Staying healthy is not just about going to the gym. This helps, no doubt, yet if you are only focusing on your physical body and ignoring the power of your mind, you are not being as effective if you could be. Why? Dis-Ease starts in the mental and emotional realm.
You are a whole person, spirit, mind, emotions and physical. We all to often get stuck only on what our eyes can see right in front of us. If what you are focusing on is pulling your energy downward, you are potentially setting yourself up for ill health.
According to a study supported by the NIH, “Social Rejection Linked to Inflammation” which can be viewed online at MedPage Today (Click Here) there are some serious diseases associated with fear of rejection. The list is nothing to sneeze at: asthma, cardiovascular disease, depression and arthritis are named in the article.
Now here is a conclusion to think about – worrying about what others think of you, or fear of rejection is hazardous to your health. Yet, it is only hazardous if “thinking makes it so”. What do I mean? Just because someone rejects you, does not mean it has to matter to you. In fact, if you don’t mind, it does not matter!
This is the power of your thoughts, emotion (perception) and feelings. The same “fact”, that someone rejects you does not have to stir up negative emotion as you realize that their perception of you is just that –their perception. The negative feelings you have is harming your physiology and contributing to sickness. Acquiring years on the planet is not what is causing the disease.
It is HOW we manage our energy, our power, over time is what is creating all the ill health. Staying healthy is about waking up to this important and empowering idea. You have the power of “response – ability” to choose not to respond negatively. Here is the key: YOU must believe that you are good enough. YOU must believe that while you have “strengths and weaknesses” that there is no judgment for where you are.
You are where you are and everyone is doing the best that they are aware to do at the time. We are all in process, at different stages of growth. The need to judge self and others is just another conditioned behavior, like Pavlov’s dog, that keeps us stuck and playing small. When you start to love and accept yourself, recognizing yes, that here are behaviors and habits that no longer serve you and that it is good to grow and change, then you can do so easier and without the dread of being rejected for stepping out of your box.
I learned, the hard way, that fearing the opinions of others is a needless form of suffering. There can be many reasons that we fear other’s opinions, and here are three:
Staying healthy is not just about exercise and diet. In fact, breaking through fear is just as much about staying healthy as it is about personal growth. Why?
Fear, psychological fear is what I call Fictitious Evidence Affecting Reality, an acronym I created when I wrote my book,Empower Up and Play Big: Winning at Life from the Inside Out. When we focus on what we don’t want or want to avoid, it creates the stress response in our bodies.The brain and mind cannot tell the difference between facts in front of your eyes and mental movies in your mind with feelings attached.
I say “fictitious” because it is a story, it has not actually happened. It’s just your imagination running away and taking you to worry land. Negative self-talk has the same effect. If you think it is humble to beat yourself up, you are on the fast track to chronic health challenges.
Not to mention, damaging your self-image and confidence. One of the more ignorant socially conditioned beliefs we have is that putting ourselves down is admirable. It’s the old, “that’s just little ‘ole me”, and then we wonder why we feel so self-conscious and insecure when it comes to risk taking or speaking before a crowd.
Staying healthy is not just about going to the gym, eating right and taking vitamins. These things count, yet the root to health is actually mindset or the way you think and feel. If you live in fear or worry, which is actually faith for what you DON’T want, you are creating “dis-ease” in your body, and this will manifest as ill health in addition to the lack of ease, or lack of peace of mind.
How you feel does absolutely impact your health, and even if you try to deny and repress your feelings, if you are afraid to feel in repress your feelings, the “negative” energy will cause disease. This is the basis of stress. Stress is based in emotion; it is a psychological disease. What is stress?
Essentially it is provoke by fear that you are out of control, that those things in your life that you don’t want are coming and that you will not be able to be, do or have what you desire. Any of these things can provoke the survival response that releases chemicals in your body that are destructive.
Stress is now associated with everything from chronic colds to cancer. The good news is, that since it is based in perception and provoked by HOW you look at life, it can be reigned in and changed. CORE confidence, that comes from the inside out, comes from the inner Authentic Self of you, that part that is ultimately the source of personal power, wisdom and intuition that can lead you to a life that is empowered and fulfilling.
Staying healthy is more important than ever considering the rising rates of cancer and chronic disease in our world – not to mention the expense of healthcare and the emotional fallout. While I personally have healthy nutrition habits and exercise regularly, I do very little specific teaching on what supplements to take or what exercise routine one should be on.
I tend to come from the core of what makes us stay healthy or get sick – mindset. Yes, even disease is related to how you think and feel. In fact, it can make or break you and holistic/integrative physicians already get this.
When we become aware of the role of thoughts, feelings and emotions, we become even more empowered to make healthier choices and actually apply them in the first place. Also, intuitively doesn’t it just make sense that if you think and feel joyful and connected to life, you will feel and be healthier than if you are full of worry, judgment and anger?
In our changing times this information that I am sharing is critical. We are generally conditioned to fear change and by the time the “survival” instinct kicks in, we can find ourselves overwhelmed with worry and anxiety if we are not aware of how to deal with our own brain and nervous system. We think that we have a “right to our opinion” and we certainly do.
The question to ask is, what would you rather be, “right” or healthy? In fact, does it really even matter as to what other people are doing in the details of their life and why waste time looking over the fence into the lives of others? Does our opinion about what others are wearing, doing (particularly if it is legal and not harming others) or how they live their lives, really matter?
Will our opinion change them? Does complaining, worrying or gossiping really create the abundant, prosperous life that you desire? Actually, what I know for sure is that our opinions can be hazardous to not only our body’s health; if left unchecked, they can drain our entire lives. On the other hand, becoming consciously aware of the power of what we think and feel to attract the health and wealth we seek is the most economical and quickest way to achieve it, and this is science, not woo-woo.
Here is a powerful point: Every thought you have has a type of quality of feeling associated with it. When you send out negative opinions with negative feelings about others out into the universe, you ALWAYS feel it in your own body first. This should give new meaning to the ancient proverb: “Do unto to others as you would have others to do unto you”.
Healthcare is on many people’s minds these days. Unfortunately it is a heavy weight on most people’s minds as they are focused on worry, or actually “dis-ease” care when it comes to their health.
This is a part of the very problem we are faced with – worry and focus on disease. Your brain does not like stress; in fact it is toxic to brain cells and a health hazard in general. I believe that the financial pressure from our existing system will likely be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
I don’t care how much money is pumped into the system, until the waste stops and people change their paradigm, their belief system about HOW they think – about themselves, their bodies and life in general – the system is going to fail ultimately.
What do I mean by “how we think”? We focus on fear and what we don’t want without realizing that this is not only damaging our brains, it’s creating the very havoc we see in our lives. The hormones and processes that are released in your body when your worry and stress (both based in fear) can not only kill off brain cells, it can damage your heart, your immune system, your digestive tract and your musculoskeletal system…among other things.
Staying healthy and stress seems to be on a lot of people’s minds lately. I came across an article just today that referred to the new study done by Dr. Anil Sood and others in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, that demonstrates that when experiencing stress, mice and humans had acceleration in the growth of cancer cells, in this case, ovarian.
The bottom line – stress is hazardous to your health. Many people do not realize that the chronic feelings of “overwhelm” that they feel – you know, not enough hours in the day, long “to-do” lists and not enough rest and sleep – is really what stress is.
It is the feeling that you cannot control what is happening to you and it is also the fear that you are under threat of some kind, be it job loss and even feelings of insecurity. Yes, it has also been shown that low self-esteem can trigger this stress response in your body. So, is stress something that “you cannot help”?
Do you believe that if your environment where different that then and only then, you can overcome overwhelm? If you believe this, you are like most people. I used to buy into this one back in the 1990’s. It was then that I first experientially realized that stress starts within, it is an inside issue.
It is not the “facts” that cause stress. It is not the things that are happening around you as much as it is the “fiction”, the story about the meaning of the facts. It is about where you are putting your focus and whether or not you are taking care of your mind and body – from the inside out.
Staying healthy is the goal of most people. As I look at our healthcare system, it has never been as important as it is today to be proactive in staying healthy.
Between the expense healthcare and medication, the threat to your financial stability and the questionable “scientific” data that supports that taking a million, kazillion (I know this is not a valid term) drugs is acceptable, I’d say one had better do everything possible to maintain their health as naturally and as cost effectively as possible.
Did you know that there is a definite mind-body connection and that stress is related to the reason for 75-90% of all primary care visits to physicians? Actually, I could have told you this without any fancy statistics.
It just plain makes intuitive sense. When you are angry and upset, notice how your body feels. Notice how much more difficult it is to concentrate. Then notice how you feel when you are joyful and happy.
In fact, have your blood pressure checked as you blow a fuse. Have it checked when you are in a relaxed state. It is likely that it will be high with anger and normal to low when relaxed. A relaxed state is a healthy state. I want to pick on worry in this blog post today though, because it is so epidemic.
I had the clerk in my neighborhood grocery store yesterday, tell me in definite “I will not change my mind terms” that there were “no jobs” available for her son to obtain in all of the United States, and that he would have to leave the country to find a job in his field.
Unless he made horse and buggies or telegraph/typewriters, – you know, something we don’t even use anymore – I doubt that her statement is true.
Yet, she obviously looked worry and upset as I discerned her energy and noticed the contorted expression on her face. I’m going to give you 7 reasons why you don’t want to go there. Worry is essentially faith for what you DON’T want. Simple as that.
It hasn’t happened, the person is just imagining it to be happening or is expecting (faith) that it will happen. Why not expect the best? Or at least remain neutral. In a nutshell, people generally worry because we are conditioned to do so.
As a world, we have so trained our brain to live in fear and expecting the next disaster that our nervous system is always on alert to “fight, flight or freeze”. This is what the stress response is.
Staying healthy begins with how you think, feel and act. The blueprint for staying healthy starts with mindset. If you focus on disease, “Dis-Ease”, you will create chemical reactions in your body that will incline you toward chronic disease and stress. If you focus on fear, and what you don’t want, you are more likely to get this – what you DON’T want.
This is because your nervous system tries to assist you by helping you to focus on and “find” whatever you keep your attention on – it does not judge whether is it good for you or not. Learn how to train your brain to focus and find what you want and breakthrough the fears that are robbing you of good health, including stress. Good health starts from the inside out! Have you noticed what you focus on expands? What do you think?
Empowerment is not just about confidence and speaking up or taking risks. It’s really all-inclusive – relationships, finance/career and health. Integrative empowerment involves spirit, mind and body. One of the reasons we struggle throughout life is that we are taught to compartmentalize ourselves.
There is too often a disconnect between how we really feel and what we do, or what we say. We talk about “pursuit of happiness” yet, when we or others attempt to come from an inner place of authenticity, if it does not fit inside of a narrow little box, there is not uncommonly, shame, guilt or blame heaped upon the one who finds a little courage to venture outside the “accepted” behavior for the group they currently associate with.
Well, I think it’s time to talk about how these dynamic impacts in a negative way everything from your health and aging, to whether or not you die with your joy and happiness locked deep inside of you. Over the many years I spent practicing medicine, I found that the people who were happiest, healthier and had the happier relationships tended to be open-minded, less concerned about what others thought of them and more likely to have a sense of humor or playfulness.
When we think that acting like an “adult” means that we have to be “serious”, or that to be successful we have to “work hard” or that health comes from focusing on avoiding being sick – we disempower ourselves in all of these areas. These are just common myths, common beliefs.
