In a state of
disconnection the body is seen as totally
isolated, with hostile germs attacking it
at random.
You listen for
signals of imbalance before they turn
into symptoms of disease. In a
state of disconnection, the body is
ignored unless it cries out with pain or
a sudden breakdown of function.
You realize that
emotions, stress, depression, anger, and
anxiety aren't just psychological but
have physical consequences.
Every event in the mind matches a
corresponding event in the body. In
a state of disconnection, the mind
operates independently of the body;
neither speaks to the other.
Changing
your old, worn out beliefs is a personal
project. You don't have to renounce
mainstream medicine or deny yourself any
treatment necessary as various problems arise.
Alternative medicine, in my view, isn't the enemy
of mainstream medicine, nor is it simply an
adjunct. Instead, it's the practical side of a
new way of life, one based on a vision of
wholeness. "Wholeness" has become
rather empty from overuse, but it means that you
are a totality, not the sum of countless moving
parts.
Wholeness
has already won a notable victory without
fighting any battles, simply by a change of
beliefs. That victory came in the so-called
"new old age." In the past, old age was
feared, and rightly so, because seniors lost
their value to society and were put on the shelf,
both mentally and physically.
When
attitudes shifted, thanks to better health and
longer life spans, old age shifted with it.
People began to expect the opposite of previous
generations. They expected old age to be as
vigorous, alert, and useful as any other time of
life. Quietly, the body cooperated with this new
vision.
I
consider this a victory for wholeness because a
segment of life that had been cut off and
detached has been reconnected with the entire
human life cycle. Old age is no longer a useless
leftover. But that's only the beginning.
Nobody knows how much more potential the body
contains that is yet untapped. It would seem
reasonable to expect more rather than less,
however.
Once
you begin to trust the body and listen to it, an
intimate relationship gets established on the
basis of loving regard rather than anxious
mistrust. Medical school will probably never
teach a course on that (with the possible
exception of the psychiatry department), but it
could be the most valuable medical breakthrough
for coming generations.
Article written by Dr. Deepak
Chopra
|
